I don't smoke, but hatred of smokers has gone beyond over the top

[jpgray]

I can understand not wanting to experience secondhand smoke. In government buildings, public transportation and other similar inclosed areas of assembly a ban is entirely reasonable. However, I think banning smoking in -all- restaurants is beyond absurd. Establishments should absolutely be free to choose whether or not to allow smoking. If you don't like to experience smoke, you can go to a restaurant/bar where there is none. If you do smoke, you are free to go to an establishment which allows it. If you are a waiter/bartender, don't apply to places that allow smoking. It's simple enough, and provides a choice for everyone, rather than a purposed destruction of one irrationally despised minority's rights.

As for the "your life choice affects my health, therefore I ban it" argument, I don't think you want to go down that road. The beef industry negatively impacts this nation's physical and environmental health on a large scale, even for those who choose not to eat beef--important pharmalogical/biological resources in the rainforests of South and Central America are destroyed every day to provide grazing lands, and the impact of mass-produced cattle on the atmosphere is not at all pleasant. Those who buy SUVs for city driving are actively damaging the environment, and the health of surrounding pedestrians / commuters on a far greater scale than those who drive fuel-efficient vehicles more suited to the environment. But since neither beef-eaters nor SUV-drivers are a despised minority that is very rewarding to bully with legislation, bans or regulations on those two socially destructive behaviors will never happen.

Now ask yourself why you feel that the behavior of smoking can be banned, when other "life choices" that cause far more damage to those who do not partake are allowed to continue. And then realize it's because smokers are a despised minority, and fun for small-minded people to pick on legislatively and feel superior to. And then realize the rightwing uses homosexuals in the exact same way--"they could hurt my kids, I'm not gay myself and I don't know any gays anyway, &c." Legislative bullying of a disliked minority is offensive to me in any context, and I'm surprised so many supposed "progressives" don't appear to feel the same way.

Please note: I am comparing the way homosexuals and smokers are used POLITICALLY, not saying that gays = smokers or that their struggles are in any way similar. I'm just saying that it's politically easy to pick on a minority that some people irrationally dislike and/or wish to have no contact with. It's the phenomenon of "I'm not one, and I believe it hurts society, therefore I will ban it" that I see as similar.