Hi folks,
I found this one during my search this morning.
I'm still trying to get my heart rate and blood pressure to
come down. It's amazing to me that some people still think this way.

http://www.aynrand.org/medialink/op-eds/martin_case.txt
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SHAME ON CASEY MARTIN
Disabled Golfer Asks Supreme Court to OK His Forced Entry into Tournaments,
via Law
That Penalizes the Able

By Thomas A. Bowden

When a supporter of Tonya Harding attacked Olympic skating rival Nancy
Kerrigan
back in 1994, clubbing Kerrigan's right knee and leaving her writhing in
pain, the
legal system sprang to the victim's defense. The attacker was caught and
punished
for his disgraceful attempt to eliminate a superior competitor through brute
force.

But now, seven years later, as golfer Casey Martin appears before the
Supreme
Court asking approval for his own forced elimination of superior rivals, the
legal
system appears poised to punish the victims and reward the attacker. This
sad
reversal is made possible by a federal statute that penalizes ability in the
name
of helping the disabled.

Casey Martin is a talented golfer whose rare circulation disorder prevents
him from walking the length of a golf course. This handicap disqualifies him
from
competing in events run by the PGA Tour, a private organization whose rules
require
each athlete to walk from shot to shot.

Golf is a game of extreme precision. Tiny variations in the swing of a club
determine whether a shot lands on the green or in a sand trap, whether a
tricky
putt falls in or rims out. Only golfers with great stamina can maintain this
precise control while fighting the fatigue that sets in after walking many
miles,
sometimes over rough terrain, and standing for many hours. The PGA's rules
require
and reward such stamina.

But instead of gracefully accepting his inability to beat able-bodied
opponents under the rules of an organization he voluntarily joined, Martin
chose to
force his way into PGA competition by invoking the Americans With
Disabilities Act,
a law requiring "reasonable modifications" to accommodate the handicapped.
At
Martin's request, a federal court forced the PGA Tour to change its rules
and let
Martin ride in a motorized cart, while everyone else walked.

If the Supreme Court rules in Martin's favor, as seems likely, it will
probably not even pause to identify the innocent victims of such a decision.
The
first victim is the PGA Tour, which should have an absolute right to set its
own
rules for its own tournaments. The next victims are the spectators, who want
to see
professional golf played at its highest level, in PGA competitions winnable
only by
the ablest athletes.

And there is yet another victim, nameless but equally deserving of
sympathy--
the able-bodied golfer who is cut from the tournament to make room for
Martin, and
who is expected to pick up his broken dreams and go quietly home. No
newspaper
photographs will show the pain in this man's face, the way they showed Nancy
Kerrigan's anguish after she was assaulted, but one can imagine his torment
at the
injustice of being penalized simply for having abilities that another man
lacks.

The legal and moral principles at stake here extend far beyond the realm of
spectator sports.

Under the ADA, which was designed by disability advocates who resentfully
describe healthy people as "temporarily abled," no employers may simply fire
disabled employees--or even hire able ones--so long as "reasonable
accommodations"
might help the handicapped compete. The list of bureaucratically required
accommodations, from wheelchair ramps to sign-language interpreters, is
endless--
and all at the employer's expense.

In a recent case, a Pennsylvania elementary school fired a psychotic
secretary who missed deadlines, forgot to deliver messages, and couldn't
cope with
rearranged furniture. When she sued under the ADA, a federal court ruled
that
instead of firing her, the school should have engaged in an "informal
interactive
process" to identify "reasonable accommodations"--such as slowing down the
rate of
change in the office.

The ADA's backers count on decent people to support the statute as a
sympathetic expression of benevolence. But genuine benevolence toward the
disabled
is possible only through voluntary good will; it cannot be achieved by
coercion,
which results in punishing the able.

This last point would be more obvious if the government were simply handing
Casey Martin a baseball bat and letting him take a swing at Tiger Woods's
knee. Yet
the ADA achieves the same end through government force, penalizing mentally
and
physically superior candidates by making it illegal for employers and other
organizations to prefer them over the disabled.

In a rational society, everyone's life and happiness depend upon finding and
rewarding the very best people--the best athletes, the best teachers, the
best
surgeons. To recognize this simple fact is to see why the Americans with
Disabilities Act must be repealed--and why Casey Martin deserves to lose his
case.

Thomas A. Bowden practices law in Baltimore, Maryland, and is a senior
writer for
the Ayn Rand Institute in Marina del Rey, Calif. http://www.aynrand.org The
Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and
The
Fountainhead.

THE AYN RAND INSTITUTE
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Marina del Rey, CA 90292
Phone: 310.306-9232 x224    TEAR SHEET REQUESTED
Fax: 310.306-4925
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Contact: Jason Sagall

This Op-Ed and a photo of Thomas A. Bowden can be found at:
www.aynrand.org/medialink/martin_case.shtml
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