Posted on 02/15/2002 6:50:19 AM PST by DoSomethingAboutIt
Libertarians in Santa Barbara, California have scored a victory for freedom of association by helping to nullify a resolution that censured the local Boy Scouts chapter.
On November 14, county supervisors approved a statute forbidding the government from discriminating against private organizations -- even if that group has "incorrect membership requirements," said Santa Barbara LP Secretary Robert Bakhaus.
"Even the U.S. Supreme Court had said the Boy Scouts have the right to associate, and make their own internal rules as they choose," he said. "If LPers could not lead in such a case as local government censuring the Boy Scouts, who would?"
The new statute invalidated a resolution adopted in March by a 3-2 vote, which censured the Boy Scouts for refusing to allow gay men to serve as scoutmasters.
County commissioners said the Boy Scout's policy violated the country's anti-discrimination law. The censure would have allowed county officials to prevent Scouts from using local camp grounds, leasing property from the city, or passing out leaflets on school grounds.
However, the Boy Scouts of America said the gay lifestyle violated the organization's oath, which requires members to be "morally straight." It won a U.S Supreme court decision in June 2000, which affirmed its right to decide who could be a Boy Scout.
Bakhaus said Libertarians support the right of the Boy Scouts to set their own membership requirements without government interference -- even if some Libertarians personally oppose those requirements.
"Even bigots have rights," he said. "Private organizations [should have] the right to make their own membership and leadership rules."
After the commission passed its resolution in March, "libertarian sympathizer" Michael Warnken and local LP members collected 20,000 signatures to put an initiative on the ballot to overturn it.
Libertarians helped drum up publicity for the campaign by sending letters to the editors of local papers, appearing at meetings and rallies, and speaking out on local television shows, said Bakhaus.
A number of conservative Republicans also joined the effort, which shows that small organizations "can't afford to be shy about having allies," he said.
"[Our LP affiliate is] too small to abolish taxation or achieve other radical reforms outright. We must first develop our clout by helping enforce the current good laws limiting government, while rallying better liberals and conservatives to uphold the best American traditions of freedom," he said.
However, the coalition ran into opposition from the county attorney's office, which filed a suit to stop the petitioning.
The attorney claimed the initiative language was "vague," and that only a statute or regulation -- not a resolution -- was subject to invalidation by initiative.
In response, activists changed the language of the measure meet state initiative requirements, and hired their own attorney to defend them from legal attacks, said Bakhaus.
With the initiative back on track and a large public turn-out at the commission's November meeting, county commissioners decided to nullify the anti-Boy Scout resolution, said Bakhaus.
"[It] was approved as law without a vote of the people, thanks in part to a large public showing -- but mostly by the fears of an electoral backlash if it went to a vote," he said.
Most importantly, Libertarians learned valuable lessons from the experience, said Bakhaus.
"The [Santa Barbara LP] learned that a countywide petition drive is not outside the bounds of doability," he said. "We also learned that a 1% investment ratio can be leveraged into victory, if that investment consists of extensive knowledge and experience about the intricacies of real politics."
Racial discrimination in housing and employment is illegal.
Discrimination laws are unconstitutional. No surprise there.
The fourth amendment requires a search warrant be served before a LEO can enter a person's house, property or business. Why? Because the government can't be trusted to always do the right thing. Even though they are in a sense employees of the people, they can't be trusted. In other words, a business owner doesn't have to open his doors to any government agent, unless they have a properly signed warrant. Yet discrimination laws force business owners to open their doors to total strangers.
Free Association. Free association is the right to associate with whomever a person chooses so long as they don't initiate force. That means if a person doesn't want to associate with you they can refuse you access to their property.
It is already estabished that it takes more backbone to fight for a slimeballs rights that to cheer for the king.
Good one.
I think you're confusing morality and law. The two most certainly are not one and the same.
For example: A person is prohibited from reading objectionable material. If he refrains from doing so because he fears legal problems (force), is he moral? No. Fear and morality are different. He didn't refrain because he thought it was the wrong thing to do (moral decision), he refrained because he's scared of men with guns (fear decision). To the casual observer the end result may seem the same, and to many that's all that really matters, but in reality, that individual is not one bit more moral than without the law.
To make matters worse, once people begin to assume law is morality, they believe anything legal is moral. So lets take another example, some person who believes that law is morality. Say there is no law against trespass. He then trespasses, without contemplating the moral implications, because he has abdicated moral decisions to a majority vote. Is he moral? No. Is trespass moral because the majority says it is? No.
See the problem?
Those aren't the kind of standards I was talking about. More along the lines of moral standards. Like, would it make sense to allow gay marriage on in one section of town and to not in another?
And you think it is just A O.K. to have laws against racial discrimination in the private sector. What is worse??
Oh for cryin' out loud. Who gives a frog's fat ass what anyone THINKS about the Boy Scouts personally???
We are talking about overturning laws regulating freedom of association in the private sector. Does the big picture always have to escape people who think like you???
And this seems to sit perfectly well with you.
And yet, you get your undies in a wad because someone may not "like" the boy scouts. Sheesh!
I agree completely. The threat of force does not make people moral. I was just saying that the same applies to the Libertarian morality of "no force, no fraud" : if you refrained from fraud only because of the threat of force, you would still be immoral. And you would still question the right of law enforcement to threaten you with that force.
To make matters worse, once people begin to assume law is morality, they believe anything legal is moral.
Conservatism, in my view, is about matching the law as closely to morality as possible. There will never be a perfect match, and people should be made aware of this, but it is wrong to forbid things that are no immoral, or allow immoral things to be done unpunished.
And you just love it? Don't you?
May you one day put a "room for rent" sign up in front of your house only to have a pair of transexuals come a knockin'. I will gleefully be the first one to throw the "law" in your face.
If you refuse to rent from a property owner because of his or her race, you're not in violation of our laws.
Libertarian doctrine would legalize such racial discrimination.
The absence of "libertarian doctrine" has failed to eliminate such racial discrimination.
The absence of "libertarian doctrine" has instituted discrimination against landlords and employers.
Do you support the enactment of our current anti-discrimination laws? Do you support in particular the enactment of the federal laws selectively targeting a portion of the discrimination in "housing and employment"?
Your deeded community could prohibit any sort of people, including co-habiters, or gay people.
They won't be your neighbors if you so desire, neither must you associate, employ, buy, sell or rent to them. You'd be perfectly free to dissassociate yourself from them in every way, and there wouldn't be a thing they could do about it.
So why would their marriage status matter to you?
Depends on the business.
But the thing is, with the crack addict, they can go to treatment and earn their kids back, most homosexuals won't seek help.
Wrong. Things have improved greatly over the last fifty years.
Several reasons. First, they would be utilizing my tax dollars to be licensed and recognized by the gov as a married couple. Second, it sets fourth a president that homosexual relationships are normal and moral. I have no problem with states like Hawaii that wish to recognize it. I just won't live there, nor raise my children under such standards.
You're equating race with deviant sexual behavior?
I think Libertarians think it would. And I JUST PLAIN DON'T WANT IT anywhere, because I think it's absurd. (I don't think any church allows gay marriage, and marriage does not make any sense when taken out of the context of the church. I guess I'm just a Christian chauvinist. And I don't apologize!) :-)
I'll have to leave y'all now, my culturally diverse fellow freepers. See you tomorrow.
You know perfectly well the 4th Amendment makes no exeption for that.
Nonresponsive.
The absence of libertarian doctrine has failed to eliminate discrimination by tenants and employees.
The absence of libertarian doctrine has instituted discrimination against landlords and employers.
Do you support the enactment of our current anti-discrimination laws? Do you support in particular the enactment of the federal laws selectively targeting a portion of the discrimination in "housing and employment"?
Depends on the business.
Maybe so. But let's stick to the main point of contention which is: The fourth amendment refuses government access to a person's home, property or business without a properly signed warrant. Yet the government forces business owners to give access to total strangers via discrimination laws. In effect the government, taxpayers' employees, can't be trusted, yet the same government that can't be trusted proclaims that business owner must trust total strangers.
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