Chuck Woolery is an idiot...or is he?

For people of a certain age, a sickday from school wasn't complete unless one watched the latest episode of "Love Connection." "Love Connection" was, compared to today's reality television, a naive show that hooked people up on blind dates and then had one of them sit down and discuss the date with the show's genial host Chuck Woolery. Mr. Woolery was also the original host of "Wheel of Fortune" as well as other game shows.

If you have ever wondered if Mr. Woolery is an idiot, the Huffington Post may have your answer.
According to the Huffington Post story, Mr. Woolery attended the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington last month. When asked about the recent 9th Circuit decision affirming the overturning of Proposition 8, Mr. Woolery evidentily responded that gay people don't need civil rights and neither do African Americans. To quote the article,

"Majority rules," he said, dismissing the idea that minorities need protections. "We were born with natural rights. We don't need civil rights. [African-Americans] don't need civil rights. They don't need them. They have inalienable rights granted by God in the Constitution. I mean, I'm discriminated against all the time. I don't care. It doesn't bother me. [I'm discriminated against] because I'm old. I'm too old to get a job as a game show host. They say, well, the guy's 71 and in five years he'll be 76. And I’m a one per center, and I'm absolutely discriminated against as a one per center."

It's difficult to ascertain what Mr. Woolery means. I assume that the reason that Mr. Woolery isn't bothered by the discrimination he suffers because he is a "one per center" i.e., very wealthy. I don't know, but I assume being rich takes the sting out off all sort so problems. Contra The Notorious B.I.G., "MO Money Mo Problems." He also says that gays, African Americans, and other minorities don't need civil rights because they have the rights granted by God in the Constitution. Let's set aside the issue of who granted the rights in the Constitution (which doesn't mention God and wasn't driectly authored by God, unless God is actually James Madison. If God was James Madison, why was He such a bad president?) Let's also set aside whether the rights in the Constitution are "inalienable" as that word doesn't appear in the Constitution (although the word "unalienable" does appear in the Declaration of Independence).

Mr. Woolery seems to be saying because minority members have, for example, a right of free speech, they do not need protection against discrimination in housing or employment.  Does this make sense?  I suppose it depends on how one defines need and Mr. Woolery does not define the term.

The right to free speech includes the right to petition the government.  One example of petitioning the government would be The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination illegal in a variety of contexts such as employment and public accommodations.  So in that sense, Mr. Woolery would be correct in saying that civil rights are unnecessary because the First Amendment allows for the creation of Civil Rights.  However, Mr. Woolery clearly doesn't agree with this analysis because he is saying that the current civil rights laws (which were the product of the exercise of rights found in the Constitution) are unnecessary.  Yet the laws exist precisely because they were necessary.

This discussion of free speech reminds me that Mr. Woolery has a right to express his opinion.  But I think the answer to the question posed in the title to this post is fairly obvious.