Free Republic

I am not the woman referenced, don’t even know her. I’m just an informed reader seeing ignorance and intolerance.

Only a person that is not disabled and cannot envision him or herself nor any of their loved ones being disabled would oppose ADA legislation. I’ve seen what bombs and bullets do to a person, and I imagined what my life would be like after a permanent disabling injury... there is the basis of my anger on this issue. Call it an overactive imagination if you like, or use it as a frame of reference for doing the right thing...

The current state of affairs in the US is that the ADA is one of the most unenforced pieces of legislation in the US because it so often falls into the “too hard to do” category. Taking down “whites only” signs was easy, desegregating schools was easy, allowing women to vote was easy...building a ramp or widening a doorway is too hard to do...even in 19 years.

The ADA is almost 19 years old... For a business anywhere in the US that was functioning to have not made changes to be compliant in the last 18 years means that: a) they are willfully breaking the law, or b) haven’t turned a profit in that time frame (highly unlikely). A business that has started up in the intervening years is negligent for not knowing the law and being compliant, and any agency that grants them a license to do business is likewise negligent from enforcing the law.

This isn’t about the Gettysburg Community or their ignorance. They are just facing one tenacious person that is willing to stand up for her rights in a way that is unsettling to them. This is a National problem that needs to be addressed, and more tenacious people like her are needed to change attitudes.

I have spent the past seventeen years of my life serving this nation in uniform...like all the male members of my family have since we arrived in this country. And for all of the sacrifices we have made for the rights and liberties of our fellow countrymen, sometimes I feel it is all for naught, because they just don't get what America is all about.

For businesses of Gettysburg, the place where the high tide of the Confederacy began to ebb, the place where arguably the civil rights movement began, and where the ideals of inclusion that were written about in the preamble to our constitution were reinforced by the emancipation proclamation, to be resistant to the ideals of inclusion and failing to uphold the Americans with Disabilities Act is disgraceful. They render themselves to the level of a cheap tourist trap, parasitically earning a buck off of the people that come to visit those hallowed battlefields.

Disabled people want the same access that any able bodied person wants, the same level of dignity. To date this woman has made no personal gain from this; no punitive damages have been awarded to her...she is simply asking for the right thing to be done, to be treated like a citizen, and an equal human being as the rest of us.

That a disabled veteran cannot enter these places infuriates me as a veteran. I would think that in a time of economic downturn, that a business would be willing to do what it takes to maximize the number of patrons that could enter and spend at its establishment. That a small business can accept low interest government loans and not be forced to comply with all laws like the ADA is certainly curious.

I would echo many of the comments posted; pathetic and disgusting...shame on the Gettysburg community.