 |
 |
| Warn Software & Web Giants Violate U.S. Civil Rights |
| Compiled by GayToday
Washington, D.C. -- Companies that offer discriminatory tour packages that exclude gays or the disabled (among others), could be sued for possible civil rights violations, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a leading Internet and anti-discrimination legal expert.
Notice the definition of "couples"
An ACLU attorney told CNet yesterday that a sweepstakes that excludes protected classes of American citizens could "constitute a violation" of U.S. civil rights laws. And Christopher Wolf, an Internet and anti-discrimination specialist with Proskauer Rose LLP in Washington, D.C. told Wired Strategies today that a company offering a package tour to such destinations "raises a serious and legitimate issue under anti-discrimination laws."
In the fine print, the OVM site made clear that: "Sandals Luxury Resorts policies require male/female couples only". Archived images of the various sites mentioned in this release, and back press releases, are available at (http://www.wiredstrategies.com/resort.html). Public outrage widened when it became known that the majority of resorts under the Sandals name do not offer handicap-accessible rooms (according to detailed descriptions of the various resorts on the U.S. Airways Web site - e.g., http://www.usairwaysvacations.com/dest/isla/mbjhot.htm). This no-disabilities environment includes the Sandals Dunn's River resort featured in a Yahoo! sweepstakes discovered yesterday (Thursday). How Sandals sees themselves 
How we'd like to see them 
According to CNet (February 4, 1999), once the resort's controversial policies towards gays and people with disabilities became public, "Microsoft and Yahoo immediately sought to distance themselves from Sandals' discriminatory practices" (http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,31991,00.html). While the public relations disaster of appearing anti-gay and anti-disabled sunk in quickly for the software and Internet giants, Thursday night a second and larger shoe dropped. The ACLU, and Friday a top Internet and anti-discrimination lawyer, announced that gay Americans and people with disabilities could likely sue businesses that offer sweepstakes or tour packages to resorts that ban gays or are not reasonably handicap accessible. Art Spitzer, an attorney with the ACLU, told CNet that companies offering such sweepstakes could be sued under anti-discrimination laws. "It seems to me that if a company doing business in a jurisdiction that prohibits discrimination offers a sweepstakes that could be collected by women but not men, or men but not women, or blacks but not whites--it seems to me that that would constitute a violation," Spitzer told CNet. Attorney Wolf concurred in an interview today with Wired Strategies. When asked whether gays and lesbians could sue companies operating in the U.S. that offer sweepstakes to discriminatory resorts, Wolf said: "Offering prize premiums only to heterosexual couples raises serious issues of discrimination under various state and local human rights statutes. It certainly appears that someone could have a legitimate cause of action."
Another heterosexual-view of love from Sandals
Then Wolf issued a more dire warning. Even if no sweepstakes were involved, companies that offer tour packages to resorts that are not open to gays, or amenable to people with disabilities, could be sued--even if their only affiliation to the resort is simply having offered the discriminatory package. "I would think that offering products and services falls within the ambit of anti-discrimination statutes," Wolf said, "and if someone is excluded from taking advantage of tour packages because of their status then I think this raises a serious and legitimate issue under anti-discrimination laws." Wolf said the laws likely governing such a suit would be the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, and state and local human rights statues that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Ten US states and the District of Columbia prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, as do over 140 American cities. For a comprehensive list of those locales, see (http://www.hrc.org/issues/workplac/nd/ndjuris.html). Wolf is not new to high-profile discrimination cases --he successfully represented Master Chief Timothy McVeigh (no relation to the Oklahoma City bomber) in his online privacy case against AOL and the U.S. Navy last year. |
© 1997-99 BEI