The bureaucrats are at it again. Not only are they requiring that spas and swimming pools install permanent lifts for the disabled but a new set of opinions is coming out of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to protect prospective employees who have “gender identity” issues. If enacted, the new laws would come under the prohibitions on sex discrimination contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The EEOC opinion would mean that that you would have to hire Chaz Bono if he/she applied for a job. It won’t stop with hiring. The issue of accommodations enters the picture. Which bathroom will he/she use? Will women be comfortable with a man who thinks he’s a woman and wants to use the woman’s bathroom? Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel writes:

This ruling basically says that a Bible bookstore owner, for instance, could not turn away a homosexual, cross-dressing man, a man who likes to wear a miniskirt and lipstick — this would protect that man from being denied a job at a Bible bookstore that holds sincerely held religious beliefs that are opposed to that individual’s lifestyle,” Barber explains.

Liberals like to shout, “Get out of my bedroom!” Well, get out of my work place. I don’t owe anybody a job.

When the government passed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, most people praised the Act because they believed it would protect people with physical disabilities and mental impairment from employment discrimination.  Critics of ADA believed the law was made purposefully vague so that it could be expanded by government bureaucrats. Of course, this is true of all laws. On signing the measure, Pres. George H. W. Bush said:

I know there may have been concerns that the ADA may be too vague or too costly, or may lead endlessly to litigation. But I want to reassure you right now that my administration and the United States Congress have carefully crafted this Act. We’ve all been determined to ensure that it gives flexibility, particularly in terms of the timetable of implementation; and we’ve been committed to containing the costs that may be incurred…. Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down.

The EEOC is issuing opinions to expand the meaning of “mental impairment” based on the provision found in the ADA legislation.

A letter from the EEOC is warning employers that requiring a high school diploma from a job applicant might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. “The ‘informal discussion letter’ from the EEOC said an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening potential employees, must be ‘job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.’”

A “learning disability” — based on the “D” in ADA — may now be covered under the law. So some 9^th-grade dropout who applies for a job and doesn’t get it because he doesn’t have a high school diploma or a GED could sue the company because of his claim that the reason he didn’t graduate from high school was due to a learning disability.

Do you know how nuts this is? It doesn’t stop at high school. What if a graduate from high school is denied entry into the college of his choice because of his grades? He counters that his law grades were the result of a learning disability. What if he flunks out of college? Could he file a claim with the EEOC and argue that he was discriminated against because of his learning disability?

One of the companies that I run was contacted by the EEOC. The person who filed the claim wanted money. The EEOC was trying to pressure my company to pay out more than $40,000. Of course, the government agency would have taken less, say, $26,000. Most companies pay because they count what it would cost to fight it. We fought it and one. Other companies are not as fortunate.

Remember the comment that Pres. Bush made when he signed the bill: “I know there may have been concerns that the ADA may be too vague or too costly, or may lead endlessly to litigation.”

I’m of the opinion that a high school diploma or college degree is not always necessary for employment, but it’s not the government’s job to say so.