Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Opinion: When Two Rights Make a Wrong

Interesting opinion piece on AOL News by Charles Redner, the author of "Down But Never Out," a biography of middleweight boxing champion Joey Giardello and his son Carman, born with Down syndrome.

Can two "rights" make a wrong?
When President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans With Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990, it probably wasn't apparent that the law prohibiting discrimination against some 43 million Americans who have a physical or mental disability would clash with minimum wage laws.
However unintentional, it does.
Jack Scholnick, a Rio Rico, Ariz., resident and father of a daughter born with Down syndrome was angry -- angry enough to begin writing another newspaper op-ed. Jack is a tyrant when it comes to advocacy for the disabled. What had his blood boiling this time was the fact that an Arizona firm didn't want to pay disabled employees minimum wage as prescribed by both federal and state law.
What Jack failed to consider was that the jobs held by these disabled citizens are often more important to them than any wage consideration.

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