Commentary –

Hangin’ With Our Own Kind

By Willam A. Collins

I don’t fuss,

And I don’t hate;

Just quietly,

Discriminate.

So you think Connecticut suffers from discrimination? Not by world standards, it doesn’t. In Somalia two lesbians just got sentenced to death for pretending to be straight. In Afghanistan, just being a woman is close to a death sentence. In Pakistan you’re up against it if you’re Hindu. Outside of Africa, life is tough if you’re black, or in America, if you’re fat. Humankind knows few limits on its capacity for bias.

Luckily, Nutmeggers have transcended most of that. Life and death here are not at stake. Indeed our attention to discrimination these days focuses mostly on Boy Scouts and schools. These, of course, are serious enough. Ever since BSA internationally ruled that gays, no matter how moral or meritorious, are not fit either to be or to serve Scouts (the Girls Scouts have no such ban), Connecticut society has been in a dither.

As might be expected, local United Ways have been squirming like cats on a hot tin roof. Individual families are torn about contributing. Governments and churches aren’t sure whether to let the Scouts keep using their basements. It’s a mess. Except, of course, for folks who truly believe that gays have no place in public life anyway. They’ve upped their contributions to the Scouts and cheered the leadership on.

Some United Ways seem to have charted a successful course through this thicket. They ask each recipient agency to sign a non-discrimination affidavit. Since the Scouts can’t meet this reasonable requirement, they solve the problem themselves. Braver still, some conscience-stricken troops have written headquarters saying that they don’t intend to abide by the national rules. No doubt the first few hundred or so will get expelled, but in time, change will have to come.

Churches, governments, and other hosts of troop meetings might well consider following the United Way’s lead in requiring that non-discrimination letter. That’s how progress is made in civilized society.

With racial discrimination, the going is slower still. Connecticut schools are more segregated today than in 1996 when Sheff vs O’Neill was decided, with little prospect of improvement. The big news lately was Commissioner Sergi’s proposal that inter-town magnet schools must maintain racial balance. Small potatoes, but even this modest reform is sure to stir up a hornets’ nest.

So is the attorney general’s lawsuit against a state electrical contractor. It seems that said contractor claimed to be buying from a “minority-owned” supplier, as is required by state projects. But said supplier turned out to be a sham. Then it turned out that the state’s whole procedure for certifying “minority-owned” was a sham. But there’s no one eligible to sue the state over that.

Racial minorities here are still getting stiffed on voting too. Given the police’s covert affirmative action plan of stopping mostly blacks and Hispanics, a lot more of them than average become felons. This means they don’t get to vote again until they become altar boys. That lowers minority clout in elections and other civic proceedings.

It also affects jobs. It seems that a convicted felon, of whatever crime or vintage, is not allowed to drive a school bus. Even becoming an altar boy doesn’t help. The Department of Motor Vehicles was recently scandalized when a few such blackguards had slipped through its porous net. It lamely responded that no one could even recall an incident attributable to one of these crafty criminal drivers.

And so, progress on discrimination in our fair state is seriously disjointed. Homosexuals, women, and the handicapped keep inching along. Racial minorities get strung along. And the obese get left along the way. We’re surely far more tolerant than many other states, but mostly we too prefer just to mingle with our own kind.

(Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and a former mayor of Norwalk.)