By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
What ever happened to supply and demand? Well, if you run an ice rink, you can't worry about that any longer when divvying up ice time.
Unless you want the ACLU on your tail.
The Michigan ACLU is investigating an ice rink owned and operated by the Detroit suburb of Plymouth, claiming that when it cut a skating program to accommodate hockey teams, it discriminated against girls in favor of boys.
Yes, this--in addition to fighting on behalf of Islamic terrorists--is what parades as "civil rights," these days.
New ACLU "Civil Rights": Them . . .
Versus Them . . .
The fact is that more people--men and women--are interested in playing hockey than are interested in figure skating. Yes, there was a blip of higher interest in the gaudy-costumed, gliding form of boredom, a decade ago, when Tonya and Nancy were feuding. But that's dissipated.
And I'm just not sure what these liberals want. When far fewer girls were interested in masculine sports like hockey, they pushed girls to don the pads and hold the sticks and play (even though it hasn't changed that no-one cares who wins the Olympic Women's Hockey event). Now that more women are acting like men and playing hockey, they suddenly think there should be more of the feminine figure skating (maybe so they can encourage more effeminate guys to take part).
Now, the ACLU wants to impose artificial constraints, rather than economics and level of interest, to pick winners and losers in sports. Hardly the American way.
In the struggling Michigan economy, canceling the figure skating program and giving more ice time to hockey will generate more than double the $32,200 revenue the skating rink generates for the city. Hockey teams can afford it. Figure skating programs can't.
In a free market, parents who want their daughters (and girlie-boys) to learn to figure skate can surely find another rink which caters to that interest and provides the ice time. I'm not exactly worried about America losing the chintz-on-ice race to Bin Laden. Are you?
But who cares about economics, when finding a non-existent discrimination issue is more important?
And since they're so interested about alleged gender discrimination, where is the ACLU and its lawyers when it comes to college and grad school admissions, overwhelmingly female? Strictly crickets chirping.
The ACLU--protecting Islamic terrorists and female figure skaters. Great service to America.
**** UPDATE, 06/17/08: Reader/Blogger Howard of Oraculations writes:
Two kids involved in kids hockey. The owners of ice rinks around here were all throwing in the towel because they had no revenue. "Somebody??" did a financial analysis and came to the conclusion that without hockey no ice rink could remain solvent, much less make a profit. Result? At least around here, the hockey ice time is sold out on a 24-7 basis. The resulting time for the rich only white girls (every lesson is individual one on one and when you put in ice time plus instruction it comes to huge money per individual) while sold out, the number of girls on the ice at any one time is four and sometimes less. Recreational ice time for everyone to skate is now crowded but open only three hours per day per two rink facility, and even this time is expensive as hell.
This is typical ACLU posturing for rich liberals, and rich liberals only.