So - if this is the general concensus as to disabilities, it may be time for me to leave DU. [View all]

[Ms. Toad]

In a thread on disruptions by a special needs child (suggesting a restaurant was right to exclude the child), I posed the question about whether my friend, an adult with CP whose vocalizations would be as "disruptive" as those attributed to the child, should also be treated as misbehaving and excluded. (My friend is a married man, who might occasionally want to go out for a romantic restaurant for a special evening with his wife - but he is unable to control the volume of his communications, so they are louder than is considered "polite" ).

Two out of three who responded said my friend should be excluded from the restaurant because he would spoil the romantic evening for others. The third changed the scenario to a movie and suggested that he should be excluded from the movie because his vocalizations (or those - for example - of someone with Tourette's that might be more spontaneous than my friend's) might disturb others. Not a single person said my friend should be allowed to enjoy a romantic dinner with his wife even though his vocalizations might make others uncomfortable.

To be clear, none of these exclusions are legal under the ADA. But that technicality aside - if the general concensus of DU is that people with disabilities that make others' experiences in places of public accommodations less pleasant should be excluded, DU is no longer a place with which I am compatible.

Here, NOTHING in any of the reports suggested the child was misbehaving. Because of that I was sure that once I reframed the situation to an adult with disabilities, those who just don't think children belong in sit-down restaurants would recognize how they sounded when they suggested that misbehaving children (whose "misbehaviors" are really disabilities) should be excluded would recognize the difference between disabilities and misbehavior. I was wrong.

DU is already uncomfortable enough for me, given the pretty blatant homophobia that masquerades as "anything goes against Trump/Republicans" ).

Frankly, I really thought with this question I was asking a question similar to the one I asked back in the 70s of superintendents of public schools in Nebraska, "If you had two equally qualified candidates for a physics or math position, one male and one female, which one would you hire?" I really didn't expect - even in that era, in that geographic location - that anyone would admit to preference for men. I was wrong - approximately half did. I was equally appalled to find that 3 of 3 DUers who responded apparently believe that people with disabilitiies that make others uncomfortable are better - like children - seen, but not heard. Or - perhaps - not even seen.

So I'm just curious as to whether these opinions are outliers, or has DU really moved to a point that the consensus is that people with disabilities that make other uncomfortable should be excluded from - for lack of a better phrase - "polite society"?