Opinion: Questions about the need for fairness ordinance language
By MARK BALLARD
Guest columnist
MARK BALLARD
Editor’s note: The original headline on this column suggested Nelson Fiscal Court is considering a new fairness-type ordinance. The court is examining changes to an existing ordinance and not creating a brand new ordinance. The proposed changes include the addition of language found in nearly all fairness ordinances that create additional civil rights protection to individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transsexual (LGBT). The ordinance targeted for these changes is the existing joint city-county ordinance that creates the local human rights commission.
Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2014, 3:45 p.m. — As Nelson Fiscal Court begins discussions of adding a sexual orientation fairness update to the city and county’s human rights commission ordinance, I can’t help but to wonder when will it ever end? Do we need sexual orientation legislation? I personally put it right up there with mandated quota hiring of African-Americans, Hispanics, and/or women. Now, before you label me as a Sexist-Racist-Homophobe, let me explain.
Whether it is a government job or private business position, who is the best person to put in the position you are hiring for or promoting to? The answer is … the best person, period. No business should ever settle for anything other than the best candidate for any position. I wouldn’t care if every employee I had were black, white, Hispanic, gay, or female as long as they were all productive. Time and time again I have seen businesses do their quota hiring just to fill enough positions to stay in the good graces of the law or community and then that’s it. It doesn’t matter that some of the best candidates for other positions, or that may be better potential leaders in a company, will be overlooked since the “quota” has been met.
Good people, whether black, white, Hispanic, or female, are missing out on opportunities due to a company having met its “quota hire limit” and filing away those candidates resumes until they need another quota hire. What is the fix? Continue to improve racial, gender, sexual orientation relations, not government mandates. As long as race, gender, and sexual orientation are a stepping stone for political and/or financial gain, this problem will never go away. Too many politicians and community leaders across the country make money or keep their office by perpetuating the hate in the guise of making things better. It is a favorite ploy for votes around election time, as we see with this proposal, and is dropped or put on the back burner after the election until the next time it is needed.
Why is this proposal bad? We have seen in the news where a cake maker was fined for not making a cake for a gay couple. His religious beliefs have him unable to condone, promote, or support homosexuality. So, should we be able to “ordinance” people into violating their religious beliefs? Another thing, what happens if someone who is not productive or who is not a good candidate for a position wants hired, promoted, or is fired? This ordinance will either push business owners to actively, yet secretly, not hire a gay person for example, or will result in them being stuck with an unproductive worker afraid to replace them due to fears of suits and the like.
Everyone wants equality, but each time another law is passed to create that equality, we only become more and more unequal. I do not care if my workmates, neighbors, or grocer is straight, gay, bi, or transgendered or what ethnicity they are. In my mind the same rules apply to all…do your job, do it right, don’t be a menace to society. That is all I ask of anyone. That’s the only criteria society should look at as well. If we all followed that, we wouldn’t have a need for these ordinances.
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