David Gillespie may be an unlikely Rosa Parks, but we have to
take our civil rights heroes where we find them. Parks rebelled
because, being black, she was told to ride in the back of an
Alabama bus while whites got to sit up front. Gillespie could
not tolerate paying a $5 cover price on "ladies' night" at a New
Jersey bar while females were getting in free. This being a
civil rights drama, you can guess how it ends. Gillespie took
legal action, and in 2004, the walls of discrimination came
tumbling down. The state Division on Civil Rights ruled that
giving women a special incentive to patronize a drinking
establishment is illegal. "Once a place of public accommodation
makes its goods or services available to the public," the
division said, "it is bound to treat all members of the public
alike." To allow exceptions to the policy "would be to disregard
its intended goal, which is nothing less than the eradication of
the cancer of discrimination." That last sentence brings to mind
what Oscar Wilde said about an