My article is in response to the article by Bryan Burwell of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. His article can be found here:

http://www.stltoday.com/sports (sorry a/b no full link...the PD has awful links that are a mile long)

Bryan Burwell said:
"Johnson and all his silent partners at Augusta National are living in an
unenlightened time warp where gender discrimination is an accepted fact of
private life."

DISCRIMINATION ISN'T A BAD WORD

Look, Bryan, this is silly. Why on Earth you are interested in running the lives of every American to the extent that you think guys having a 'night-out' from the girls is a weighty social issue that requires laws and some such is beyond me. Exactly what is 'enlightened' about the kind of rationality that gives us unisex bathrooms? The next time I'm out with the guys, I'll be sure to make sure our group is reflective of the proportions in America...wouldn't want to do any 'discriminating' that might run afoul of enlightenment. I've got news for you (that shouldn't be news...you not being caught in a time warp and all), discrimination isn't BAD. In fact, I suspect you, like most folks, are a very hearty discriminator. You discriminate on a whole host of criteria in your friends, your relationships, your employeers, in even your casual aquaintances. And there's nothing wrong with that.

As for 'gender' discrimination, we once again have the failed reasoning of the 60's (talk about a time warp) that attempts to equate gender (where real distinctions exist) with arbitrary classifications like race. But ya know what, when it comes down to it, it really doesn't matter if gender is a 'good' or 'bad' criteria to 'discriminate' with (the Unisex Scouts?), becuase it's just none of your or my damn business. Get your nose out of other folks' private lives and let them do their discriminatin' on their own. I bet they'll have no problem agreeing not to involve themselves in whatever criteria you use for your own discrimination.

And there's nothing Neaderthalic about seperating men from the women, buddy. To deny that guys get a benefit from having time just to
hang out with the guys (and the same goes for the gals as well) is to at once blur the stance against really outrageous (from a morality
standpoint) discrimination and exempt us from reality. It's not just the principle that folks should be able to congregate as they choose with out snooty folks interfering with em. It's not just that it's Constitutional. It's not just the hypocrisy of feminists groups (who's leadership is just as stratified in terms of gender as Augusta National...and I say more power to em!). Even if none of that were at issue, the fact would still remain that it is good, for us social animals called homo sapiens, to congregate with the fellas.

The reason, Bryan, that the issue has gone off where you don't like it is because your still living in the time warp of the 60's - 80's...where the charge of discrimination had not been watered down and its potency was such that folks would ignore rationality in favor of political correctness. Well, the times they are a changin. That wolf has been trotted out too many times, and that dog just won't hunt anymore. We *aren't* a country divided on Augusta....though such would likely have been an improvement over what might have a occured a few decades ago. No, we've progressed further than that. Not only do regular folks have difficulty seeing how letting a few rich women in to a club of a bunch of rich white men is something they should worry about...but they also happen to *agree* with those rich white men when they say *they* should control their membership. *They* should set the standards. It resonates with basic notions of freedom. And furthermore, folks just don't see a problem, in their daily lives, with letting boys choose to hang out with boys (I bet you'd have been outside the clubhouse protesting the 'He-man Woman Hater's Club')...and letting the girls choose to hang out with their girlfriends. It's OK Bryan. Trust me. The world won't end. It isn't a step back towards Jim Crow. It isn't a compromise of some great principle like tolerance. It really is good for em. And it is good for the nation that they haven't bought in to this media-hyped picayune fight over a pitiance of an issue. And the fact that it IS a pitiance of an issue is progress in and of itself.

D.GOOCH