HomeMy WebLinkAboutNon-Discrimination Ordinance Public Comment from T. McKenna 2-14 Date: February 10, 20I4
To: City of Bozeman Mayor and Commissioners
From: T. McKenna, Gardiner MT ��L
Subject: Non-discrimination Ordinance
Please accept my comments regarding your consideration to expand non-discrimination ordinances to LGBT
citizens, effectively setting aside a uniquely protected class in your municipal code. Because this action may
have statewide ramifications on all Montana citizens, I personally believe I am justified, with due respect to all
concerned, in expressing my opinion even though I do not reside in your community.
A criticism can be made by a short phrase or a word; the reply demands many times that space. A distinct
advantage to those who have concealed motives. How does one respond to words that appear grossly hung in
midair or splattered on a sign in a spirit of contempt?In my youth I was dismayed by my generation's slogan of
"hey-hey ho-ho..." which contrasted with my parent's slogan of"I pledge allegiance..." As a result, today I am
not surprised when the progeny of my generation respond with the indictment of"bigot" to the proclamation of
"You are the light of the world." So,please excuse me if I take some space.
It seems to me that our government was originally intended to be controlled by a society that had a firm
understanding of ordered liberty. Our founders were a mix of world views, but they all appeared to agree on
what liberty was. They also understood that if this view of ordered liberty was lost, order would then be
displaced by the disorder of anarchy and despotism. Thus, self-order fosters a self-governing society which
enables overall self-government.
So, our republic was to be structured by a system of self-government, based on a society rooted in order. The
order for this foundation, an order that is as old as civilized man, was developed by the secular philosophers of
antiquity, and was called the universal or true law of nature. Throughout history this law has been applied to the
nature of man and considered consistent and everlasting, and today we call it natural law. This order is engraved
in our nature and revealed to us by our reason, and is basically defined as right reason in agreement with nature.
Natural law says that all human beings are capable of understanding,through reason,right from wrong.
However, we must realize that the ordered liberty that our founding fathers were describing was not one
interpreted by reason alone. The liberty that they had in mind, was one that was based in the natural law, but
was also bound by the restraints of wisdom and virtue. Their definition of liberty balanced the needs of society
and the individual, and required people who were anchored by a sense of self-control and morality. Self-control
was viewed as an ally of liberty, not an intrusion. It was unbridled freedom that was considered to be the enemy
of liberty.
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The leaders of the American Revolution understood that men were not angels and government was a necessity,
but they also felt that we deserved a system that was based on ordered liberty, and one that resisted evil
dictatorial impulses. As a result,the American Revolution was a success. However,the French Revolution of
1789 was a failure because its intellectual basis, as championed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was flawed because
it was based on the belief that all evil in society was due to corrupt social institutions that disordered man's true
nature to be free without chains. The result was one of the most horribly despotic regimes in history. It may be
beneficial to research the human suffering inflicted on the people of the Vendee and its connection to the
mandated edicts of the "Civil Constitution of the Clergy" and the "Ecclesiastical Oath."
Unfortunately, like Rousseau and his followers,many Americans today seem to view freedom as an unbound
license. Consider Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's comments during his 1978 Harvard University commencement
address: "I have spent all my life under a communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any
objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but a legal one is not quite worthy
of man either." Was Solzhenitsyn warning us that it is a mistake for a free society to base its laws on the view
that freedom is an individual's right, devoid of ordered liberty and self-restraint, or an exercise in radical self-
autonomy?The answer to the question may have been when, ignored by the French government and their
media, Solzhenitsyn dedicated the official Vendee Memorial at Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne in 1993 where he stated:
"It would be vain to hope that revolution can improve human nature, yet your revolution, and especially our
Russian Revolution,hoped for this very effect. The French Revolution unfolded under the banner of a self-
contradictory and unrealizable slogan, "liberty, equality,fraternity." But in the life of society, liberty and
equality are mutually exclusive, even hostile concepts. Liberty, by its very nature,undermines social equality,
and equality suppresses liberty--for how else could it be attained? Fraternity,meanwhile, is of entirely different
stock; in this instance it is merely a catchy addition to the slogan. True fraternity is achieved by means not
social but spiritual."
Consider further the words of G. K. Chesterton regarding logic, contained within his essay entitled Fiction as
Food. "Some people seem to imagine that a man being sceptical and changing his beliefs, or even a man being
cynical and disregarding his beliefs, is a sort of advantage to him in liberality and flexibility of mind. The truth
is exactly the other way. By the very laws of the mind, it is more difficult to remember disconnected things than
connected things; and a man is much more in control of a whole range of controversy if he has connected
beliefs than if he had never had anything but disconnected doubts." So how can a presumably self-governing
society govern when it is dominated by disconnected beliefs of doubt? The logical conclusion is that it can't.
So, it seems obvious that America has not heeded these warnings. Today we have witnessed the culmination of
society's skewed view of freedom, along with the rise of a self-centered relativist world view that rejects the
concept of absolute truth and the existence of universal human laws. America has swallowed the moonshine of
radical activists and revolutionaries such as Marx,Nietzsche, Eastman, Shaw,Dewey, Sanger,Alinsky,
Baldwin, and Foucault. Consequently, should we be surprised today that no aspect of social solidarity is being
left unquestioned or voided by our craving for unchecked individual freedoms?
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For example, in 1992 the U.S. Supreme Court, upon ruling on Planned Parenthood v Casey, delivered one of
America's most soiled statements on freedom ever made. They stated: "At the heart of liberty is the right to
define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of life." Is this the
America our founding fathers visualized or a chamber of horrors? Have we metamorphosed into a society who
is continually recreating reality without a purpose?
Thus, it is not speculation that the damaging intellectual ideas of the French and Russian Revolutions, and the
results they had on the their "Vendee," are beginning all over again, but now here at home. Again, celebrated
private social institutions who are the champions of the "other"rather than the "self' are being attacked. These
foundational institutions of society, more than any other world entity,have made tremendous contributions to
the poor,human rights, education, science,economics, art, literature, music, and architecture. They are being
attacked because of a reckless misunderstanding of freedom and a materialistic preoccupation on the "self'
drenched in relativism, a misguided search for the "good society," that will never be realized.
There are those who have seen their chance to take advantage. Thus, like in the past revolutions mentioned
above, and in the defense of freedom,photos published on revolutionary activist websites, like ACLU Montana,
defile members of traditional institutions of charity and good will. Moreover groups of presumably intellectual
elite like those of Beyond Same Sex Marriage,define the future trajectory of the issue under consideration by
stating that their organization's goal is a new radical "vision for securing governmental and private institutional
recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships, households,kinship relationships and families." In the name of
"equality" and at the price of America's "liberty," these organizations are intent on deconstructing the core
institutions of America, resulting in a dysfunctional society and a severely weakened government that will be
unable to resist the evil impulses of a dictatorial agenda. For these groups it is not a matter of just being "fair" or
lets "live and let live," for these ends can be obtained from various fruitful sources in America, it is really a
matter of revolution.
Sometimes when good people grow discouraged because they do not know where to turn, they seem to rally
towards those who will take advantage. These same good people are lead to believe that government can solve
their problems, when in fact government is incapable of delivering what they ask. The result is,always dubious
for all involved. One of the things that government is incapable of doing is to offer love and reconciliation, we
seem to be always looking for love in all the wrong places.
The importance of this issue cannot be underestimated. Thank you for allowing me to express my thoughts and
opinions. I hope that the controlled rights of the individual,the dignity of all human persons, and the solidarity
of our social and governmental system can all be balanced to produce the good society that we all deserve.
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Appendix
(Questions and Potential Ramifications)
1. What is the problem and is there concrete evidence that there has been a history of injustice?
2. Are there already existing laws, ordinances, or procedures that already address the subject?
3. Will the public's safety and health,privacy, and rights to common decency be jeopardized?
4. Will the general well-being of children be promoted?
5. WilI children become more exposed to trafficking , or other exploitations?
6. Will abuse of students of all ages attending public schools or state colleges increase?
7. Will social solidarity be destroyed by being more punitive to peaceable citizens than protective of others?
8. Will specific inalienable constitutional rights of private individuals be targeted for elimination?
9. Will specific inalienable constitutional rights within private institutions be targeted for elimination?
10. Will specific inalienable constitutional rights within private businesses be targeted for elimination?
11. Will specific inalienable constitutional rights within public areas and public institutions be eliminated?
12. Will the legal activities or decisions of peaceable private citizens and their beliefs be criminalized?
13. Will the legal activities or decisions of peaceable private institutions and their beliefs be criminalized?
14. Will specific peaceable and legal speech, beliefs, or ideas and thoughts of any entity be criminalized?
15. Will the writings or contents of specific peaceable and legal literature and books be criminalized?
16. Will a new ordinance be in conflict with any local,county, or state law or statute?
17. Will government be making a vain attempt to force a change in human nature or the natural law?
18. Is an agenda driven by power and money exploiting specific innocent souls for the destruction of all?
19. Can today's local actions be used disingenuously in the future to accomplish any of the above?
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