David E. Berstein > Quotes

“the interest should not simply be important. Rather, that interest should be so vital that it would be virtually suicidal for society not to limit civil liberties in order to pursue it.1”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“The Desilets case is one of several in which unmarried heterosexual couples, hardly a beleaguered minority group, have charged religious landlords with discrimination for refusing to rent to them. Columnist George Will calls this ‘‘the latest twist in the trivialization of the ‘civil rights’ movement.’’10 In fact, as the Desilets case illustrates, these cases represent an even worse phenomenon—the use of antidiscrimination laws as a weapon in the ‘‘culture”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“We are in a world where artistic canons are devalued, and every opinion, no matter how biased or uninformed, is worth the same as every other....Inthe name of democracy, with the laudable goal of nondiscrimination, we end up bypassing excellence while propping up the mediocre and the bland.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“To maintain its large membership base, the ACLU recruits new members by directing mass mailings to mailing lists rented from a broad range of liberal groups.34 The result of the shift of the ACLU to a mass membership organization is that it is gradually transforming itself from a civil libertarian organization into a liberal organization with an interest in civil liberties.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“As Cornell University professor Jeremy Rabkin points out, the ACLU is ‘‘obsessed with due process, except when it comes to civil rights litigation, where they want no due process for the other side.’’5 ‘‘There’s a certain kind of logic to it,’’ Rabkin adds, ‘‘They genuinely think you’re in the path of social progress if you object. It’s not a personal comment on you; it’s that you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“Many people are shocked by the idea that any organization— even a pro-racism advocacy group—has a First Amendment right to indulge in race discrimination when necessary to further its message. Yet, as in many other contexts, protecting the First Amendment rights of unpopular, outrageous, and contemptible organizations will ultimately protect the rights of mainstream and forward-thinking organizations as well.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“The goal of Lattanzi, Tarail, and other cohabitating couples who sue religious landlords seems to have less to do with combating invidious discrimination—because unlike, say, African Americans in the 1960s, these couples can almost always find alternative housing quite easily—and more to do with trying to punish religious conservatives for refusing to accommodate liberal secular values. It is not so much a case of ‘‘you’ve prevented me from finding a place to live,’’ as it is a case of ‘‘you’ve acted in a politically incorrect way and now you’re going to pay.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“expansion of antidiscrimination laws, in turn, reflects a shift in the primary justification for such laws from the practical, relatively limited goal of redressing harms visited upon previously oppressed groups, especially African Americans, to a moralistic agenda aimed at eliminating all forms of invidious discrimination. Such an extraordinarily ambitious goal cannot possibly be achieved—or even vigorously pursued—without grave consequences for civil liberties.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“The American Civil Liberties Union has a well-earned public image as a stalwart defender of civil liberties, even when the rights in question conflict with extremely popular and seemingly important legislation. Unfortunately, however, the ACLU, bowing to intellectual trends in left-liberal circles, is increasingly willing to support the enforcement of antidiscrimination laws at the expense of civil liberties.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“Why does an organization purportedly devoted to civil liberties believe that the constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion should be trumped by antidiscrimination laws?”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“When the case was appealed to the state supreme court, three of the seven justices voted to affirm the lower court’s ruling. In dissent, they argued that ‘‘[n]either the court nor the Legislature can constitutionally give preference or priority to a so-called ‘right’ of cohabitation over the . . . guarantees of the free exercise of religion.’’7”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“in the 80-plus years since the end of World War I, Congress has not been able to summon the will to permanently abolish the mohair subsidies that were enacted to ensure fabric availability for World War I military uniforms.25 It hardly seems likely, then, that Congress would have the wherewithal to abolish entrenched censorship rules.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“The university capitulated, agreeing not only to stop censoring student materials but also, in a welcome twist on the usual forced sensitivity training ritual, to have its administration attend a lecture on the protection of freedom of speech afforded by the First Amendment.19”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“Chief Justice Rose Bird, concurring with the majority, wrote an opinion scoffing at the dissenters’ defense of pluralism, which she reduced to defending the right of ‘‘wealthy patrons who prefer to confer largess in a sexually discriminatory fashion.’’ Bird saw Ruth Mallery and people like her not as kindly philanthropists trying to aid society as best they know how, but as a contemptible ‘‘select few’’ who wish to be ‘‘insulated from the 20th century.’’ Bird’s intemperate opinion attacking an altruistic elderly widow became an issue in a reelection battle that ultimately cost Bird her seat on the state supreme court.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“Some civil libertarians have attempted to finesse the issue by redefining civil liberties to include protection from the discriminatory behavior of private parties. Under this view, conflicts between freedom of expression and antidiscrimination laws could be construed as clashes between competing civil liberties. For purposes of this book, however, civil liberties retains its traditional definition, referring to constitutional rights protected by the First Amendment and related constitutional provisions.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“In his history of the ACLU, Samuel Walker has argued that the ACLU is distinguished from other liberal organizations by its ‘‘skepticism of government power and a willingness to challenge extensions of that power justified in the name of social betterment.’’42 In the antidiscrimination context, however, the organization has increasingly become the voice of statism, not civil liberties.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“One of the more amusing manifestations of this disquiet is an episode of the animated series South Park . After a visit from the ‘‘Sexual Harassment Panda,’’ the children of South Park begin to sue each other for harassment over minor insults. Eventually, the children pursue deeper pockets, the school at which these insults take place. The school is bankrupted, while Kyle’s attorney father, who represents all of the plaintiffs, becomes wealthy. This leads to the following exchange: Father: You see, son, we live in a liberal democratic society. The Democrats [sic—it was a mostly Republican EEOC and Supreme Court] created sexual harassment law, which tells us what we can and cannot say in the workplace, and what we can and cannot do in the workplace. Kyle: But isn’t that fascism? Father: No, because we don’t call it fascism.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws

“Those who argue that purportedly illusory notions of freedom of speech should be sacrificed to equalitarian commitments that are based on notions at least as delusive cannot possibly explain why.”
― David E. Berstein, You Can't Say That!: The Growing Threat to Civil Liberties from Antidiscrimination Laws