We need less government, so lets pass a law.[/quote]
If a bigger law is passed/reinterpreted by the opposition that gives the government new action, powers, enforcement and the other party manages to pass another law that sets all that aside then, yes, passing the second law leads to less government.
That is in fact true…
[quote]Sloth-
you can picture the liberals looking down their noses at the bakers, but you can’t picture the bakers looking down their noses at the liberal types?[/quote]
I don’t care who looks down their noses at who. I’m not even concerned if an atheist baker doesn’t want to make a celebratory cake for baptisms.
And just because things were ok in the past, doesn’t mean they aren’t still today. I don’t worship “progress.” I don’t pat myself on the back because I’m part of some movement to undo anything and everything that was before. I don’t believe Tuesday is automatically better than Monday because it comes later in the week.
Maybe like MCXVII says, the crybabies are making a mess for everyone.
How can we can we protect one persons rights from another persons? Reasonable people don’t want Uncle Sam to FORCE the bakers to make the cake. Reasonable people don’t want the obvious bullshit this law could lead to, either. Fundamentally, nobody wants to be told what to do, explicitly (law says make the cake) or by implication ( I don’t make cakes that support behavior I don’t like). Is there a non-messy way to accomplish this?
The problem is that kids will see this heated debate, in society, not on this board, and get the idea that discrimination is OK. That’s what leads to all the outrage. Like if you’re not actively against something, you’re for it by implication.
Thank you guys for helping me get my head around this.
" Religious freedom is a core American value, one that the ACLU has been defending…"
Mufasa[/quote]
Translation; “So long as you only live by it inside your home. In any other voluntary transaction/association you must follow the present mono-culture even when it strikes at the most sacred of your beliefs. If you do not, we will support the government taking away your ability to make a living for yourself and your family.”[/quote]
What’s to blame are those who feel the need to persecute minorities for whatever makes them different. If gays, blacks, Muslims, whatever didn’t suffer legitimate, violent racism at the hands of others, there would be no clarion call to end racism and whatnot. [/quote]
Completely and totally disagree. Nobody is aiming to end gay-bashing by forcing a peaceful christian baker out of her business. It’s about power. The power to make others serve you despite their deeply sincere, and peacefully held, convictions. It’s about driving by their closed down bakery the next month if they don’t surrender their faith. And, the satisfaction of knowing you made that happen. It’s not about them, the vanquished being non-violent or gentle with you. It’s not about them serving you water and the other staples of life. It’s about making that Christian put the two little brides on the rainbow flag decorated cake, and getting to smile in their face when they hand over to you.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I have zero problem with this law. I have zero problem with discrimination in general, when it comes from private citizens.
If someone wants to bar blacks or Jews or whatever from their business, so be it. I’d prefer to know exactly who all the racists and bigots are so I can avoid giving them my business. All of these laws that outlaw discrimination make it easier for those people to operate in the shadows. Shit, I don’t even have a problem with some baker flying an ISIS flag outside of his shop. Now I know exactly where NOT to get some pastries and coffee.
On top of all that, the business or organization is someone’s property. Let them dispose of their property however they want. There is no natural right to the purchase of someone else’s property, so discrimination is not an inherent violation of anything other than political law. If a business owner is forced to allow a black patron in his store and accept his legal tender in exchange for a good, that business owner is essentially being forced to make a transaction he wouldn’t normally make, which removes the possibility for an economic gain.
In the free market of ideas, I’d like to think that the good ones will rise to the surface and the bad ideas will never gain traction.[/quote]
And this.[/quote]
How many times have you seen some shocked person on TV struggling to comprehend how the person they’ve lived next to for 30 years could have killed all those people?[/quote]
More often than I should have. I blame the collapse of civil society in favor of an all-powerful state. It’s no longer safe to really know people, because they will have to really know you, too. If someone really knows you, he most likely knows enough to have you caged.
To echo some sentiments already expressed in the thread, there is a vast difference between someone being refused a non-essential service and the compelling of a business to provide said service.
Though this act is expressed in the form of a law, it is my opinion that it is merely enumerating a right that should have been self-evident without this law. Namely, the right to operate your business as you see fit, including in such a manner as to drive you out of business.
The people declaring the sky is falling (not saying anyone here is doing so) need to show me an outcome that is more egregious than a person being sued for operating their business in line with their private beliefs. Such an event has not, as far as I know, occurred.
Somebody is twisting our goodwill and disdain for bigotry to shut down the bakery. That is messed up.
At what point does the symbolic opposition to this law become more important than the bakery the law was trying to protect? In America, never, right? And that’s why this is so crazy. It’s like one clause of the 1st Amendment(speech) against another clause of the 1st Amendment(religion).
The only way to allow freedom for everyone is to allow everyone to treat each other however they want? This can’t be right either.
This whole topic is like a snake. I know I don’t like it just by looking at it. But that prevents me from understanding it.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Somebody is twisting our goodwill and disdain for bigotry to shut down the bakery. That is messed up.
At what point does the symbolic opposition to this law become more important than the bakery the law was trying to protect? In America, never, right? And that’s why this is so crazy. It’s like one clause of the 1st Amendment(speech) against another clause of the 1st Amendment(religion).
The only way to allow freedom for everyone is to allow everyone to treat each other however they want? This can’t be right either.
This whole topic is like a snake. I know I don’t like it just by looking at it. But that prevents me from understanding it.
[/quote]
Well some of it is the hypocrisy from people who bitch and moan about prayer being out of school but flip the fuck out if they hear a geography teacher talk about the Islamic faith while teaching the middle east. The people who want the religious freedom as long as it is the majority accepted Christian faith and not something they disagree with. The Bible cherry pickers who will brag to a radio station because their faith tells them to not serve gay people while ignoring the commandment “thou shalt not bear false witness” as they lie to gay people to get them out of their place.
Still the law itself is not necessarily a bad thing for the reasons I’ve pointed out. In the end the government doesn’t need to figure these things out for their citizens, the citizens will work it out. And look at polling. It’s simply not going to make economic sense in the near future to deny service to gay people and most of these places won’t advertise that fact. They are in the minority and they know it and that minority isn’t growing at all.
I don’t see how freedom of speech or freedom of religion is effected by this law. It doesn’t harm either so I don’t get your 1st vs 1st point?
I just meant free speech in that gays can do their thing in public, I guess its not exactly like free speech.
At first glance this just feels like
Ensure the rights of a large group (rights which they already totally had) by enacting a law allowing discrimination (which wasn’t allowed before) of a much smaller group.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
I just meant free speech in that gays can do their thing in public, I guess its not exactly like free speech.[/quote]
They will still be able to. Plenty of non-bigoted people will be happy to take money from gay people and those who don’t wish to see them treated differently such as myself. In fact those places will smile as their profits go up.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Somebody is twisting our goodwill and disdain for bigotry to shut down the bakery. That is messed up.
At what point does the symbolic opposition to this law become more important than the bakery the law was trying to protect? In America, never, right? And that’s why this is so crazy. It’s like one clause of the 1st Amendment(speech) against another clause of the 1st Amendment(religion).
The only way to allow freedom for everyone is to allow everyone to treat each other however they want? This can’t be right either.
This whole topic is like a snake. I know I don’t like it just by looking at it. But that prevents me from understanding it.
[/quote]
Incorrect. The only way to allow freedom for everyone is to protect the one thing that ALL people have in common: natural rights.
People have freedom of religion and they have freedom of speech. Where one starts and the other stops is crystal clear: when an exercise of one right necessitates encroachment on someone else’s right. My right to swing my arms around ends at the tip of your nose.
This idea of freedom or liberty is just so warped these days. People seem to think that if they don’t achieve happiness, there must have been some sort of violation of their right to PURSUE it along the way. I think that this stems from this falsified notion that we can do anything if we put our mind to it, and that we’re all special in our own way. There are plenty of things that are impossible, such as making a racist with no motivation to change his ways to suddenly start caring about blacks.
It’s simply the difference between the general welfare and the general will, or the idea of equal opportunity vs. equal results.
[quote]sufiandy wrote:
Are there actually any cases where a business will not serve someone simply because they are gay, for religious reasons? Or at least claimed they won’t once a law like this is in effect? It seems people are making a bigger deal of this than it actually is, mainly because once it goes in effect nothing will change and they won’t have a reason to complain about the law.[/quote]
[quote]Sloth wrote:
I’m just surprised some enterprising, hairy legged yet shaved head, nose pierced college feminist hasn’t walked into another known Christian business owner’s bakery to order a “Congrats on a safe and successful abortion” cake. And then, turns around and sues the baker out of his/her business based on a bizarre application of rights. Hey, they have a “right” to an abortion, presently. So how can some tyrannical private citizen (a humble baker…) discriminate on that, yet make other cakes with other congratulatory messages?! After all, it’s discriminatory towards to one of the most sacred measuring sticks of female liberation in this nation. Hell, it’s practically like the SI unit of women’s liberation across the western world.[/quote]
These are straw man examples that compare apples to oranges.
The laws, where applicable, prevent discrimination based on certain protected categories, such as race, sex/gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and whatever other categories of protected groups that the individual state wishes to include in the anti-discrimination in places of public accommodation bill.
You can refuse service for basically any other reason, as long as you’re not denying service to a protected group based on that person’s ascribed status. Thus, the baker could refuse service to the feminist and not get sued, as long as the refusal to serve the feminist was for a reason not protected by law. You probably can’t refuse to serve her because she’s a woman, but you can refuse service if you don’t like the message, e.g., the bakery that refused to make a birthday cake for a child named after Adolf Hitler. If I don’t like the color of your shirt, I can refuse service, unless it’s written into the law as a protected category.
The Christian baker who will sell any other cake to a homosexual, except for a wedding cake.
The Christian bake who will sell any other cake to a woman, except for one that celebrates their right to an abortion.
I think my comparison is a legitimate one.[/quote]
No, there’s a difference. In denying a wedding cake, the wedding cake is denied to the homosexual because of his or her sexual orientation.
In the second scenario, you’re refusing to bake a cake because it celebrates a right to an abortion, a right with which you disagree. Now if you refuse service to the woman because she is a woman, and you outright state that your objection is based on her sex, then the state is probably going to win litigation against you - that’s illegal. You weren’t very clear, to me, on what grounds refusal of service was based. It all depends on what you tell the customer. You can’t deny service based on sex, but you could deny service if you disagree with a message.
No, there’s a difference. In denying a wedding cake, the wedding cake is denied to the homosexual because of his or her sexual orientation.[/quote]
This is clearly false, or the baker would refuse to sell birthday cakes to the homosexual, too. The refusal is specifically for a WEDDING cake which celebrates a right that he/she disagrees with.
This is clearly false, or the baker would refuse to sell birthday cakes to the homosexual, too. The refusal is specifically for a WEDDING cake which celebrates a right that he/she disagrees with.
[/quote]
I realize that, but the baker is refusing to bake cakes to be used by gay couples for a wedding or a civil union ceremony. In doing so, s/he is running afoul of state laws by refusing service based on sexual orientation, because there’s no way a gay couple can get a wedding cake from that bakery.
In refusing to bake cake for a woman who had an abortion and wants to celebrate it with a cake, as far a I know, having an abortion isn’t a protected class from discrimination by businesses, at least not in most states. Whether or not you could sue and claim discrimination based on sex would depend on exactly how the law was written in the state - maybe, but I have no idea how the laws read in each state. There might be some states you could win the case, but it depends on how you phrase the refusal of service.