Since the quote was from me, I’ll answer your post.
I don’t believe there is any significant discrimination against gays — I was simply expressing what I think is the conservative position about the matter, not trying to speak to a problem that needs to be addressed.
However, the rest of your post does indicate that there could be discrimination against openly gay people in employment, and that you would support it.
And you know what, I agree with you, at least in part. But I’m not entirely comfortable with the end result of such a individual-freedom policy.
What would I do if it became the norm for companies to refuse to hire Christians, for whatever reason? My belief in private individual freedom of association would suggest that I should support such a policy, even though it seems it would be “wrong”.
The answer I come up with is that it just would never happen. Sure, some companies might decide not to hire christians, but others would jump at the chance to hire them, so in the end we’d all work for companies that appreciated our religious background one way or another.
But that gets us back then to the question — do we really believe a person should NOT be denied employment because of their private sex life, or do we apply our 1st amendment rights to who we employ, and therefore believe is it perfectly OK for people to be denied employment for WHATEVER REASON we choose — whether it be their sex, their sexual preference, their religion, or their skin color?
It becomes a theoretical discussion, because you already can’t discriminate even privately based on race, or really sex, and probably not based on religion.
If those three categories are protected from the application of the 1st amendment’s association right, how would we argue against including private sexual preferences in that “exception” to our right of free association?
Charles: “If those three categories (race, sex, religion) are protected from the application of the 1st amendment’s association right, how would we argue against including private sexual preferences in that ‘exception’ to our right of free association?”
To be consistent, Charles, would you want to include the “sexual orientation” of being attracted to minor children as a qualifier for special protected class status? (Its practitioners call it “intergenerational intimacy,” say they were born that way, and claim it’s a violation of their “civil rights” not to be allowed to fully express themselves with a consenting 12 year old.
Absurd? Of course, but if you grant one group “protected class” status based on its private sexual behavior, on what basis do you deny such status to others?
As to your broader question, I’m not a Catholic, but the Vatican committed an entire letter to bishops to that very subject, authored by the current pope and signed by the previous Pope John Paul II. Makes sense even to me, a Baptist:
http://www.ewtn.com:80/library/CURIA/CDFHOMOL.HTM