While I may disagree with this opinion, I defend to the death any person's
right to make a complete --hole of himself.

John Gardner

At 09:59 AM 1/11/01 -0800, you wrote:
>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
>---Original Text Follows---
>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
>4640 Admiralty Way, Suite 406
>Marina del Rey, CA 90292
>Phone: 310.306-9232 x224    TEAR SHEET REQUESTED
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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
>---End of Article---

John Gardner
Professor and Director, Science Access Project
Department of Physics
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR 97331-6507
tel: (541) 737 3278
FAX: (541) 737 1683
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
URL: http://dots.physics.orst.edu