Why “homophobia” must be tolerated in a way that racism need not

Nov 26, 2017 by

by Joseph Heath, In Due Course:

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits discrimination based on the following characteristics:

15 (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

The Canadian Human Rights Act (HRA) goes a bit further, specifying a longer list of prohibited grounds for discrimination:

3 (1) For all purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability and conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered.

It goes on to specify what constitutes a “discriminatory practice” (e.g. refusing employment, refusing residence to, etc.) followed by a list of exceptions, of cases in which there may be bona fide grounds for treating people differently based on these characteristics.

One thing to notice about these lists of “prohibited grounds for discrimination” is that they are rather heterogeneous. For instance, the standard reason for prohibiting discrimination based on race is that we consider people of all races to be essentially equal, and so it is difficult to imagine any circumstances in which race could be a bona fide employment qualification (other than catering to the racist preferences of other people, which is ruled out). Disability, on the other hand, is quite different. A person who survives a car accident as a quadriplegic is someone who has suffered a personal tragedy. It is not difficult to imagine cases in which being in a wheelchair could be legitimately disqualifying for many types of employment (e.g. being a firefighter). Thus the purpose of the HRA is not to prohibit the latter forms of discrimination, it is to ensure that the person’s disability status is not treated as disqualifying in cases where it does not actually impair job performance (e.g. working in a call centre).

There is, of course, an influential strain of thinking in the disability-rights movement that wants to resist this line of thinking, arguing that “disability” is a social construct – being in a wheelchair is only unfortunate when you live in a society organized by and for people who are not in wheelchairs – and thus not intrinsically bad. Hence the familiar claim that “I’m not disabled, I’m just differently abled.” This has always struck me as a dubious argument, but in any case, there has been enormous pressure in recent years to expand the disability category to include various diseases, such as diabetes, which tends to undermine the whole “differently abled” line. Having a fatal disease seems like an obviously bad thing, which most people would like to see cured. Saying “we’re all dying, some of us are just dying faster,” doesn’t seem like it puts things on an equal footing.

What is the best way to articulate this distinction?

Read here

 

Related Posts

Tags

Share This