What the Measure would Do: ----- Feedback Box:

Employers would be forced to hire sodomites, and landlords to rent to them. There are exceptions for employers with no more than four employees, not counting family, and for employers who hire work done within their own home, while their family is living there.

There are exceptions for "bona fide religions organizations" who can prove they have a "bona fide religions reason" for not hiring them. Presumably this would mean churches would be exempt from hiring a sodomite as assistant pastor, but would have to hire them for maintenance. How about for day care? Or a cook for a day care? There may be cases which won't be decided without the flip of the judicial coin.

Here is how the exception is worded; you can see for yourself how many questions it leaves unanswered, and you can imagine for yourself how much fun a judge can have with it: "2-315 [exemptions] (4) Any bona fide religious institution with respect to any qualifications for employment based on religion OR SEXUAL ORIENTATION, when such qualifications are related to a bona fide religious purpose."

Any sodomite can work and rent anywhere he likes even without this law, so long as he doesn't "act" like a sodomite, so that nobody knows he is one. Obviously this law is only for sodomites who want to express sodomite demeanor, through language, body language, body ornaments, and clothing. It is fair to characterize this demeanor as continually and openly expressing sodomite sexual appetites.

In other words, if you are an employer, and you need to hire someone to service your customers, you will not be allowed to reject someone whose sexual appetites are continually advertised through his demeanor, language, clothing, and body ornaments. If you are a landlord, with apartments full of peaceful, quiet Christians, you will not be allowed to reject someone whose blasphemous demeanor drives out your other tenants.

How to Prosecute a Sermon

Although we should not expect prosecutors to have the political will to prosecute pastors for their sermons within the first year of passage, the measure provides material for such prosecutions as the political will grows.

Sermons which "incite" disobedience to the new law could create legal risk as it already does in Canada.

Here is the language:

"2-315. ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATORY EMPLOYMENT PRACTICES. (a) Enumerated. It shall be an illegal discriminatory employment practice:....

"(6) For any person to aid, abet, incite, compel or coerce the doing of any of the practices declared illegal or discriminatory by this subchapter."

Could a sermon which concludes that sodomy is sin, and that a requirement to hire sodomites is also sin, followed by someone listening to that sermon and disobeying the law, land the pastor in court?

Another ground for prosecution of sermons is that they would constitute a "threat of physical violence". I am the first to agree this sounds bizarre, and in fact it IS bizarre. But prolifers have already fallen victim to this twisted judicial "reasoning".

Here's how it works: a prolifer, or a pastor, quotes Scriptures outlining the judgement of God for sin. Judges "mistake" warnings of God's judgment, for "threats of (human) force and intimidation." This "logic" is what held together the recent Oregan case in which several prolife leaders were sued for millions of dollars because of "Wanted" posters. The posters actually said what was wanted was information leading to the prosecution, under current laws, of abortionists for crimes which are already prosecutable. But the Court lumped them together with the website called "The Nuremburg Files", which additionally asked for information which might be used to prosecute abortionists for abortion, when and if abortion becomes illegal and a court forms, like the Nuremburg court, to try abortionists, as the Nuremburg court tried Nazi war criminals.

Critics of the website ignored the site's express purpose and assumed its real purpose was to provide the whereabouts of abortionists of abortionists for those who wanted to shoot them. (Actually the information on the site was almost all available from phone books, and even from abortionist's web sites.)

Neither the website, nor its webmaster, Neal Horsley, were defendants in the case! The website was not under the control of any of the prolifers who were defendants in the case! And yet the court somehow lumped all these "threats" together and interpreted the statements of the defendants through the eyes of abortionists who saw all these "threats" as part of the "context of violence".

Prior to this case, the judicial standard was that statements would be interpreted as a "reasonable person" might interpret them. Now it is how an abortionist actually does interpret them, whether or not his interpretation is "reasonable". Thus the purchase of bullet proof vests is accepted as evidence that the abortionist feels threatened, but an analysis of the explicit statements of just the defendants seems almost irrelevant.

For a detailed example of this reasoning, see my Supreme Court brief which I wrote for Regina Dinwiddie, (to which Janet Reno's Department of Justice asked for two 60-day extensions of time to respond), in which Dinwiddie was prosecuted for quoting Genesis 9:6 which the court took for a personal threat of force! www.panews.org, click on prolife, then select the Dinwiddie case.

With this kind of reasoning already in courts, and worse thinking from Canada drifting down, it would seem quite realistic to expect Des Moines sermons about God's judgment upon sodomites (such as Romans 1's observation that even their bodies receive judgment) to be lumped together with the outrageous statements of Jim Phelps or the killing of Matthew Shepherd, which would be called a "context of discrimination".

I really don't think I am giving Des Moines prosecutors any new ideas. I think they already have arguments like these up their sleeves. If you think Des Moines prosecutors are too intelligent for such absurdity, let me refresh your memories: a few years back, Dudley Allison was arrested and charged for assaulting police officer Max Street. I sat through the trial. Street and his sidekick, officer Scarcello, were out arresting another black man, when Dudley came along with his video camera in the expectation of filming another example of police brutality in their arresting of blacks. Street testified that it all happened so quickly that he thought Dudley was carrying a brick with which he was about to "take out" Scarcello. That's why Street was so diligent to knock Dudley and his camera to the ground and proceed with a violent arrest. Street testified that even after he realized it was a camera and not a brick, he was still convinced Dudley intended to "take out" his buddy with it!

Dudley was finally acquitted by the judge, but the point is judge Carol Egly would not dismiss it! She made it proceed through the entire trial before finally ruling against it, with Dudley's high-powered attorney's time clock ticking all the time!

Read 1 Corinthians 6 again, about how God sees human courtroom justice, before you decide I am being too harsh, and before you decide to give a free pass to a law which may give lawyers jurisdiction over your sermons.

Of course, if you are a pastor who never plans to preach about the sin of sodomy, and you have no problem hiring them, or renting to them, then you have nothing to fear from this law. Go ahead and support it. The only preachers who will be hurt will be those whom you don't agree with anyway.

Here is the language which criminalizes "a threat of force or intimidation":

"2-316.03. THREAT OF FORCE OR INTIMIDATION--PENALTY.

"(a) A person commits a public offense if the person, whether or not acting under color of law, by force or threat of force, intentionally intimidates or interferes with or attempts to interfere with a person under any of the following circumstances:

"(1) Because of the person's race, color, creed, sex, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, religion, national origin, disability, or familial status, and because the person is or has been selling, purchasing, renting, occupying, or financing, contracting for, or negotiating for the sale, purchase, rental or occupation of any dwelling, or applying for or participating in a service, organization, or facility relating to the business of selling or renting dwellings.

"(2) Because the person is or has been doing any of the following:

"(i) Participating, without discrimination because of race, color, creed, sex, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, religion, national origin, disability, or familial status, in an activity service, organization, or facility described in subparagraph (1) of this subsection.

"(ii) Affording another person the opportunity or protection to so participate.

"(iii) Lawfully aiding or encouraging other persons to participate, without discrimination because of race, color, sex, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, religion, national origin, disability, or familial status, in an activity, service, organization, or facility described in subparagraph (1) of this subsection.

"(b) A person violating this section is guilty of a simple misdemeanor."

Enforcement:

2-326 provides for a public hearing before the Human Rights Commission if confidential conciliation fails. The Commission may impose fines covering "actual damages, court costs and reasonable attorney fees" in addition to ordering the offender to hire, or rent to, or whatever, the one discriminated against.

2-327 sends the Commission's orders to court to be enforced, if the offender does not immediately comply. It is a "civil case"; which means there is no right to trial by jury, or to several other rights in the Bill of Rights.

2-322.03 provides additional civil court involvement in the area of housing.

2-324 provides another doorway to court if the commission thinks you are ignoring it.

Feedback Box Got feedback? Send it, along with name or url of the article, and a little of the text on either side of where your comment belongs, so I know what you are responding to, and I'll post your response. I might even place it right smack dab in the article! (If you don't want your email posted, SAY SO!)