Saturday, November 9, 2013

Is There a Right to Choose Your Own Personal Environment?

   Those who respect other people's opinions, those who extend to them the right to live lifestyles different than their own should also have the right not have those lifestyles integrated into their own.
   I'm speaking about those of same-sex attraction. I'm talking about the bill just passed by the Senate and other bills that might come forth now that the nation's favor is upon these people.
   Is this a freedom: the right to establish your personal environment? It isn't in the Bill of Rights, obviously, and I have never heard it mentioned as a basic human right, but should it be? I speak not of when you are in public, but when you are in your own home, or in an entity you own. Should you, then, not have the right to choose what will be in that environment? I believe it is, indeed, your right. This is, in fact, a rule we are already living by. In my home, I can ask those who come to follow certain rules of conduct and if they choose not to, I can ask them to leave.
   As a homeowner, I have the right to say who comes in, and setting the rules of conduct goes with that.
   If I own a business, I, likewise, have the right to hire and fire if the employees do not follow the code of conduct given them.
   So, then, what of that bill before Congress, the one that would require companies to hire regardless of sexual orientation, the bill known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)? The Senate has passed it, but the House has not.
   I suggest it imposes on our freedoms. I suggest that laws should not be framed infringing on the right to live as we choose in our homes and the right to choose the environment as we will in the companies of our own.
   This is a different matter than discrimination based on race or nationality. I see no reason not to want to live or work with someone based simply on the color of their skin. But, what each of us deems as appropriate behavior differs. Some see no harm in using certain words. But, if an employer doesn't want to be subject to language he or she finds as offensive, the employee can be warned, and then fired if it continues.
   If we each have the right to choose our own conduct, we should have the right to preserve that code of conduct in what we might refer to as our personal space. In our homes and our businesses, we should be allowed to set rules of conduct.
   Now, here's the trick: When you set rules of conduct, they are for how you are to conduct yourself at work, not away from the workplace. So, it is valid to argue that what employees do in their personal lives is nobody's business, and certainly not the business of their employers. This argument suggests that they can conduct themselves the same as every other employee while at work. I consider this, and consider that if the law is crafted to say as long as they do not bring the conduct into the workplace, then perhaps the law will be just. This does not mean they have to stay in the closet, so to speak. They can announce who they are without practicing or advocating it in the workplace. Such a law would both allow the employer to set the conduct, and the gay person to be gay.
   If ever legislation is to be framed on living arrangements, I see a different distinction. If the home to be rented is to be the domicile solely of the gay person and those he or she brings with them, I can see the law as being just. But, if the domicile is to be shared by others who will come in separately, then the right of rejecting based on sexual orientation exists, for just as a male might not want to live with females, or vice versa, so he or she might not want to live with someone of different sexual orientation.
   Well, these are thoughts I have at this time. I don't know if they will change with more thinking. But they are my thoughts at the moment.

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