Arkansas is now holding the shit-sandwich. Will they take a bite? I bet they do!
The bakery is as imperfect a victim as poor Mike Brown was.
1% of Arizona’s tourism economy was 190 million dollars!
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
1% of Arizona’s tourism economy was 190 million dollars!
[/quote]
Right, their total tourism economy was $17.7 Billion.
[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
Jackrash wins the thread.[/quote]
Yes, yes he does.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
They’re just exercising their first amendment rights. It isn’t like they are blocking highways to protest a dude who got shot for punching a cop in the face. [/quote]
Yea, I’m sure you know that people like to bash people whenever they voice an argument that they disagree with. I’m surprised Republican nominee hopefuls aren’t trying to take advantage of this.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Arkansas is now holding the shit-sandwich. Will they take a bite? I bet they do!
The bakery is as imperfect a victim as poor Mike Brown was. [/quote]
The DOJ disagreed.
But the DOJ report released earlier this month was, as Capehart wrote, highly persuasive on “two uncomfortable truths: Brown never surrendered with his hands up, and Wilson was justified in shooting Brown.”
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
They’re just exercising their first amendment rights. It isn’t like they are blocking highways to protest a dude who got shot for punching a cop in the face. [/quote]
Yea, I’m sure you know that people like to bash people whenever they voice an argument that they disagree with. I’m surprised Republican nominee hopefuls aren’t trying to take advantage of this.[/quote]
Anything remotely related to “gay” is quickly becoming a third rail. In most respects I’m perfectly fine with politicians no longer speaking on who is having sex with who.
So… Fuck it.
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
They’re just exercising their first amendment rights. It isn’t like they are blocking highways to protest a dude who got shot for punching a cop in the face. [/quote]
Yea, I’m sure you know that people like to bash people whenever they voice an argument that they disagree with. I’m surprised Republican nominee hopefuls aren’t trying to take advantage of this.[/quote]
How exactly would they take advantage of it? Support for gay marriage is in the majority and climbing rapidly. This is an issue intelligent Republicans who are running won’t touch or will say very little on.
Again speaking purely from a politically savvy stance. It’s going to be hard to spin this back into a freedom thing as the “it’s discrimination” campaign has been crazy effective.
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
They’re just exercising their first amendment rights. It isn’t like they are blocking highways to protest a dude who got shot for punching a cop in the face. [/quote]
Yea, I’m sure you know that people like to bash people whenever they voice an argument that they disagree with. I’m surprised Republican nominee hopefuls aren’t trying to take advantage of this.[/quote]
Why bother? From a purely logical standpoint, the only way that the other side could legitimately argue their point is to first somehow establish that civic rights are superior to natural rights. This is logically impossible, so to argue with those who fail to see otherwise is a futile attempt at best.
Natural rights are, of course, the right to life, liberty, and estate/property. The right to property is essentially a negative right, in that one is compelled to refrain from exercising against it their own rights. The natural right to property must necessarily include the right to dispose of such property howsoever one sees fit, as long the exercise thereof does not encroach upon another’s natural right. This, in turn would include the right to decide to whom you enter into voluntary exchanges to part with said property.
The right to be free of discrimination is essentially a civic right, in that it is created by the gov’t and can only exist with a gov’t in place. I like to think of civic rights as ACCESS rights, rights which guarantee equal access to a gov’t-provided service of some sort. A private business and private property do not fall within this definition.
Beyond that, gov’t exists to protect natural rights, so the entity that exists to protect natural rights cannot then create laws that permit the selected violation of natural rights in some other pursuit, however seemingly noble it may be. It goes without saying that civic rights are essentially the arm that must stop swinging around once it reaches the tip of my nose.
And quite frankly, I fail to see any other way to achieving any semblance of the social equality that opponents of the law continually clamor for then to protect what we are all equally born with and what “equalizes” us: natural rights.
Maybe I’m just being narcissistic (a distinct possibility), but I have a hard time believing that there’s any point in arguing with someone who would be in disagreement with the law after the above argument is presented to them.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
The governor of Arizona, who ran-afoul of this same situation last year was not re-elected. What will happen to Pence?
[/quote]
That part is factually inaccurate. Former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer vetoed that bill in her state last year. The AZ state constitution has a term limit clause. Her tenure was up.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]magick wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
They’re just exercising their first amendment rights. It isn’t like they are blocking highways to protest a dude who got shot for punching a cop in the face. [/quote]
Yea, I’m sure you know that people like to bash people whenever they voice an argument that they disagree with. I’m surprised Republican nominee hopefuls aren’t trying to take advantage of this.[/quote]
Why bother? From a purely logical standpoint, the only way that the other side could legitimately argue their point is to first somehow establish that civic rights are superior to natural rights. This is logically impossible, so to argue with those who fail to see otherwise is a futile attempt at best.
Natural rights are, of course, the right to life, liberty, and estate/property. The right to property is essentially a negative right, in that one is compelled to refrain from exercising against it their own rights. The natural right to property must necessarily include the right to dispose of such property howsoever one sees fit, as long the exercise thereof does not encroach upon another’s natural right. This, in turn would include the right to decide to whom you enter into voluntary exchanges to part with said property.
The right to be free of discrimination is essentially a civic right, in that it is created by the gov’t and can only exist with a gov’t in place. I like to think of civic rights as ACCESS rights, rights which guarantee equal access to a gov’t-provided service of some sort. A private business and private property do not fall within this definition.
Beyond that, gov’t exists to protect natural rights, so the entity that exists to protect natural rights cannot then create laws that permit the selected violation of natural rights in some other pursuit, however seemingly noble it may be. It goes without saying that civic rights are essentially the arm that must stop swinging around once it reaches the tip of my nose.
And quite frankly, I fail to see any other way to achieving any semblance of the social equality that opponents of the law continually clamor for then to protect what we are all equally born with and what “equalizes” us: natural rights.
Maybe I’m just being narcissistic (a distinct possibility), but I have a hard time believing that there’s any point in arguing with someone who would be in disagreement with the law after the above argument is presented to them.[/quote]
Well, that pretty much responds to all possible PWI posts for me.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
So…
Gov. Pence is already back-tracking.
Any estimates for the economic impact Indiana had already suffered as a result of this law?
The governor of Arizona, who ran-afoul of this same situation last year was not re-elected. What will happen to Pence?[/quote]
It means America has failed to stand up at a very crucial moment. Well, they did stand up, but on the wrong side.
The media, the entertainment business, and the American public just took a bill which restated a basic American understanding of religious freedom and turned into a free pass to starve gays. How gays became the only focus in the first place, I have no idea. What has been forgotten with all this malarky about segregation and starving homosexuals on the street is the continuing fight against Obama’s health-care act. Anyone remember that?
The American media and public (unless there’s a cowed and cowardly silent majority) has just told us all that devout Christians (and others) are to be put completely out of the wedding business. Completely. Further, that devout Christians will either have to sell out on contraception coverage, or drop insurance when they can, or simply get out of business all together. The people pulling their money out of Indiana, and those who give them moral support, are protesting not the Christian baker, florist, or wedding-planner. Or, protesting the devout Christian whose orthodox beliefs prevent him from cooperating with provision of contraception coverage through an insurance plan. They’re protesting a state for restating what has long been seen as a major feature of US liberty, freedom, and rights.
In a way, it’s ironic. These protestors have empowered the government, in a new and frightening way, to put a one way door in the supposed wall of separation leading from the government to religion. The government is enjoying new power to punish living a peaceful, mutually voluntary, religious life. It is more empowered to decide between ‘proper’ religious life and ‘improper’ religious life. Its power to shape and wear down religious life strengthened. In effect, this means it now sets religious doctrine for the nation. To live by anything else–no matter how peaceful, or if it involves ones own property, or voluntary association–means excommunication from full communion with the nation’s economic body.
If that’s the case, then it looks like the free market is saying “make us LESS free!” You see, they’re not protesting ‘bigots.’ They’re not highlighting this or that shop. They’re targeting a state. They’re protesting rights. They’re protesting that a devout Christian wedding cake maker, or a conservative Catholic, might have some protection as the health-care act and homosexual marriage continue to sweep through the nation. So, those who mouth support for Indiana on one hand (“Because I’m a libertarian, guess I have side with the bigots”, yet taunt the Governor and the state for any economic harm it might suffer (“the free market speaks, see!”), better reconsider. If you’re a supposed libertarian, you better hope Indiana gets all the moral and economic support it can. Because, if not, the free market has declared it doesn’t want to be free. It want’s to be less free.
On a personal note, I could be one of those ‘bigots.’
Even though I do support the right of business owners to serve whomever they so wish, I do understand why Indiana’s law garnered an unusual amount of criticism, so I’ll play a bit of devil’s advocate here. Illinois, for example, passed a similar law about ten years ago, and so have other states. One core difference, though, is that many of those states otherwise specifically had clauses that protected the LGBT community from discrimination for reasons outside the specific scope of the law, whereas Indiana does not.
The language in SB 101 is so broadly written that someone can sue even without their religious beliefs having actually been burdened simply by claiming that is ‘likely’ to happen. The Indiana SB 101 is substantially broader than the federal law. The federal RFRA can only be invoked against government action. SB 101 goes much further, inviting discrimination by allowing religious beliefs to be raised as a defense in lawsuits and administrative proceedings brought by not only customers in a private business, but also workers and rental tenants.
In addition, SB 101 makes it easier to claim a burden on religious freedom than the federal RFRA by defining the ‘exercise of religion’ as ‘any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.’ The federal law, and many other state laws, make it harder to just make up your own religious tenet and use it as a random excuse under the umbrella of the law. However, in the case of Hobby Lobby (Catholic owners) and a lot of these other small business owners we have discussed, their beliefs were tied to legitimate, long-standing and recognized tenets of certain sects or denominations of practicing Christians.
The Indiana Governor did state personally that SB101 isn’t intended to allow discrimination against LGBT people, but there were amendments designed to make that explicit and they were repeatedly rejected during the legislative process, so if he truly means what he said on TV, then I’m surprised that he and the legislature wouldn’t work together to add language along these lines: ‘This chapter does not establish or eliminate a defense to a claim under any federal, state or local law protecting civil rights or preventing discrimination,’ whereby the Indiana government could include gay and transgender people within Indiana’s protections from discrimination, in the same manner that most of the other states already have.
So again, while I support the intent of the law and the ability of businesses to do as they wish, I do understand why in this particular case Indiana came under an unusual amount of national scrutiny. This probably could have all been avoided by just crafting specific legislation to protect businesses that don’t want to be complicit in certain same-sex ceremonies, as I think even the resident Christians on the board would agree there is no compelling religious reason for private businesses to want to reject serving Gays carte blanche - that would have been a reasonable compromise to placate both sides IMHO. I remember this same consensus being reached by some pundits about how AZ could have gone about things differently in 2014 too.
“Critics said Indiana’s law as it is now written would allow businesses to deny services such as wedding cakes or wedding music for gay marriages on religious grounds…”
Noooo, not in the example of freedom and liberty that is the US of A.!
"The world’s biggest retailer, Wal-Mart , based in Bentonville, Ark., issued a statement saying the Arkansas bill threatened to undermine “the spirit of inclusion” in the state and “does not reflect the values we proudly uphold.”
“…Some of the most powerful U.S. companies, including Apple , Angie’s List, diesel engine-maker Cummins Inc , Salesforce Marketing Cloud and drug-maker Eli Lilly and Co , had called on Pence to clarify or repeal the law, which passed with an overwhelming majority in the state’s legislature.”
The “free market” asking to be less free. Why? So long as unit economic units continue to get churned out the “free” market could give two craps about long practiced liberties.
"His ultimate fear was that this tendency toward privatism?especially the ?restless? pursuit of thing after thing?and disinterest in the banal activities of self-government would result in an apathetic and disconnected citizenry whose main interest would be security and comfort amid the unpredictability of their economic lives. In another famous chapter, much admired by conservatives??What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear??Tocqueville strains to describe a new kind of tyranny that he fears and expects to arise from democracy, the rise of a mild and gentle ?tutelary power? that would seek to cushion citizens against all the dangers, harms, and risks of the world. Tocqueville expresses discomfort of how best to call this kind of government, since at all times in the past, a tyranny implied a form of government imposed by force upon a people against their will. But this new specter, ?democratic despotism,? arises through the invitation and desires of the democratic citizenry itself. In fact, they will call it ?democracy,? not despotism. But its cost is steep:
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
In contrast to democracy understood as a discipline of shared self-governance?leading to self-command and an inclination to obey laws made by oneself?Tocqueville describes here instead a people altogether infantalized by their private materialist obsessions and civic indifference. Rather than making them into men and women, this form of democracy creates perpetual adolescents: ?[Democratic despotism] would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood.?
[quote]AliveAgain36 wrote:
http://www.abc57.com/story/28681598/rfra-first-business-to-publicly-deny-same-sex-service[/quote]
And… the award for most inaccurate and sensationalist headline of the week goes to…
Wow. Just wow.
“We’ll serve anyone that comes in, we just dont’ want to cater a same sex wedding.”
You know, we should force Muslims to drink and sever booze, and Jews to eat and serve cheesburgers and bacon. That’s the ticket!
Who the fuck wants pizza at their wedding anyway?
This has gone past relevant and dived straight into absurd.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]AliveAgain36 wrote:
http://www.abc57.com/story/28681598/rfra-first-business-to-publicly-deny-same-sex-service[/quote]
And… the award for most inaccurate and sensationalist headline of the week goes to…
Wow. Just wow.
“We’ll serve anyone that comes in, we just dont’ want to cater a same sex wedding.”
You know, we should force Muslims to drink and sever booze, and Jews to eat and serve cheesburgers and bacon. That’s the ticket![/quote]
Everything which is not forbidden is compulsory.
They should just go straight to the point and make a law saying you can refuse service to gay weddings (without any specific reason, religious, etc). The anti-discriminatory laws are for protecting something that’s outside a persons control like gender/color. I don’t think religion should be included in these federal protected classes though, that is the only one that stands out.