politics is just diffrent opinions and no sole person can take blame for mistake or guidance but can only trust what the american people want from stephen d macmillan 20 glen rd hyannnisport,ma 02601 presidential republican inventer of the internet microcom in the 80s the most jobs created in history and economics and also a navy vet

Oi, Cam! Re "...But small businesses, which is to say most businesses? Why should they be exempt?"
Piss off, you feelthy Marxist. I help run a Small Family Business. We'll hire who we damn well please. Affirmative action is a shambolic farce that turns it's back on meritocracy and openly awards incompetence...hmmm, just like Government, ay wot?

I'm scratching my head over the last two posts.

Affirmative action in the sense of hiring to fulfill a quota is not the same as preventing an employer legally from firing you because you are gay. [The article even reiterated this point.] Firing a good employee because of who they love is the true disregard of meritocracy, GreginOz, but I suspect by your flippant [and was is supposed to be Pirate-like?] tone that you might just be kidding.
Stephen - lot's of good inventions in the history of humanity. Like this one: . It's called a period and it really works! That last one was an exclamation point, but I could go on and on, you know? [Question mark]

It's good to have protection for these people, but, it would be a better world if we could have common decency without having to legislate it. It certainly would be a dull world, if everyone was just another duplicate of the other, but, we are taught to fear anything or anyone that is a little different.

There could still be tons of human variation while still having a more tolerant overall world view.

Those exemptions almost certainly are there because they are also there in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I haven't read the bill, but I would assume it borrows heavily from the CRA, which exempts churches and very small businesses from anti-discrimination legislation. The small businesses in question are likely to be family-owned/run places.

I'm not saying it's good they are exempted, but this is probably why.

I almost get the church exemption thing [just because they don't pay taxes, either, so maybe the precident comes from that in some weird connection] but I don't get the small business exemption. I own two small businesses and can't think of a logical reason.

I, personally, am not anti-gay BUT...if one owns a small business then one's views count. If you can't stand flaming queens then why would you employ one? Laws aren't going to force you to hire one, your personal tastes will sort out who gets the job. My point in general is that, as OWNER of a business, who the fu*k is going to tell me how to run it?

Well now that you put it that way, GreginOz, I get you completely. After all, ALL gay people are flaming queens?
If you're selling bigoted observations you must make a fortune in your business.

That's not what you said last night, big boy.

Only the white christian straight man is not protected by these "hate crime bills" and God knows that we suffer more than anybody else from hate.

Who do you hate, Lars?

White Christian Straight Men are victims of hate crimes every day. We are the persecuted minority. I speak from personal experience. But as Christ said, love your enemies which we do. But we are also to seek to protect ourselves from the hateful bigots who hate us.

Oh, Lars, how you make me laugh. It took me a while to get the joke.