(152)   Sat 22 Nov 97 11:18
By: Karl Schneider
To: Ken Young
Re: 'Special' rights...
St:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
@EID:727f 23765a40
@MSGID: 1:170/170.6 50e2a0c7
I guess Mr. Hamilton is enjoying some of those 'special rights' you
keep blathering about, eh?

========================================================================
        From "Community News" (Florida, November, 1997)

        Washington -- Hearings are currently underway for a bill
introduced by Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt. which would prohibit the use of
a job applicant's sexual orientation as a basis for hiring, firing,
promotion or compensation.

One person testifying is Kendall Hamilton whose work at an Oklahoma City
restaurant was so good his manager recommended he be hired to manage a
new restaurant. After a series of seemingly successful interviews in
1995, his prospects hit a dead end when a fellow employee went to upper
management with what she considered disturbing news:  Hamilton was
homosexual. Shortly afterward, Hamilton's boss called him into his
office to say that his sexual orientation had destroyed his chances to
become a manager for the restaurant chain. He approached a civil rights
attorney with the hope of pressing a legal challenge.  But he was told
that nothing in Oklahoma law, federal law or the U.S. Constitution
protected him against being fired because he was gay.

On Thursday, he asked the Senate to pass a bill that would outlaw
job discrimination against gays, 'I don't want any special treatment,'
he said. 'I just want the same chance that everyone has.  I think we
need to make sure that people are treated equally.' Conservative
opponents to the bill, however, rejected the idea, although none of them
accepted invitations to speak at the hearings. 'It is clear to me that
this hearing has been orchestrated carefully to exclude this committee's
Republican majority and those groups which are critical of preferential
treatment under law for homosexuality,' Andrea Sheldon, executive
director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said in a written
statement. A similiar bill failed in the Senate on a 50-49 vote in
1996."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Any comments, asshole?


... Ken Young thinks he's a wit.  He's half right.

--- PPoint 2.05
 * Origin: Lamasery of The Chronosophers (1:170/170.6)
SEEN-BY: 12/12 218/890 1001 270/101 353/250 396/1 3615/50 51 3804/180

@PATH: 170/170 800 400 396/1 3615/50 218/1001