A Stitch in Haste

Once again I have made the mistake of blogging about a news item before it became fashionable. In this instance it was noting the decision by a federal district court ordering the Treasury Department to alter U.S. currency to accommodate the visually impaired.

Well, now that a federal circuit court has upheld that decision, suddenly everybody is uppity about it.

The circuit court opinion, which concerned the procedural question of whether an interlocutory appeal was appropriate, adds very little to the substantive analysis. So I will simply repost my original analysis, originally published 30 November 2006, titled "Blind to the Comparison.

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By now you have heard that a federal judge, interpreting a federal statute, has declared that United States currency does not adequately account for the needs of the blind and has ordered the U.S. Treasury to redesign, at not insignificant expense, our entire paper money system to redress this deficiency. The consensus at this point is that the optimal, or least sub-optimal, solution would be to have different denominations in different sizes, as many other countries do. There is also widespread belief that Congress may simply amend the statute to render the judge's decision moot.

First of all, this is not the forum for libertarian whinings about fiat money and the gold standard — see this post. Neither will I fisk the judge's decision itself or prophesy about its future on appeal or in Congress.

My thesis here is to note that I have yet to see anyone draw the quite obvious comparison to the broad question of gay rights, and the specific question of same-sex marriage:

--The blind are, with all due respect, a puny minority in America. There are far more gays than blind people. (Note: The litigation was also filed on behalf of the legally blind and other "low-vision" individuals — still only about three million Americans in total. There are easily 20-30 million gays in America.)

--Being blind is an accident of birth or circumstance. Just as no one "chooses" to be gay, no one "chooses" to be blind. Similarly, just as no one asks "When did you choose to be blind?" so too should they not ask "When did you choose to be gay?"

--The "right" at issue over the blind's access to paper money is purely one of statute; there is no great constitutional debate here. Gay rights, on the other hand, are profoundly constitutional in nature — they go to core questions of unenumerated rights, due process, equal protection, privileges and immunities, full faith & credit and other constitutional dictates. Yet while the propriety of the "blind money" decision is being questioned and challenged, no one is as indignant about this "newly invented right" or this "activist judge" as they get about gay rights or same-sex marriage, which are far more solidly anchored in our legal system and therefore ought to be less controversial and less viciously opposed. The fact that this is not the case demonstrates that something else — something less worthy — underlies the opposition to equal treatment for gays.

--The judge in the paper money case seemed to have focused only on the cost to the government (and therefore taxpayers) of redesigning our currency, and he decided (perhaps somewhat flippantly) that a 10% increase in cost was de minimis. But of course there will be additional costs in the private sector. Vending machines, cash registers and similar equipment (even wallets) would all have to retrofitted or replaced — hardly a costless proposition. And of course each and every American would have to "get used" to the new money. Hard to quantify, but a genuine cost nonetheless (cf., Britain's decimalization in 1971 or the U.S. debate over "going metric" in the 1970s). The cost of allowing same-sex marriage, by contrast, is — well, nil (except for the bigots, who must bear the "cost" of seeing their bigotry frustrated). So incurring real cost to help the blind is "reasonable;" incurring no real cost to help gays is "the ruination of America." Go figure.

So to review: A far smaller minority than gays, relying on a statutory right rather than on core constitutional principles, is entitled to have the entire United States currency system redesigned, and all other Americans burdened, based on one judge's interpretation of the law. Gays, meanwhile, get little more than crumbs and vinegar wherever they turn.

You'd have to be blind not to see the injustice.

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For Discussion: We are all familiar with the "special exemption" the blind receive on their federal income tax returns. Why only the blind, other than the Politics of Pull? Background here.

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The case is American Council of the Blind v. Paulson, No. 02-0864 (D.C. Cir., May 20, 2008) (PDF - 38 pages). The statute at issue is the "Rehabilitation Act," 29 USC 794, Sec. 504.