I think it’s fair to say that an answer like this would have made more waves at a Democratic debate:
Moderator: Governor Thompson, same theme. If a private employer finds homosexuality immoral, should he be allowed to fire a gay worker?
Thompson: I think that is left up to the individual business. I really sincerely believe that that is an issue that business people have got to make their own determination as to whether or not they should be.
Moderator: OK. So the answer’s yes.
Thompson: Yes.
How is that even logical let alone legal? Tommy Thompson just seems to have endorsed discrimination. As far as I know firing someone simply for their sexual orientation is not legal – and certainly not moral. I’d like to see the media ask the rest of the field this question – and particularly if the Republicans agree with fellow GOPer Tommy Thompson.
Oliver,
Sadly, it’s not illegal to fire people for their sexual orientation in quite a few states. Anti-discrimination laws need to specifically include it.
TT quickly FLIP FLOPPED on that answer, reports Aravosis at AmericaBlog: “Well, an astute AMERICAblog reader wrote Tommy Thompson’s main campaign email address at 10:11pm this evening to complain that Thompson was an “ignorant, homophobic fool.” Imagine his surprise at 10:20pm, only 9 minutes later, when he received an email from Thompson spokesman Tony Jewell saying that Thompson misheard the question and is opposed to discrimination. Yeah, well, watch the video for yourself – Thompson says it’s up the individual employer if he wants to fire someone for being gay. He answered the question twice. Can’t be any clearer than that.”
The blatant, in-your-face, what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it lying from republics never ceases to amaze me.
Usually, small businesses (small numbers of employees, not interstate, less than several million gross) are exempt from that kind of legislation.
That’s a tad less alarming than Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee giving a ‘nay’ vote on Evolution.
Now thats a party of ideas.
Frank, do you think that small businesses SHOULD be exempt from anti-discrimination legislation? (I’m honestly curious, I don’t know what you think on this matter.)
Personally, I don’t understand how anyone can feel that it’s morally acceptable to fire someone because they prefer to bang people with the same kind of genitalia. I can’t comprehend it.
PD100: Amen to that. Keeee-rist. If only one thing can change between Bush and the next Pres, I’d like it to be their outlook on science. It’s not acceptable to have a national leader who distrusts science.
There should have been a followup: the same question again, with race substituted for sexual orientation.
I personally think that I wouldn’t want to be fired for being gay. So no, I don’t favor it. But if you truly believe that “you can’t legislate morality”, then a “small business” (small numbers of employees, not interstate, less than several million gross), doesn’t fall under the “commerce clause”, and should be left to their own devices.
A few months boycott will either change their mind or put them out of business.
And, finally, this is not Plato’s Republic, nor are we a technocracy.
Hasn’t anybody on the left ever heard of Magick?
I think you all are forgetting the implied and unspoken part of the question which is obvious to TomTom and a lot of the winger base. The description “gay worker” carries the implied postsctipt “who comes to work in tight leather pants, wearing lipstick and nipple rings, and calls everything ‘FAB-YEW-LOUS!’”
I’m sure if the worker in questions was, say, a soldier in the 82nd Airborne dismissed after an anonymous email smear campaign, that TomTom would have reacted differently.
Right?
Well, Frank, I’m glad that you seem to fall on the correct side of the issue of gay rights in the workplace.
And I’m well aware that we’re not living in a technocracy, Frank. I don’t need the President to be a physics PhD, or even for him to be especially slavish to scientific principles. I ask only that he understands/accepts the most basic of fundamental ideas that are important to the nation as a whole. It would be a travesty to have another President that doesn’t believe in evolution by natural selection.
Well, Frank, I’m glad that you seem to fall on the correct side of the issue of gay rights in the workplace.
What a relief! I “seem” to fall on the right side? I could be lying, huh? Or pretending, just to please the liberals here. That’s something I do a lot, eh?
It would be a travesty to have another President that doesn’t believe in evolution by natural selection.
First of all, I’m not at all sure that we do have a President that doesn’t believe in evolution by natural selection.
Second, is the idea that God made all of us that distasteful? When I whispered in my newborn son’s ear in the incubator that God knew from the beginning of the world that his mother and I would meet, and he would be born, the nurse ran and told my wife with tears in her eyes, she was so moved.
I wonder if she would have been as moved if I had said that “Lightning hit the short chains, and made them into long chains”?
perhap
It would be a travesty to have another President that doesn’t believe in evolution by natural selection.
Why?
Frank, you don’t *always* have to be such a dick. I was just remarking that I was glad that you seem to be correct about something for once. There are other issues in the workplace besides the firing of workers, so I can’t be sure that you favor equal rights for gays across all possible measures. Get it?
Second, the last thing I heard from GW is that he “wasn’t sure” (his words) about evolution. If that’s changed, I’d appreciate the info. But if he’s genuinely “not sure”, 1) He doesn’t believe in it, and 2) It’s an embarrassment.
I didn’t say anything about God, Frank. There are Christians who believe in evolution. By itself, I wouldn’t say that evolution necessarily contradicts the possibility that God exists. What I would say is that evolution contradicts the literal interpretation of the creation story of Genesis.
Jay, for one, it’s embarrassing to us as a nation to have a leader who actively disregards scientific consensus on evolution. It betrays a Medieval mindset, long dead. Education and research suffers under a President that doesn’t respect science. Funding for basic scientific research has become more scarce in the past 7 years, and I don’t think that Bush’s distrust for science is coincidental.
He’s now claiming he misunderstood the question. Twice. And then answered a different question. Without thinking. About the right answer. Or something. But he’s not a bigot. Really. Swear to God. Loves the gays. But not TOO much (that would be gay). Just enough bigotry for a primary, but enough totally hetero gay-love for a general election…
mambochicken: Stow it, OK? You’re the “Data / Spock / Tuvock / Seven of Nine” wannabe around here. How was I supposed to know I wasn’t being set up for a “gotcha”?
I learned from Barry Goldwater’s “Conscience of a Conservative” that ‘civil rights’ refers to the rights of citizens — ALL citizens. I have never swerved from that position.
He’s now claiming he misunderstood the question. Twice. And then answered a different question. Without thinking. About the right answer. Or something. But he’s not a bigot. Really. Swear to God. Loves the gays. But not TOO much (that would be gay). Just enough bigotry for a primary, but enough totally hetero gay-love for a general election…
But if you truly believe that “you can’t legislate morality”, then a “small business” (small numbers of employees, not interstate, less than several million gross), doesn’t fall under the “commerce clause”, and should be left to their own devices.
This is why nowadays the Republican party is the party of homophobes and racists: because republicans are soft on homophobia and racism. People shouldn’t have to wait for boycotts to be protected against criminal behavior. Discrimination isn’t just immoral. It’s a crime, with a victim.
Now pay attention: I’m not saying all Republicans are homophobes and racists; I’m saying most homophobes and racists are Republicans, because the Republican party gives them breathing space, through specious “nuanced” equivocations like our Frank offers us here.
Why?
Because the republic could not survive that kind of ignorance two presidencies in a row.
Why?
Because the republic could not survive that kind of ignorance two presidencies in a row.
Oh, were you serious with that question, Jay? I thought you were waxing rhetorical.
And, as someone else said, evolution is not something on believes. It’s something one accepts. Because the alternative is not plausible, probable or even feasible.
Wilbur: “specious “nuanced” equivocations”, my ass! I’m sorry if you believe in unbridled rights granted by fiat at the whim of government bureaucrats.
But we are still a Federal Republic, not one single country run from Washington, D.C.
That’s the way it was set up. If you don’t like it, jump in the Wayback Machine, and take it up with James Madison, et.al.
we are still a Federal Republic, not one single country run from Washington, D.C.
Two words: Fourteenth Amendment.
Ever hear of it? It kinda changed that whole “federal republic” thing in a big way. If you don’t like it…
Didn’t you already have a civil war over all that business? Seemed quite final to me.
Actually, Quaker (and Nimrod), no it did not. It didn’t eliminate state sovereignty, and it didn’t abrogate individual rights of property.
It was perfectly legal to fire someone for being gay in Iowa before the last election when Democrats too control of the government. They’ve introduced legislation that would allow it. I’m not sure if it’s passed yet, but it probably will.
But nationally homosexuality is not a “protected class”, and it’s legal to fire someone for it. Just like you can fire someone for driving a Japanese car, or being fat or unattractive, too young (but not too old) or smoking or any number of things.
No sir.
Certain aspects of Equal Opportunity in the workplace for Homosexuals fall under Title VII of LBJ’s 1964 Civil Rights Act, and they were also addresssed by Bill Clinton in his Executive Order of May 1998, which prohibits any job action for or against a Federal Worker due to sexual orientation.
But the AFL-CIO says “…In 33 states, it is legal to fire and otherwise discriminate against a worker because of his/her sexual orientation. In 42 states, it is legal to do so because of that worker’s gender identity and/or expression.”
This has nothing to do wih the “Commerce Clause”.
No, it didn’t eliminate state sovreignty, but it set boundaries, and I thought it settled the question quite well. Wars do that. Hard to argue with a war.
NG: You mean the way the English Civil War settled the Irish and Scottish questions?
To fd10801 and Oliver:
Whomever it was that said that evolution must be simply accepted is far larger of a fool than you for agreeing.
It is people like you, who spurn the questioning of postulates with spiteful rhetoric, that prevent any true progress from being made. The advancement of humanity should be free to continue unfettered (evolve?); if evolution as a concept is correct, there will eventually be some form of evidence to systematically prove it. Putting that together with people like Bill Dembski should be enough to stop schools from showing the gospel of “Inherit the Wind” to biology classes…
Failing to question accepted truth or its alternatives leads to a static, dissolving society; pursuing truth has been at the root of most, if not all, of the technological advances in modern times.
Love,
A skeptic agnostic libertarian
You call either side a party of ideas?: Way to go, genius! You couldn’t even check and see who you were talking about?