The Money Mustache Community
Other => Off Topic => Topic started by: nereo on May 29, 2018, 06:25:21 AM
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Recently this topic has come up IRL among my small group of friends and i"m curious what other people's take is on it.
Background: There's a local diner I like owner and operated by the same family for decades. I recently suggested to a coworker that we stop there and he told me he no longer eats there after he discovered the owner supports _____ and gives money every year to _____. This was news to me, and I've never seen or heard anything at all that would suggest the owners political-social views one way or another. It's an independently owned place that hires local teenagers to work and buys much of their stuff from nearby farms.
This is opened up a lively debate. My coworker argues that every time I eat there a small percentage of my bill goes towards candidates and views I don't necessarily support. But while the owners may be big donors to these causes, I know the margins on diners is razor thin, and >90% of my small bill goes towards the ingredients, staff and overhead, nad only a small percentage goes to the owner (of which an even smaller slice gets donated by the owner). There's also the idea of acceptance and tolerance.
Coworkers argues this is quintessential "voting with your wallet" and envisions a management change if enough people boycotted this establishment.
What do you think? Would you patronize a business who held opposing viewpoints, provided they kept these views to themselves?
ETA: The beliefs and causes supported fall along normal ideology divisions; a particular party, a particular stance on abortion, etc. We aren't talking about neo-nazis or eco-terrorists, nor are the owners (AFAIK) anything but upstanding, law-abiding citizens.
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I think I would, potentially. It depends on how much I like their product/service vs. how much I dislike their views. Avoiding a diner wouldn't mean much from me with how little I eat out anyway. Avoiding a grocery store with the lowest prices in town on the other hand would be a bigger decision.
In terms of how much I dislike their views, I wouldn't avoid a business because I disagreed with the owner on tax policy. But if they supported certain politicians or held hateful views I would, and it may go beyond the fact that they donate to their politicians. I can see doing it as more of a general FU if they are outright hateful. Even though you can say that a very small portion of your bill is going to support the politics, I would argue that your money that goes to support the business is also going towards their cause. Customers are what make the business successful and a successful business is required to make those donations.
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What do you think? Would you patronize a business who held opposing viewpoints, provided they kept these views to themselves?
It depends on how extreme are those viewpoints. I wouldn't be comfortable giving money to an actual neo nazi. So no?
obs: It's not the exact same case but people are put off buying products that are associated with an opposing view, even if it's a rational buy. https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/04/130430-light-bulb-labeling/
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What do you think? Would you patronize a business who held opposing viewpoints, provided they kept these views to themselves?
Had something like this come up a while back. We used this guy for silk screening on shirts for a program. Have used him for a couple of years need on his price. Last time I was in with him, I guess he felt comfortable enough with me to share his incredible disgust for all "Mexicans" (his term for basically all Brown people). After that exchange, we decided to cough up a few more bucks to use someone else.
I agree with what was said above: minor policy disagreements I don't think I would bother, but this was a little more than that.
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What do you think? Would you patronize a business who held opposing viewpoints, provided they kept these views to themselves?
It depends on how extreme are those viewpoints. I wouldn't be comfortable giving money to an actual neo nazi. So no?
Edited the OP - no the viewpoints aren't 'extreme' as viewed by our modern politics. They are just at the other end of the spectrum for what my coworker believes, and that alone is enough for him to not go back there, and for him to encourage others to essentially boycott this business.
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I think your coworker is technically correct: these business owners are only able to donate to _____ because they operate a business successfully. So every time you spend money at their business, some amount goes to ______. But, to your point, some amount also goes to supporting your community by employing local teenagers and nearby farms.
So, if you spend $10 at this diner, and $0.10 goes to ______ while $2.00 goes to supporting your community, and that's acceptable to you, then great, continue to patronize that diner. Your friend may have a stronger aversion to ______, or not see the community piece as quite as beneficial, or whatever, and come to a different conclusion. Reasonable people can disagree.
For me personally, I've been known to stop patronizing businesses based on their views on transit policy and parking. I don't think "well, as long as it's not a REALLY BAD view, you should just ignore it" is a compelling argument. I can't possibly patronize all businesses in my city, so I might as well choose among them using all the information I have. If one used book store papers their windows with screeds against trains, and one doesn't, I might as well buy from the one that doesn't.
On the flip side, some things are trade-offs. My megacorp employer lobbied for recent legislation that I am strongly opposed to. The work I do goes to making my employer money which goes to paying for that lobbying which (IMO) is truly detrimental to society. Do I quit? My employer is a company I believe in, and I think that overall they do much more good than bad, so I've opted to stay. (But I will be tucking that away for FIRE, because I think I'm going to be susceptible to OMY syndrome.)
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I live in Iowa. I hold very progressive political views. It would be impossible for me to not patronize businesses where people have different viewpoints.
But if they are public enough that I know about their viewpoints- well then my money does not go to them. This goes for both small businesses and national/global ones. I guess the national/global ones I hold some stock in through index funds...
The one that I am torn on is Chic-fil-A. The national brand I really don't want to support. Our local owner sponsors free food at Pride every year.
Edit: The example below mine is a great one. I will NOT go to the relgious affiliated hospital in our city anymore. I strongly believe the religious affiliation affected my care in the past, to a hugely negative degree. My current provider agrees that there is a strong possibility information was omitted (I was lied to) to prevent a certain action on my part due to that affiliation.
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If I knew that type of specific info about a business that the OP states, I would make the call on a case by case basis, depending on how strongly I felt about it.
I deal with a less political version of this every day in our city. About every third business has religious iconography (SOOOOOOO many crosses, sometimes multiple ones per business lobby), inspirational religious posters, overtly religious employees. For example, it's incredibly common to have people here end a professional interaction with "Have a blessed day!", which I find creepy. I have twice encountered doctors at the University Medical Hospital (NOT the local religiously affiliated hospital) who asked if we could pray together at the end of my appointment! The doctor who was about to do my mother's cataract surgery (she was literally gowned and prepped) asked if he could pray with her before doing it! My mother looked at him like she thought he'd gone insane...it was pretty funny.
Extreme religiosity is so prevalent here, that If I didn't do business with them, in some cases I couldn't get the business done.
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I think your coworker is technically correct: these business owners are only able to donate to _____ because they operate a business successfully. So every time you spend money at their business, some amount goes to ______. But, to your point, some amount also goes to supporting your community by employing local teenagers and nearby farms.
So, if you spend $10 at this diner, and $0.10 goes to ______ while $2.00 goes to supporting your community, and that's acceptable to you, then great, continue to patronize that diner. Your friend may have a stronger aversion to ______, or not see the community piece as quite as beneficial, or whatever, and come to a different conclusion. Reasonable people can disagree.
For me personally, I've been known to stop patronizing businesses based on their views on transit policy and parking. I don't think "well, as long as it's not a REALLY BAD view, you should just ignore it" is a compelling argument. I can't possibly patronize all businesses in my city, so I might as well choose among them using all the information I have. If one used book store papers their windows with screeds against trains, and one doesn't, I might as well buy from the one that doesn't.
On the flip side, some things are trade-offs. My megacorp employer lobbied for recent legislation that I am strongly opposed to. The work I do goes to making my employer money which goes to paying for that lobbying which (IMO) is truly detrimental to society. Do I quit? My employer is a company I believe in, and I think that overall they do much more good than bad, so I've opted to stay. (But I will be tucking that away for FIRE, because I think I'm going to be susceptible to OMY syndrome.)
Good food for thought. Certainly one needs to weigh the good and the bad to make a decision (e.g. 10˘ might go to a cause I don't like vs. $2 that goes towards the community at large). The choice also does not exist in a vacuum; in this area there aren't many businesses and our other choices are large mega-corp fast-dining establishments. This is a fairly rural area.\ Personally, the internal conflict is surrounding the concepts of tolerance and supporting your beliefs. If we took money out of hte equation entirely - let's say it was a question of my kid playing on a soccer team coached by this man. I'd have no problem that so long as he kept politics out of his practices. And in effect that is what he has done with his business. Sure, his business generates the money he then donates, but if someone works to make everyone feel welcome regardless of their beliefs (as he does with his establishment) am I being a worse person for saying "you're willing to serve me despite my beliefs, but I won't extend you the same courtesy"? Would I then be the intolerant one?
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I think your coworker is technically correct: these business owners are only able to donate to _____ because they operate a business successfully. So every time you spend money at their business, some amount goes to ______. But, to your point, some amount also goes to supporting your community by employing local teenagers and nearby farms.
So, if you spend $10 at this diner, and $0.10 goes to ______ while $2.00 goes to supporting your community, and that's acceptable to you, then great, continue to patronize that diner. Your friend may have a stronger aversion to ______, or not see the community piece as quite as beneficial, or whatever, and come to a different conclusion. Reasonable people can disagree.
For me personally, I've been known to stop patronizing businesses based on their views on transit policy and parking. I don't think "well, as long as it's not a REALLY BAD view, you should just ignore it" is a compelling argument. I can't possibly patronize all businesses in my city, so I might as well choose among them using all the information I have. If one used book store papers their windows with screeds against trains, and one doesn't, I might as well buy from the one that doesn't.
On the flip side, some things are trade-offs. My megacorp employer lobbied for recent legislation that I am strongly opposed to. The work I do goes to making my employer money which goes to paying for that lobbying which (IMO) is truly detrimental to society. Do I quit? My employer is a company I believe in, and I think that overall they do much more good than bad, so I've opted to stay. (But I will be tucking that away for FIRE, because I think I'm going to be susceptible to OMY syndrome.)
Good food for thought. Certainly one needs to weigh the good and the bad to make a decision (e.g. 10˘ might go to a cause I don't like vs. $2 that goes towards the community at large). The choice also does not exist in a vacuum; in this area there aren't many businesses and our other choices are large mega-corp fast-dining establishments. This is a fairly rural area.\ Personally, the internal conflict is surrounding the concepts of tolerance and supporting your beliefs. If we took money out of hte equation entirely - let's say it was a question of my kid playing on a soccer team coached by this man. I'd have no problem that so long as he kept politics out of his practices. And in effect that is what he has done with his business. Sure, his business generates the money he then donates, but if someone works to make everyone feel welcome regardless of their beliefs (as he does with his establishment) am I being a worse person for saying "you're willing to serve me despite my beliefs, but I won't extend you the same courtesy"? Would I then be the intolerant one?
Agreed, I wouldn't disassociate with anyone unless their views were extreme and I thought they would be pushing them on my kid. In fact in some ways I would want to encourage interaction with differing viewpoints.
This may be getting down to the point of unanswerable questions, but what if he's only willing to accommodate everyone because it's good for business? All else being equal, maybe he wouldn't want to serve you. Also, I would argue that accepting money is different than paying it, especially in terms of a luxury purchase like restaurant food. The owner becomes more wealthy/successful. You enjoy a meal but become less wealthy.
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I live in Iowa. I hold very progressive political views. It would be impossible for me to not patronize businesses where people have different viewpoints.
But if they are public enough that I know about their viewpoints- well then my money does not go to them. This goes for both small businesses and national/global ones. I guess the national/global ones I hold some stock in through index funds...
The one that I am torn on is Chic-fil-A. The national brand I really don't want to support. Our local owner sponsors free food at Pride every year.
I wouldn't be torn. Either they allow/encourage their freedom to do so, which makes them worth patronizing, or this franchise owner is totally sticking it to the man and I'd want to support him/her.
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I would only boycott if I morally objected to their donations.
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Good food for thought. Certainly one needs to weigh the good and the bad to make a decision (e.g. 10˘ might go to a cause I don't like vs. $2 that goes towards the community at large). The choice also does not exist in a vacuum; in this area there aren't many businesses and our other choices are large mega-corp fast-dining establishments. This is a fairly rural area.\ Personally, the internal conflict is surrounding the concepts of tolerance and supporting your beliefs. If we took money out of hte equation entirely - let's say it was a question of my kid playing on a soccer team coached by this man. I'd have no problem that so long as he kept politics out of his practices. And in effect that is what he has done with his business. Sure, his business generates the money he then donates, but if someone works to make everyone feel welcome regardless of their beliefs (as he does with his establishment) am I being a worse person for saying "you're willing to serve me despite my beliefs, but I won't extend you the same courtesy"? Would I then be the intolerant one?
Dabnasty's point about spending money being different than accepting it is a good one. This diner can choose to support _____ with donations, they can choose to put pro-_____ posters up, they can choose to hire suppliers and contractors that similarly support _____. But they probably could not refuse to serve your friend if they found out that he was against _____. We all have the choice of our patronage but not our patrons.
Also, if this diner doesn't put anything to indicate their view on ____ in their restaurant, it's probably because they don't want people to know because others would take the same position your friend does. There's an information disparity that they're using to their advantage.
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Yes, I would, but as others have said, it definitely depends on the issue or how strongly the business/owner vocalizes their viewpoint. i.e. I'm not going to ask a business owner to fill out a questionnaire before I decide whether or not to patronize, but if something about their views comes out and it makes me uncomfortable to patronize them...well I'm going to go elsewhere.
An issue I have had more in the past is business owners who are not necessarily openly opposed to me on political or social issues (e.g. abortion, immigration, gay rights, etc.), but who live a MUCH more consumption oriented lifestyle than I consider reasonable. I'm really uncomfortable with my money going to buy someone else a bunch of disposable stuff that I would never in a million years buy for myself.
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Dabnasty's point about spending money being different than accepting it is a good one. This diner can choose to support _____ with donations, they can choose to put pro-_____ posters up, they can choose to hire suppliers and contractors that similarly support _____. But they probably could not refuse to serve your friend if they found out that he was against _____. We all have the choice of our patronage but not our patrons.
Also, if this diner doesn't put anything to indicate their view on ____ in their restaurant, it's probably because they don't want people to know because others would take the same position your friend does. There's an information disparity that they're using to their advantage.
It's possible that they not advertising their position because they fear more backlash - but nit's also possible they are keeping this on the DL because they want to keep their business dealings and personal positions seperate. FWIW I use the latter approach. Regardless, how much does it matter to me why they are doing it? This is akin to Sternberg's decision tree and whether it matters to anyone but the decision-maker the motivation behind a particular decision. I want a reasonably priced meal without the pressure of someone's ideology pushed on me, and that has been my experience - does it matter if the seperation is because the owner thinks it morally wrong to force their views on paying patrons, or because he just doesn't want to lose business?
THe point about it being whether you are on the giving or receiving end of the money transaction is a good one. But this begs the question - do business owners have to avoid any political affiliations in their private lives now to avoid these sorts of boycotts? Regardless of how private and segregated they try to keep it from their businesses? I feel like in today's day and age its far easier for internet vigilantees to peg down your afilitation and notify everyone of your position.
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Recently this topic has come up IRL among my small group of friends and i"m curious what other people's take is on it.
Background: There's a local diner I like owner and operated by the same family for decades. I recently suggested to a coworker that we stop there and he told me he no longer eats there after he discovered the owner supports _____ and gives money every year to _____. This was news to me, and I've never seen or heard anything at all that would suggest the owners political-social views one way or another. It's an independently owned place that hires local teenagers to work and buys much of their stuff from nearby farms.
This is opened up a lively debate. My coworker argues that every time I eat there a small percentage of my bill goes towards candidates and views I don't necessarily support. But while the owners may be big donors to these causes, I know the margins on diners is razor thin, and >90% of my small bill goes towards the ingredients, staff and overhead, nad only a small percentage goes to the owner (of which an even smaller slice gets donated by the owner). There's also the idea of acceptance and tolerance.
Coworkers argues this is quintessential "voting with your wallet" and envisions a management change if enough people boycotted this establishment.
What do you think? Would you patronize a business who held opposing viewpoints, provided they kept these views to themselves?
ETA: The beliefs and causes supported fall along normal ideology divisions; a particular party, a particular stance on abortion, etc. We aren't talking about neo-nazis or eco-terrorists, nor are the owners (AFAIK) anything but upstanding, law-abiding citizens.
I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
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But this begs the question - do business owners have to avoid any political affiliations in their private lives now to avoid these sorts of boycotts? Regardless of how private and segregated they try to keep it from their businesses? I feel like in today's day and age its far easier for internet vigilantees to peg down your afilitation and notify everyone of your position.
It has never been possible for a business to be all things to all potential customers. In the specific case of this diner, there are probably people who are patronizing this diner over whatever one your friend preferred because this one shares their views on _____ and the other ones doesn't.
This is probably where the level of odiousness of the belief comes into play. Based on the responses to this thread, it would seem that I'm one of the few that would boycott over a transit dispute. And there are people who are visiting the anti-trains used book store over the pro-trains one precisely because of the transit position, so there's probably minimal impact to the business either way from minor differences of opinion.
But it seems like many of us agree that we would boycott a business that espoused harmful fringe beliefs like neo-nazism. Neo-Nazis have the right to freedom of speech and freedom of belief, the same as anyone else, but no one has a right to freedom from consequences of their speech or beliefs. If a business owner's beliefs are so odious that merely connecting those beliefs with the business is enough to have a significant negative impact on the business, that seems like a natural and fair consequence of that belief.
The alternative would be, people with harmful fringe beliefs get to do as they please because they're fine with being intolerant, while those with mainstream beliefs must treat everyone equally in the name of tolerance. Fair treatment isn't always equal treatment, and equal treatment isn't always fair.
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My policy is that ignorance is bliss. Don't push your beliefs on to me, and I won't ask. We can happily go about our business together. Push your agenda aggressively at me or others and (if I don't agree with it) I'll find somewhere else to do business.
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I live in Iowa. I hold very progressive political views. It would be impossible for me to not patronize businesses where people have different viewpoints.
But if they are public enough that I know about their viewpoints- well then my money does not go to them. This goes for both small businesses and national/global ones. I guess the national/global ones I hold some stock in through index funds...
The one that I am torn on is Chic-fil-A. The national brand I really don't want to support. Our local owner sponsors free food at Pride every year.
I wouldn't be torn. Either they allow/encourage their freedom to do so, which makes them worth patronizing, or this franchise owner is totally sticking it to the man and I'd want to support him/her.
But the money still goes to the corporation who push a political agenda I want my money in NO way supporting. Because the agendas they push DO hurt people.
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
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If I don’t agree with a large corporation like Hobby Lobby I do stop shopping there. For a small business owner I would only stop patronizing if there position was hateful like the bakery that wouldn’t make cakes for gay couples.
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
I agree, with the exception of a few outlier positions already stated in this thread there are few political positions that would stop me from patronizing a local business. I am all for boycotting as a form of political expression but it seems that the threshold for a boycott is getting increasingly lower. It's all symptomatic of the idea that people are "monsters" or "hateful" for having a different political viewpoint. It only further contributes to the toxic polarization in our country. Go to the guy's diner who supports ______ and get to know him and just talk to him and recognize that he's a human being and that his political viewpoints make up only a small fraction of his overall character.
That being said, there are certain business whose actions have actual negative consequences (i.e. environmental degradation, poor employment conditions, abusive environment, etc.) that I do try to avoid, but that is more of an ethical boycott rather than a political one.
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My policy is that ignorance is bliss. Don't push your beliefs on to me, and I won't ask. We can happily go about our business together. Push your agenda aggressively at me or others and (if I don't agree with it) I'll find somewhere else to do business.
This is pretty much how I work. I don't expect everyone to be on the same page as me in terms of beliefs, I think it's pretty much irrelevant to me in most business situations anyway. For example, if I want to hire a window contractor to replace my windows, I will be concerned about the ability to do the job and quality of work, not the beliefs. However, start pushing those beliefs on me and I might just get annoyed enough to go elsewhere.
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It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
Sure - but when the policies of hte business are segregated from the policies of the owners...?
Also, the free market works great in large markets where there is a lot of choice. In more sparsely populated areas its less efficient, and consequences can be amplified.
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
Freedom to choose whom we do business with is certainly a beauty of the free market, but using that freedom to make conformity with most (all?) of a person's political beliefs or support of the same political party a prerequisite to doing business with somebody is not a great application of that freedom.
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
Freedom to choose whom we do business with is certainly a beauty of the free market, but using that freedom to make conformity with most (all?) of a person's political beliefs or support of the same political party a prerequisite to doing business with somebody is not a great application of that freedom.
Can you tell us the acceptable times and instances people should be allowed to to freely exercise choice in a free market?
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Can you tell us the acceptable times and instances people should be allowed to to freely exercise choice in a free market?
(https://media.giphy.com/media/5hHOBKJ8lw9OM/giphy.gif)
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
Freedom to choose whom we do business with is certainly a beauty of the free market, but using that freedom to make conformity with most (all?) of a person's political beliefs or support of the same political party a prerequisite to doing business with somebody is not a great application of that freedom.
True. There's a bell curve of "acceptable"* beliefs out there. The owner thinks the inheritance tax exclusion should go up to $22 million? Stupid but not a deal breaker. She's all for school vouchers? Short-sighted but not a deal breaker.
The owner makes comments about "Planet of the Apes" children? Yeah, not gonna shop there any more.
* which has sadly been widened recently for some segments of society
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
Freedom to choose whom we do business with is certainly a beauty of the free market, but using that freedom to make conformity with most (all?) of a person's political beliefs or support of the same political party a prerequisite to doing business with somebody is not a great application of that freedom.
Can you tell us the acceptable times and instances people should be allowed to to freely exercise choice in a free market?
I don't believe Jrr85 said what you think he said. You should always be allowed to exercise free choice but some applications are not very wise applications.
Diversity is good. So you if only do business with people who conform to your politics you are eschewing diversity and you would be worse off for it in the long run. We are all free to make that mistake though.
That is how I understood his comment.
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There are big corporates I avoid because I believe that they cause harm through their policies. For small businesses, if they are causing harm then I'm going to avoid shopping there.
I don't have to agree with someone else. As long as they're not causing harm to others (they're welcome to harm themselves, that's their own problem), I try to live and let live.
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True. There's a bell curve of "acceptable"* beliefs out there. The owner thinks the inheritance tax exclusion should go up to $22 million? Stupid but not a deal breaker. She's all for school vouchers? Short-sighted but not a deal breaker.
The owner makes comments about "Planet of the Apes" children? Yeah, not gonna shop there any more.
* which has sadly been widened recently for some segments of society
I would probably not know what an owner says unless it's plastered on the wall of their store or they are literally in their store while I am a patron and they tell me.
To be fair, I'm on a pretty low information diet. I don't know exactly what Hobby Lobby did (remember hearing something about it but didn't care to investigate), but if it was terrible enough then I assume people wouldn't work there or whatever policy they enacted would be deemed illegal. As long as I can go in that store and shop for something that meets at a reasonable intersection of quality and price and I don't know anything about the owner's/corporate stance, it is usually okay. If some "evil" store owner is donating all of this profit money to a bad cause, then couldn't someone else deliver the goods or services cheaper or with better quality for same price minus anything political?
I'd say I'm slightly more tolerant than that as I don't care that Chick Fil A is closed on Sundays (other than the time or two I've thought about getting it on a Sunday and then was annoyed subsequently). I'm not religious and I think it's silly to miss out on revenue from a business perspective - but if the owner wants it that way for whatever reason(s) that I assume has/have something to do with religion and I don't get preached to when I go in the store, I'm okay with it. I don't think of it as supporting the owner's religion. I think of it as I wanted an adequately priced and solid-tasting chicken sandwich with usually above average customer service and nothing more.
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
Freedom to choose whom we do business with is certainly a beauty of the free market, but using that freedom to make conformity with most (all?) of a person's political beliefs or support of the same political party a prerequisite to doing business with somebody is not a great application of that freedom.
Can you tell us the acceptable times and instances people should be allowed to to freely exercise choice in a free market?
In a free market? More or less at all times and instances although there are probably some exceptions that somebody could come up with if they spent some time thinking on it.
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
Freedom to choose whom we do business with is certainly a beauty of the free market, but using that freedom to make conformity with most (all?) of a person's political beliefs or support of the same political party a prerequisite to doing business with somebody is not a great application of that freedom.
Can you tell us the acceptable times and instances people should be allowed to to freely exercise choice in a free market?
I don't believe Jrr85 said what you think he said. You should always be allowed to exercise free choice but some applications are not very wise applications.
Diversity is good. So you if only do business with people who conform to your politics you are eschewing diversity and you would be worse off for it in the long run. We are all free to make that mistake though.
That is how I understood his comment.
When diversity is donating millions of dollars to campaigns and lobbies to pass legislation to infringe upon my and others rights, how could I be expected to view that as good? And why would I want my money supporting it?
I don't care if a business is closed on Saturday or Sunday or any other day. I care what owners do with their profits and make public they are doing that.
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True. There's a bell curve of "acceptable"* beliefs out there. The owner thinks the inheritance tax exclusion should go up to $22 million? Stupid but not a deal breaker. She's all for school vouchers? Short-sighted but not a deal breaker.
The owner makes comments about "Planet of the Apes" children? Yeah, not gonna shop there any more.
* which has sadly been widened recently for some segments of society
I would probably not know what an owner says unless it's plastered on the wall of their store or they are literally in their store while I am a patron and they tell me.
In small towns, you'd know the owner and what the owner thinks.
To be fair, I'm on a pretty low information diet. I don't know exactly what Hobby Lobby did (remember hearing something about it but didn't care to investigate), but if it was terrible enough then I assume people wouldn't work there or whatever policy they enacted would be deemed illegal. As long as I can go in that store and shop for something that meets at a reasonable intersection of quality and price and I don't know anything about the owner's/corporate stance, it is usually okay. If some "evil" store owner is donating all of this profit money to a bad cause, then couldn't someone else deliver the goods or services cheaper or with better quality for same price minus anything political?
1) Some of what Hobby Lobby did that was connected to their religious fervor was declared illegal (stealing religious artifacts).
2) There are indeed competitors to Hobby Lobby.
I'd say I'm slightly more tolerant than that as I don't care that Chick Fil A is closed on Sundays (other than the time or two I've thought about getting it on a Sunday and then was annoyed subsequently). I'm not religious and I think it's silly to miss out on revenue from a business perspective - but if the owner wants it that way for whatever reason(s) that I assume has/have something to do with religion and I don't get preached to when I go in the store, I'm okay with it. I don't think of it as supporting the owner's religion. I think of it as I wanted an adequately priced and solid-tasting chicken sandwich with usually above average customer service and nothing more.
It was never about Sunday. It was about comments made by the COO and tens of millions going to anti-homosexual causes, including conversion therapy groups.
The company stopped donating to such causes shortly after the controversy.*
* Negative attention and boycotting worked.
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I would be more inclined to avoid patronizing a business that contributed to views I disagreed with than a business owned by someone who contributed to views I disagreed with. There is a subtle distinction here; but I think it is important. Of course I'd also be considering the level and type of support and how strongly I felt about the issue. I'd have a lot of difficulty finding the diner described as less desirable than corporate chain stores; but I might change my mind if I knew the owner wrote off contributions that I disagreed with as a business expense.
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I would generally separate my dinners out from my political beliefs. I figure that I'm going to disagree with about everyone on some issue, and I want to enjoy a meal out without the spoils of politics. It would have to be pretty extreme for me to stop patronizing the business, and I can't see some political contributions reaching that threshold.
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In general, if I boycott a business, it's because of their business practices. Walmart doesn't pay or treat its employees well; Winco does. Ergo, I do my grocery shopping at Winco. I have no illusions that Walmart will go out of business because they're missing out on my my measly $40-60/week, but the food goes down better.
So far, places like Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A that might have provoked my ire in the form of a boycott have been places I didn't shop anyway.
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I think your friend (along with many people across the country), has lost all sense of perspective when it comes to what kind of conformity they expect from other people. I don't think it's normal or healthy to want agreement on political issues before being willing to interact or do business with somebody, although I'd guess it's becoming much more common.
It's the beauty of the Free Market. We can choose with whom we do business.
Freedom to choose whom we do business with is certainly a beauty of the free market, but using that freedom to make conformity with most (all?) of a person's political beliefs or support of the same political party a prerequisite to doing business with somebody is not a great application of that freedom.
Can you tell us the acceptable times and instances people should be allowed to to freely exercise choice in a free market?
In a free market? More or less at all times and instances although there are probably some exceptions that somebody could come up with if they spent some time thinking on it.
:P
Just busting your balls. Upon first reading it seemed like you were arguing that people shouldn't exercise their freedom of choice whenever they want to, for whatever reason they want to.
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I do consider the apparent beliefs of a business, but never political, and never religion. However if that religion, in their minds, gives them the right to do something I feel is worthy of me not giving them my money, I don't. Small difference, but a difference.
There have been 2 instances that a Denny's restaurant shows obvious racism, one 25 years ago, one 10 years ago, in different states. No Denny's again.
There are states that I avoid dealing with the businesses n that state, and have a list of them on this computer. One is Michigan because I have been following the Flint water crisis, and one is Wisconsin and their anti-union policies. However I did buy a washer and dryer from Speed Queen, made in Wisconsin, by a union company.
There are more states on the list, those are the ones I remember right now.
I have s longer list of companies I Do patronize because of their policies that I agree with. Many times it's places that can state that their item is all US made. The last one being Cambria quartz for our kitchen.
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In general, if I boycott a business, it's because of their business practices. Walmart doesn't pay or treat its employees well; Winco does. Ergo, I do my grocery shopping at Winco. I have no illusions that Walmart will go out of business because they're missing out on my my measly $40-60/week, but the food goes down better.
So I totally hear you on this and I have reservations about Walmart myself, but are you familiar with the "sweatshop paradox (https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/sweatshops-make-poor-people-better-off/)" that economists talk about? Basically, the problem with sweatshops is that there's not enough of them. We Westerners are (rightly) appalled at the conditions of sweatshops and we think we're doing the right thing by avoiding companies that use sweatshop labor -- except that sweatshops in places like South America and Southeast Asia are often some of the best jobs available in those communities and pay far more than the average annual salary. It's a tragic irony, but we actually do more harm than good when we avoid using sweatshop labor.
Anyway I only bring this up because while Walmart is certainly not a sweatshop, I think you can make a similar argument. Many of the people Walmart employs would not be able to find a job elsewhere. Could Walmart improve its wages and pay its employees more? Absolutely. But they would also understandably raise their hiring standards, which would hurt many of the poor, unskilled employees they currently employ.
Just food for thought. I have no intention of telling you where you should shop and of course negative pressure and boycotting can be an effective tool. I just find it an interesting topic to think about.
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In general, if I boycott a business, it's because of their business practices. Walmart doesn't pay or treat its employees well; Winco does. Ergo, I do my grocery shopping at Winco. I have no illusions that Walmart will go out of business because they're missing out on my my measly $40-60/week, but the food goes down better.
So I totally hear you on this and I have reservations about Walmart myself, but are you familiar with the "sweatshop paradox (https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/international/sweatshops-make-poor-people-better-off/)" that economists talk about? Basically, the problem with sweatshops is that there's not enough of them. We Westerners are (rightly) appalled at the conditions of sweatshops and we think we're doing the right thing by avoiding companies that use sweatshop labor -- except that sweatshops in places like South America and Southeast Asia are often some of the best jobs available in those communities and pay far more than the average annual salary. It's a tragic irony, but we actually do more harm than good when we avoid using sweatshop labor.
Anyway I only bring this up because while Walmart is certainly not a sweatshop, I think you can make a similar argument. Many of the people Walmart employs would not be able to find a job elsewhere. Could Walmart improve its wages and pay its employees more? Absolutely. But they would also understandably raise their hiring standards, which would hurt many of the poor, unskilled employees they currently employ.
Just food for thought. I have no intention of telling you where you should shop and of course negative pressure and boycotting can be an effective tool. I just find it an interesting topic to think about.
That's the point of moving your money. If the target audience is shopping elsewhere because Wal-Mart is deemed to be unenvironmental and anti-employee, Wal-Mart may see the light and pay a living wage, if only to keep their good employees. This is why Wal-Mart makes such a big to-do about their solar power usage: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2014/10/21/walmart_green_energy_it_can_produce_more_solar_power_than_35_states.html. It's not about doing the Right Thing (though there may be some eco employees with clout at Wal-Mart); it's about appealing to a certain demographic.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/walmarts-appeal-is-gaining-among-democrats/
Walmart has also increased its workers' pay and spoken out against anti-gay laws, leading the LGBT magazine The Advocate to remark on Walmart's "transformation into an LGBT ally."
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To be fair, I'm on a pretty low information diet. I don't know exactly what Hobby Lobby did (remember hearing something about it but didn't care to investigate), but if it was terrible enough then I assume people wouldn't work there or whatever policy they enacted would be deemed illegal. As long as I can go in that store and shop for something that meets at a reasonable intersection of quality and price and I don't know anything about the owner's/corporate stance, it is usually okay. If some "evil" store owner is donating all of this profit money to a bad cause, then couldn't someone else deliver the goods or services cheaper or with better quality for same price minus anything political?
1) Some of what Hobby Lobby did that was connected to their religious fervor was declared illegal (stealing religious artifacts).
2) There are indeed competitors to Hobby Lobby.
I'd say I'm slightly more tolerant than that as I don't care that Chick Fil A is closed on Sundays (other than the time or two I've thought about getting it on a Sunday and then was annoyed subsequently). I'm not religious and I think it's silly to miss out on revenue from a business perspective - but if the owner wants it that way for whatever reason(s) that I assume has/have something to do with religion and I don't get preached to when I go in the store, I'm okay with it. I don't think of it as supporting the owner's religion. I think of it as I wanted an adequately priced and solid-tasting chicken sandwich with usually above average customer service and nothing more.
It was never about Sunday. It was about comments made by the COO and tens of millions going to anti-homosexual causes, including conversion therapy groups.
The company stopped donating to such causes shortly after the controversy.*
* Negative attention and boycotting worked.
Okay, so the system seems to sort itself out in many cases be it by the law or by enough people with an opinion/action. The illegal stuff Hobby Lobby was doing stopped and the opinions/actions of enough changed what Chick Fil A did. With regard to the former situation, I am glad the US has a strong rule of law. With regard to the latter situation, this is great for those that care. I usually do not aside from thinking lobbying power is too strong with regard to lawmakers. However, I think it's a totally valid opinion if you do care about a particular business-related issue and have respect for those that make differences and are proactive.
Last weekend I needed to purchase some cheap plain blue bandanas to be screen printed later this summer for a float trip (yay summer!). I searched online and Hobby Lobby came up as the best option after a cursory search. Without any political qualms, I went to the store and bought them. It took about 5 minutes inside the store and I wasn't hassled with any propaganda or anything that would lead me to believe the store has a political mission. Good enough for me, successful transaction! I'm not pro-Hobby Lobby or anti-, they had the best price. If some other store did or was available cheaper online, I would've gone that route instead.
As for CFA, I wasn't talking about what you are referring to (but wow! tens of millions? What a colossal waste but that's their issue or was at least). I know people who boycott CFA simply because they are closed on Sundays. They don't want to patronize a place that (they feel) makes a religious gesture by observing the Sabbath. They don't have to read where profits go or what executives say, to them it's much more direct that there is a store policy. I.e. you wouldn't hear anything about conversion therapy from an employee or see advertisements when visiting a store (meaning you would have to research or pay attention to news) whereas the family/church/"good people" atmosphere is fairly omnipresent in every store.
For those of you who do not patronize businesses for certain reasons, and you WOULD if those reasons did not exist, does this play into the way you invest in your retirement? Do you carefully pick and choose which companies to own? It would seem like a lot of work if the ethical/political positions of a business will influence your opinion to own it. Again, I respect that if you do, it's just interesting. I know Norway's sovereign "Oil Fund" excludes some very big players (Altria, Boeing, Wal-Mart, etc.) in its holdings for ethical reasons and they seem to be doing just fine.
I'm not trying to be overly insensitive if I come off that way. I want to live in a country/world where everyone has access to the basics and prejudice/discrimination do not hold sway. I just separate business and politics for the most part. I vote with my dollars, sure but I also vote on ballots for candidates that align with how I view things.
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As for CFA, I wasn't talking about what you are referring to (but wow! tens of millions? What a colossal waste but that's their issue or was at least). I know people who boycott CFA simply because they are closed on Sundays. They don't want to patronize a place that (they feel) makes a religious gesture by observing the Sabbath. They don't have to read where profits go or what executives say, to them it's much more direct that there is a store policy. I.e. you wouldn't hear anything about conversion therapy from an employee or see advertisements when visiting a store (meaning you would have to research or pay attention to news) whereas the family/church/"good people" atmosphere is fairly omnipresent in every store.
For those of you who do not patronize businesses for certain reasons, and you WOULD if those reasons did not exist, does this play into the way you invest in your retirement? Do you carefully pick and choose which companies to own? It would seem like a lot of work if the ethical/political positions of a business will influence your opinion to own it. Again, I respect that if you do, it's just interesting. I know Norway's sovereign "Oil Fund" excludes some very big players (Altria, Boeing, Wal-Mart, etc.) in its holdings for ethical reasons and they seem to be doing just fine.
Personally, I'm more likely to patronize a business that closes on Sunday. Not because I'm religious, but I personally just think the 24/7 business model is unhealthy for people and society. Plan ahead and take a break! I don't do a great job of it, but I also try not patronize stores that force their employees to work on Thanksgiving/Christmas, etc.
Also just saw this on another thread, pertaining to the Norwegian sovereign fund.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-04/how-not-to-run-a-sovereign-wealth-fund
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I'm not going to wade through the comments already made, and I'm sure a lot of interesting points have been made across the spectrum.
I'm going to approach things a bit differently through example by addressing the communications guide, and part of the reason why I stopped.
None of us live in a vacuum, yet personal responsibility has to stop and end somewhere. Also, values practiced should mean far more than the words used. Virtue signaling is worthless unless you walk the walk that you talk, otherwise it's just hypocritical, arrogant, self-righteous judgment. I slipped into that mess myself, even if I started with the purest of intentions. Never again, HaShem willing. We also need to be more forgiving of people who have different perspectives from our own.
So long as they themselves are not actively participating in seriously harmful practices that deliberately hurt others (deeds of the flesh (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+5%3A19-26) sort of thing, assuming they claim an ethos)? Forgive them for they may not know what they do. If you feel moved to address it, avoid doing so founded on gossip and hearsay. Only bring it up, privately, gently and in love, if they tell you themselves first... and only when you are no longer guilty of some variant of the same behavior yourself. If you can't do it respectfully in love, it's just factious back-biting. We have enough of that in the world already.
This doesn't mean that you shouldn't be an informed patron, nor does it mean you should neglect your own values in your money spent... just as much as your words spoken, and most importantly your actions. Look first at the values practiced and evident in the community, though... not who they supposedly give their money to according to some guy who knows some guy who sees the guy writing the checks.
Going back, though... we don't live in a vacuum. Start by looking at who's names and pictures are on our money, and acknowledge that it's not our own in the first place. If we boycotted everyone who spent the money we spend on stuff we disagreed with in secret, we'd have to live in a cave off of dust and ashes. Heck, most people's investment funds would vanish overnight. Eye for an eye only leaves the world blind, especially when we're just as guilty. Doesn't mean we shouldn't aim and live a higher standard, but do so mindfully and in kind gentleness. Yeshua said it Himself - it's the meek who inherit the earth, not the self-righteous materialist gossips.
Once again, Biblical wisdom has its uses in practical ways.
A pretty low bar has been set for standards in social justice, Nereo, and it's mostly hot air. Let me encourage you (and others) in love to do better, just as much as I want you to encourage me to do likewise.
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I think your coworker is technically correct: these business owners are only able to donate to _____ because they operate a business successfully. So every time you spend money at their business, some amount goes to ______. But, to your point, some amount also goes to supporting your community by employing local teenagers and nearby farms.
I wonder how people would feel if taken to the extreme. We might say, we dont want to give them our money because they donate to X or Y. But if enough people do that, eventually we'll get to the point where by not supporting them, they may not earn enough to keep the business running and lose their livelihood. We can't tell people how to spend their money, but at some point we either give them money (in exchange for the good or service we are purchasing) or we don't. Do you feel comfortable saying, I don't like your politics so I don't think you should be able to make a living in a public facing business?
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As for CFA, I wasn't talking about what you are referring to (but wow! tens of millions? What a colossal waste but that's their issue or was at least). I know people who boycott CFA simply because they are closed on Sundays. They don't want to patronize a place that (they feel) makes a religious gesture by observing the Sabbath. They don't have to read where profits go or what executives say, to them it's much more direct that there is a store policy. I.e. you wouldn't hear anything about conversion therapy from an employee or see advertisements when visiting a store (meaning you would have to research or pay attention to news) whereas the family/church/"good people" atmosphere is fairly omnipresent in every store.
Ah, ok, I've never experienced that kind of attitude. I knew co-workers who stated, "Well, they're anti-gay, which is wrong, but wow! what a yummy sandwich! Let's go!" I suppose the more ardent atheists would boycott such a store but I don't know any anymore.
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I think your coworker is technically correct: these business owners are only able to donate to _____ because they operate a business successfully. So every time you spend money at their business, some amount goes to ______. But, to your point, some amount also goes to supporting your community by employing local teenagers and nearby farms.
I wonder how people would feel if taken to the extreme. We might say, we dont want to give them our money because they donate to X or Y. But if enough people do that, eventually we'll get to the point where by not supporting them, they may not earn enough to keep the business running and lose their livelihood. We can't tell people how to spend their money, but at some point we either give them money (in exchange for the good or service we are purchasing) or we don't. Do you feel comfortable saying, I don't like your politics so I don't think you should be able to make a living in a public facing business?
I'm comfortable with saying "I don't agree with your views and I don't want to monetarily support them, even indirectly." I am also comfortable saying "I agree with your views and I want to support them, so I will do more business with you."
And I am comfortable saying both of those things with the understanding that t there will never be anyone with whom I am in complete agreement on every issue. I am making a judgment call at some level that the views in question are important enough to me to act on them.
Me saying either of those things doesn't deprive anyone of a living, nor ensure anyone a living. I don't spend nearly enough anywhere to make that possible.
In order for someone to be deprived of a living, a lot of people need to (1) think that it's appropriate to make consumer decisions based on political/moral issues (which we are seeing in this thread is a matter of significant debate), (2) disagree with the business owner's views, and (3) think those views are important enough act on.
That is a very high bar. In practice, it's only going to happen for things that are well outside mainstream and are viewed as harmful by the mainstream.
I think that there should be a law that Caesar dressing must contain anchovies and any dressing that purports to have the same character without anchovies must be labeled as "imitation Caesar dressing product"; this is well outside the mainstream but hardly considered harmful and I would be surprised if someone felt strongly enough about imitation Caesar dressing product to boycott me over it. On the other hand, people feel very strongly about abortion, but for every person who boycotts a business because they take a different view, there's a person who chooses to give that business more business because they agree with the view.
So, am I comfortable with the idea that those with harmful fringe beliefs who make those beliefs known may lose their ability to make a living in a public-facing business? Yes, absolutely. Everyone has the freedom of speech and belief, but no one has freedom from the consequences of their speech and belief.
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I think your coworker is technically correct: these business owners are only able to donate to _____ because they operate a business successfully. So every time you spend money at their business, some amount goes to ______. But, to your point, some amount also goes to supporting your community by employing local teenagers and nearby farms.
I wonder how people would feel if taken to the extreme. We might say, we dont want to give them our money because they donate to X or Y. But if enough people do that, eventually we'll get to the point where by not supporting them, they may not earn enough to keep the business running and lose their livelihood. We can't tell people how to spend their money, but at some point we either give them money (in exchange for the good or service we are purchasing) or we don't. Do you feel comfortable saying, I don't like your politics so I don't think you should be able to make a living in a public facing business?
I'm comfortable with saying "I don't agree with your views and I don't want to monetarily support them, even indirectly." I am also comfortable saying "I agree with your views and I want to support them, so I will do more business with you."
And I am comfortable saying both of those things with the understanding that t there will never be anyone with whom I am in complete agreement on every issue. I am making a judgment call at some level that the views in question are important enough to me to act on them.
Me saying either of those things doesn't deprive anyone of a living, nor ensure anyone a living. I don't spend nearly enough anywhere to make that possible.
In order for someone to be deprived of a living, a lot of people need to (1) think that it's appropriate to make consumer decisions based on political/moral issues (which we are seeing in this thread is a matter of significant debate), (2) disagree with the business owner's views, and (3) think those views are important enough act on.
That is a very high bar. In practice, it's only going to happen for things that are well outside mainstream and are viewed as harmful by the mainstream.
I think that there should be a law that Caesar dressing must contain anchovies and any dressing that purports to have the same character without anchovies must be labeled as "imitation Caesar dressing product"; this is well outside the mainstream but hardly considered harmful and I would be surprised if someone felt strongly enough about imitation Caesar dressing product to boycott me over it. On the other hand, people feel very strongly about abortion, but for every person who boycotts a business because they take a different view, there's a person who chooses to give that business more business because they agree with the view.
So, am I comfortable with the idea that those with harmful fringe beliefs who make those beliefs known may lose their ability to make a living in a public-facing business? Yes, absolutely. Everyone has the freedom of speech and belief, but no one has freedom from the consequences of their speech and belief.
sure, I agree with you that it's unlikely to happen that way, just more of a thought experiment. However, on the flip side, I live in a very liberal part of California and being a vocal Trump supporter would be considered an extreme view here that many people would not like to support. I could imagine if a local coffee shop or small business put up a Trump sign (especially one that espoused some anti-progressive views and not just support of the president), they would probably go out of business due to people boycotting (since margins are small for these sorts of businesses and a drop of 20-30% would probably be fatal to most businesses).
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I think your coworker is technically correct: these business owners are only able to donate to _____ because they operate a business successfully. So every time you spend money at their business, some amount goes to ______. But, to your point, some amount also goes to supporting your community by employing local teenagers and nearby farms.
I wonder how people would feel if taken to the extreme. We might say, we dont want to give them our money because they donate to X or Y. But if enough people do that, eventually we'll get to the point where by not supporting them, they may not earn enough to keep the business running and lose their livelihood. We can't tell people how to spend their money, but at some point we either give them money (in exchange for the good or service we are purchasing) or we don't. Do you feel comfortable saying, I don't like your politics so I don't think you should be able to make a living in a public facing business?
I'm comfortable with saying "I don't agree with your views and I don't want to monetarily support them, even indirectly." I am also comfortable saying "I agree with your views and I want to support them, so I will do more business with you."
And I am comfortable saying both of those things with the understanding that t there will never be anyone with whom I am in complete agreement on every issue. I am making a judgment call at some level that the views in question are important enough to me to act on them.
Me saying either of those things doesn't deprive anyone of a living, nor ensure anyone a living. I don't spend nearly enough anywhere to make that possible.
In order for someone to be deprived of a living, a lot of people need to (1) think that it's appropriate to make consumer decisions based on political/moral issues (which we are seeing in this thread is a matter of significant debate), (2) disagree with the business owner's views, and (3) think those views are important enough act on.
That is a very high bar. In practice, it's only going to happen for things that are well outside mainstream and are viewed as harmful by the mainstream.
I think that there should be a law that Caesar dressing must contain anchovies and any dressing that purports to have the same character without anchovies must be labeled as "imitation Caesar dressing product"; this is well outside the mainstream but hardly considered harmful and I would be surprised if someone felt strongly enough about imitation Caesar dressing product to boycott me over it. On the other hand, people feel very strongly about abortion, but for every person who boycotts a business because they take a different view, there's a person who chooses to give that business more business because they agree with the view.
So, am I comfortable with the idea that those with harmful fringe beliefs who make those beliefs known may lose their ability to make a living in a public-facing business? Yes, absolutely. Everyone has the freedom of speech and belief, but no one has freedom from the consequences of their speech and belief.
sure, I agree with you that it's unlikely to happen that way, just more of a thought experiment. However, on the flip side, I live in a very liberal part of California and being a vocal Trump supporter would be considered an extreme view here that many people would not like to support. I could imagine if a local coffee shop or small business put up a Trump sign (especially one that espoused some anti-progressive views and not just support of the president), they would probably go out of business due to people boycotting (since margins are small for these sorts of businesses and a drop of 20-30% would probably be fatal to most businesses).
I likewise wouldn't expect a gun shop owner in the deep south to do much business with a 'VOTE FOR HILARY - ABORTIONS FOR ALL - GAY BLACK ATHEISTS UNITE' sign on his door.
When you're selling something, you're attempting to entice a customer to buy from you. If you have particularly unpopular views, it's probably best not to associate them with your shop. You're free to hold any view you want of course, but people are free to take their business elsewhere if it bothers them. That's generally a good thing.
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I've been to this bakery several times for birthday cakes in the past, and I definitely struggled with that decision after this case became known. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/12/05/wedding-cake-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-highly-anticipated-supreme-court-ruling/?utm_term=.98412211d5bf
I strongly oppose the baker's decision, and at the same time, I know I rarely choose to not spend my money at a place because of questionable business practices. Wal-mart is probably the biggest store I ignore business practices in favor of lower prices.
I'm still not sure how this baker is open after all the business he lost over his decision.
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sure, I agree with you that it's unlikely to happen that way, just more of a thought experiment. However, on the flip side, I live in a very liberal part of California and being a vocal Trump supporter would be considered an extreme view here that many people would not like to support. I could imagine if a local coffee shop or small business put up a Trump sign (especially one that espoused some anti-progressive views and not just support of the president), they would probably go out of business due to people boycotting (since margins are small for these sorts of businesses and a drop of 20-30% would probably be fatal to most businesses).
I likewise wouldn't expect a gun shop owner in the deep south to do much business with a 'VOTE FOR HILARY - ABORTIONS FOR ALL - GAY BLACK ATHEISTS UNITE' sign on his door.
When you're selling something, you're attempting to entice a customer to buy from you. If you have particularly unpopular views, it's probably best not to associate them with your shop. You're free to hold any view you want of course, but people are free to take their business elsewhere if it bothers them. That's generally a good thing.
Yes, I agree. I think you could just chalk it up to "bad marketing / decisions" and not knowing your customers. I guess it's just interesting to think about because it is very possible that it could happen even in more mild circumstances where their unpopular views are made public like (in your example) the store having a "Black Lives Matter" sign, or in my example, literally just posting a Trump sign.
The next question is how would we feel if those views are made public not by their doing. Like someone posts on their yelp page that they donated to the [unpopular politician].
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sure, I agree with you that it's unlikely to happen that way, just more of a thought experiment. However, on the flip side, I live in a very liberal part of California and being a vocal Trump supporter would be considered an extreme view here that many people would not like to support. I could imagine if a local coffee shop or small business put up a Trump sign (especially one that espoused some anti-progressive views and not just support of the president), they would probably go out of business due to people boycotting (since margins are small for these sorts of businesses and a drop of 20-30% would probably be fatal to most businesses).
I likewise wouldn't expect a gun shop owner in the deep south to do much business with a 'VOTE FOR HILARY - ABORTIONS FOR ALL - GAY BLACK ATHEISTS UNITE' sign on his door.
When you're selling something, you're attempting to entice a customer to buy from you. If you have particularly unpopular views, it's probably best not to associate them with your shop. You're free to hold any view you want of course, but people are free to take their business elsewhere if it bothers them. That's generally a good thing.
Yes, I agree. I think you could just chalk it up to "bad marketing / decisions" and not knowing your customers. I guess it's just interesting to think about because it is very possible that it could happen even in more mild circumstances where their unpopular views are made public like (in your example) the store having a "Black Lives Matter" sign, or in my example, literally just posting a Trump sign.
The next question is how would we feel if those views are made public not by their doing. Like someone posts on their yelp page that they donated to the [unpopular politician].
This is largely what happened in the initial situation I started this thread about.
The business itself does not advocate for or against any political party or position. I had gone there multiple times over many years and experienced nothing but warm hospitality and good food.
But intrepid person noted the name of the owner on a list of donors. Then, near as I can tell, it spread through social media. "______, owner of the popular diner _____, is a regular donor and supporter of _____ - boycott his restaurant or YOU will be helping to support _____".
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sure, I agree with you that it's unlikely to happen that way, just more of a thought experiment. However, on the flip side, I live in a very liberal part of California and being a vocal Trump supporter would be considered an extreme view here that many people would not like to support. I could imagine if a local coffee shop or small business put up a Trump sign (especially one that espoused some anti-progressive views and not just support of the president), they would probably go out of business due to people boycotting (since margins are small for these sorts of businesses and a drop of 20-30% would probably be fatal to most businesses).
I likewise wouldn't expect a gun shop owner in the deep south to do much business with a 'VOTE FOR HILARY - ABORTIONS FOR ALL - GAY BLACK ATHEISTS UNITE' sign on his door.
When you're selling something, you're attempting to entice a customer to buy from you. If you have particularly unpopular views, it's probably best not to associate them with your shop. You're free to hold any view you want of course, but people are free to take their business elsewhere if it bothers them. That's generally a good thing.
Yes, I agree. I think you could just chalk it up to "bad marketing / decisions" and not knowing your customers. I guess it's just interesting to think about because it is very possible that it could happen even in more mild circumstances where their unpopular views are made public like (in your example) the store having a "Black Lives Matter" sign, or in my example, literally just posting a Trump sign.
The next question is how would we feel if those views are made public not by their doing. Like someone posts on their yelp page that they donated to the [unpopular politician].
This is largely what happened in the initial situation I started this thread about.
The business itself does not advocate for or against any political party or position. I had gone there multiple times over many years and experienced nothing but warm hospitality and good food.
But intrepid person noted the name of the owner on a list of donors. Then, near as I can tell, it spread through social media. "______, owner of the popular diner _____, is a regular donor and supporter of _____ - boycott his restaurant or YOU will be helping to support _____".
Thanks for bringing us back to the original question. Yes, I think that's okay to decide to not patronize a business. I assume people don't patronize businesses because the owners belong to a race/culture/religion that they do not like.
I'm trying to figure out my discomfort with this and maybe it's this: would you be the person who shares and posts this information to Yelp/Twitter/Facebook etc. because of the personal/private beliefs of the owner. Then you do have some power to hurt their livelihood and perhaps put them out of business. Although, it would still be a collective decision by the community then to decide that they don't want that business operating in their community.
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I think it's okay to stop going to a business if you don't like the owners. And if their political views make them unlikable to you, and this is something that makes you enjoy their product less, don't go. For instance, my optician has politics I disagree with, but the real reason I'm thinking of finding a new eye doctor is that I'm tired of his constant upsell. Maybe if I agreed with his politics, I'd turn a blind eye to his aggressive sales pitches, but taken together, meh, I'll probably find somebody else.
My tendency is to patronize local stores unless the owner shows very obnoxious views. However, I'm not going to hide my own feelings on social issues if the situation warrants. So they can make the choice whether they want to fit in with their customer base or risk alienating them.
I have less concern about avoiding big chain stores or products because of their politics, and I boycott stores that seem to treat their workers badly and are otherwise bad citizens.
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I recently stopped patronising a particular establishment when I noticed they'd changed one of their supplies. The new supplier was a smallish business as well, but he was known as being a racist homophobe. Not just by reputation, he's one of those people who is published in the Letters to the Editor of the local small newspaper on a regular basis. The business I used to go to was more of the save-the-whales, pro-choice, equity for everyone variety.
I told them why I wouldn't stop there again while they used that supplier. There's no point me just not buying, I believe they genuinely didn't realise what this guy's beliefs were and how much they conflicted with their own philosophy.
The last time I walked past (late for work, so I couldn't stop), I noticed they'd changed their supplier to a more human-friendly one.
I like to think my conversation with the owner had something to do with that decision.
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Considering that we're talking about a small business here where you know the owner I wouldn't boycot. Instead, I'd try to start up the dialogue of why this business owner (or just anyone with an opposing political view) is supporting this politician. Taking into account we're not talking neo-nazi's and other extreme viewpoints ofcourse.
So why would I do this?
- Variety of opinions: People have different opinions and will have different angles to look at something. To me it's always better to be aware of a wide variety of opinions and arguments as it makes me question my own beliefs and do extra research to see if I have to change them. If my extra research turns out to be in favor of my own previous opinion, the extra knowledge will help in the next discussion.
- Keep it humane: most people I talked to who turned out to have opposing political views had quite valid (to them) reasons to do so. When I talk to people who are anti-immigration; most of them are scared that immigrants are taking away our jobs and/or that we will loose our culture. It doesn't matter whether I agree or not, these are real concerns for those people and the reason they vote for a certain politician. To me, it's more useful to have a good, fruitful discussion about those concerns (and why I think they aren't valid) rather than eliminating the person out of your life. Primm's situation is a good example of this; here the owner maybe wasn't aware of the racist homophobe and he decided to change his behavior upon that. Talking to people might result in positive change.
- Reducing polarization: This combines the previous two points. I feel that when people only hang out with others who agree with them, they tend to strengthen their beliefs: "It's what everyone thinks!! Even [insert person they consider smart/authorative] says it!". If we'd all start boycotting, we'd end up with a civilization where democrats only do business with democrats and republicans exclusively with republicans. Great, we're back at the old system where people would only hang out with others from their own subreligion but religion has become politics. Is this what we want? In the case of a small business owner in a small town; he might just figure our you're boycotting him for these particular reasons. This might induce anger towards people of your political stream, strengthen his own beliefs of how "bad" your kind of people are and decide to funnel even more money towards his favorite politician (assuming he doesn't go bankrupt over losing you as a customer).
So now to get back to what it's about. By boycotting you try to reduce the owners income so he can't get his money to said politician. Now I do agree with the principles mentioned above, but I believe that not going there anymore won't make a big difference in the end. Actually, the owner might even notice your actions and strengthen
So to me, boycotting/selective patronizing overall has a negative effect (e.g. bad for the business, you don't go to a place you formerly enjoyed, owner might further polarize his opinion, etc.) while having a dialogue in my worst case scenario means I have to adjust my opinion because I was wrong all that time and in the best case that someone's shifted his opinion closer towards mine.
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Hirondelle, just fyi I think you mean "boycott". Patronize means the opposite: to eat at the diner, shop at the store, etc.
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Hirondelle, just fyi I think you mean "boycott". Patronize means the opposite: to eat at the diner, shop at the store, etc.
Oops, you're right! I'm non-native so got confused as it was mostly about boycotting but indeed was used as "not patronizing". Adjusted it in my text.
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I've been to this bakery several times for birthday cakes in the past, and I definitely struggled with that decision after this case became known. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/12/05/wedding-cake-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-highly-anticipated-supreme-court-ruling/?utm_term=.98412211d5bf
I strongly oppose the baker's decision, and at the same time, I know I rarely choose to not spend my money at a place because of questionable business practices. Wal-mart is probably the biggest store I ignore business practices in favor of lower prices.
I'm still not sure how this baker is open after all the business he lost over his decision.
I think the baker should be allowed to decide whom to serve (just as much as consumers are allowed whom to do business with). While I respect that the baker is following his convictions and share his religious belief, I don't think I'd make the same decision myself. If I were baking the cake, it would just be a cake, but I'm nowhere close to considering myself an artist in this area. I assume that the couple had plenty of other local bakeries happy to provide their cake. If they felt that this particular baker offered something special, that supports his argument that his work as a baker is artistic in nature, validating his appeal to first amendment rights of freedom of expression.
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That seems like a dark path.
Should I be allowed to refuse to make a cake for a black couple because their skin color offends my artistic sensibilities? If I own a strip club with dancers, can I refuse service to Mexicans because my dancers think they're gross? What if I run a hamburger joint . . . my burgers are my art, and I don't want to serve women because my artistic mind judges them to be inferior to men and unworthy of being treated as people?
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That seems like a dark path.
Should I be allowed to refuse to make a cake for a black couple because their skin color offends my artistic sensibilities? If I own a strip club with dancers, can I refuse service to Mexicans because my dancers think they're gross? What if I run a hamburger joint . . . my burgers are my art, and I don't want to serve women because my artistic mind judges them to be inferior to men and unworthy of being treated as people?
I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
Regardless of legislation, I think the baker made an enormous mistake grandstanding on this issue; he could have very easily said "sorry but I am booked that week." It still would be prejudicial, but IMO keeping ones prejudices to themselves is the minimum a tolerant society should strive for.
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I've been to this bakery several times for birthday cakes in the past, and I definitely struggled with that decision after this case became known. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/12/05/wedding-cake-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-highly-anticipated-supreme-court-ruling/?utm_term=.98412211d5bf
I strongly oppose the baker's decision, and at the same time, I know I rarely choose to not spend my money at a place because of questionable business practices. Wal-mart is probably the biggest store I ignore business practices in favor of lower prices.
I'm still not sure how this baker is open after all the business he lost over his decision.
I think the baker should be allowed to decide whom to serve (just as much as consumers are allowed whom to do business with). While I respect that the baker is following his convictions and share his religious belief, I don't think I'd make the same decision myself. If I were baking the cake, it would just be a cake, but I'm nowhere close to considering myself an artist in this area. I assume that the couple had plenty of other local bakeries happy to provide their cake. If they felt that this particular baker offered something special, that supports his argument that his work as a baker is artistic in nature, validating his appeal to first amendment rights of freedom of expression.
I don't think the business and it's customers are on a level playing field for a few reasons.
1) The customer can decide to buy or not buy for any reason. Even if we wanted to force someone to ignore race, gender, or whatever else when they make their purchasing decisions, it would be impossible.
2) The business has already completed half of the transaction by existing, especially if they have a public storefront or advertise to the public. To refuse service to a particular person would be retracting an offer already made, it would take an action on the part of the business. Not buying isn't an action, it is a lack thereof.
3) Responding to the second bolded statement, what if there isn't another bakery that can provide a cake? What if all bakeries decide not to serve gay people? This is probably unlikely in this specific scenario but with different products or locations it is certainly possible. Another way to look at it would be that a business fills a need in a community. In an isolated community of a few thousand people there probably isn't going to be two bakeries. If I owned a bakery I would be drastically reducing the chance that another bakery will open in the same town. This does not apply to customers the same way because anyone is a potential customer.
4) I'm probably starting to get redundant now, but one more thing. Businesses provide access to something. Access to that thing will theoretically improve a customer's life more than the money they use to pay for it (according to their own brain which is often wrong, but I digress). Refusing access to that thing for a specific group of people puts those people at a disadvantage in society. While I'm not someone who thinks we should go to great lengths to make everything perfectly fair, I do think that simple actions like requiring businesses to treat customers from protected classes fairly will do more good for society than harm.
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I think the baker should be allowed to decide whom to serve (just as much as consumers are allowed whom to do business with).
That is what the people who ran all the businesses with "Whites Only" and "No..." signs thought in the 50s. I think as a country we have moved past that.
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This scales to all levels. A lot of people I know have spontaneously* stopped buying American products. Treat me/my country like dirt, I won't shop at your store.
* as in, this is not an organised movement. People just mention that they were shopping for something, and bought non-American.
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I'll do business with people who have differing views than mine. I do have limits, something extremely outside of the norm (say this fellow: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/06/01/hes-pro-incest-pedophilia-and-rape-hes-also-running-for-congress-from-his-parents-house/?utm_term=.2fc7dd2e807a) I would reconsider. If their point of view cut the the core of who I am as a person, such as all non-believers should die, then I would probably go somewhere else (at least in my personal life).
But, doing associating with, doing business with, or even just socializing with people who have the exact same point of view on every subject matter as I do is boring, dull, and predictable. I learn nothing, I am not challenged in my positions, and I would spend a hell of a lot of time vetting people. As a society, I cannot image that people only dealing with others who share their world view would be healthy. Points of view would become insulate, rigid, and perhaps more extreme.
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I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
A good parallel would be if a high end restaurant refused to host a reception and decorate for a same sex wedding. There's no specific pro- or anti- same-sex marriage message, but the service provider believes producing the cake and/or decorations implies acceptance and/or approval of it.
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I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
A good parallel would be if a high end restaurant refused to host a reception and decorate for a same sex wedding. There's no specific pro- or anti- same-sex marriage message, but the service provider believes producing the cake and/or decorations implies acceptance and/or approval of it.
How is there no specific same sex marriage message in your example? The restaurant is refusing to hold a same sex marriage but is OK with hosting a straight one. That's about as specific as you can be without taking out an anti-gay marriage ad on local TV.
If a high end restaurant refused to hold receptions for mix race couples because they believe in racial purity they would be sending an equally strong message . . . and equally in the wrong.
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If I don’t agree with a large corporation like Hobby Lobby I do stop shopping there. For a small business owner I would only stop patronizing if there position was hateful like the bakery that wouldn’t make cakes for gay couples.
To be accurate,the baker “makes cakes for gay couples.” He make all kinds of cakes for all kinds of people and has stated he most certainly would make many kinds of cakes for gay men.
He will not make a cake for a particular celebration, a wedding of two gay men.
The Supreme Court backed him up yesterday.
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If I don’t agree with a large corporation like Hobby Lobby I do stop shopping there. For a small business owner I would only stop patronizing if there position was hateful like the bakery that wouldn’t make cakes for gay couples.
To be accurate,the baker “makes cakes for gay couples.” He make all kinds of cakes for all kinds of people and has stated he most certainly would make many kinds of cakes for gay men.
He will not make a cake for a particular celebration, a wedding of two gay men.
The Supreme Court backed him up yesterday.
They invalidated the commissions decision on technicalities. The commission was mean to the baker and they didn't use the right argument to defend their differing treatment in another case. They didn't actually say the baker was in the right and specifically left the door open for other similar cases to be brought later with potentially different results.
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I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
A good parallel would be if a high end restaurant refused to host a reception and decorate for a same sex wedding. There's no specific pro- or anti- same-sex marriage message, but the service provider believes producing the cake and/or decorations implies acceptance and/or approval of it.
How is there no specific same sex marriage message in your example? The restaurant is refusing to hold a same sex marriage but is OK with hosting a straight one. That's about as specific as you can be without taking out an anti-gay marriage ad on local TV.
If a high end restaurant refused to hold receptions for mix race couples because they believe in racial purity they would be sending an equally strong message . . . and equally in the wrong.
You're not following. The example I was responding to said it was no different than a high end restaurant refusing to serve homosexuals, but the baker is not refusing to serve homosexuals.
The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
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If I don’t agree with a large corporation like Hobby Lobby I do stop shopping there. For a small business owner I would only stop patronizing if there position was hateful like the bakery that wouldn’t make cakes for gay couples.
To be accurate,the baker “makes cakes for gay couples.” He make all kinds of cakes for all kinds of people and has stated he most certainly would make many kinds of cakes for gay men.
He will not make a cake for a particular celebration, a wedding of two gay men.
The Supreme Court backed him up yesterday.
They invalidated the commissions decision on technicalities. The commission was mean to the baker and they didn't use the right argument to defend their differing treatment in another case. They didn't actually say the baker was in the right and specifically left the door open for other similar cases to be brought later with potentially different results.
The free exercise clause is not a technicality. It's a fundamental constitutional protection.
It's also very easy to not violate. You basically just have to avoid treating religious practices worse than you treat non-religious practices. The Colorado Commission essentially had to go out of their way to violate it, and they did because they were more concerned with expressing their distaste for the people who don't agree with same sex marriage than they are with applying the law.
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If I don’t agree with a large corporation like Hobby Lobby I do stop shopping there. For a small business owner I would only stop patronizing if there position was hateful like the bakery that wouldn’t make cakes for gay couples.
To be accurate,the baker “makes cakes for gay couples.” He make all kinds of cakes for all kinds of people and has stated he most certainly would make many kinds of cakes for gay men.
He will not make a cake for a particular celebration, a wedding of two gay men.
The Supreme Court backed him up yesterday.
They invalidated the commissions decision on technicalities. The commission was mean to the baker and they didn't use the right argument to defend their differing treatment in another case. They didn't actually say the baker was in the right and specifically left the door open for other similar cases to be brought later with potentially different results.
The free exercise clause is not a technicality. It's a fundamental constitutional protection.
It's also very easy to not violate. You basically just have to avoid treating religious practices worse than you treat non-religious practices. The Colorado Commission essentially had to go out of their way to violate it, and they did because they were more concerned with expressing their distaste for the people who don't agree with same sex marriage than they are with applying the law.
I say it's a technicality because it isn't actually related to the main question being posed by the case. Maybe that's not the word I'm looking for? Not that I don't see a problem with the government officials being hostile toward his religion.
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I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
A good parallel would be if a high end restaurant refused to host a reception and decorate for a same sex wedding. There's no specific pro- or anti- same-sex marriage message, but the service provider believes producing the cake and/or decorations implies acceptance and/or approval of it.
How is there no specific same sex marriage message in your example? The restaurant is refusing to hold a same sex marriage but is OK with hosting a straight one. That's about as specific as you can be without taking out an anti-gay marriage ad on local TV.
If a high end restaurant refused to hold receptions for mix race couples because they believe in racial purity they would be sending an equally strong message . . . and equally in the wrong.
You're not following. The example I was responding to said it was no different than a high end restaurant refusing to serve homosexuals, but the baker is not refusing to serve homosexuals.
OK, I get it. A little bit of discrimination is OK.
You can refuse black people service on the items they want from your menu, as long as you agree to sell them a pack of gum at the register. That's totally not discrimination, right?
The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."
That seems pretty explicit.
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I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
A good parallel would be if a high end restaurant refused to host a reception and decorate for a same sex wedding. There's no specific pro- or anti- same-sex marriage message, but the service provider believes producing the cake and/or decorations implies acceptance and/or approval of it.
How is there no specific same sex marriage message in your example? The restaurant is refusing to hold a same sex marriage but is OK with hosting a straight one. That's about as specific as you can be without taking out an anti-gay marriage ad on local TV.
If a high end restaurant refused to hold receptions for mix race couples because they believe in racial purity they would be sending an equally strong message . . . and equally in the wrong.
You're not following. The example I was responding to said it was no different than a high end restaurant refusing to serve homosexuals, but the baker is not refusing to serve homosexuals.
The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The example you were responding to wasn't a great analogy but I think the mixed race analogy is good. Should a restaurant be allowed to refuse to host a mixed race wedding based on religious reasons?
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I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
A good parallel would be if a high end restaurant refused to host a reception and decorate for a same sex wedding. There's no specific pro- or anti- same-sex marriage message, but the service provider believes producing the cake and/or decorations implies acceptance and/or approval of it.
How is there no specific same sex marriage message in your example? The restaurant is refusing to hold a same sex marriage but is OK with hosting a straight one. That's about as specific as you can be without taking out an anti-gay marriage ad on local TV.
If a high end restaurant refused to hold receptions for mix race couples because they believe in racial purity they would be sending an equally strong message . . . and equally in the wrong.
You're not following. The example I was responding to said it was no different than a high end restaurant refusing to serve homosexuals, but the baker is not refusing to serve homosexuals.
OK, I get it. A little bit of discrimination is OK.
You can refuse black people service on the items they want from your menu, as long as you agree to sell them a pack of gum at the register. That's totally not discrimination, right?
The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
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I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
A good parallel would be if a high end restaurant refused to host a reception and decorate for a same sex wedding. There's no specific pro- or anti- same-sex marriage message, but the service provider believes producing the cake and/or decorations implies acceptance and/or approval of it.
How is there no specific same sex marriage message in your example? The restaurant is refusing to hold a same sex marriage but is OK with hosting a straight one. That's about as specific as you can be without taking out an anti-gay marriage ad on local TV.
If a high end restaurant refused to hold receptions for mix race couples because they believe in racial purity they would be sending an equally strong message . . . and equally in the wrong.
You're not following. The example I was responding to said it was no different than a high end restaurant refusing to serve homosexuals, but the baker is not refusing to serve homosexuals.
OK, I get it. A little bit of discrimination is OK.
You can refuse black people service on the items they want from your menu, as long as you agree to sell them a pack of gum at the register. That's totally not discrimination, right?
Doesn't have anything to do with what is ok or not. Generally, if you are actually trying to argue persuasively, you want the analogy you use to not have an obvious flaw in it (unless you are arguing with someone you think isn't sharp enough to see the flaw and you aren't worried about them actually understanding the argument). I was just pointing out that the baker wasn't refusing to serve gay people. He refused to make a wedding cake for a same sex wedding. When one of the customer's mother called, he also told her he wouldn't make a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding. He didn't say, tell me what you want and come pick it up, I just didn't want to deal with teh gays. So you shouldn't pick an analogy that deals with not serving people because they are gay.
The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."
That seems pretty explicit.
Again, you are not following. There is no explicit message in baking wedding cake for a same sex marriage or hosting and decorating for a wedding reception.
And even on top of you not following, you are still getting it wrong in responding to what you think the explicit message of the baker is. The explicit message is "I will not make a wedding cake that I know is going to be in a same-sex wedding celebration". If the customer was a gay wedding planner asking for a cake for a traditional wedding ceremony, he would have no problem making and sell it (according to him), so your phrasing of his message is inaccurate.
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No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
As a follower of Messiah Yeshua (Jesus Christ of Nazareth) myself, addressing this very specific point? I am left with three questions to the situation that has just been ruled on.
1) As per 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+5%3A9-13), how is this business owner's actions in line with the teachings of the faith? Were the men getting married professing to be Christian? If this is the case, then the baker is fully within the right to refuse, but it should have been a matter handled internally as per 1 Corinthians 6:1-11 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+5%3A31-32), and not in the courts of the land. (1 Corinthians in general has a lot to say in regard to these topics specifically regarding sexual immorality and justice, and I'm left wondering how many people within the faith have actually bothered reading the letter in full.)
2) Sexual immorality is a big issue to address in justice and mercy with the goal of repentance and salvation within the body of believers, not outside. Within the context of sexual sin and the teachings of Yeshua in Matthew 5:31-32 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+5%3A31-32) and Luke 16:18 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+16%3A18), will the baker make a wedding cake for Christian divorcees getting remarried if the Christian divorcee in question deliberately left someone else either within or outside of the faith over a hardened heart? If so, that too is supporting sexual immorality and adultery. One cannot deny one but permit the other, as neither can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven as per the previously referenced passages of 1 Corinthians, specifically verses 6:9-10.
3) Even just for the sake of even application of justice, let's say it is okay to deny doing work for sexual sinners outside of the body of believers on the basis of freedom of conscience. We can lump it into the same category as denying to create idols or sacrifice food to them as per the request of a customer for the sake of argument. Again, I go back to question two for the litmus test on righteousness in the baker's actions specifically: Does he bake wedding cakes for any divorcees getting remarried?
If just one of those questions is answered in the affermative, this is not a ruling for the freedom of practicing one's personal faith.
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I'll just add - I get a bit tired of people referring to skilled trade as 'art', when more often its a craft. It allows people to hide behind the skirts of 'artistic expression' to act how they please. A good parallel is a high-end restaurant; imagine what would happen if such an establishment refused to service a couple because they were gay.
A good parallel would be if a high end restaurant refused to host a reception and decorate for a same sex wedding. There's no specific pro- or anti- same-sex marriage message, but the service provider believes producing the cake and/or decorations implies acceptance and/or approval of it.
How is there no specific same sex marriage message in your example? The restaurant is refusing to hold a same sex marriage but is OK with hosting a straight one. That's about as specific as you can be without taking out an anti-gay marriage ad on local TV.
If a high end restaurant refused to hold receptions for mix race couples because they believe in racial purity they would be sending an equally strong message . . . and equally in the wrong.
You're not following. The example I was responding to said it was no different than a high end restaurant refusing to serve homosexuals, but the baker is not refusing to serve homosexuals.
OK, I get it. A little bit of discrimination is OK.
You can refuse black people service on the items they want from your menu, as long as you agree to sell them a pack of gum at the register. That's totally not discrimination, right?
The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
If you went in and asked the baker to make you a big ass cake for a stripper to jump out of, I would assume he might object to doing that. You can say he's discriminating against you for who you are, because for as long as you can remember, you've loved strippers jumping out of cakes, but that's not who the baker believes you are.
You view homosexuality as more like being black. It's an immutable characteristic that you can't change. The baker probably views homosexuality as more like an affinity for strippers jumping out of big ass cakes. Even if it's been a constant desire of yours for as long as you remember, he views it as an sinful desire, not who you are.
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Yep. Pretty much this.
I can honestly say that I've never even once fantasized about kissing or having sex with another man. The concept does nothing to get me interested or excited. For me (and I'd assume a lot of other people) sexual orientation is set in stone from the moment you're born, just as skin colour is. If you are somewhere more towards the middle of the heter-homo spectrum I guess that this would account for the assumption that orientation is an arbitrary choice?
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Yep. Pretty much this.
I can honestly say that I've never even once fantasized about kissing or having sex with another man. The concept does nothing to get me interested or excited. For me (and I'd assume a lot of other people) sexual orientation is set in stone from the moment you're born, just as skin colour is. If you are somewhere more towards the middle of the heter-homo spectrum I guess that this would account for the assumption that orientation is an arbitrary choice?
I thought we were supposed to view sexuality and gender identification as fluid. Isnt that the latest media-driven bias?
I think it is more likely that some humans are hard wired for sexuality and gender ID while others are nothard wired. And those who are not do seem to flip flop, thereby giving the impression that sexuality is a “choice.”
And that is great to know so unequivicobly that Guitar Steve is not a homo.
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In short, no I would not buy a cake from the bigoted baker. I've un-patronized businesses for far lesser reasons.
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Yep. Pretty much this.
I can honestly say that I've never even once fantasized about kissing or having sex with another man. The concept does nothing to get me interested or excited. For me (and I'd assume a lot of other people) sexual orientation is set in stone from the moment you're born, just as skin colour is. If you are somewhere more towards the middle of the heter-homo spectrum I guess that this would account for the assumption that orientation is an arbitrary choice?
I thought we were supposed to view sexuality and gender identification as fluid. Isnt that the latest media-driven bias?
I think it is more likely that some humans are hard wired for sexuality and gender ID while others are nothard wired. And those who are not do seem to flip flop, thereby giving the impression that sexuality is a “choice.”
And that is great to know so unequivicobly that Guitar Steve is not a homo.
To be fair . . . I've spent years doing BJJ. Which has to earn me at least honorary mention in the gay club roll call. :P
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Not sure anymore. Are doggy style and reverse cowgirl two different orientations? Or are they the same orientation and just arbitrarily treated as different because of gravity? https://alternative-science.com/nasa-confirms-space-reverse-cowgirl-doggystyle-thing/
But it's not really relevant, because not everybody is so close minded and tunnel visioned to think that their experience encompasses the totality of human experience.
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Yep. Pretty much this.
I can honestly say that I've never even once fantasized about kissing or having sex with another man. The concept does nothing to get me interested or excited. For me (and I'd assume a lot of other people) sexual orientation is set in stone from the moment you're born, just as skin colour is. If you are somewhere more towards the middle of the heter-homo spectrum I guess that this would account for the assumption that orientation is an arbitrary choice?
I thought we were supposed to view sexuality and gender identification as fluid. Isnt that the latest media-driven bias?
I think it is more likely that some humans are hard wired for sexuality and gender ID while others are nothard wired. And those who are not do seem to flip flop, thereby giving the impression that sexuality is a “choice.”
And that is great to know so unequivicobly that Guitar Steve is not a homo.
To be fair . . . I've spent years doing BJJ. Which has to earn me at least honorary mention in the gay club roll call. :P
If you expect me to interpret BJJ as anything but Blow Job something, you expect too much of me.
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It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
If you went in and asked the baker to make you a big ass cake for a stripper to jump out of, I would assume he might object to doing that. You can say he's discriminating against you for who you are, because for as long as you can remember, you've loved strippers jumping out of cakes, but that's not who the baker believes you are.
You view homosexuality as more like being black. It's an immutable characteristic that you can't change. The baker probably views homosexuality as more like an affinity for strippers jumping out of big ass cakes. Even if it's been a constant desire of yours for as long as you remember, he views it as an sinful desire, not who you are.
It literally does not matter at all if homosexuality is a "choice" or immutable or not. What religion you are is definitely a choice, and that can definitely change throughout your life. And yet it's still illegal to discriminate by religion, even though this baker probably views it as "sinful" to be Muslim too.
With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against. The baker probably views homosexuality as more like an affinity for strippers jumping out of big ass cakes.
Ridiculous. The customer is gay. In Colorado it's illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. End of story.
The baker can view himself however he wants to, he doesn't get to decide for anyone else. "People who like stripper cakes" is not a protected class so he's on firm ground rejecting that request.
Edit to say: take the direct corollary of interracial marriage. Would it be legal to refuse to make a wedding cake for a Christian man marrying a Muslim women because "I don't want to endorse their action to choose to live in a life of sin, even though I love you both as people?" No of course not, because religion is a protected class. This is no different at all.
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Not sure anymore. Are doggy style and reverse cowgirl two different orientations? Or are they the same orientation and just arbitrarily treated as different because of gravity? https://alternative-science.com/nasa-confirms-space-reverse-cowgirl-doggystyle-thing/
But it's not really relevant, because not everybody is so close minded and tunnel visioned to think that their experience encompasses the totality of human experience.
LOL. Of course you wouldn't answer that question and would try to make a silly joke and then accuse other people of being closed-minded. Of course.
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There are several places in my small town where I won't do business for some of the above reasons. I'm not going to help their cause by doing business there, if I can get same services someplace else. I'll even pay more to avoid those businesses.
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Not sure anymore. Are doggy style and reverse cowgirl two different orientations? Or are they the same orientation and just arbitrarily treated as different because of gravity? https://alternative-science.com/nasa-confirms-space-reverse-cowgirl-doggystyle-thing/
But it's not really relevant, because not everybody is so close minded and tunnel visioned to think that their experience encompasses the totality of human experience.
LOL. Of course you wouldn't answer that question and would try to make a silly joke and then accuse other people of being closed-minded. Of course.
You asked a stupid question and I gave you a stupid joke that it deserved, and also provided a real answer that it did not. What else do you want when you ask a stupid question?
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Yep. Pretty much this.
I can honestly say that I've never even once fantasized about kissing or having sex with another man. The concept does nothing to get me interested or excited. For me (and I'd assume a lot of other people) sexual orientation is set in stone from the moment you're born, just as skin colour is. If you are somewhere more towards the middle of the heter-homo spectrum I guess that this would account for the assumption that orientation is an arbitrary choice?
I thought we were supposed to view sexuality and gender identification as fluid. Isnt that the latest media-driven bias?
I think it is more likely that some humans are hard wired for sexuality and gender ID while others are nothard wired. And those who are not do seem to flip flop, thereby giving the impression that sexuality is a “choice.”
And that is great to know so unequivicobly that Guitar Steve is not a homo.
To be fair . . . I've spent years doing BJJ. Which has to earn me at least honorary mention in the gay club roll call. :P
If you expect me to interpret BJJ as anything but Blow Job something, you expect too much of me.
Blow Job Jitsu is close enough. :D
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Not sure anymore. Are doggy style and reverse cowgirl two different orientations? Or are they the same orientation and just arbitrarily treated as different because of gravity? https://alternative-science.com/nasa-confirms-space-reverse-cowgirl-doggystyle-thing/
But it's not really relevant, because not everybody is so close minded and tunnel visioned to think that their experience encompasses the totality of human experience.
LOL. Of course you wouldn't answer that question and would try to make a silly joke and then accuse other people of being closed-minded. Of course.
You asked a stupid question and I gave you a stupid joke that it deserved, and also provided a real answer that it did not. What else do you want when you ask a stupid question?
I'm sorry. Apparently, I was severely overestimating your ability to see an analogy and come to the realization that your assumptions regarding sexual orientation of homosexual people was biased and, indeed, ignorant. (Or, to use the language you prefer, stupid.)
Let me try again. Do you assume that your own sexual orientation is -- like the example you gave of "a homosexual customer" -- also just an "identification?" And just as with homosexuality, that "lots of people identify as different things through their life" so that arguably it's not who you are -- in other words, you are not actually heterosexual, but that it's just something you're identifying with at the moment?
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It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
If you went in and asked the baker to make you a big ass cake for a stripper to jump out of, I would assume he might object to doing that. You can say he's discriminating against you for who you are, because for as long as you can remember, you've loved strippers jumping out of cakes, but that's not who the baker believes you are.
You view homosexuality as more like being black. It's an immutable characteristic that you can't change. The baker probably views homosexuality as more like an affinity for strippers jumping out of big ass cakes. Even if it's been a constant desire of yours for as long as you remember, he views it as an sinful desire, not who you are.
It literally does not matter at all if homosexuality is a "choice" or immutable or not. What religion you are is definitely a choice, and that can definitely change throughout your life. And yet it's still illegal to discriminate by religion, even though this baker probably views it as "sinful" to be Muslim too.
That is correct for the legal analysis. The thread went sideways several posts up.
With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against. The baker probably views homosexuality as more like an affinity for strippers jumping out of big ass cakes.
Ridiculous. The customer is gay. In Colorado it's illegal to discriminate based on sexual orientation. End of story.
The baker can view himself however he wants to, he doesn't get to decide for anyone else. "People who like stripper cakes" is not a protected class so he's on firm ground rejecting that request.
correct about not being a protected class; again it went off the rails. Not correct as to it being the end of story.
Edit to say: take the direct corollary of interracial marriage. Would it be legal to refuse to make a wedding cake for a Christian man marrying a Muslim women because "you don't want to endorse their action to choose to live in a life of sin, even though I love you both as people?" No of course not, because religion is a protected class. This is no different at all.
This is a good analogy. But it's not as clear as you make it out to be. Think of an analogy where an obscure Christian or Muslim denomination/sect believes it is good for girls to be married off young, and it's traditional for 15 year-ish old girls to be married off to 25 yearish old men by their parents. Most people (I would hope) would object to having any part in the wedding. It seems to me that they should clearly be able to refuse to make and sell a cake that has the particular verse from teh bible or koran that they think justifies the practice. I would argue that they would be justified in simply refusing to provide a cake at all, if they believe a "wedding" and "marriage" means something sacred to them, and they view a 15 year old being married off as a bastardization of it because their version includes meaningful consent by the groom and bride. I think they shoudl just have this right, but if they were subject to a non-discrimination law regarding religion, I think it should be a defense for them to say they are not discriminating against them because of their religion, they are discriminating against weddings involving child brides. Obviously a lot of people on this forum would feel differently, but I would hope they could understand why their position isn't an obvious, slam dunk position to hold.
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Not sure anymore. Are doggy style and reverse cowgirl two different orientations? Or are they the same orientation and just arbitrarily treated as different because of gravity? https://alternative-science.com/nasa-confirms-space-reverse-cowgirl-doggystyle-thing/
But it's not really relevant, because not everybody is so close minded and tunnel visioned to think that their experience encompasses the totality of human experience.
LOL. Of course you wouldn't answer that question and would try to make a silly joke and then accuse other people of being closed-minded. Of course.
You asked a stupid question and I gave you a stupid joke that it deserved, and also provided a real answer that it did not. What else do you want when you ask a stupid question?
I'm sorry. Apparently, I was severely overestimating your ability to see an analogy and come to the realization that your assumptions regarding sexual orientation of homosexual people was biased and, indeed, ignorant. (Or, to use the language you prefer, stupid.)
Let me try again. Do you assume that your own sexual orientation is -- like the example you gave of "a homosexual customer" -- also just an "identification?" And just as with homosexuality, that "lots of people identify as different things through their life" so that arguably it's not who you are -- in other words, you are not actually heterosexual, but that it's just something you're identifying with at the moment?
I need a forehead slap emoji. Again, I am not making any assumptions regarding other people. I'm just not so dense as to think my experience is the sum total of human experience. If there are people with different experiences from me, I assume that they just have had different experiences than me. I don't assume that they must be engaged in some sort of elaborate ruse or self deception.
I'd love to see you interact with people in life.
Someone else: "It's funny, I used to be attracted to both men and women, but now I'm only attracted to women."
Kris: "Liar!!! I have only ever been attracted to one sex my entire life, so there's no way possible anybody else could have had a different experience."
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Edit to say: take the direct corollary of interracial marriage. Would it be legal to refuse to make a wedding cake for a Christian man marrying a Muslim women because "you don't want to endorse their action to choose to live in a life of sin, even though I love you both as people?" No of course not, because religion is a protected class. This is no different at all.
This is a good analogy. But it's not as clear as you make it out to be.
If it was such a good analogy why do you have to muddy the waters with a less-good analogy? In this situation everyone is above the age of consent and there's no justification for the baker imposing his personal moral beliefs on two consenting adults that belong to a protected class that is protected precisely because there is so much current-day discrimination going on against them.
Think of an analogy where an obscure Christian or Muslim denomination/sect believes it is good for girls to be married off young, and it's traditional for 15 year-ish old girls to be married off to 25 yearish old men by their parents. Most people (I would hope) would object to having any part in the wedding.
This is a bad analogy, because the "practices of obscure sects" are not necessarily covered by the religious discrimination laws. Pet shop owners are not compelled to sell snakes to snake-handling fundamentalist Christians, for example. It's illegal to discriminate against someone because they "are Muslim" or "are gay", it's (probably) not illegal to discriminate against someone because they are a "child-marriage Christian" (although I don't know if that's ever been tested in court). The world is full of grey, the courts will never run out of things to decide on. Which is why you should keep your analogies as close to the example under discussion as possible.
In addition, if the baker would be opposed to child marriages in general and not just when it happens to be "child-marriage Christians", then there is clearly no case here because he is not discriminating by religion but by child-marriages, which is not a protected class.
And no that is not the same as a gay wedding, because people of all religions can have child-marriages. Only gay people are going to get "gay married". So you can't separate the one from the other and discriminating against gay marriages is the same as discriminating against gay people.
It seems to me that they should clearly be able to refuse to make and sell a cake that has the particular verse from teh bible or koran that they think justifies the practice.
They would definitely be justified, because in general you cannot compel speech. The Supremes would agree, to quote myself from a different thread:
If you actually read the opinions, which people should because they are written in easy-to-follow English (even if longwinded), it seems likely that the line that will be drawn in the future general case is that you have to make a cake but you don't have to write any specific messages on it that you disagree with. Which seems entirely reasonable to me. Note that in this case there was no request to write any message.
I would argue that they would be justified in simply refusing to provide a cake at all, if they believe a "wedding" and "marriage" means something sacred to them, and they view a 15 year old being married off as a bastardization of it because their version includes meaningful consent by the groom and bride. I think they shoudl just have this right, but if they were subject to a non-discrimination law regarding religion, I think it should be a defense for them to say they are not discriminating against them because of their religion, they are discriminating against weddings involving child brides.
And they would probably win, because that's a different situation. More realistically it would never go to trial, because no one would think they did anything wrong.
Obviously a lot of people on this forum would feel differently, but I would hope they could understand why their position isn't an obvious, slam dunk position to hold.
Obviously you like to repeatedly twist the issue a little bit more until you can declare a moral victory against a straw-man argument.
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Edit: The example below mine is a great one. I will NOT go to the relgious affiliated hospital in our city anymore. I strongly believe the religious affiliation affected my care in the past, to a hugely negative degree. My current provider agrees that there is a strong possibility information was omitted (I was lied to) to prevent a certain action on my part due to that affiliation.
This is something that has been on my mind for years. I have a certain illness and the hospital with the best available care in my area is Catholic. It's not something they really advertise and they've changed their name a while back so it doesn't have "Saint" in its name anymore. Patients are not informed beforehand about the religious affiliation of the hospital, but I was aware of it because I went to the university it's a part of. It does mean that the hospital sometimes refuses to perform certain procedures, so I think they should at least inform patients. I have been torn for years about being a patient there. I don't think I would want to undergo major surgery there. At the same time, the care I currently receive there is excellent, much better than I would get elsewhere.
As for patronizing any businesses whose owners hold different beliefs: it depends, really. Of course it's a no brainer when they hold very extremist beliefs, but then, who decides what 'extreme' is? In the village I grew up in, many local businesses donate money to the local Catholic church. I don't identify as Catholic anymore, but I donate money to the homeless charity run by the local parish. A local ethnic store has a jar on the counter to collect money to build a new mosque. I'm not a muslim, but I don't mind contributing a few cents every time I go there. I've given some money to a local kids' club even though I don't have kids. They all seem good people to me and they're all part of my community. At the same time, I've absolutely quit shopping in certain stores just because I don't like the owner for no particular reason.
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Edit to say: take the direct corollary of interracial marriage. Would it be legal to refuse to make a wedding cake for a Christian man marrying a Muslim women because "you don't want to endorse their action to choose to live in a life of sin, even though I love you both as people?" No of course not, because religion is a protected class. This is no different at all.
This is a good analogy. But it's not as clear as you make it out to be.
If it was such a good analogy why do you have to muddy the waters with a less-good analogy?
Ideally, these cases would be decided on principles. Slight changes to analogies are useful in illuminating whether you are applying principles, or just deciding based on personally held beliefs, and if you are applying principles, whether they are the right ones.
In this situation everyone is above the age of consent and there's no justification for the baker imposing his personal moral beliefs on two consenting adults that belong to a protected class that is protected precisely because there is so much current-day discrimination going on against them.
The baker is not imposing his moral beliefs and is not trying to stop a legal marriage. He is just trying to opt out of providing a wedding cake. The same as if it were a wedding with a 15 year old bride. Both are legal marriages. Some people find both types of marriages objectionable. I am guessing you and I would probably agree on which one is objectionable and which one is not, but popular vote is not a great argument for when someone should be able to opt out of doing something because of a personal belief.
Think of an analogy where an obscure Christian or Muslim denomination/sect believes it is good for girls to be married off young, and it's traditional for 15 year-ish old girls to be married off to 25 yearish old men by their parents. Most people (I would hope) would object to having any part in the wedding.
This is a bad analogy, because the "practices of obscure sects" are not necessarily covered by the religious discrimination laws. Pet shop owners are not compelled to sell snakes to snake-handling fundamentalist Christians, for example. It's illegal to discriminate against someone because they "are Muslim" or "are gay", it's (probably) not illegal to discriminate against someone because they are a "child-marriage Christian" (although I don't know if that's ever been tested in court). The world is full of grey, the courts will never run out of things to decide on. Which is why you should keep your analogies as close to the example under discussion as possible.
Minor religious sects are protected to the same extent as mainstream denominations. The government is not allowed to determine which religions are valid or deserving of protection. So if the baker is willing to serve people of the child marrying religion, you just opened up the argument of is the baker impermissibly discriminating against people of that particular religion, or permissibly discriminating against a particular practice/act? Same with the baker willing to serve gays but not wanting to providing a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding.
It seems to me that they should clearly be able to refuse to make and sell a cake that has the particular verse from teh bible or koran that they think justifies the practice.
They would definitely be justified, because in general you cannot compel speech. The Supremes would agree, to quote myself from a different thread:
If you actually read the opinions, which people should because they are written in easy-to-follow English (even if longwinded), it seems likely that the line that will be drawn in the future general case is that you have to make a cake but you don't have to write any specific messages on it that you disagree with. Which seems entirely reasonable to me. Note that in this case there was no request to write any message.
I would argue that they would be justified in simply refusing to provide a cake at all, if they believe a "wedding" and "marriage" means something sacred to them, and they view a 15 year old being married off as a bastardization of it because their version includes meaningful consent by the groom and bride. I think they shoudl just have this right, but if they were subject to a non-discrimination law regarding religion, I think it should be a defense for them to say they are not discriminating against them because of their religion, they are discriminating against weddings involving child brides.
And they would probably win, because that's a different situation. More realistically it would never go to trial, because no one would think they did anything wrong.
That's result based arguments, which is generally not how you want your courts making decisions. If no one thought the baker was doing anything wrong, that wouldn't really change the "right" answer. If we want the law to simply be, "you can discriminate against anybody not popular enough for people to care about", anti-discrimination laws aren't a lot of help.
Obviously a lot of people on this forum would feel differently, but I would hope they could understand why their position isn't an obvious, slam dunk position to hold.
Obviously you like to repeatedly twist the issue a little bit more until you can declare a moral victory against a straw-man argument.
Or, I like to present "twist the issue" (or I would say "present alternative scenarios") to see if my and other people's reasoning holds up. Just like changing the facts from same-sex marriage to interracial marriage is helpful. If you feel differently about the two cases, you should be able to figure out why and whether that's because you are just engaged in results based arguments or whether there is a good, principled reason for why those two m ight come to different results.
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The no-specific message was in reference to hosting a reception or baking a wedding cake. I guess more precisely, there is no explicit message. If you bake a cake without any same sex writing and don't put same sex figurines on the top (if that's still or ever was really a thing), many (most?) people won't assume the baker of the cake is expressing any opinion on same sex marriage. Same with hosting and decorating for a wedding reception for a same sex wedding. Of course it does implicitly express a message that you don't object to it, or at least don't object to it enough to turn down business over it.
The baker is explicitly saying "I will not bake you a wedding cake because of who you are. If belonged to a class of people that I don't feel bigoted towards, you could have a wedding cake."[/]
That seems pretty explicit.
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Interesting.
So, tell me. How many different sexual orientations have you identified with through your life? When did you eventually, arbitrarily settle on being heterosexual?
Not sure anymore. Are doggy style and reverse cowgirl two different orientations? Or are they the same orientation and just arbitrarily treated as different because of gravity? https://alternative-science.com/nasa-confirms-space-reverse-cowgirl-doggystyle-thing/
But it's not really relevant, because not everybody is so close minded and tunnel visioned to think that their experience encompasses the totality of human experience.
LOL. Of course you wouldn't answer that question and would try to make a silly joke and then accuse other people of being closed-minded. Of course.
You asked a stupid question and I gave you a stupid joke that it deserved, and also provided a real answer that it did not. What else do you want when you ask a stupid question?
I'm sorry. Apparently, I was severely overestimating your ability to see an analogy and come to the realization that your assumptions regarding sexual orientation of homosexual people was biased and, indeed, ignorant. (Or, to use the language you prefer, stupid.)
Let me try again. Do you assume that your own sexual orientation is -- like the example you gave of "a homosexual customer" -- also just an "identification?" And just as with homosexuality, that "lots of people identify as different things through their life" so that arguably it's not who you are -- in other words, you are not actually heterosexual, but that it's just something you're identifying with at the moment?
I need a forehead slap emoji. Again, I am not making any assumptions regarding other people. I'm just not so dense as to think my experience is the sum total of human experience. If there are people with different experiences from me, I assume that they just have had different experiences than me. I don't assume that they must be engaged in some sort of elaborate ruse or self deception.
I'd love to see you interact with people in life.
Someone else: "It's funny, I used to be attracted to both men and women, but now I'm only attracted to women."
Kris: "Liar!!! I have only ever been attracted to one sex my entire life, so there's no way possible anybody else could have had a different experience."
LOL!
Good lord, the only response to this is to laugh. Honestly. Your argument, starting with "black people can't help it but sexual attraction is an identity people just try on so discriminating against gays isn't against who they are, it's just against what they choose to do so it's totes not the same thing" and managing to end up with "Kris is an intolerant bigot for suggesting that maybe for some gays it's not a choice just like it's not a choice for me to be straight" is just...
Well, I guess congratulations? It's not often that someone's "logic" is so twisted that it just makes me laugh and walk away shaking my head.
Please, carry on. I have a hilarious story to go tell to some of my gay friends.
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I think people need to learn to love their neighbors a little more and not worry so much about politics. A Middle Eastern hippie named Jesus said that in a book I read.
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Think of an analogy where an obscure Christian or Muslim denomination/sect believes it is good for girls to be married off young, and it's traditional for 15 year-ish old girls to be married off to 25 yearish old men by their parents. Most people (I would hope) would object to having any part in the wedding.
This is a bad analogy, because the "practices of obscure sects" are not necessarily covered by the religious discrimination laws. Pet shop owners are not compelled to sell snakes to snake-handling fundamentalist Christians, for example. It's illegal to discriminate against someone because they "are Muslim" or "are gay", it's (probably) not illegal to discriminate against someone because they are a "child-marriage Christian" (although I don't know if that's ever been tested in court). The world is full of grey, the courts will never run out of things to decide on. Which is why you should keep your analogies as close to the example under discussion as possible.
In addition, if the baker would be opposed to child marriages in general and not just when it happens to be "child-marriage Christians", then there is clearly no case here because he is not discriminating by religion but by child-marriages, which is not a protected class.
And no that is not the same as a gay wedding, because people of all religions can have child-marriages. Only gay people are going to get "gay married". So you can't separate the one from the other and discriminating against gay marriages is the same as discriminating against gay people.
Minor religious sects are protected to the same extent as mainstream denominations. The government is not allowed to determine which religions are valid or deserving of protection. So if the baker is willing to serve people of the child marrying religion, you just opened up the argument of is the baker impermissibly discriminating against people of that particular religion, or permissibly discriminating against a particular practice/act? Same with the baker willing to serve gays but not wanting to providing a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding.
You missed an important part, which I will charitably assume is because I edited it after you were already responding. I've added it back in in bold. Also way to not respond at all to the snake-handling part, which is exactly as relevant as the child-marriage argument. In your unreal world where people would be compelled to participate in child-marriages pet shop owners would also be compelled to sell snakes to snake-handling fundamentalists. That is not the world we live in however. There's a difference between discriminating against a class of people and discriminating against a particular practice that someone holds as a religious belief.
Or, I like to present "twist the issue" (or I would say "present alternative scenarios") to see if my and other people's reasoning holds up. Just like changing the facts from same-sex marriage to interracial marriage is helpful. If you feel differently about the two cases, you should be able to figure out why and whether that's because you are just engaged in results based arguments or whether there is a good, principled reason for why those two m ight come to different results.
Okay, the "principled reason" is that you freedoms / rights only extend up until they start butting up against someone else's freedoms / rights. The area of gray where compromises must be made is where the courts come in and is what happens when the two conflict. There is no protected class of "child-marriages", and it cannot be inferred from general "religious freedom" because people of all religions can get child-married. There is a protected class of "sexual orientation" (in Colorado), and that does directly carry over into "gay marriages" because only gay people are going to get gay married and so the two are not separable. Clear enough for you now?
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I think people need to learn to love their neighbors a little more and not worry so much about politics.
Nereo supports this sentiment!
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I think people need to learn to love their neighbors a little more and not worry so much about politics. A Middle Eastern hippie named Jesus said that in a book I read.
Well I agree, but in a lot of cases "politics" are what happens once people demonstrate they are incapable of loving their neighbor.
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I can't be buyin' my chew from you round earthers.
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I think people need to learn to love their neighbors a little more and not worry so much about politics. A Middle Eastern hippie named Jesus said that in a book I read.
Jesus was a Jewish pinko commie pacifist who never thought it was his place to criticize gay couples. Why would his actions have any impact on Christians?
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I need a forehead slap emoji. Again, I am not making any assumptions regarding other people. I'm just not so dense as to think my experience is the sum total of human experience. If there are people with different experiences from me, I assume that they just have had different experiences than me. I don't assume that they must be engaged in some sort of elaborate ruse or self deception.
I'd love to see you interact with people in life.
Someone else: "It's funny, I used to be attracted to both men and women, but now I'm only attracted to women."
Kris: "Liar!!! I have only ever been attracted to one sex my entire life, so there's no way possible anybody else could have had a different experience."
LOL!
Good lord, the only response to this is to laugh. Honestly. Your argument, starting with "black people can't help it but sexual attraction is an identity people just try on so discriminating against gays isn't against who they are, it's just against what they choose to do so it's totes not the same thing" and managing to end up with "Kris is an intolerant bigot for suggesting that maybe for some gays it's not a choice just like it's not a choice for me to be straight" is just...
Well, I guess congratulations? It's not often that someone's "logic" is so twisted that it just makes me laugh and walk away shaking my head.
Please, carry on. I have a hilarious story to go tell to some of my gay friends.
When you tell the story, you should try to also hit on some things that actually happened. Just to mix things up.
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I need a forehead slap emoji. Again, I am not making any assumptions regarding other people. I'm just not so dense as to think my experience is the sum total of human experience. If there are people with different experiences from me, I assume that they just have had different experiences than me. I don't assume that they must be engaged in some sort of elaborate ruse or self deception.
I'd love to see you interact with people in life.
Someone else: "It's funny, I used to be attracted to both men and women, but now I'm only attracted to women."
Kris: "Liar!!! I have only ever been attracted to one sex my entire life, so there's no way possible anybody else could have had a different experience."
LOL!
Good lord, the only response to this is to laugh. Honestly. Your argument, starting with "black people can't help it but sexual attraction is an identity people just try on so discriminating against gays isn't against who they are, it's just against what they choose to do so it's totes not the same thing" and managing to end up with "Kris is an intolerant bigot for suggesting that maybe for some gays it's not a choice just like it's not a choice for me to be straight" is just...
Well, I guess congratulations? It's not often that someone's "logic" is so twisted that it just makes me laugh and walk away shaking my head.
Please, carry on. I have a hilarious story to go tell to some of my gay friends.
When you tell the story, you should try to also hit on some things that actually happened. Just to mix things up.
Your argument, starting with "black people can't help it but sexual attraction is an identity people just try on so discriminating against gays isn't against who they are, it's just against what they choose to do so it's totes not the same thing"
With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
That does seem to be a concise summary of your point there, no?
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Think of an analogy where an obscure Christian or Muslim denomination/sect believes it is good for girls to be married off young, and it's traditional for 15 year-ish old girls to be married off to 25 yearish old men by their parents. Most people (I would hope) would object to having any part in the wedding.
This is a bad analogy, because the "practices of obscure sects" are not necessarily covered by the religious discrimination laws. Pet shop owners are not compelled to sell snakes to snake-handling fundamentalist Christians, for example. It's illegal to discriminate against someone because they "are Muslim" or "are gay", it's (probably) not illegal to discriminate against someone because they are a "child-marriage Christian" (although I don't know if that's ever been tested in court). The world is full of grey, the courts will never run out of things to decide on. Which is why you should keep your analogies as close to the example under discussion as possible.
In addition, if the baker would be opposed to child marriages in general and not just when it happens to be "child-marriage Christians", then there is clearly no case here because he is not discriminating by religion but by child-marriages, which is not a protected class.
And no that is not the same as a gay wedding, because people of all religions can have child-marriages. Only gay people are going to get "gay married". So you can't separate the one from the other and discriminating against gay marriages is the same as discriminating against gay people.
Minor religious sects are protected to the same extent as mainstream denominations. The government is not allowed to determine which religions are valid or deserving of protection. So if the baker is willing to serve people of the child marrying religion, you just opened up the argument of is the baker impermissibly discriminating against people of that particular religion, or permissibly discriminating against a particular practice/act? Same with the baker willing to serve gays but not wanting to providing a wedding cake for a same-sex wedding.
You missed an important part, which I will charitably assume is because I edited it after you were already responding.
I appreciate you extending me some charity on not knowing you were going to edit your response after I started responding to it?
I've added it back in in bold. Also way to not respond at all to the snake-handling part, which is exactly as relevant as the child-marriage argument. In your unreal world where people would be compelled to participate in child-marriages pet shop owners would also be compelled to sell snakes to snake-handling fundamentalists. That is not the world we live in however. There's a difference between discriminating against a class of people and discriminating against a particular practice that someone holds as a religious belief.
I didn't respond to the snake handling part because it's consistent with my point. I agree that people shouldn't be required to sell snakes to be used in a particular ceremony they have moral objections to.
Or, I like to present "twist the issue" (or I would say "present alternative scenarios") to see if my and other people's reasoning holds up. Just like changing the facts from same-sex marriage to interracial marriage is helpful. If you feel differently about the two cases, you should be able to figure out why and whether that's because you are just engaged in results based arguments or whether there is a good, principled reason for why those two m ight come to different results.
Okay, the "principled reason" is that you freedoms / rights only extend up until they start butting up against someone else's freedoms / rights. The area of gray where compromises must be made is where the courts come in and is what happens when the two conflict. There is no protected class of "child-marriages", and it cannot be inferred from general "religious freedom" because people of all religions can get child-married. There is a protected class of "sexual orientation" (in Colorado), and that does directly carry over into "gay marriages" because only gay people are going to get gay married and so the two are not separable. Clear enough for you now?
That's a decent enough distinction, but again, it's not a clear cut case. If you object to providing goods or services to the wedding involving a child bride because you think a marriage is a sacred arrangement that by definition involves a consenting adult, you are not worried about the religion of the persons involved. Similarly, if you are objecting to providing goods or services to the wedding involving same sex partners because you think marriage is a scared arrangement that by definition involves a man and woman, you are not worried about the sexual proclivities of the people involved and whether they are doing it out of love or for tax reasons or to get insurance coverage.
I think whether it is permissible or not to decline to provide goods or service should just depend on the sincere beliefs of the provider, and not the likelihood of the person being denied service being of a particular sexual orientation or religion.
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I need a forehead slap emoji. Again, I am not making any assumptions regarding other people. I'm just not so dense as to think my experience is the sum total of human experience. If there are people with different experiences from me, I assume that they just have had different experiences than me. I don't assume that they must be engaged in some sort of elaborate ruse or self deception.
I'd love to see you interact with people in life.
Someone else: "It's funny, I used to be attracted to both men and women, but now I'm only attracted to women."
Kris: "Liar!!! I have only ever been attracted to one sex my entire life, so there's no way possible anybody else could have had a different experience."
LOL!
Good lord, the only response to this is to laugh. Honestly. Your argument, starting with "black people can't help it but sexual attraction is an identity people just try on so discriminating against gays isn't against who they are, it's just against what they choose to do so it's totes not the same thing" and managing to end up with "Kris is an intolerant bigot for suggesting that maybe for some gays it's not a choice just like it's not a choice for me to be straight" is just...
Well, I guess congratulations? It's not often that someone's "logic" is so twisted that it just makes me laugh and walk away shaking my head.
Please, carry on. I have a hilarious story to go tell to some of my gay friends.
When you tell the story, you should try to also hit on some things that actually happened. Just to mix things up.
Your argument, starting with "black people can't help it but sexual attraction is an identity people just try on so discriminating against gays isn't against who they are, it's just against what they choose to do so it's totes not the same thing"
With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
That does seem to be a concise summary of your point there, no?
Not really. I didn't say anything about choosing one thing or another. It wasn't relevant to the point. And certainly I didn't say anything like her second "paraphrase". I didn't call her a bigot at all and didn't call her close minded for anything like what she claims. I called her close minded for being unable to envision people having a different experience than her with respect to sexual orientation.
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I think whether it is permissible or not to decline to provide goods or service should just depend on the sincere beliefs of the provider, and not the likelihood of the person being denied service being of a particular sexual orientation or religion.
The issue with this line of reasoning is that it explicitly gives free reign to discrimination against groups of people.
What you want has already been tried and failed. The US has a long standing history of denying service to minorities, in fact this is the whole reason that anti-discrimination laws were necessary - heck not long ago, good Christians were preaching that intermingling races by marriage was perverted and sinful (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/ (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/)). The American people have proved that without anti-discrimination laws they would perform discrimination that was both unfair and hurtful to minority groups. You just need to switch 'black' with 'gay' to see exactly the same situations that anti-discrimination laws were created to prevent happening today.
Very specifically, the goal of anti-discrimination laws is not to take away your right to refuse to serve someone (even if they’re in a protected group), but to ensure that the refusal can’t be arbitrary and you can’t be applied to just one group of people. In this bakery case, the refusal is arbitrary and only applies to one group of people (the instance of gay marriage between straight people is astonishingly low).
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Not really. I didn't say anything about choosing one thing or another. It wasn't relevant to the point. And certainly I didn't say anything like her second "paraphrase". I didn't call her a bigot at all and didn't call her close minded for anything like what she claims. I called her close minded for being unable to envision people having a different experience than her with respect to sexual orientation.
Alright.
I was arguing that discrimination against a black person is not OK because it's against who he is, and that it's also not OK against gay people because of who they are. You responded with this:
With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Which each time that I read through it seems to indicate that you believe being gay is a choice, and not something fundamental to who a person actually is. You're saying that's not what you intended to type. Can you elaborate on exactly what was meant by this statement then?
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Do you own any index funds? Have you checked every political position of every company in the fund?
When you buy a stock you're not merely a customer of that company, you're a partial owner of that company. If you can't check up on the companies you actually own, is it reasonable to check up on companies you merely patronize?
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I think whether it is permissible or not to decline to provide goods or service should just depend on the sincere beliefs of the provider, and not the likelihood of the person being denied service being of a particular sexual orientation or religion.
The issue with this line of reasoning is that it explicitly gives free reign to discrimination against groups of people.
What you want has already been tried and failed. The US has a long standing history of denying service to minorities, in fact this is the whole reason that anti-discrimination laws were necessary - heck not long ago, good Christians were preaching that intermingling races by marriage was perverted and sinful (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/ (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/)). The American people have proved that without anti-discrimination laws they would perform discrimination that was both unfair and hurtful to minority groups. You just need to switch 'black' with 'gay' to see exactly the same situations that anti-discrimination laws were created to prevent happening today.
Very specifically, the goal of anti-discrimination laws is not to take away your right to refuse to serve someone (even if they’re in a protected group), but to ensure that the refusal can’t be arbitrary and you can’t be applied to just one group of people. In this bakery case, the refusal is arbitrary and only applies to one group of people (the instance of gay marriage between straight people is astonishingly low).
It is specifically to take away your right to refuse to serve someone. That's ok in some circumstances. Considering the long history of the U.S. government not just protecting people's rights to be racist ass holes, but also having its employees/politicians do so, and even make it illegal in some places to treat people decently if they are of a particular race, and be so successful at it that those people can't really even participate in much of the economy (and all that's after fighting a bloody war to more or less determine whether people of particular races get to even have basic human rights), yea, go ahead and infringe on people's freedom of association.
To do that on the back end of the civil rights movement for gay people, to ensure they can find somebody gay friendly in the freaking wedding industry of all places (and in colorado?), that seems like not such a great tradeoff. Call the guy an ass hole. Let all your friends know they shouldn't support him. Even picket in front of his business to let people know the way he treated you. But calling in the government to punish him requires a lot of faith that you will never be viewed as an unpopular minority. Or maybe it's the opposite and you think you will eventually get screwed by being an unpopular minority regardless of whether you treat people with tolerance now, so you want to go ahead and do the screwing while you have the power. Regardless, not something that I think should be encouraged if you have any optimism that people could treat each other decently.
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I think whether it is permissible or not to decline to provide goods or service should just depend on the sincere beliefs of the provider, and not the likelihood of the person being denied service being of a particular sexual orientation or religion.
The issue with this line of reasoning is that it explicitly gives free reign to discrimination against groups of people.
What you want has already been tried and failed. The US has a long standing history of denying service to minorities, in fact this is the whole reason that anti-discrimination laws were necessary - heck not long ago, good Christians were preaching that intermingling races by marriage was perverted and sinful (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/ (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/)). The American people have proved that without anti-discrimination laws they would perform discrimination that was both unfair and hurtful to minority groups. You just need to switch 'black' with 'gay' to see exactly the same situations that anti-discrimination laws were created to prevent happening today.
Very specifically, the goal of anti-discrimination laws is not to take away your right to refuse to serve someone (even if they’re in a protected group), but to ensure that the refusal can’t be arbitrary and you can’t be applied to just one group of people. In this bakery case, the refusal is arbitrary and only applies to one group of people (the instance of gay marriage between straight people is astonishingly low).
It is specifically to take away your right to refuse to serve someone. That's ok in some circumstances. Considering the long history of the U.S. government not just protecting people's rights to be racist ass holes, but also having its employees/politicians do so, and even make it illegal in some places to treat people decently if they are of a particular race, and be so successful at it that those people can't really even participate in much of the economy (and all that's after fighting a bloody war to more or less determine whether people of particular races get to even have basic human rights), yea, go ahead and infringe on people's freedom of association.
To do that on the back end of the civil rights movement for gay people, to ensure they can find somebody gay friendly in the freaking wedding industry of all places (and in colorado?), that seems like not such a great tradeoff. Call the guy an ass hole. Let all your friends know they shouldn't support him. Even picket in front of his business to let people know the way he treated you. But calling in the government to punish him requires a lot of faith that you will never be viewed as an unpopular minority. Or maybe it's the opposite and you think you will eventually get screwed by being an unpopular minority regardless of whether you treat people with tolerance now, so you want to go ahead and do the screwing while you have the power. Regardless, not something that I think should be encouraged if you have any optimism that people could treat each other decently.
That's not really how civil rights work though. They're either protected or they're not.
You don't say 'Yeah, it's OK for someone selling fried chicken in the south to refuse service to a black guy . . . I mean, it's not like the black guy can't go somewhere else for fried chicken. He can be denied those rights this time."
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I think whether it is permissible or not to decline to provide goods or service should just depend on the sincere beliefs of the provider, and not the likelihood of the person being denied service being of a particular sexual orientation or religion.
The issue with this line of reasoning is that it explicitly gives free reign to discrimination against groups of people.
What you want has already been tried and failed. The US has a long standing history of denying service to minorities, in fact this is the whole reason that anti-discrimination laws were necessary - heck not long ago, good Christians were preaching that intermingling races by marriage was perverted and sinful (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/ (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/)). The American people have proved that without anti-discrimination laws they would perform discrimination that was both unfair and hurtful to minority groups. You just need to switch 'black' with 'gay' to see exactly the same situations that anti-discrimination laws were created to prevent happening today.
Very specifically, the goal of anti-discrimination laws is not to take away your right to refuse to serve someone (even if they’re in a protected group), but to ensure that the refusal can’t be arbitrary and you can’t be applied to just one group of people. In this bakery case, the refusal is arbitrary and only applies to one group of people (the instance of gay marriage between straight people is astonishingly low).
It is specifically to take away your right to refuse to serve someone. That's ok in some circumstances. Considering the long history of the U.S. government not just protecting people's rights to be racist ass holes, but also having its employees/politicians do so, and even make it illegal in some places to treat people decently if they are of a particular race, and be so successful at it that those people can't really even participate in much of the economy (and all that's after fighting a bloody war to more or less determine whether people of particular races get to even have basic human rights), yea, go ahead and infringe on people's freedom of association.
To do that on the back end of the civil rights movement for gay people, to ensure they can find somebody gay friendly in the freaking wedding industry of all places (and in colorado?), that seems like not such a great tradeoff. Call the guy an ass hole. Let all your friends know they shouldn't support him. Even picket in front of his business to let people know the way he treated you. But calling in the government to punish him requires a lot of faith that you will never be viewed as an unpopular minority. Or maybe it's the opposite and you think you will eventually get screwed by being an unpopular minority regardless of whether you treat people with tolerance now, so you want to go ahead and do the screwing while you have the power. Regardless, not something that I think should be encouraged if you have any optimism that people could treat each other decently.
That's not really how civil rights work though. They're either protected or they're not.
You don't say 'Yeah, it's OK for someone selling fried chicken in the south to refuse service to a black guy . . . I mean, it's not like the black guy can't go somewhere else for fried chicken. He can be denied those rights this time."
True. I wasn't trying to argue for that as the standard for when it should be enforced, I just think it shows that the law is somewhat disproportionate. If homosexuals are being refused service by taxis, or being discriminated against in housing rentals, refused service in restaurants, etc., those are all things that to me provide a potential justification of infringing on people's freedom of association. Occasional discrimination in an industry that is largely accepting of homosexuals and where homosexuals if anything are probably over represented as workers? That's a truly bad thing, but to me doesn't rise to the level of requiring the government to infringe on people's freedom of association.
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I disagree. If you want to refuse service for a non-discriminatory reason that's fine, but there's no level of acceptable discrimination. Preventing people from discriminating is fundamental to the establishment of civil rights, and an important part of what government should do.
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I disagree. If you want to refuse service for a non-discriminatory reason that's fine, but there's no level of acceptable discrimination. Preventing people from discriminating is fundamental to the establishment of civil rights, and an important part of what government should do.
True, no discrimination is an appropriate target, but in this case we're also talking about two protected classes - sexual orientation and religion. While you and I may hold that religious beliefs don't prevent us from providing a wedding cake for a gay wedding (even though my particular belief is that homosexuality is immoral), the baker feels that his religious belief does extend to not providing a wedding cake for a gay wedding. In this case the goal of no discrimination is impossible to reach. You've made good points about how government intervention was required in the case of race based discrimination that may have had religious arguments (viewed now as excuses) - but the same level of discrimination against gays is not present today and religious beliefs on the immorality of homosexuality have a much stronger history. I certainly think social pressure on the baker is not inappropriate, but I'm hesitant to bring in the pressure of governmental force.
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I disagree. If you want to refuse service for a non-discriminatory reason that's fine, but there's no level of acceptable discrimination. Preventing people from discriminating is fundamental to the establishment of civil rights, and an important part of what government should do.
True, no discrimination is an appropriate target, but in this case we're also talking about two protected classes - sexual orientation and religion. While you and I may hold that religious beliefs don't prevent us from providing a wedding cake for a gay wedding (even though my particular belief is that homosexuality is immoral), the baker feels that his religious belief does extend to not providing a wedding cake for a gay wedding. In this case the goal of no discrimination is impossible to reach. You've made good points about how government intervention was required in the case of race based discrimination that may have had religious arguments (viewed now as excuses) - but the same level of discrimination against gays is not present today and religious beliefs on the immorality of homosexuality have a much stronger history. I certainly think social pressure on the baker is not inappropriate, but I'm hesitant to bring in the pressure of governmental force.
Religious rights need to exist at one peg lower than sex/race/gender. They need to do so because they are human constructs subject to popular whim. The modern Christian is very different from the Christian of a hundred years ago . . . who is very different from the Christian of 200 years ago.
The God you choose to follow should never trump the rights of others. If your religion supports child marriage, you still have to obey the laws regarding pedophilia. If your religion preaches hate against someone, you still have to allow them their civil rights. When your religion hurts others, your religion can fuck off.
If on the other hand, your religion tells you that you must wear a turban or yarmulke at all times . . . I can see a case being made for not having to wear a motorcycle helmet. You're really only hurting yourself in that case.
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Religious rights need to exist at one peg lower than sex/race/gender. They need to do so because they are human constructs subject to popular whim. The modern Christian is very different from the Christian of a hundred years ago . . . who is very different from the Christian of 200 years ago.
The "problem", right wrong or indifferent, is that freedom of religious expression is memorialized in our Constitution. There exists a process to change that, but absent that process, you can think whatever you want but that isn't US law.
Quite frankly, "gender" and sexuality seem to be, to some extent, constructs subject to popular whim these days as well.
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Religious rights need to exist at one peg lower than sex/race/gender. They need to do so because they are human constructs subject to popular whim. The modern Christian is very different from the Christian of a hundred years ago . . . who is very different from the Christian of 200 years ago.
I can understand arguing that a religious belief was construed for the purpose of excusing discrimination and ruling against protection of that belief; but I don't accept that religion deserves a lower level of protection. I don't think the baker's feelings on homosexuality fit into that mold.
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Religious rights need to exist at one peg lower than sex/race/gender. They need to do so because they are human constructs subject to popular whim. The modern Christian is very different from the Christian of a hundred years ago . . . who is very different from the Christian of 200 years ago.
I can understand arguing that a religious belief was construed for the purpose of excusing discrimination and ruling against protection of that belief; but I don't accept that religion deserves a lower level of protection. I don't think the baker's feelings on homosexuality fit into that mold.
What you think about the baker is unimportant. You can never know what someone else is thinking. The baker could be a raging homophobe, or he could just be a Christian who missed the bulk of the message the Christ teaches. It doesn't matter. He shouldn't be judged by what you think he's thinking, but by his actions. In this case, his actions were discriminatory.
Religious rights need to exist at one peg lower than sex/race/gender. They need to do so because they are human constructs subject to popular whim. The modern Christian is very different from the Christian of a hundred years ago . . . who is very different from the Christian of 200 years ago.
The "problem", right wrong or indifferent, is that freedom of religious expression is memorialized in our Constitution. There exists a process to change that, but absent that process, you can think whatever you want but that isn't US law.
Quite frankly, "gender" and sexuality seem to be, to some extent, constructs subject to popular whim these days as well.
No, that's not a problem at all. Civil rights in the US have historically trumped religious oppression:
The US has a long standing history of denying service to minorities, in fact this is the whole reason that anti-discrimination laws were necessary - heck not long ago, good Christians were preaching that intermingling races by marriage was perverted and sinful (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/ (http://www.harvardichthus.org/2015/04/when-culture-becomes-theology-interracial-marriage-in-the-american-church/)). The American people have proved that without anti-discrimination laws they would perform discrimination that was both unfair and hurtful to minority groups. You just need to switch 'black' with 'gay' to see exactly the same situations that anti-discrimination laws were created to prevent happening today.
The constitution grants you the right to practice your religion, sure . . . but not to the point that you take away the rights of others. It's possible to interpret passages of the bible as supporting slavery for example. If religion is on equal footing to civil rights I could therefore interpret that owning a slave is my right as a Christian of the GuitarStvian sect and nobody could prevent me from oppressing in the name of God. That's not the case.
(Incidentlally, there was widespread Chrsitian support of slavery when it was an institution in the US. https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-33/why-christians-supported-slavery.html (https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-33/why-christians-supported-slavery.html))
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I disagree. If you want to refuse service for a non-discriminatory reason that's fine, but there's no level of acceptable discrimination. Preventing people from discriminating is fundamental to the establishment of civil rights, and an important part of what government should do.
And that's just a fundamental disagreement over values. People discriminate all the time. People discriminate against fat people, short people, people with bad hair, etc, and they do it in business, personal relationships, etc. While that's certainly not ideal, I don't think it's practical or desirable that the government to treat that as an important part of what it does. I think the government should be hesitant to get involved and only get involved in particular business and employment situations for issues that we have the worst historical abuses. With public accommodation type laws, I'm not sure the government needs to be involved on anything other than race.
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but there's no level of acceptable discrimination.
Really? None? Whatsoever? So can I sue my car insurance company for jacking my rates sky high when I was a teenaged male versus my teenaged sister's lower rates? Can I sue my alma mater for considering race as an admission criteria and targeting under represented minorities? Can I sue the United States because I can't join the military because I'm too old?
And on and on. There are lots and lots of cases of discrimination in all sorts of situations.
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Not really. I didn't say anything about choosing one thing or another. It wasn't relevant to the point. And certainly I didn't say anything like her second "paraphrase". I didn't call her a bigot at all and didn't call her close minded for anything like what she claims. I called her close minded for being unable to envision people having a different experience than her with respect to sexual orientation.
Alright.
I was arguing that discrimination against a black person is not OK because it's against who he is, and that it's also not OK against gay people because of who they are. You responded with this:
With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Which each time that I read through it seems to indicate that you believe being gay is a choice, and not something fundamental to who a person actually is. You're saying that's not what you intended to type. Can you elaborate on exactly what was meant by this statement then?
The exchange that came out of was this:
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
If you went in and asked the baker to make you a big ass cake for a stripper to jump out of, I would assume he might object to doing that. You can say he's discriminating against you for who you are, because for as long as you can remember, you've loved strippers jumping out of cakes, but that's not who the baker believes you are.
You view homosexuality as more like being black. It's an immutable characteristic that you can't change. The baker probably views homosexuality as more like an affinity for strippers jumping out of big ass cakes. Even if it's been a constant desire of yours for as long as you remember, he views it as an sinful desire, not who you are.
My point has nothing to do with who chooses what. I was just pointing out sexual orientation and race are not the same thing and it's not unreasonable for someone to think that a person's sexual orientation is not "who they are", especially considering that it changes for some people. But the point would hold true even if sexual orientation never changed.
I suspect that Lawrence might claim that he didn't choose to want to do two chicks at the same time, that's just how he was born/made. If the baker refused to bake him a cake celebrating the anniversary of the date he did two chicks at the same time, yes, he's arguably discriminating against lawrence and his polyamorous orientation, even if he is willing to bake him a cake for pretty much any other occasion. But I think it's a reasonable distinction to say the baker is not discriminating against who Lawruence is in that situation, and eminently reasonable to say that he is not discriminating against who lawrence is in the same way that discriminating against a black person because of his race is discriminating against who he is.
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but there's no level of acceptable discrimination.
Really? None? Whatsoever? So can I sue my car insurance company for jacking my rates sky high when I was a teenaged male versus my teenaged sister's lower rates? Can I sue my alma mater for considering race as an admission criteria and targeting under represented minorities? Can I sue the United States because I can't join the military because I'm too old?
And on and on. There are lots and lots of cases of discrimination in all sorts of situations.
First of all, you live in America . . . land of lawyers. If you want to sue someone, you absolutely can. Whether you'll win or not is another matter. :P
Age is an interesting case, and you brought up several good examples to discuss. We do tend to allow discrimination based on age for public safety (mandatory eye testing for elderly drivers for example), which is sensible. It doesn't seem to be discrimination based on age so much as it is an acknowledgement of normal human physiology and geriatrics. Things break down, and retesting is a good idea for everyone's safety in this case.
An older person may not be as likely to be suited for an extremely physically demanding job (like being in the military), but honestly I'm not comfortable with ageist exclusion. In this case I do think that anyone capable of doing the job should be allowed to apply for it.
As far as insurance rates go, you're right. This is a pretty clear cut case of discrimination based on sex (and actually if you dig deeper into the numbers it appears that there's also a pay hike for not being white as well). While an insurance company isn't like a public lunch counter, it is necessary for the vast majority of people to drive a car . . . and the rate hikes do unfairly impact many safe male drivers. My understanding is that in the US, only Montana currently has laws to prevent this. As a male driver who has never been deemed 'at fault' in an accident, it doesn't make sense that I have had to pay the cost of more reckless people of my gender.
Affirmative action is a bit tricky. Is providing preferred treatment to groups that have to deal with existing societal disadvantages prejudice, or is ignoring the disadvantages prejudice? I think that a reasonable argument can be made both ways, and honestly am not entirely sure where I stand on that.
These are interesting thought experiments regarding the limits of discrimination in law, but are getting pretty far away from the discussed topic. The baker refused to bake a cake for two people because they were gay and were getting married. This was a contravention of Colorado's law regarding discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Colorado court ruled that the baker couldn't bring up religion in his defense. The supreme court objected to that ruling, but has not yet decided whether discrimination against gay people based on religion is acceptable or not.
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Not really. I didn't say anything about choosing one thing or another. It wasn't relevant to the point. And certainly I didn't say anything like her second "paraphrase". I didn't call her a bigot at all and didn't call her close minded for anything like what she claims. I called her close minded for being unable to envision people having a different experience than her with respect to sexual orientation.
Alright.
I was arguing that discrimination against a black person is not OK because it's against who he is, and that it's also not OK against gay people because of who they are. You responded with this:
With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Which each time that I read through it seems to indicate that you believe being gay is a choice, and not something fundamental to who a person actually is. You're saying that's not what you intended to type. Can you elaborate on exactly what was meant by this statement then?
The exchange that came out of was this:
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
If you went in and asked the baker to make you a big ass cake for a stripper to jump out of, I would assume he might object to doing that. You can say he's discriminating against you for who you are, because for as long as you can remember, you've loved strippers jumping out of cakes, but that's not who the baker believes you are.
You view homosexuality as more like being black. It's an immutable characteristic that you can't change. The baker probably views homosexuality as more like an affinity for strippers jumping out of big ass cakes. Even if it's been a constant desire of yours for as long as you remember, he views it as an sinful desire, not who you are.
My point has nothing to do with who chooses what. I was just pointing out sexual orientation and race are not the same thing and it's not unreasonable for someone to think that a person's sexual orientation is not "who they are", especially considering that it changes for some people. But the point would hold true even if sexual orientation never changed.
Can you expand on your final sentence here?
If I was born with gay feelings and have only ever had gay feelings my entire life, how exactly is being gay not part of who I am? I don't follow your logic here.
Michael Jackson progressively became lighter in skin tone over his life (and eventually ended up kinda mauve), and he also had plastic surgery to reduce his black features. Was being black not a big part of who he was? Would it be OK to refuse to serve him in a restaurant, considering that his physical characteristics of race changed over his life?
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Not really. I didn't say anything about choosing one thing or another. It wasn't relevant to the point. And certainly I didn't say anything like her second "paraphrase". I didn't call her a bigot at all and didn't call her close minded for anything like what she claims. I called her close minded for being unable to envision people having a different experience than her with respect to sexual orientation.
Alright.
I was arguing that discrimination against a black person is not OK because it's against who he is, and that it's also not OK against gay people because of who they are. You responded with this:
With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
Which each time that I read through it seems to indicate that you believe being gay is a choice, and not something fundamental to who a person actually is. You're saying that's not what you intended to type. Can you elaborate on exactly what was meant by this statement then?
The exchange that came out of was this:
No it is not explicit in the way you present it.
The baker would definately bake a wedding cake for the gay man! That is, IF he was marrying a woman.
That is no discrimination against who he is but the baker is taking a stand against what his potential customer does, , i.e. his action.
It is like Christians saying they will not condone homosexual behavior, but they love homosexual people.
I realize that to many people this is a difference without a distinction, but I think it makes some sense. I havent bought the argument entirely, but I do see it.
That's some complicated mental gymnastics to justify bigotry. Let's try it out in a similar situation:
I don't think that black people are bad, I just think that a black man who has sex with a white woman is committing an evil act. As a baker I shouldn't have to support heinous racial mixing by baking a cake for a wedding between a black guy and white woman.
But I'd definitely bake a cake for a black person. Or a white person. So, there's nothing discriminatory there.
It's not complicated mental gymnastics, it's just someone not going out of their way to miss the point.
He didn't say there was no discrimination. He said the baker arguably is not discriminating against the customer for who he is. With a black person, it's hard to argue who he is. With a homosexual customer, lots of people identify as different things through their life, so arguably it's not who that customer is he's discriminating against.
If you went in and asked the baker to make you a big ass cake for a stripper to jump out of, I would assume he might object to doing that. You can say he's discriminating against you for who you are, because for as long as you can remember, you've loved strippers jumping out of cakes, but that's not who the baker believes you are.
You view homosexuality as more like being black. It's an immutable characteristic that you can't change. The baker probably views homosexuality as more like an affinity for strippers jumping out of big ass cakes. Even if it's been a constant desire of yours for as long as you remember, he views it as an sinful desire, not who you are.
My point has nothing to do with who chooses what. I was just pointing out sexual orientation and race are not the same thing and it's not unreasonable for someone to think that a person's sexual orientation is not "who they are", especially considering that it changes for some people. But the point would hold true even if sexual orientation never changed.
Can you expand on your final sentence here?
If I was born with gay feelings and have only ever had gay feelings my entire life, how exactly is being gay not part of who I am? I don't follow your logic here.
Michael Jackson progressively became lighter in skin tone over his life (and eventually ended up kinda mauve), and he also had plastic surgery to reduce his black features. Was being black not a big part of who he was? Would it be OK to refuse to serve him in a restaurant, considering that his physical characteristics of race changed over his life?
I can't really elaborate beyond the part of the post that you cut out of your reply. Polyamorous desires may be a part of who you are, but I think that's a different ball game than race.
I'm not sure people who can "pass" as a different race (I'm not sure Michael Jackson ever fell into this category, but maybe I just can't get past how recognizable he is) really changes the equation. They support an argument that race is somewhat imposed by other people's perceptions, but I'm not sure that makes a difference as a practical matter. A person's existence/experiences are impacted by his/her race in ways that are out of his/her control in a way that having polyamorous desires does not.
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You've said that a person's race impacts his/her life in ways that are out of his/her control. You've also said that a person's sexual orientation does not.
- You seem to have argued that this is different because some people's sexual orientation changes over time and is therefore in their control . . . but when provided with an example of a person who has worked to change his racial characteristics over time have said that this doesn't actually matter to the impact that race had on him. Clearly, both race and sexual orientation can transform over time given the will. It wouldn't be OK to discriminate against Michael Jackson because he made himself look less black. Why then does a person who has changed sexual orientation over his/her life matter with regards to experiencing discrimination for who he/she currently is?
- You seem to have ignored the fact that there are many people who have a sexual orientation that doesn't change over time, and therefore have no control over their sexual orientation . . . which is an awful lot like your definition of race. I haven't read an argument from you how a person born with this type of sexual orientation is any different than a person born with a particular skin color. Why do you believe that they should be treated differently?
- You've argued that polyamory is different than race, and then equated sexual orientation to polyamory for some reason. In this argument there was no reasoning provided . . . you just said that you don't think being born with a polyamorous orientation is the same as being born of a particular race. Why not?
The logic that leads you to believe there's a difference between race and sexual orientation hasn't been provided yet, so it's difficult to understand your point of view.
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You've said that a person's race impacts his/her life in ways that are out of his/her control. You've also said that a person's sexual orientation does not.
i didn't say sexual orientation doesn't impact his/her life in ways that are out of his/her control. I said races impacts it in ways out of his/her control in ways that sexual orientation does not. People can somewhat compartmentalize their life to limit any impact of their sexual orientation in a way that people of a particular race cannot.
- You seem to have argued that this is different because some people's sexual orientation changes over time and is therefore in their control . . .
I have never argued this. I've just pointed out that for some people it changes. Except for people of mixed heritage that are not identifiably one race or another, their race doesn't change over time.
but when provided with an example of a person who has worked to change his racial characteristics over time have said that this doesn't actually matter to the impact that race had on him. Clearly, both race and sexual orientation can transform over time given the will.
I don't think that's clear at all. Maybe some people can pass as one race or another (again, even with Michael Jackson, assuming all the stuff about treatmentse was true (I think he claimed he had a skin condition?), all he did with his incredible resources was go from looking black to looking maybe black or maybe some other ethnicity?, but not white). I'm also not sure how much "will" has to do with changing sexual orientation.
It wouldn't be OK to discriminate against Michael Jackson because he made himself look less black. Why then does a person who has changed sexual orientation over his/her life matter with regards to experiencing discrimination for who he/she currently is?
To me, it doesn't matter. Discriminating against somebody because they're black or gay or ugly are all unjustified. But nonetheless there is a difference between race and sexual desires, and while I don't care to discriminate over either, that is a meaningful difference and I don't think the argument that they are different can be dismissed out of hand.
- You seem to have ignored the fact that there are many people who have a sexual orientation that doesn't change over time, and therefore have no control over their sexual orientation . . . which is an awful lot like your definition of race. I haven't read an argument from you how a person born with this type of sexual orientation is any different than a person born with a particular skin color. Why do you believe that they should be treated differently?
Again, I have never argued about control over sexual orientation.
- You've argued that polyamory is different than race, and then equated sexual orientation to polyamory for some reason. In this argument there was no reasoning provided . . . you just said that you don't think being born with a polyamorous orientation is the same as being born of a particular race. Why not?
The logic that leads you to believe there's a difference between race and sexual orientation hasn't been provided yet, so it's difficult to understand your point of view.
I have provided the reasoning. You seem to put a lot of weight on homosexuals not choosing to be homosexual. That's fine, but I'm not sure anybody really chooses what they like. I don't think people really cultivate a desire for same sex partners, or multiple partners, or foot fetishes. Maybe you could go back and look at things in their environment or experience or genetic make-up and make some quasi educated guesses, but I think for the large majority of people, it's completely opaque to them why they like/desire what they like/desire. In contrast, we can pretty much figure out in 99.9999% of the cases why somebody's skin color is what it is.
So to somebody that thinks homosexuality is a desire, not wanting to "condone" acting on that desire by baking a wedding cake for a same sex wedding is more akin to not wanting to condone extra-marital affairs where both spouses and the third party are completely fine with the situation.
If you don't agree that there is anything wrong with acting on homosexual desires, then maybe you want to use the law to make it illegal just like you'd want it to be illegal to not provide a wedding cake for an interracial marriage. But even if you want both to be illegal, those are two different things.
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Apparently, this is totes okay now, too.
https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1051-store-owner-posts-no-gays-allowed-sign-to-celebrate-scotus-colorado-bakery-decision/partners/43874
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Apparently, this is totes okay now, too.
https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1051-store-owner-posts-no-gays-allowed-sign-to-celebrate-scotus-colorado-bakery-decision/partners/43874
At the very least it's a good illustration of the need for civil rights to trump religiously motivated persecution . . . and why allowing even small acts of discrimination in the name of religion cannot be tolerated.
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Apparently, this is totes okay now, too.
https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1051-store-owner-posts-no-gays-allowed-sign-to-celebrate-scotus-colorado-bakery-decision/partners/43874
Misleading headline. The "No gays allowed" sign was from 2015. He replaced it with a ""We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who would violate our rights of freedom of speech & freedom of religion" sign. Which of course is just a weaselier way of saying the same thing, because "my religious belief is that I should have the right to discriminate against you" (not a quote, but an accurate summation of the argument).
Edit: oh never mind. He did rehang the "No Gays Allowed" sign, it's right there in the first sentence.
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Apparently, this is totes okay now, too.
https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1051-store-owner-posts-no-gays-allowed-sign-to-celebrate-scotus-colorado-bakery-decision/partners/43874
At the very least it's a good illustration of the need for civil rights to trump religiously motivated persecution . . . and why allowing even small acts of discrimination in the name of religion cannot be tolerated.
??? I would think it's just the opposite. I assume that is and always has been legal to refuse to serve homosexuals in Tennessee, and yet basically nobody does it. I think it's legal in most states to do so. Most people just aren't that crazy, and even if they are, they are more concerned about making money than expressing their distaste of homosexuals.
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Apparently, this is totes okay now, too.
https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1051-store-owner-posts-no-gays-allowed-sign-to-celebrate-scotus-colorado-bakery-decision/partners/43874
At the very least it's a good illustration of the need for civil rights to trump religiously motivated persecution . . . and why allowing even small acts of discrimination in the name of religion cannot be tolerated.
??? I would think it's just the opposite. I assume that is and always has been legal to refuse to serve homosexuals in Tennessee, and yet basically nobody does it. I think it's legal in most states to do so. Most people just aren't that crazy, and even if they are, they are more concerned about making money than expressing their distaste of homosexuals.
Is this the same way that businesses were more concerned about making money than kicking black people out of their diners in the 60s, so no anti-discrimination legislation or civil rights movement was required?
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Apparently, this is totes okay now, too.
https://www.pluralist.com/posts/1051-store-owner-posts-no-gays-allowed-sign-to-celebrate-scotus-colorado-bakery-decision/partners/43874
At the very least it's a good illustration of the need for civil rights to trump religiously motivated persecution . . . and why allowing even small acts of discrimination in the name of religion cannot be tolerated.
??? I would think it's just the opposite. I assume that is and always has been legal to refuse to serve homosexuals in Tennessee, and yet basically nobody does it. I think it's legal in most states to do so. Most people just aren't that crazy, and even if they are, they are more concerned about making money than expressing their distaste of homosexuals.
Is this the same way that businesses were more concerned about making money than kicking black people out of their diners in the 60s, so no anti-discrimination legislation or civil rights movement was required?
I'm not sure if your familiar with civil rights history in the U.S., but fyi, you didn't have to go to the backwoods of east Tennessee to find a business willing to refuse to serve African Americans in the 60's.
But it is worth noting that as widespread as the desire to discriminate on the basis of race was during that time, the local and/or state governments still had to pass laws mandating segregation because even then, lots of people cared more about money than they did about discriminating.
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Advocating a free market solution to civil rights means accepting that it's OK for places to discriminate based on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever. It's an approach that will particularly hurt any minority without much buying power, or any minority that is part of a particularly small group (as both instances describe cases where the monetary incentive to treat everyone as a human being is much reduced).
If you're OK with that, it's your choice of course. It's certainly not a moral position that I can agree with though.
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These discussions always remind me of segregated sports and how they opened. Of course as a Montrealer I love the early story of Jackie Robinson. But no, commercial interests will never ensure minority access.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/jackie-robinsons-wife-remembers-a-welcoming-montreal/article11602715/ (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/jackie-robinsons-wife-remembers-a-welcoming-montreal/article11602715/)
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Advocating a free market solution to civil rights means accepting that it's OK for places to discriminate based on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever. It's an approach that will particularly hurt any minority without much buying power, or any minority that is part of a particularly small group (as both instances describe cases where the monetary incentive to treat everyone as a human being is much reduced).
If you're OK with that, it's your choice of course. It's certainly not a moral position that I can agree with though.
It's not accepting that it's ok, it's just recognizing that not everything bad should be addressed by government. The government doesn't step in for the vast majority of cases of discrimination. It's not ok that ugly people get treated more poorly than pretty people. But making ugly people a protected class is still not a good idea.
There's also the issue of the more discrimination the government tries to make illegal, the more inevitable it is that they are going to get into making value judgments that we really don't want the government making. I think it's perfectly legitimate and not a horrible thing for society if some business owners don't want to serve customers/clients who are open and proud members of antifa or the KKK. I think it's a horrible thing for society for people to not want to serve customers/clients just because they are a member of the republican or democrat party. But you either have to allow both or allow neither, or you essentially no longer have free speech or freedom of thought, as the government is now in the business of deciding what ideas legitimately belong in public discourse. To me it seems a much better course to simply allow people to choose who they interact with, with the very rare exceptions where we have a clear historical track record of having pervasive and terrible results.
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Advocating a free market solution to civil rights means accepting that it's OK for places to discriminate based on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever. It's an approach that will particularly hurt any minority without much buying power, or any minority that is part of a particularly small group (as both instances describe cases where the monetary incentive to treat everyone as a human being is much reduced).
If you're OK with that, it's your choice of course. It's certainly not a moral position that I can agree with though.
It's not accepting that it's ok, it's just recognizing that not everything bad should be addressed by government.
I didn't claim that 'everything bad' should be addressed by the government, that is a straw man. I do strongly feel that the violation of the civil rights of gay people should be protected though. Given the both the historical and current oppression that still goes on today related to this issue, the 'solution' you proposed has already been proven not to work for gay civil rights, so it's not one that I can support . . . because yes, it is accepting that it's OK.
The government doesn't step in for the vast majority of cases of discrimination. It's not ok that ugly people get treated more poorly than pretty people. But making ugly people a protected class is still not a good idea.
Nobody was or has been attempting to make 'ugly people' a protected class. (To the best of my knowledge it's not particularly common for an ugly person to be refused service, so it's quite an invalid comparison even if it wasn't a straw man.)
There's also the issue of the more discrimination the government tries to make illegal, the more inevitable it is that they are going to get into making value judgments that we really don't want the government making. I think it's perfectly legitimate and not a horrible thing for society if some business owners don't want to serve customers/clients who are open and proud members of antifa or the KKK. I think it's a horrible thing for society for people to not want to serve customers/clients just because they are a member of the republican or democrat party. But you either have to allow both or allow neither, or you essentially no longer have free speech or freedom of thought, as the government is now in the business of deciding what ideas legitimately belong in public discourse. To me it seems a much better course to simply allow people to choose who they interact with, with the very rare exceptions where we have a clear historical track record of having pervasive and terrible results.
People have never lost the right to choose who they interact with. That's not something that has been under discussion in this thread, and is a red herring. If you don't want to interact with gay people, black people, people of a different religion than you, that's absolutely an option in your own home. Nobody has ever tried to change this. If you don't want to interact with these people while running store open to the public, under the permission of the government, that's where we run into a problem because that kind of deliberately hurtful behaviour is unacceptable.
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I'm all for boycotting bigoted businesses and publicly shaming them. I just can't figure out how the government is supposed to enforce anti-bigotry legislation. If I own a shoe store and I don't want ugly people to wear my shoes, how does the government force me to sell my shoes to ugly people? Make me an offer I can't refuse?
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I'm all for boycotting bigoted businesses and publicly shaming them. I just can't figure out how the government is supposed to enforce anti-bigotry legislation. If I own a shoe store and I don't want ugly people to wear my shoes, how does the government force me to sell my shoes to ugly people? Make me an offer I can't refuse?
They don't, because ugly is subjective. There is no way to define ugly and I don't believe there is discrimination against ugly people in the same sense as there is against gay people. There may be discrimination on a personal level such as not getting as many dates or not getting a job (I've actually read studies where this can go both ways, attractive people are more likely to be seen as competition in the workplace and uglier people can be seen as more relatable) but I've never heard of businesses refusing service due to ugliness.
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I'm all for boycotting bigoted businesses and publicly shaming them. I just can't figure out how the government is supposed to enforce anti-bigotry legislation. If I own a shoe store and I don't want ugly people to wear my shoes, how does the government force me to sell my shoes to ugly people? Make me an offer I can't refuse?
This would be the implemented in the same way as every other rule that you have to follow. Running a cafeteria? You need to pass health and safety checks. If you don't nobody forces you clean up the cockroaches in your place . . . but you're not allowed to sell food until you do.
If you refuse to serve people for their skin colour, religious affiliation, sex, or sexual orientation at your cafeteria, your business license is revoked. Nobody is forced to do anything they don't want to, but you will lose the government granted privileged of running your business for not following the rules.
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Advocating a free market solution to civil rights means accepting that it's OK for places to discriminate based on race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, or whatever. It's an approach that will particularly hurt any minority without much buying power, or any minority that is part of a particularly small group (as both instances describe cases where the monetary incentive to treat everyone as a human being is much reduced).
If you're OK with that, it's your choice of course. It's certainly not a moral position that I can agree with though.
It's not accepting that it's ok, it's just recognizing that not everything bad should be addressed by government.
I didn't claim that 'everything bad' should be addressed by the government, that is a straw man. I do strongly feel that the violation of the civil rights of gay people should be protected though. Given the both the historical and current oppression that still goes on today related to this issue, the 'solution' you proposed has already been proven not to work for gay civil rights, so it's not one that I can support . . . because yes, it is accepting that it's OK.
This is just not true, unless you think a lot of horrible things are ok. Is it ok to verbally abuse your girlfriend/boyfriend? It's legal? Are you arguing that it should be illegal? Or are you accepting that it's ok?
It's more or less a line drawing exercise, and people can have different opinions on where it shoudl be drawn, but no one can legitimately claim that not making it illegal means accepting it as ok, unless they are advocating for pervasive authoritarianism.
The government doesn't step in for the vast majority of cases of discrimination. It's not ok that ugly people get treated more poorly than pretty people. But making ugly people a protected class is still not a good idea.
Nobody was or has been attempting to make 'ugly people' a protected class. (To the best of my knowledge it's not particularly common for an ugly person to be refused service, so it's quite an invalid comparison even if it wasn't a straw man.)
Is it particular common for gay people to be refused service? In a country of 300M plus, a little bit of everything will happen, but I've been in some pretty backwood places for extended periods of time, in the bible belt and other places, and I've never seen a place where gays were refused service.
And maybe it's more of a movie thing than it is in real life, but do some clubs not base admittance essentially on looks for those people without an in?
https://www.tripsavvy.com/getting-on-the-guest-list-los-angeles-clubs-1586779
There's also the issue of the more discrimination the government tries to make illegal, the more inevitable it is that they are going to get into making value judgments that we really don't want the government making. I think it's perfectly legitimate and not a horrible thing for society if some business owners don't want to serve customers/clients who are open and proud members of antifa or the KKK. I think it's a horrible thing for society for people to not want to serve customers/clients just because they are a member of the republican or democrat party. But you either have to allow both or allow neither, or you essentially no longer have free speech or freedom of thought, as the government is now in the business of deciding what ideas legitimately belong in public discourse. To me it seems a much better course to simply allow people to choose who they interact with, with the very rare exceptions where we have a clear historical track record of having pervasive and terrible results.
People have never lost the right to choose who they interact with. That's not something that has been under discussion in this thread, and is a red herring. If you don't want to interact with gay people, black people, people of a different religion than you, that's absolutely an option in your own home. Nobody has ever tried to change this. If you don't want to interact with these people while running store open to the public, under the permission of the government, that's where we run into a problem because that kind of deliberately hurtful behaviour is unacceptable.
That's fine. I personally think if there is person outside a convenience store with a megaphone screaming that Hitler should have finished the job and that jewish people are ruining the country, if he then goes into the convenience store to grab a snack, the convenience store owner should be within his rights to deny service. I'll admit it's not the worst injustice if he's forced to serve that person, but I'd just prefer more freedom, both because I just put a high value on freedom but also because I'm not comfortable that allowing the government to force somebody to serve somebody like that won't result in the government forcing people to do more objectionable things.
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I'm all for boycotting bigoted businesses and publicly shaming them. I just can't figure out how the government is supposed to enforce anti-bigotry legislation.
Well it has done so successfully before. Once you prosecute a few people for breaking the anti-discrimination laws everyone else says to themselves "oh I guess I can't get away with that anymore, it's just not worth the hassle. I guess I'll just serve black / muslim / gay people." The term that comes to mind is a "chilling effect", although that's different and has a distinctly negative connotation, but the idea is more or less the same.
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I personally think if there is person outside a convenience store with a megaphone screaming that Hitler should have finished the job and that jewish people are ruining the country, if he then goes into the convenience store to grab a snack, the convenience store owner should be within his rights to deny service.
We were discussing civil rights of protected classes. The person you described is not a protected class. This is another straw man.
I'll admit it's not the worst injustice if he's forced to serve that person, but I'd just prefer more freedom, both because I just put a high value on freedom but also because I'm not comfortable that allowing the government to force somebody to serve somebody like that won't result in the government forcing people to do more objectionable things.
Yep. First they came to protect my civil rights, and then . . . concentration camps. :P
I'd argue that a society where discrimination is not allowed based on race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, etc. is significantly more free than one that does.
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I personally think if there is person outside a convenience store with a megaphone screaming that Hitler should have finished the job and that jewish people are ruining the country, if he then goes into the convenience store to grab a snack, the convenience store owner should be within his rights to deny service.
We were discussing civil rights of protected classes. The person you described is not a protected class. This is another straw man.
Then change it to an imam quoting his Koran and preaching death to homosexuals. I am personally uncomfortable saying a private business owner shouldn't be able to discriminate against him based on his religion.
I'll admit it's not the worst injustice if he's forced to serve that person, but I'd just prefer more freedom, both because I just put a high value on freedom but also because I'm not comfortable that allowing the government to force somebody to serve somebody like that won't result in the government forcing people to do more objectionable things.
Yep. First they came to protect my civil rights, and then . . . concentration camps. :P[/quote]
I'd argue that a society where discrimination is not allowed based on race, sex, disability, sexual orientation, etc. is significantly more free than one that does.
[/quote]
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Then change it to an imam quoting his Koran and preaching death to homosexuals. I am personally uncomfortable saying a private business owner shouldn't be able to discriminate against him based on his religion.
Or a Christian quoting the Bible and preaching death to homosexuals. That's literally in there too you know.
But you're doing it again. That wouldn't be discrimination against a religion, that would be discrimination against a person based on their actions / opinions. No one is saying that would be disallowed. Saying "No Muslims" or "No gays" is very different from saying "No not you in particular because I just saw you being a jerk."
But at this point you already know the difference and are just trying to demonize your opponents.
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I personally think if there is person outside a convenience store with a megaphone screaming that Hitler should have finished the job and that jewish people are ruining the country, if he then goes into the convenience store to grab a snack, the convenience store owner should be within his rights to deny service.
We were discussing civil rights of protected classes. The person you described is not a protected class. This is another straw man.
Then change it to an imam quoting his Koran and preaching death to homosexuals. I am personally uncomfortable saying a private business owner shouldn't be able to discriminate against him based on his religion.
Are you refusing service because of the actions that the person has taken in an attempt to hurt others, or merely because of the religion the person follows? There's a world of difference between the two.
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In general I believe that private enterprises should be allowed to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
I think the law should be by exception only that a business must allow any class of folks in - and that exception should be based on harm/inability to receive the service.
So, for the Colorado baker to refuse service to gays or blacks or anyone should be legal in my view. Why? Because there are plenty of other shops that are willing and able to provide the service.
If that was the only bakery in Colorado or the couple couldn't get to another one without significant cost, then they could sue the bakery for damages (increase in cost to go to another bakery because it's further away or whatever).
As I'm typing this I'm sure there is something wrong with my logic here in that getting to this place (a place where we have bakeries that will cater to everyone) doesn't come automatically and hence the civil rights laws were created. But... we are in that place now (a place where a homosexual couple in Colorado can easily find a bakery for a wedding cake).
I think people need to show actual damage to infringe upon what someone else does with their private property/business.
Does anyone know if that couple was able to find cake? I'm googling and can't find it. (not being a smartass - I just want to find the actual additional cost/hardship to get the cake made)
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In general I believe that private enterprises should be allowed to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
I think the law should be by exception only that a business must allow any class of folks in - and that exception should be based on harm/inability to receive the service.
So, for the Colorado baker to refuse service to gays or blacks or anyone should be legal in my view. Why? Because there are plenty of other shops that are willing and able to provide the service.
If that was the only bakery in Colorado or the couple couldn't get to another one without significant cost, then they could sue the bakery for damages (increase in cost to go to another bakery because it's further away or whatever).
As I'm typing this I'm sure there is something wrong with my logic here in that getting to this place (a place where we have bakeries that will cater to everyone) doesn't come automatically and hence the civil rights laws were created. But... we are in that place now (a place where a homosexual couple in Colorado can easily find a bakery for a wedding cake).
I think people need to show actual damage to infringe upon what someone else does with their private property/business.
Does anyone know if that couple was able to find cake? I'm googling and can't find it. (not being a smartass - I just want to find the actual additional cost/hardship to get the cake made)
You do understand that there was a time when “a homosexual/black/X couple in Y state could not easily find a Z business to serve them?”
The level of ignorant complacency in statements like this never ceases to boggle my mind.
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In general I believe that private enterprises should be allowed to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
I think the law should be by exception only that a business must allow any class of folks in - and that exception should be based on harm/inability to receive the service.
So, for the Colorado baker to refuse service to gays or blacks or anyone should be legal in my view. Why? Because there are plenty of other shops that are willing and able to provide the service.
If that was the only bakery in Colorado or the couple couldn't get to another one without significant cost, then they could sue the bakery for damages (increase in cost to go to another bakery because it's further away or whatever).
As I'm typing this I'm sure there is something wrong with my logic here in that getting to this place (a place where we have bakeries that will cater to everyone) doesn't come automatically and hence the civil rights laws were created. But... we are in that place now (a place where a homosexual couple in Colorado can easily find a bakery for a wedding cake).
I think people need to show actual damage to infringe upon what someone else does with their private property/business.
Does anyone know if that couple was able to find cake? I'm googling and can't find it. (not being a smartass - I just want to find the actual additional cost/hardship to get the cake made)
You do understand that there was a time when “a homosexual/black/X couple in Y state could not easily find a Z business to serve them?”
The level of ignorant complacency in statements like this never ceases to boggle my mind.
Yes, I understand this hence my sentence in my post about getting to where we are may have required those laws. Also, if that is the case today (i.e. there is no easy way for them to get a baker in Colorado) they can sue for damages. But if they are in San Francisco, and there is an anti-gay baker refusing to serve homosexuals, or if there is a racist against blacks baker in Harlem, what harm are they actually causing the homosexuals in San Francisco looking for cakes or the black folks in Harlem looking for cakes?
Don't you think there should be actual harm before we compel people to do things?
Note that while the SC opinion was decided on a technicality, they did have an interesting point in there on the basis of the tribunal's bias:
Another indication of hostility is the different treatment of Phillips’ case and the cases of other bakers with objections to anti-gay messages who prevailed before the Commission. The Commission ruled against Phillips in part on the theory that any message on the requested wedding cake would be attributed to the customer, not to the baker. Yet the Division did not address this point in any of the cases involving requests for cakes depicting anti-gay marriage symbolism.
i.e. Are you OK with compelling a homosexual owner of a bakery to write anti-gay messages on a cake?
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In general I believe that private enterprises should be allowed to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
I think the law should be by exception only that a business must allow any class of folks in - and that exception should be based on harm/inability to receive the service.
So, for the Colorado baker to refuse service to gays or blacks or anyone should be legal in my view. Why? Because there are plenty of other shops that are willing and able to provide the service.
If that was the only bakery in Colorado or the couple couldn't get to another one without significant cost, then they could sue the bakery for damages (increase in cost to go to another bakery because it's further away or whatever).
As I'm typing this I'm sure there is something wrong with my logic here in that getting to this place (a place where we have bakeries that will cater to everyone) doesn't come automatically and hence the civil rights laws were created. But... we are in that place now (a place where a homosexual couple in Colorado can easily find a bakery for a wedding cake).
I think people need to show actual damage to infringe upon what someone else does with their private property/business.
Does anyone know if that couple was able to find cake? I'm googling and can't find it. (not being a smartass - I just want to find the actual additional cost/hardship to get the cake made)
You do understand that there was a time when “a homosexual/black/X couple in Y state could not easily find a Z business to serve them?”
The level of ignorant complacency in statements like this never ceases to boggle my mind.
Yes, I understand this hence my sentence in my post about getting to where we are may have required those laws. Also, if that is the case today (i.e. there is no easy way for them to get a baker in Colorado) they can sue for damages. But if they are in San Francisco, and there is an anti-gay baker refusing to serve homosexuals, or if there is a racist against blacks baker in Harlem, what harm are they actually causing the homosexuals in San Francisco looking for cakes or the black folks in Harlem looking for cakes?
Don't you think there should be actual harm before we compel people to do things?
Note that while the SC opinion was decided on a technicality, they did have an interesting point in there on the basis of the tribunal's bias:
Another indication of hostility is the different treatment of Phillips’ case and the cases of other bakers with objections to anti-gay messages who prevailed before the Commission. The Commission ruled against Phillips in part on the theory that any message on the requested wedding cake would be attributed to the customer, not to the baker. Yet the Division did not address this point in any of the cases involving requests for cakes depicting anti-gay marriage symbolism.
i.e. Are you OK with compelling a homosexual owner of a bakery to write anti-gay messages on a cake?
FFS.
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In general I believe that private enterprises should be allowed to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
I think the law should be by exception only that a business must allow any class of folks in - and that exception should be based on harm/inability to receive the service.
So, for the Colorado baker to refuse service to gays or blacks or anyone should be legal in my view. Why? Because there are plenty of other shops that are willing and able to provide the service.
If that was the only bakery in Colorado or the couple couldn't get to another one without significant cost, then they could sue the bakery for damages (increase in cost to go to another bakery because it's further away or whatever).
As I'm typing this I'm sure there is something wrong with my logic here in that getting to this place (a place where we have bakeries that will cater to everyone) doesn't come automatically and hence the civil rights laws were created. But... we are in that place now (a place where a homosexual couple in Colorado can easily find a bakery for a wedding cake).
I think people need to show actual damage to infringe upon what someone else does with their private property/business.
Does anyone know if that couple was able to find cake? I'm googling and can't find it. (not being a smartass - I just want to find the actual additional cost/hardship to get the cake made)
You do understand that there was a time when “a homosexual/black/X couple in Y state could not easily find a Z business to serve them?”
The level of ignorant complacency in statements like this never ceases to boggle my mind.
Yes, I understand this hence my sentence in my post about getting to where we are may have required those laws. Also, if that is the case today (i.e. there is no easy way for them to get a baker in Colorado) they can sue for damages. But if they are in San Francisco, and there is an anti-gay baker refusing to serve homosexuals, or if there is a racist against blacks baker in Harlem, what harm are they actually causing the homosexuals in San Francisco looking for cakes or the black folks in Harlem looking for cakes?
Don't you think there should be actual harm before we compel people to do things?
Note that while the SC opinion was decided on a technicality, they did have an interesting point in there on the basis of the tribunal's bias:
Another indication of hostility is the different treatment of Phillips’ case and the cases of other bakers with objections to anti-gay messages who prevailed before the Commission. The Commission ruled against Phillips in part on the theory that any message on the requested wedding cake would be attributed to the customer, not to the baker. Yet the Division did not address this point in any of the cases involving requests for cakes depicting anti-gay marriage symbolism.
i.e. Are you OK with compelling a homosexual owner of a bakery to write anti-gay messages on a cake?
FFS.
Oh, yes, that old argument. Note that I'm not making some moral equivalence between bigots and people who are seeking equal treatment. I'm simply saying there should be harm before we compel private individuals to certain actions.
I'm also making the point that once you allow the government to compel private citizens on their private property to do things they don't want to do it could have unintended consequences once said government becomes nutso - like today. So while you may like forcing people to do the right thing today, the government can then force people to do the wrong thing tomorrow. Maybe Trump will say "hey, Ariziona is now a majority-minority state, so whites are getting discriminated against, let's make all the Latino businesses give whites a discount". You think it's crazy, I think it could happen and they'd use your arguments as a stepping stone.
It's kind of like affirmative action - yes, it's a great idea to give people who would otherwise not have a chance a chance... but wait, what about all those OTHER people who immigrated here with nothing, why are we fucking them? Meh, cause they tried too hard and too many of them got in. Harvard's affirmative action program (and probably others) is now disadvantaging primarily Asians - unintended consequences.
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Oh, yes, that old argument. Note that I'm not making some moral equivalence between bigots and people who are seeking equal treatment. I'm simply saying there should be harm before we compel private individuals to certain actions.
I'm also making the point that once you allow the government to compel private citizens on their private property to do things they don't want to do it could have unintended consequences once said government becomes nutso - like today. So while you may like forcing people to do the right thing today, the government can then force people to do the wrong thing tomorrow. Maybe Trump will say "hey, Ariziona is now a majority-minority state, so whites are getting discriminated against, let's make all the Latino businesses give whites a discount". You think it's crazy, I think it could happen and they'd use your arguments as a stepping stone.
It's kind of like affirmative action - yes, it's a great idea to give people who would otherwise not have a chance a chance... but wait, what about all those OTHER people who immigrated here with nothing, why are we fucking them? Meh, cause they tried too hard and too many of them got in. Harvard's affirmative action program (and probably others) is now disadvantaging primarily Asians - unintended consequences.
I'm certainly sensitive to government overreach, and I'm skeptical whenever there's an attempt to legislate behavior. However I think there is a big difference between Affirmative Action and requiring service be given to everyone. The former intentionally skews hiring in an attempt to correct for past inequalities, whereas the latter seems to echo the justification given to form our nation ("we hold these truths to be self evident / that all men are created equal / that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...). For that same reason I see an inherent distinction between trying to legislate "good" actions like wearing helmets or limiting soda intake or any of a number of good-intentioned measures which limit personal freedom, and requiring that service cannot be denied based on your sexual preferences (as well as race, religion, sex, etc).
Finally, you brought up the issue of 'harm' (as in the legal standards of Duty/Breach/Cause/Harm). It seems to me that harm has already been caused when a person has fewer options available to them, not unlike how blacks were harmed when there were clubs they could not enter or water fountains they could not drink from.
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In general I believe that private enterprises should be allowed to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
I think the law should be by exception only that a business must allow any class of folks in - and that exception should be based on harm/inability to receive the service.
So, for the Colorado baker to refuse service to gays or blacks or anyone should be legal in my view. Why? Because there are plenty of other shops that are willing and able to provide the service.
If that was the only bakery in Colorado or the couple couldn't get to another one without significant cost, then they could sue the bakery for damages (increase in cost to go to another bakery because it's further away or whatever).
As I'm typing this I'm sure there is something wrong with my logic here in that getting to this place (a place where we have bakeries that will cater to everyone) doesn't come automatically and hence the civil rights laws were created. But... we are in that place now (a place where a homosexual couple in Colorado can easily find a bakery for a wedding cake).
I think people need to show actual damage to infringe upon what someone else does with their private property/business.
Does anyone know if that couple was able to find cake? I'm googling and can't find it. (not being a smartass - I just want to find the actual additional cost/hardship to get the cake made)
You do understand that there was a time when “a homosexual/black/X couple in Y state could not easily find a Z business to serve them?”
The level of ignorant complacency in statements like this never ceases to boggle my mind.
Yes, I understand this hence my sentence in my post about getting to where we are may have required those laws. Also, if that is the case today (i.e. there is no easy way for them to get a baker in Colorado) they can sue for damages. But if they are in San Francisco, and there is an anti-gay baker refusing to serve homosexuals, or if there is a racist against blacks baker in Harlem, what harm are they actually causing the homosexuals in San Francisco looking for cakes or the black folks in Harlem looking for cakes?
Don't you think there should be actual harm before we compel people to do things?
This is an interesting idea that you've put forth, so I've got a few questions about it.
- You've indicated that a racist baker in Harlem doesn't cause harm because there are other bakers who can be visited instead. If there's a single bakery in town that serves black people, is that enough? Two? What is your minimum threshold until you believe that harm is created by the racist baker?
- How far should minorities have to travel to find a non-bigoted place of business before it does harm? 1 mile? 10 miles? 100 miles? 1000 miles? If the person being discriminated against has a disability that prevents him/her from driving/walking easily, does this number change?
- I'd argue that bigoted service refusals are actively harmful, as they are quite embarrassing and upsetting to the people being discriminated against as they find out that a particular place is racist. Would you support a regulation requiring that places refusing service for racist/homophobic/sexist reasons post their policy on their front door? This would make the business owners intentions quite clear, and prevent the harm that they would otherwise cause.
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Yes, I understand this hence my sentence in my post about getting to where we are may have required those laws. Also, if that is the case today (i.e. there is no easy way for them to get a baker in Colorado) they can sue for damages. But if they are in San Francisco, and there is an anti-gay baker refusing to serve homosexuals, or if there is a racist against blacks baker in Harlem, what harm are they actually causing the homosexuals in San Francisco looking for cakes or the black folks in Harlem looking for cakes?
Don't you think there should be actual harm before we compel people to do things?
This is an interesting idea that you've put forth, so I've got a few questions about it.
- You've indicated that a racist baker in Harlem doesn't cause harm because there are other bakers who can be visited instead. If there's a single bakery in town that serves black people, is that enough? Two? What is your minimum threshold until you believe that harm is created by the racist baker?
- How far should minorities have to travel to find a non-bigoted place of business before it does harm? 1 mile? 10 miles? 100 miles? 1000 miles? If the person being discriminated against has a disability that prevents him/her from driving/walking easily, does this number change?
- I'd argue that bigoted service refusals are actively harmful, as they are quite embarrassing and upsetting to the people being discriminated against as they find out that a particular place is racist. Would you support a regulation requiring that places refusing service for racist/homophobic/sexist reasons post their policy on their front door? This would make the business owners intentions quite clear, and prevent the harm that they would otherwise cause.
Yeah, these are all good questions that I'm probably not equipped to answer. In general courts refer to what a "reasonable" person thinks. I think for the number/distance of the service should be dependent upon the average someone not of that class experiences. Some areas will have no bakeries just because they are rural etc. But really I think that only "essential services" (like groceries/hospitals) should be forced to serve folks. Again it comes down to my (perhaps warped) definition of "harm". Is anyone really harmed by not being allowed to buy a cake?
The embarrassing/upsetting nature of it isn't really of much concern to me when using government to force someone else to act - there is no right to not be upset or not be embarrassed. I don't think we should use government to force signage indicating their bigotry either; though this is much less of an intrusion on the private business than forcing them to serve folks they don't want to serve so it may be a middle ground that would be acceptable. But this approach requires the bigot to know all of their bigoted stances in advance. e.g. Maybe they didn't even think of not serving Chinese people until one walked in the door. These days with social media I think the message would be out there pretty fast regardless of any sign on the establishment.
I think the proper response to a private business having bigoted views is to protest and boycott and make other folks aware (which is my position on the topic of this thread). I don't think the answer is to use the power of the government to force private individuals/businesses into the action we desire.
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I don't think we should use government to force signage indicating their bigotry either; though this is much less of an intrusion on the private business than forcing them to serve folks they don't want to serve so it may be a middle ground that would be acceptable.
Wait. Wut? You're cool with sign like the one below?
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Yes, I understand this hence my sentence in my post about getting to where we are may have required those laws. Also, if that is the case today (i.e. there is no easy way for them to get a baker in Colorado) they can sue for damages. But if they are in San Francisco, and there is an anti-gay baker refusing to serve homosexuals, or if there is a racist against blacks baker in Harlem, what harm are they actually causing the homosexuals in San Francisco looking for cakes or the black folks in Harlem looking for cakes?
Don't you think there should be actual harm before we compel people to do things?
This is an interesting idea that you've put forth, so I've got a few questions about it.
- You've indicated that a racist baker in Harlem doesn't cause harm because there are other bakers who can be visited instead. If there's a single bakery in town that serves black people, is that enough? Two? What is your minimum threshold until you believe that harm is created by the racist baker?
- How far should minorities have to travel to find a non-bigoted place of business before it does harm? 1 mile? 10 miles? 100 miles? 1000 miles? If the person being discriminated against has a disability that prevents him/her from driving/walking easily, does this number change?
- I'd argue that bigoted service refusals are actively harmful, as they are quite embarrassing and upsetting to the people being discriminated against as they find out that a particular place is racist. Would you support a regulation requiring that places refusing service for racist/homophobic/sexist reasons post their policy on their front door? This would make the business owners intentions quite clear, and prevent the harm that they would otherwise cause.
Yeah, these are all good questions that I'm probably not equipped to answer. In general courts refer to what a "reasonable" person thinks. I think for the number/distance of the service should be dependent upon the average someone not of that class experiences.
So if there are three bakeries, all three will serve white people, and one will serve black people . . . is that reasonable or not? What if a disabled black person moves into the neighbourhood, and is unable to physically get to the one bakery that will save him? I think most reasonable people would say that this is unacceptable. So, do we just get new lawsuits whenever this disabled black guy moves to a new neighbourhood under your rules?
Some areas will have no bakeries just because they are rural etc. But really I think that only "essential services" (like groceries/hospitals) should be forced to serve folks. Again it comes down to my (perhaps warped) definition of "harm". Is anyone really harmed by not being allowed to buy a cake?
Buying a cake is certainly not a life or death issue.
Fundamentally though, the entire country is being harmed when a person is refused service due to bigotry. It reduces trade, discourages collaboration, and damages sense of community.
The embarrassing/upsetting nature of it isn't really of much concern to me when using government to force someone else to act - there is no right to not be upset or not be embarrassed.
There is no right to open a bakery either. If you fail to comply with health and safety laws in your bakery, it will be closed down. If you fail to comply with zoning permits for your bakery, it will be closed down. If you fail to comply with sexual harassment laws with your employees, it will be closed down.
Nobody has attempted to force the bigoted baker to do anything, that's a straw man . . . but if the baker wants to retain the privileged of licensing his business to be open to the public, he needs to follow all rules and guidelines that this entails.
I don't think we should use government to force signage indicating their bigotry either; though this is much less of an intrusion on the private business than forcing them to serve folks they don't want to serve so it may be a middle ground that would be acceptable. But this approach requires the bigot to know all of their bigoted stances in advance. e.g. Maybe they didn't even think of not serving Chinese people until one walked in the door. These days with social media I think the message would be out there pretty fast regardless of any sign on the establishment.
If you want to take a bigoted stance on an issue, I think that you should be able to. I don't think you should be able to hide your bigotry though . . . and am not aware of any right to do so guaranteed in the constitution. My suspicion is that by being very public and up front about bigotry in this manner, some of the problem would sort itself out in a free market based manner.
I think the proper response to a private business having bigoted views is to protest and boycott and make other folks aware (which is my position on the topic of this thread). I don't think the answer is to use the power of the government to force private individuals/businesses into the action we desire.
That's why I'm surprised that you don't support signage or something similar. I don't share your faith that most people check social media before entering every store in case there are bigots working there. That means that bigots would often be protected from the impacts of their actions by obscurity, as many folks patronizing a place will not be aware.
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I don't think we should use government to force signage indicating their bigotry either; though this is much less of an intrusion on the private business than forcing them to serve folks they don't want to serve so it may be a middle ground that would be acceptable.
Wait. Wut? You're cool with sign like the one below?
No, I'm not cool with it. In a discussion with GuitarStv we were discussing the possibility of, *given* a bigoted establishment, should they be forced to let their bigotry be known to everyone who walks by rather than be clandestine about it and only refuse service once someone has already entered. Having a sign would allow patrons who disagree with their views but who are not in the discriminated class the ability to not patronize the establishment and would allow for less embarrassment/upset of the folks being discriminated against.
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I don't think we should use government to force signage indicating their bigotry either; though this is much less of an intrusion on the private business than forcing them to serve folks they don't want to serve so it may be a middle ground that would be acceptable.
Wait. Wut? You're cool with sign like the one below?
No, I'm not cool with it. In a discussion with GuitarStv we were discussing the possibility of, *given* a bigoted establishment, should they be forced to let their bigotry be known to everyone who walks by rather than be clandestine about it and only refuse service once someone has already entered. Having a sign would allow patrons who disagree with their views but who are not in the discriminated class the ability to not patronize the establishment and would allow for less embarrassment/upset of the folks being discriminated against.
Not forced.
You keep using the term "forced", but nobody is forced to do anything unless they want something from the government first (in this case to open a public business). If they don't want to publicly proclaim their bigotry, they aren't forced to.
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So if there are three bakeries, all three will serve white people, and one will serve black people . . . is that reasonable or not? What if a disabled black person moves into the neighbourhood, and is unable to physically get to the one bakery that will save him? I think most reasonable people would say that this is unacceptable. So, do we just get new lawsuits whenever this disabled black guy moves to a new neighbourhood under your rules?
Yeah, I don't know. It seems like lawsuits would be the best remedy given my earlier positions. But again the lawsuit would have to show some harm has been caused. What actually happens today if a black person is refused service because they're black? Do they just close the business or does the business get sued by the justice department for cash?
Buying a cake is certainly not a life or death issue.
Fundamentally though, the entire country is being harmed when a person is refused service due to bigotry. It reduces trade, discourages collaboration, and damages sense of community.
Yeah I agree it's not good, I just don't agree that the government should legislate the not-goodness in this area. Let's say some business discriminated against you because of your color, and then were forced by the justice department (or however that works) to serve you. Would you then actually patronize that business? It seems like either way you're not going to get the service there. At least when they refuse you service you can be happy you didn't give them your money. If the business owner is racist and is forced to serve you, you are unwittingly giving a racist money!
There is no right to open a bakery either. If you fail to comply with health and safety laws in your bakery, it will be closed down. If you fail to comply with zoning permits for your bakery, it will be closed down. If you fail to comply with sexual harassment laws with your employees, it will be closed down.
Nobody has attempted to force the bigoted baker to do anything, that's a straw man . . . but if the baker wants to retain the privileged of licensing his business to be open to the public, he needs to follow all rules and guidelines that this entails.
Hrm, I'm not sure I agree there is no right to open a bakery/business because the government is then limiting your freedom. My position is that government services must be available to all because they are public, but private businesses shouldn't have the same constraints. Yes failing to comply with certain rules and regulations have consequences, but we've determined that not complying is likely to cause harm to the business patrons/employees. Refusing service isn't likely to cause harm to anyone in my view, especially for cakes/non-essential services.
That's why I'm surprised that you don't support signage or something similar. I don't share your faith that most people check social media before entering every store in case there are bigots working there. That means that bigots would often be protected from the impacts of their actions by obscurity, as many folks patronizing a place will not be aware.
Yeah, I'm just against telling people what signs they must put up on their private property unless it's preventing harm. But i'm not as against that since it's less of an intrusion.
P.S. Man those quotes took so long to edit, is there an easier way for the embedded quotes?!
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So if there are three bakeries, all three will serve white people, and one will serve black people . . . is that reasonable or not? What if a disabled black person moves into the neighbourhood, and is unable to physically get to the one bakery that will save him? I think most reasonable people would say that this is unacceptable. So, do we just get new lawsuits whenever this disabled black guy moves to a new neighbourhood under your rules?
Yeah, I don't know. It seems like lawsuits would be the best remedy given my earlier positions. But again the lawsuit would have to show some harm has been caused. What actually happens today if a black person is refused service because they're black? Do they just close the business or does the business get sued by the justice department for cash?
Closing the business and then giving the money from the lawsuit to the aggrieved party to make up for the hardship would seem to be the fairest approach.
Buying a cake is certainly not a life or death issue.
Fundamentally though, the entire country is being harmed when a person is refused service due to bigotry. It reduces trade, discourages collaboration, and damages sense of community.
Yeah I agree it's not good, I just don't agree that the government should legislate the not-goodness in this area. Let's say some business discriminated against you because of your color, and then were forced by the justice department (or however that works) to serve you. Would you then actually patronize that business? It seems like either way you're not going to get the service there. At least when they refuse you service you can be happy you didn't give them your money. If the business owner is racist and is forced to serve you, you are unwittingly giving a racist money![/quote]
Nobody has ever been forced to serve someone they don't want to. If they don't want to serve someone due to bigotry, they can't keep their buisness open. If they decide that making money is more important than being a bigot then they choose to serve everyone fairly. Either scenario is good.
There is no right to open a bakery either. If you fail to comply with health and safety laws in your bakery, it will be closed down. If you fail to comply with zoning permits for your bakery, it will be closed down. If you fail to comply with sexual harassment laws with your employees, it will be closed down.
Nobody has attempted to force the bigoted baker to do anything, that's a straw man . . . but if the baker wants to retain the privileged of licensing his business to be open to the public, he needs to follow all rules and guidelines that this entails.
Hrm, I'm not sure I agree there is no right to open a bakery/business because the government is then limiting your freedom. My position is that government services must be available to all because they are public, but private businesses shouldn't have the same constraints. Yes failing to comply with certain rules and regulations have consequences, but we've determined that not complying is likely to cause harm to the business patrons/employees. Refusing service isn't likely to cause harm to anyone in my view, especially for cakes/non-essential services.
It doesn't matter if you agree with it or not. If you fail to follow the rules for opening a business (and there are a shit ton - especially for a bakery) you will be closed down. Nobody has the right to open any business they want. You do so as a privilege granted by the government.
That's why I'm surprised that you don't support signage or something similar. I don't share your faith that most people check social media before entering every store in case there are bigots working there. That means that bigots would often be protected from the impacts of their actions by obscurity, as many folks patronizing a place will not be aware.
Yeah, I'm just against telling people what signs they must put up on their private property unless it's preventing harm. But i'm not as against that since it's less of an intrusion.
Kicking someone out of your store because they're black does harm. If it didn't do any harm, there wouldn't be any hard feelings and nobody would be upset about it.
The signs prevent this harm from being done. Again though, the business owner is free not to put up the signs if they don't want to . . . they just can't be a bigot.
P.S. Man those quotes took so long to edit, is there an easier way for the embedded quotes?!
Not that I know of. :P