From NBC Augusta News in Augusta, Georgia:

Corey Johnson, a commissioner in Georgia’s Richmond County, is questioning whether two people with intellectual disabilities should be allowed to live on their own. He said neighborhoods should be warned before people with intellectual disabilities move in.

“I find it disturbing if you have two people that are somewhat, you know, mentally retarded who are living together. It’s like having two blind people living in a house together. How one is going to show the other one how to maneuver, how to get around?” he said. Johnson called for regulations and said he wanted a board committee to study the matter.

Another county commissioner disagreed, saying Johnson’s comments were discriminatory. “We need to make accommodations for people who are probably  the most discriminated against group in America, and that’s people with disabilities,” said Commissioner Joe Bowles.

The heated debate followed a complaint from the head of a neighborhood association about two renters. Homeowner Isaac Miller told reporters the renters do not cause problems. “They are just a little slow, that’s all,” he said. “I really don’t understand what the problem is.”

“People with disabilities have the right just like you and I do to live where they choose and to be supported as they need to be,” said Estelle Muherin Duncan of Serenity Behavioral Health Systems, a group that provides services to people with disabilities.

(NBC Augusta photo. Video available)

Writing in the [UK] Guardian, Peter V. Berns says the portrayal of a person with an intellectual disability in the film “Tropic Thunder” is offensive and shouldn’t be tolerated.

He says the use of the word “retard” and other insulting language in the film could spark abuse, bullying and violence against people with intellectual disabilities. An excerpt:

The oppressive power of these words has deep resonance for individuals with intellectual disabilities and for the disability rights movement. In the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, the use of the R-word in this film represents a serious setback. The portrayal of this character sends a clear message to the audience that the lives of people with intellectual disabilities are worth less and that it is acceptable to degrade and dehumanise them.

The history of people with intellectual disabilities in the U.S. evokes a dark time when these individuals suffered institutionalization, forced sterilization, segregation and other abuses. While the U.S. has made monumental strides toward including people with disabilities in the community, further progress will only be made if we speak out against bigotry, mistreatment and disrespect wherever we see it.

… We invite our colleagues in the disability rights movement, worldwide, to stand together and work to educate, inform and inspire people of conscience. Critics may try to dismiss our criticism as just some kind of politically correct talk, but that rejoinder is far too simplistic in the face of the suffering people with intellectual disabilities have experienced in their lives and throughout history. Individuals with disabilities should enjoy human rights on an equal basis with others without stigmatization, discrimination or prejudice. It is they who define themselves.

Peter V. Berns is the executive director of The Arc of the United States, the world’s largest community-based organization of and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

From Marketwatch.com, Fox Business:

The head of the Arc of the United States called on Ben Stiller to meet with people with intellectual disabilities and their families about “Tropic Thunder,” and to engage in “an honest and open dialogue about the offense this film perpetrates on them.”

Peter V. Berns, the group’s executive director, also called on Stiller to apologize for the harm he had caused with negative image and what he termed “hate speech” in the film. He urged people to stay away from the film and instead join the Arc’s national Rally for Respect campaign.

(includes the text of the letter from Berns to Stiller)

In other news, at least two Internet petitions have gotten under way.

The American Association of People with Disabilities has started a petition calling on the entertainment industry to “remedy the harm that is being done by ‘Tropic Thunder’ and to model respect for people with disabilities through our inclusion in employment in the industry and in all aspects of the creative process that creates films and television shows we love so much.” At last count, it had gathered 607 signatures.

An independent petition seeking an apology from Stiller has been launched at ipetitions.com. It’s now at 3,079 signatures.

From the Baltimore Sun:

Dozens of blind students and adults were permitted to skate without restrictions yesterday at a North Baltimore skating rink after meeting with the rink manager who had earlier sought to restrict their access. A group of the students had come the previous evening and said they were turned away because of their disabilities.

Rink manager Jackie Eliasberg denied turning them away, but said she preferred that the group stay in a separate section because of concerns about the safety of other skaters. She said she relented because she had no choice under Maryland’s White Cane law, which provides for equal access to public places.

Parents of some nondisabled skaters were unhappy at the resolution of the dispute and said it put their children at risk.

“It’s very hazardous,” said Kimberly Sachs of Baltimore. “I don’t think you should put civil rights above safety. You want to make a point, and that’s great. But sometimes you can go too far. And what about the civil rights of the other skaters?”

From the Baltimore Sun:

A group of fourteen blind students and five adults complained yesterday that they were not allowed to skate freely at a North Baltimore ice rink because of their disabilities.

Police were called to mediate the dispute, and no arrests were made. The students were participating in a summer residential program sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind.

A spokeswoman for the Northwest Ice Rink denied that the group had been barred from the rink, but said she had proposed that they be separated from other skaters in a section that was cordoned off.

Rosy Carranza, one of the group’s leaders, said the students refused their own section of the rink and want to mingle with other skaters, using canes to alert others of their disability. “Our program is here to teach self-dependency,” Carranza said. “How would they feel if we were roped off in our own area — the blind area?”

From Disability Now:

Stephen Fry, a prominent UK writer, actor and television personality, says people with mental health problems should develop a sense of pride to help banish public stigma. Fry, who has bipolar disorder, draws parallels to the civil rights and gay rights movements.

“Once that pride is there, once we all stand up and account for ourselves and not be ashamed of ourselves, then it makes the rest of the population realize two things,” he said in an interview. “One, that we are just them but with something extra. And two, how close we are.”

… “It’s actually necessary for our gene pool to have some people in it who are just not normal. It is an immense privilege to belong to a group of people who are not normal.”

From the Associated Press:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain told disability advocates Saturday that he intends to support a proposal to strengthen protections for people with disabilities under the ADA.

“We must clarify the definition of a disability to assure full protection for those the law is intended to serve,” said McCain, speaking by satellite to a national disabilities forum in Columbus, Ohio, on the 18th anniversary of the signing of the ADA.

Since the passage of the landmark civil rights law, the Supreme Court has generally exempted from the law’s protection people with partial physical disabilities, as well as people with physical impairments that can be mitigated with medication or adaptive devices.

McCain said blame for the narrowed scope of the law shouldn’t be placed on the Supreme Court, but rather on Congress. “In all due respect, I would put the blame right back on us for not writing legislation that is strong enough and specific enough so that the Supreme Court wouldn’t even have to consider these cases,” McCain said.

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