THE “LAWS OF REASON” AND THE SURPRISE OF THE NATURAL LAW

Abstract

The city of Cincinnati, we know, can be an engaging place, but federal judge Arthur Spiegel also found, in the mid-'90s, that it could be quite a vexing place. The city council of Cincinnati had passed what was called the Human Rights Ordinance of 1992, which barred virtually all species of discrimination—including discrimination on the basis of “Appalachian origin.” But the bill also encompassed a bar on discrimination based on “sexual orientation.” This kind of bill, in other places, had been turned into a club to be used against evangelical Christians who might refuse, on moral grounds, to rent space in their homes to gay or lesbian couples. And so a movement arose in Cincinnati, modeled on a similar movement in Colorado, to override the ordinance passed by the council: this would not be a referendum merely to repeal the law, but a move to amend the charter of the municipal government and remove, from the hands of the local legislature, the authority to pass bills of this kind. In effect, this was an attempt to override an ordinary statute by changing the constitution of the local government. The amendment did not seek to make homosexual acts the grounds for criminal prosecutions; it sought, rather, to bar any attempt to make gay and lesbian orientation the ground for special advantages, quotas, or preferential “minority status” in the law. The framers of the amendment objected to the tendency to treat gays and lesbians on the same plane as groups that have suffered discrimination based on race, religion, or gender. The proposal, known as Issue 3, drew wide support and passed in a referendum in 1993. It was, of course, challenged in the courts, which is why it found its way into the hands of Judge Spiegel.