Is Discrimination Always Bad?
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Is Discrimination Always Bad?
This has been a question I’ve been pondering since the outrage from the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of religious liberty regarding a Colorado woman’s wedding website.
In case you don’t know what the case was about, essentially the Supreme Court ruled that a business owner could refuse to make a wedding website for a gay couple. They argued on the grounds of the First Amendment because laws saying otherwise compel the business owner to endorse ideas they would not usually endorse.
What that business owner could NOT do, is simply say “I’m not serving gay customers”.
In other words, the issue was not about discriminating against certain people, it was about the government not compelling speech from artists, website designers, cake decorators, or anyone whose work involves speech. And in their opinion, they concluded that the website designer could discriminate against anyone who asked her to violate her religious beliefs, regardless of immutable characteristics. You can read the entire opinion for yourself here.
In a similar vein, that same week the Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action was unconstitutional in college admissions, due to the fact that it discriminates against people of a certain race (Whites and Asians) in favor of Hispanics and African Americans.
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You can however consider how their upbringing affected the student and their performance. In practice what this would mean is issues like finances, drug addiction, and single-parent households, all of those “obstacles” could be considered in college admissions, but race and race alone could not be. You can read that entire opinion here.
Both of these opinions have me wondering if discrimination, in and of itself, is inherently bad.
In the affirmative action case for example, according to “racial justice activists”, discrimination against Caucasian people and Asian Americans was a good thing, because it leads to a more “equitable” end…i.e. more “people of color” in higher education. Meanwhile, telling a gay couple “I can’t make a wedding website for you, because it violates my religious beliefs” is a bad thing.
But this begs the question: would a decent person, regardless of political affiliation, wish to make a website that stated “Nazism is good” and that highlighted all of Hitler's “good accomplishments”? What about a college stating that their admissions would favor Whites or Asians because Whites or Asians have been discriminated against due to their race?
No, none of the people crying about an end to affirmative action would ever think that a “White only college” is okay. Nor would they want to be forced to create a website advertising Nazism.
So ultimately this boils down to beliefs: it’s okay to hold the belief that merit-based admissions are intrinsically unfair towards African Americans and Hispanics, but it’s not okay to believe that gay marriage is sinful. And so they wish to craft and create laws that force these beliefs onto others.
But why would they want to do that?
The only reason I can think of that they support this is because Leftists think they can change the values of the people whom they are legislating against via force.
Psychology Today in 2018 published an article about how tolerance isn’t enough, what we need is understanding. Meanwhile in Michigan, the state House of Representatives just passed a bill stating speech that makes someone “feel threatened”, (by not using preferred pronouns for example) can land an individual up to five years in prison. No longer does the language have to be threatening (ie “I’m coming to kill you”) it can be based on someone’s arbitrary perception of “feeling” threatened.
They think if they can outlaw beliefs they don’t like, and force people to espouse things against their sincerely held beliefs, people would no longer believe what they do and instead adopt the Left's value system. But it’s not working, and it never has.
The Roman Empire made the mistake of allowing the government to control the religions (and beliefs) practiced by the masses. But when the Romans attempted to outlaw Christianity, Christianity became stronger. They tried everything to convert people, from feeding them to lions in public, to torture, but ultimately they did not prevail.
Eventually, Christianity was adopted by the Roman emperor Theodosius I and he ultimately changed the “states religion” to Christianity. Eventually, the Roman emperor Constantius II outlawed the “pagan Gods”, and anyone practicing the old religion was met with the same brute force that the “pagans” committed against the Christians when in 356 the crime of worshiping idols was made a capital crime.
This is probably why in the Bill of Rights, the “separation of church and state” was extremely important, not only to not corrupt religion with government, but also to not give the government that level of power. Thomas Jefferson and Roger Williams were the first to voice the importance of the separation of church and state, and Thomas Jefferson fought hard to disestablish the Anglican Church in the Virginia Colony.
So is discrimination inherently bad? No. Ultimately it depends on the belief system behind that discrimination, whether it’s “good” or “bad”, and it also depends on your individual belief system of what you think is good or bad.
So the question becomes should the government be in the business of legislating “good” and “bad” beliefs?
It certainly didn’t work out for the Romans.
Thanks to the 14th Amendment it's still illegal to discriminate against people based on immutable characteristics, and now affirmative action appears to be dead.
But also, thanks to the Supreme Court, the government no longer has the right to compel speech from its citizens in violation of the First Amendment.
The hardcore Leftists may not appreciate the finely tuned balance struck between the First and 14th Amendments, but I ultimately believe that in time, with the next “regime change” they certainly will appreciate it.
If they bother to actually read what the opinions state.
Is Discrimination Always Bad?
Discrimination is not always bad. Wise & prudent people are discriminate in their decisions. We have to discriminate between multiple options on a daily basis. We have to be discriminate about who we associate with and what activities we involve ourselves with. Of course, this is just one context of what it means to discriminate.
In an effort not to relitigate the SCOTUS case regarding the gay couple and the baker's refusal to create a cake for their wedding, I have just these few things to say. First, in full transparency, I am gay - so for whatever that might add or take from this particular event, let that be as it may. The idea of discrimination should never have been a consideration or concern in this case. Why? For one, we enjoy our freedom of religion (for sone no religion at all) under our constitutional rights. Public business or no public business, government can not and must not be allowed to trample on anyone's constitutional rights. It is no secret that the vast majority of the world does not agree with gay marriage . I don't agree with gay marriage, for religious and spiritual reasons, and I'm gay. This particular gay couple could have gone to any of probably several hundred other bakeries to have their wedding cake made. Instead, they elected to insist that the one baker, who had made his position well known, forcing a legal battle. Sane people would have simply moved on to the next bakery. But this couple clearly wanted their few minutes in the spotlight. It was clear what their motive was. And because their intentions were grounded in an agenda and not authenticity, one might suggest that "karma" served them some justice. The couple had many other options yet chose to create a national scandal of an innocent man, his family and their personal religious convictions. Some say that God works in mysterious ways but I beg to differ. In fact, I believe He tells us very specifically what He expects and how He operates. He is a discriminating God. And He makes no secret about this (keep context in mind here).
On affirmstive action (AA), I have never seen so many fail to understand or see the absolute discrimination and racism in this horrendous policy. In fact, there is no better example of discrimination in policy. This is a case in which discrimination is always bad. What are the details of AA? They are as follows, generally speaking:
1) AA views everything through a racial lens. It requires that people be inventoried by skin color.
2) AA requires that percentages of people, based upon skin color, be closer to equal, qualified or not and regardless of whether it denies candidates of other skin colors who may be better credentialed and qualified.
3) AA sends the message that some people simply cannot make the grade based upon their skin color and thst government will coddle those people to their victory all the while reducing minimum standards to better enable some as opposed to maintaining high standards of excellence. AA says, "you can't do it, you're not good enough."
When it comes to AA, we have to ask, is something racist because of an action or because of an outcome? If I deny a potential future employee a job position because of their skin color, that would clearly be racist. But AA asserts that by giving those of certain skin color "something" that is is not racist. It is not whether or not not one is given "whstever" that indicates racism. It is the mere fact that the outcome is based solely upon skin color, and that is racist. That is discrimination either way you cut it.
This is the wrong way to look at AA: "If I get what I'm after, it's not racist. If I don't get what I'm after, it's racist." It's not about the outcome. It's everything to do with skin color as being the sole and primary driver of outcome that is racist.
If you think about the process of hiring a person, it is a process of discrimination. Not of immutable differences but of skill, ability, experience and education. Is that bad? IMO no or otherwise you would hire the first person through the door regardless of qualifications. Living life itself is a process of discrimination as you make everyday decisions. It is what differentiates us, it is what gives us a splendid array of personalities and what makes some artists and musicians, accountants and actuaries, doctors and engineers or skilled tradespeople. It makes us all unique.