The first proposed bill for the upcoming 2008 Utah legislative session is one sponsored by Rep. Christine Johnson, D-Salt Lake City. The presented bill proposes to grant workplace anti-discrimination protection for employees based on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." Especially, granting protected status in employment for certain sexual preferences.

  I am against the baseless ill-treatment of anyone. Ill treating someone based upon their weight, natural hair color, complexion problems, or height are just as unreasonable to me as mistreating someone because of their gay lifestyle. This does not mean that I’m supportive of laws which make name calling on the school-yard a criminal offense.

People make LOTS of lifestyle choices, some of them are more socially agreeable, while others are less accepted. Opening the door to grant a favored status or promote some choices by force through the legal system does not seem to be a very good or morally sound idea.

  For years, it has been gratuitously asserted that one’s sexual orientation is not a choice, but rather a genetic predisposition. The claim of there being a "gay gene" has never been supported by anything other than rhetoric, shouting and righteous indignation against "homophobia." [If there is a recessive homosexual gene, why hasn’t its carriers been subject to the normal elimination processes imposed by natural selection?]

  If each individual’s personal sexual orientation were to be demonstrated as genetic in origin –rooted before birth in one’s DNA, then would not we also be morally obligated to establish similar protected status and allowance for other publicly discriminated sexual orientations: pedophilia, necrophilia, polygyny and perhaps bestiality? The logic for such protection is straight-forward (no pun intended); if sexual orientation is of a genetic predisposition, then there could be NO moral or rightful basis for establishing laws advancing or rejecting one sexual orientation or preference as being "more natural" or preferred over any other in the spectrum of human sexual proclivities.

  But that’s not what is being sought.

  What is desired is not that all sexual orientations be granted an equal legal status, but that their preferred lifestyle be given unique public status, above all others, that permits them additional legal and civil protections not enjoyed by anyone else. Draped in the robes of "fairness" and "equality" is to make some in our society, ". . . more equal than others."

I am against the baseless ill-treatment of anyone. I think that such actions are wrong.

I also find no moral foundation in imposing upon the majority the recognition of "superior-rights" for a minority. Forcing the public the wrong way to do the "right thing" is itself morally insupportable. If our LBTG community truly wants to gain public acceptance and native civility towards the cause, seeking to mandate it through police and lawyers is NOT the best venue or approach for continuing a favorable public dialogue.