CDA: Research could've helped
If you listen closely Kootenai County residents, you can hear a gag reflex emanating from the very heart of your beloved Coeur d’Alene as one more bad policy has been shoved down Americans’ throats, promulgated by another special Interest group. As ludicrous as the anti-discrimination bill was, the “Fad-Five” took the bait: hook, line and big stinker! (“Fad,” meaning trend friendly, “Five,” meaning the number of elected “suckers.”) Have any of the council members heard of “reverse discrimination!” Take note Coeur d’Alene business owners, you are no longer able to voice reasonable concerns of conscience in whom you can and cannot serve! It also means parents should closely watch their kids at public restrooms because they may get surprised by a voyeurlstically dressed woman who Is actually a man, now a lawfully protected-peeper!
Per the new law, a proprietor cannot protest a patron’s perceived moral improprieties lest said patron patronizes the police to exact a pound-of-economic flesh (a thousand dollars) or a period of six months at the local Pen. Of all the visions that preeminently exemplifies the Coeur d’Alene area, why couldn’t the City Council bring themselves to embrace low crime rate, clean air, family values, or even great outdoor recreation? Instead, It declared to the world, “their” city is an enclave of bigotry that must be cleaned up!
How inviting those new city limits signs will be, “Welcome to Coeur d’Alene: All American Bigot City!” I must say though, for a hotbed of homophobes, religious zealots, and discriminating dingbats, the city has fared rather well! Please council members, just for the sake of satisfying our statistical needs, what empirical data was gleaned from local law enforcement, Idaho labor, the courthouse, Kootenai Medical, and even the morgue, and presented to you by the Human Rights Task Force, say, far the past 36 months, that unequivocally exposed Coeur d’Alene’s serious anti-gay eccentricities? Shouldn’t you have proved your policy’s position by publishing hard data, instead of engendering the transgender hype?
Here’s a novel Idea, maybe the council should have put their grand new policy idea on a referendum via the ballot box, allowing all the “critical thinking” citizens of the Lake City to vote on it. Maybe there’s a reason the State Legislature (as professional policy makers) hasn’t taken up the anti-discrimination issue. Could they be more privy to what makes good policy for all Idahoans? The problem with the “let’s bleed-the-freedom-bank-dry” special interest groups, (no matter of what ilk they are), is that they always resort to three predictable stratagems: rationalization, then justification, and finally, mollification. For those still interested in the “Freedom Bank’s” balance, its assets of time, energy, money and worthy causes are running on empty. Aren’t California’s disastrous experiments in pretentious “causes” example enough for Idaho municipalities of what not to epitomize? Pray tell, what prevents the council from redeeming this whole situation by just reconvening and reversing course, thus renewing trust in government “of the people, by the people, for the people?”
DAN COOPER
Post Falls