Why Is It That We, As A Country, Feel The Need To Address Civil And Legal Rights Piecemeal? Black Rights, Gay Rights,

[Kun]

women's rights, transgender rights. Why can we not grow up and have one standard, a unified civil/legal rights decree without exception?

[Morain]

Because if we did it all in one bite I don't think the general public could digest it.   rhine44 35 months ago

[Valdemar]

And the nudists? Can we end discrimination against them as well?   PamPerdue 35 months ago

[Vardan]

It's not that "have been denied to those people." "Those people" didn't exist as a "people."   danielpauldavis 35 months ago

[Jael]

because there will always be squabbles about whether a person's particular characteristic is a part of their person, or a behavior.look how hard it was with genetic gender and race; which are obviously beyond the person's control. now on all the newer issues, there has to be a decision whether it is a characteristic that is sufficiently beyond the person's control to merit granting rights for; and what the nature of those rights should be.   TheLightWorks 35 months ago

[Gared]

Probably because throughout our history those rights(racial rights, women?s rights, transgender rights, sexual orientation rights, etc.) have been denied to those people. And as we grow morally as a society, these mistakes of ours come to our attention "piecemeal", and are thus corrected in a piecemeal fashion.Society evolves in a similar fashion to biological evolution?for example a mutant has no effect on our species for many many generations. So too does the recognition of moral obligation affect the mores of Society?.slowly.   Geppetto 35 months ago

[Cinneididh]

The rights are granted piecemeal because the discrimination is done piecemeal.The sets of rights you outline are even more piecemeal than it might appear at first. Women had to be granted the right to vote, but black people already had them. Civil rights legislation wasn't about the right to vote but about ensuring that they could exercise it, to counter a discrimination exercised explicitly against them. Gays seek the right to marry each other and serve in the army, not vote, and I'm not sure what kind of "transgender rights" you're seeking that they don't already have.The discrimination happens in many different ways, and there are ways in which a large majority wants the discrimination. There is substantial opposition to plural marriage, to mixed-gender bathrooms, and to women in combat. As long as different groups are discriminated against differently, you'll need different kinds of legislation to correct it.   PamPerdue 35 months ago

[Berke]

Things we take for granted now were not even considered then. Thus, we have two ways of addressing cultural changes: treat our U.S. Constitution as a "living" document and read our wants into it or treat it as a set-in-stone law and write other laws to meet these new concerns. Whichever is more difficult . . . we should expect folks to do the other. So whatever inefficient method you see being used now, it's being used now because the option is worse.   danielpauldavis 35 months ago