Boehner blocks democracy again

For the life of me, I can't figure out why gay/lesbian/transgender issues are even debated anymore. Who cares?  There is quite a bit of hope on the horizon if my teenage kids and their friends are any indication....they don't care at all about someone's sexual orientation. I consider myself a Republican........Boehner is on my last nerve.

Of course you care.....why wouldn't you?  What I meant is that it should be a non-issue for everyone. 

As for the kids......there are openly gay kids where my children go to school....my son says that it's no big deal and that nobody messes with them about it.  He also says that there are plenty of kids who would rain hell on anyone who tried to. It may take a few generations but, from what I see and hear from young people,  there are much easier days ahead for GLT folks.

I'm sorry, but it has been my experience that GLT people are pretty far down the list of people who file discrimination lawsuits against employers.  While I agree that the fear exists, it's irrational.  Like Justin said, this is all a formality anyway.....we all work with GLT people.....I don't see any problems as a result, because there aren't any.

Check out this video on YouTube:http://youtu.be/8TJxnYgP6D8.

Does that work?

. I gotta go to work. Goggle "Kids reacting to gay marriage"

Edited by bootygirl 2013-11-08 9:32 AM

OK, I see your point there.

Well put Jackemy.

I would just add, that we all like to rant and rave about government intrusion and the need for less government, until it comes to our specific pet project and then we are all about "formality" laws being passed. We don't need a law for every little detail and formality. Although it seems like we already do have 2 laws for every situation and a bunch of people in DC with nothing better to do than pump out more and more. 

Thought of something else to add more in response to the OP.

You have described the way things are supposed to work, unfortunately that is not how things are currently working nor have worked for a while now.

Unfortunately between the media spin machine and low-no information voters, we don't vote for the person who represents our values or beliefs, we vote for the most popular candidate. We don't check facts, we just eat up whatever we are fed by both sides of the media and vote accordingly.

So let's say I am a Libertarian Congressman and I don't believe in passing laws that are a "formality" or perhaps I believe it should be up to the state to pass certain laws and the feds should stick to the areas they were granted in the Constitution. Perhaps this belief drives me to a no vote on a piece of legislation such as this. I vote no, and I post on my website why I voted no. How many people do you think will see my vote and my reasons vs. my vote and the reason assigned to it by MSNBC, CNN or FOX? All of a sudden my Libertarian value of leaving social issues up to the State are now transformed into hateful bigotry against gay individuals and I am deemed "anti-gay" and I see them as "second class citizens". None of this is true, but that doesn't matter to the media or the average voter.

Another example, perhaps I made a pledge to vote no on bills that are filled with pork barrel spending, perhaps this bill has tons of it so I vote no. Same situation as above. 

We all know that as soon as a vote went through the House on this every yes vote would be a champion for individual rights and a hero of the gay community. While every no vote regardless the reason would be satan incarnate and no better than a nazi. None of which is likely true. So yes, due to the current political climate, the media, and the low information voting base, it is better for Boehner to block the chance for the media to have it's fun. 

Don't you find it interesting that during the abysmal rollout of Ocare, and just after a 16 day government shutdown, with another debt crisis just a few months away and still no budget proposal from the Senate, that all of a sudden it is so important for the Senate to focus on gay rights? The Senate bill is a PR move, nothing more and Boehner is refusing to participate. I don't like the guy any more than anyone else but he is playing the game correctly. What we all need to do is work to change the game, otherwise we will continue to end up with the same results. 

I've got nothing substantial to add here, except that when I saw the title of this thread all I could think was cockblock.  That is all :)

I agree with some of this.......HOWEVER, you use the word "VOTE" over and over again.    BOEHNER isn't allowing the VOTE!  This is only a PR move, because it highlights the problem with the Republican party in Washington...they're being funded by old, white, rich biggots. 

That was all posted as a hypothetical. I have not done any research on the bill itself or the situation so I don't have much of an opinion on it. I was just addressing the point in the OP about how things are supposed to work vs. how they actually work. There could be any number of reasons to vote yes or no on any bill, unfortunately we almost never get the real reason we get whatever either side wants us to get to make themselves look better. 

I think as a country we've moved past most of the need for discrimination laws, but I wouldn't necessarily say we should remove "all" discrimination laws from the books.

Take African American's as an example.  Many years ago there was no question that they were being discriminated against purely because they were a different race.  The discrimination laws were needed to give them protection.   However, today there's no question the law protecting African Americans are not "as needed" as they were 50 years ago, due in part to the success of the law but also due to our cultural changes.  So, if 100 years from now race discrimination is completely tamped out, which is the true goal, then it's not unheard of to say discrimination laws can be removed at some point in time.  The big question is when should they be removed, and I don't know the answer.

I had a personal experience at my last job, prior to starting my own company.  I had a manager who worked for me remotely out of Texas.  I found out that he was playing hooky and only showing up for work one day a week.  This went on for a period of about 4 weeks and simply for the fact that he was black I had to document the heck out of everything.  I spent upwards of 8 hours in various meetings with HR and legal personnel to make sure we had all our ducks in a row and then I terminated his employment.   Guess what, about 6 weeks later, I (and my company) get filed a lawsuit for discriminating against his civil rights and firing him because he was black.  /facepalm.  Now here's the crappy part, after lord knows how much money spent in legal fees and about 2 years of litigation, he ultimately wins the case because we didn't go through a performance improvement notification process to give him multiple chances to correct his behavior.  Seriously, the guy was getting paid $120k a year and only showed up for work one day a week and even had a second job, but he still won the case.  We had to pay him over $500k as a result of the litigation.

So, now I own my own business and I have to make the decisions on who to hire.  If I have two equally qualified candidates and one of them is a protected class that gives them a big giant club to hit me over the head with in the event of me terminating them.  I feel that I'm almost forced to hire the lower risk candidate, which I think this is similar to what Jackemy1 is talking about.

I had one applicant last year who looked really good on paper and when I did a google search on him I found three separate civil rights cases in his name where he was suing former employers.  One of them he accepted the job and never showed up for a single day of work, but still sued them when they terminated him.  He fortunately didn't win any of the cases, but each company had to pay for lawyers and defend themselves and that's the kind of stuff that can put a small business like mine out of business.

So, I'm of the opinion that at some point the laws meant to protect a class ultimately evolve into something that hurts the class.  When does it cross that threshold?  I'm not really sure.  Maybe it has already and maybe it hasn't.