She’s still got it
by digby
Phyllis Schlafly that is. She filed an amicus brief in the pregnancy discrimination suit argued before the Supreme Court this week. (The issue was whether UPS could put a pregnant woman on unpaid leave and take away her health insurance while accommodating people with other temporary health issues by giving them non-strenuous tasks.)
Anyhow, this is what Schlafly’s organization the Eagle Forum said:
As with many well-meaning efforts at social engineering, Young’s reading of PDA would harm not only the intended beneficiaries but also coworkers (who must support the beneficiaries) and economic competitors (who are disadvantaged by the bestowing of preferential treatment on others).
I was going to snark about this but Kaili Joy Gray at Gawker did it so masterfully that I knew I couldn’t compete:
In other words, the PDA itself is a terrible thing because “social engineering.” That’s conservative speak for Big Government getting in the way of straight white Christian men who own property making all the rules, as Thomas Jesus Jefferson intended. And SCOTUS forbid, if employers are forced to start accommodating pregnant persons who happen to be women who have temporary restrictions on the work they can perform the same way they already accommodate other non-pregnant persons who have far better excuses for needing accommodations, how fair would that be? Un! It would be so unfair, even though accommodating not-pregnant employees is somehow not unfair, but that is different because it is different so there. Besides, accommodating Ms. Young’s request that she be assigned other duties during the course of her pregnancy would — and brace yourselves, this is utterly THE WORST — “forc[e] her predominantly male coworkers — who support their own spouses and children — to do the heavy lifting.” Won’t someone PLEASE think of the men even more?