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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (75082)	9/19/2003 9:49:38 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

He will fight any sanctions levied against him by the government or by the industry. OK. I think we've got it all together now. Let me review. Belief: that the practice of massaging anyone whom he might turn on or who might turn him on is harmful because the lesser industry standard does not adequately deter sexual misconduct in the massage biz. Principle: he stands firm that he can't in good conscience accept any women or gays as clients in his own practice. Expectation: That he will practice according to his conscience and be exempt from any government or industry sanction regarding his selection of clients. We want protections for freedom of conscience equal to protections for any other liberty. Lets start with this. If you mean protection from sanctions for freedom of conscience, in general, that's just not workable. People can claim freedom of conscience for all sorts of things. I recall hearing just the other day that the latest guy to kill his kids did so because his conscience wouldn't permit them being raised by their mother--but apparently allowed him to murder them. People would claim all sorts of squirrelly things based on conscience. I can imagine a radical environmentalist refusing to put the required sidewalk in front of his house because his conscience wouldn't let him destroy the plants living there. Obviously, society cannot give a general exemption for conscience. It would have to decide each claim for freedom of conscience individually. Which is why I pressed for Mojo to state clearly his principle and rationale. I hope we don't have to write new federal regs just for poor old mojo Yes, I think we have to write new regs. Not specifically for him, but for whichever matter of conscience is at issue and for which he and others similarly situated would expect an exemption--conscientious objector status. But we are in good shape because this poster, yours truly, has lots of experience writing regulations. <g> The matter of conscience at issue here is that his risk tolerance regarding sexual misconduct is dramatically lower than the industry standard and he wants to practice by his standard despite the apparent conflict with the legal standard regarding discrimination. So the regulations would have to grant an exemption for practices that effectively set a higher standard and who could so demonstrate. Let's say they could demonstrate that their practices reduced incidents of sexual misconduct to, what, half of the industry average? Or would we shoot for zero tolerance? We'd need some threshold. And, of course, the regulators would have to gather data to track both the industry rate of sexual misconduct against mojo's rate. We'd also need to determine how broad to make this regulation. Would it apply only to massage therapists or would it apply to all personal service businesses or maybe all medical service businesses? In any event, it could be done. It's complicated and expensive and cumbersome, as is all regulation. And it would have to stand up to legal challenge. And before we even got to the legal challenge, the proposed regulation would have to be vetted and all sorts of interested parties would opine. I wonder which interest groups would support the regulation. I doubt that the massage therapy industry would support it because it is effectively saying that the industry hasn't done a good enough job with it's standards. Of course, the civil rights groups wouldn't support it. Nor would the right wing, which wouldn't want further regulation, in general, nor more government bureaucracy. Perhaps there is some interest group that would support it, or maybe not. Goodness, what a lot of effort when our boy, Mojo, has other options. He is refusing to be labeled with a disability Well, I can sure understand why he would be reluctant to claim a disability for his unusual sensitivity regarding sexual misconduct. But the ADA was written to make accommodations for disabilities, not for freedom of conscience. He might be able to make a religious exemption. I suggested that earlier but you didn't seem interested. Personally, I think that a religious claim-- God says he can't massage these folks--would carry the most weight. Another alternative I mentioned earlier would be for Mojo to remain under the radar by limiting his practice to people he knew rather than advertising or hanging out a shingle. Alternately, he could take a stand on conscience and challenge the industry standard via civil disobedience, take the penalty, and in doing so publicize the shoddy industry standard and the impact of discrimination laws on the safe practice of massage therapy. Now, that would be a noble and heroic thing to do. If Mojo wants just to quietly do his own thing, conscience wise and profession wise, it seems to me that his best bet is to stay under the radar and, if challenged, play the religion card. And if the religion card didn't work, he could fall back on the higher-standard card. While he could swallow his pride and claim a disability under ADA, that would be costly to his self image with little chance of his prevailing, although it might have a better chance were he employed as a masseur rather than in a solo practice. The prospect of getting a regulation passed to honor his freedom of conscience is daunting. He might do better approaching it from a privacy rather than a freedom of conscience perspective. While there are many who question a right to privacy, it does have a track record and Mojo's occupation might fit in well with that. Unless the whole point is to press on principle for freedom of conscience, which would leave only the regulation route and the civil disobedience route, both of which are much broader and more ambitious that Mojo wants to undertake. OTOH, if what he really wants is to just do what he damn well pleases with his practice without regard for the constraints of society and his industry, we could just label him, what was Neo's word, a narcissist, and be done with him.