Author Topic: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs  (Read 18327 times)

nereo

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #100 on: June 05, 2018, 04:50:43 PM »
I think people need to learn to love their neighbors a little more and not worry so much about politics.
Nereo supports this sentiment!

sherr

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #101 on: June 05, 2018, 04:53:06 PM »
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.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #102 on: June 05, 2018, 05:06:27 PM »
I can't be buyin' my chew from you round earthers.

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #103 on: June 05, 2018, 05:52:36 PM »
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?

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #104 on: June 06, 2018, 10:35:36 AM »

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. 

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #105 on: June 06, 2018, 11:02:58 AM »

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?

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #106 on: June 06, 2018, 11:20:25 AM »
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. 

 

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #107 on: June 06, 2018, 11:24:52 AM »

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. 

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #108 on: June 06, 2018, 11:32:41 AM »
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/).  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).

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #109 on: June 06, 2018, 11:35:27 AM »
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?
« Last Edit: June 06, 2018, 11:48:26 AM by GuitarStv »

Anon in Alaska

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #110 on: June 06, 2018, 11:39:30 AM »
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?

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #111 on: June 06, 2018, 11:54:01 AM »
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/).  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. 



GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #112 on: June 06, 2018, 11:58:22 AM »
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/).  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."

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #113 on: June 06, 2018, 12:15:05 PM »
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/).  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. 



 

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #114 on: June 06, 2018, 12:24:57 PM »
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.

robartsd

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #115 on: June 06, 2018, 01:25:50 PM »
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.

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #116 on: June 06, 2018, 01:34:35 PM »
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.

Chris22

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #117 on: June 06, 2018, 01:54:56 PM »
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. 

robartsd

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #118 on: June 06, 2018, 02:22:59 PM »
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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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #119 on: June 06, 2018, 02:53:52 PM »
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/).  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)

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #120 on: June 06, 2018, 02:55:53 PM »
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.   

Chris22

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #121 on: June 06, 2018, 03:11:06 PM »
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. 

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #122 on: June 06, 2018, 03:14:02 PM »
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. 

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #123 on: June 06, 2018, 07:07:30 PM »
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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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #124 on: June 06, 2018, 07:16:17 PM »
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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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #125 on: June 07, 2018, 08:20:07 AM »
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. 

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #126 on: June 07, 2018, 08:52:24 AM »
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.

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #127 on: June 07, 2018, 09:26:05 AM »
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. 


GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #129 on: June 07, 2018, 11:52:41 AM »
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.

sherr

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #130 on: June 07, 2018, 11:56:42 AM »
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.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2018, 12:00:36 PM by sherr »

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #131 on: June 07, 2018, 12:03:30 PM »
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.   

 

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #132 on: June 07, 2018, 01:01:11 PM »
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?

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #133 on: June 07, 2018, 01:22:16 PM »
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.     

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #134 on: June 07, 2018, 01:46:04 PM »
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.

RetiredAt63

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #135 on: June 07, 2018, 03:27:15 PM »
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/

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #136 on: June 08, 2018, 11:54:24 AM »
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.

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #137 on: June 08, 2018, 12:25:16 PM »
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.

FIRE@50

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #138 on: June 08, 2018, 12:33:42 PM »
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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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #139 on: June 08, 2018, 12:49:24 PM »
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.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2018, 12:54:09 PM by Dabnasty »

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #140 on: June 08, 2018, 01:37:29 PM »
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.

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #141 on: June 08, 2018, 02:21:32 PM »
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. 

sherr

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #142 on: June 08, 2018, 02:33:46 PM »
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.

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #143 on: June 08, 2018, 03:12:58 PM »
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.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2018, 06:54:05 PM by GuitarStv »

Jrr85

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #144 on: June 08, 2018, 03:37:50 PM »
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]


sherr

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #145 on: June 08, 2018, 05:57:38 PM »
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.

GuitarStv

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #146 on: June 08, 2018, 07:00:45 PM »
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.

dividendman

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #147 on: July 05, 2018, 08:01:29 PM »
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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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #148 on: July 05, 2018, 08:17:13 PM »
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.

dividendman

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Re: patronizing businesses who's owners hold different beliefs
« Reply #149 on: July 05, 2018, 08:38:35 PM »
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:

Quote
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?

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!