(FORTUNE Magazine) – Wait. That title is slightly out of date. A last-minute amendment on the floor of the U.S. Senate eliminated the protection for voyeurs. Also eliminated by the amendment -- introduced by hard-line conservative Bill Armstrong of Colorado -- were transvestites, pedophiles, kleptomaniacs, compulsive gamblers, and various other characters suddenly deemed unworthy of protection by the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), now roaring unstoppably through Congress. The sponsors of this beyond-belief legislation would have preferred to retain protection for the above-named problem persons, but Armstrong insisted on a vote, so what could they do? The ADA makes it illegal to discriminate against handicapped folks in employment, education, and admission to public functions. From the moment the bill began taking shape last year, it was common wisdom on Capitol Hill that no solon in his right mind would line up against it. Widely quoted was the despairing comment of Chamber of Commerce lobbyist Nancy Fulco, who stated early on, ''No politician can vote against this bill and survive.'' Who, after all, wants to seem insensitive to the problems of people in wheelchairs? Our own sense is that the bill's sponsors might not survive if the country realized how far they have stretched the definition of ''handicapped.'' The reason for the Armstrong amendment -- and for another amendment, which restricted protection for drug addicts -- was the evidently unlimited coverage of people who behave in ways most Americans think of as corrupt or immoral but who are now identified by the social welfare establishment as sufferers from this or that mental disorder. The characters covered by the Armstrong amendment are all in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association and broadly accepted by judges seeking guidance on whom to count as sick.

So are hundreds of other mental illnesses that Armstrong never got around to; presumably, they can be dealt with in the courts. Noting concerns about bias protection for the mentally ill, New Mexico's Pete Domenici said Abe Lincoln and Winston Churchill were manic-depressives. (Many scholars agree that both had some such affliction.) Pete did not address the question of how they got through life without the help of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which will enforce ADA. The bill's sponsors, led by Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, have not stopped at mental illness. The ADA bans discrimination against anybody with ''a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more . . . major life activities.'' It turned out in a colloquy between Harkin and reactionary Tarheel Jesse Helms that this phrase covers folks who are merely dumb -- who, in Helms's precise language, have ''intelligence levels, as measured on standardized tests such as the IQ test, which are . . . far below standard average levels . . . but who do not have any identifiable mental disease.'' Yes, Harkin said gamely, they would be covered. The ADA features two huge ambiguities guaranteed to make hay for lawyers. One concerns the meaning of ''major life activities.'' Nobody is sure what that phrase covers and, therefore, nobody knows how many would be protected. (Harkin's team estimates 43 million Americans -- one in six.) The other ambiguity concerns the obligations of employers to make ''reasonable accommodations'' to the needs of qualified handicapped workers. What does that phrase mean? Press coverage of the employer obligations has mostly been concerned with certain engineering requirements -- e.g., elevators for most new commercial buildings over two stories. Much less has been said about the work force restructuring that will be required under the law. Large employers, it seems clear, will be expected to do plenty of restructuring. The Senate report put it this way: ''A small day care center might not be required to expend more than a nominal sum . . . to equip a telephone for use by a secretary with impaired hearing, but a large school district might be required to make available a teacher's aide to a blind applicant for a teacher's job.'' Asked about full-time readers to assist blind executives, Harkin said, ''If it was IBM, maybe that would be something that could be done.'' Nobody is trying to estimate the cost of all these goodies, and Harkin nobly says cost is irrelevant when civil rights are involved. (But then why the lower standard for small business?) The Bush Administration loves ADA because it's kinder, gentler, and a burden only to the private sector, but has no figures on the ultimate cost to business. In Washington, at least, it is clear that hardly anybody cares.