[9200] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Bigots? It's bigoted to oppose committing Felonies?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Robinson)
Tue Dec 21 08:10:33 1993
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 07:52:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Robinson <PAUL@tdr.com>
Reply-To: Paul Robinson <PAUL@tdr.com>
To: Douglas Barnes <cman@caffeine.io.com>,
Cc: postman@lists.psi.com
>From: Paul Robinson <PAUL@TDR.COM>
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
-----
Douglas Barnes <cman@caffeine.io.com>, writes:
> Should the bigots in Williamson County (adjacent to ours) be able to
> dictate the morality of the whole net? These are the fine folks who
> almost rejected 1,500 jobs and a huge economic influx to their county
> because Apple pays benefits to partners of gay employees. Should they
> have the right to ghettoize discussion of homosexuality for everyone?
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the practice of homosexuality a
felony in Texas? Thus that city's operators were saying that they did not
want to offer tax breaks to a company that subsidizes criminal behavior.
The fact that such activity is legal in California (where Apple is
probably domiciled) is irrelevant; if it is illegal in Texas (as I am
almost certain it is) then it is illegal in that county and the legality
of such restriction was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in _Bowers v.
Hardwick_.
In fact, for Apple to be doing this may in fact allow the directors of the
corporation to be charged with - and I may have the term wrong - "misprison
of felony" since their corporate standard in affect provides approval of a
relationship which is proscribed as a serious crime under State law in the
same manner, as, say, providing a place for people to shoot heroin. Or it
could be grounds to invoke conspiracy charges.
If the practice of homosexuality is not illegal in Texas, then I withdraw the
whole comment. It _is_ illegal in Maryland and Virgnia, and became legal
last month in the District of Columbia. It is not my place to debate the
merits of making such practices illegal and charging those who commit them
(in view of the common practice of unprotected sex by homosexuals and the
spread of aids), but if they don't like the law; ignore it (as most do)
and accept the risk (a small one) of prosecution, or fight to change it, but
don't whine about it.
This is a wholly separate issue from someone objecting to material
distributed from some other point as opposed to support for the practice
of criminal conduct.
---
Paul Robinson - Paul@TDR.COM
Voted "Largest Polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>
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