Lefty

davjohns

I'll take flak for this, but here it is:

I have no issue with businesses choosing who they will and will not serve. It can be based on politics, religion, roll of the dice...I don't care. I think it is self-correcting in the long run.

I think it will all work out if the government doesn't get involved and screw it up.

I am not gay. I support the right of a business to choose not to serve someone who is gay. I will not support their business. I'll go to the business next door. (I need the gay sales associate to tell me what shirt goes with what pants )

Just because I support the business owner's right to do it does not mean I support their view on the matter. I don't. I will vote with my pocketbook. They will not get my business. I think, if more people did that, we would have less animosity and those people with the anger / hate / prejudice / whatever issues, will come around in time.

Trying to change people by law or butting heads just makes them dig in and feel smug about their moral superiority. Worse, the more militant lot on the 'do the right thing' side may force fence sitters over into the bigot camp.

I think businesses that will not take someone's money for personal reasons will fall by the wayside. The businesses that recognize all (US) money is green will survive.

For what it's worth, I agree with you. The only question is if society is ready for our brand of egalitarian policy.

wmw999

If you're complaining about the name-calling, well, that happens to both liberals and republicans; if you're liberal, the name-calling of liberals is more offensive, vice-versa if you're republican.

All those people calling Obama a liar and/or stupid are no more correct than the ones calling all conservatives evil or gay.

Wendy P.

I'm a bit too jaded to complain about trifles like that. You're correct, though.

Amazon

You do realize, that if you removed all the gay congressional GOP staffers from DC, the GOP would be decimated.

Yeah, that's another thing that surprised me about quade's irony argument. How many times a day on these forums are GOP politicians called (correctly, in some cases) closet homosexuals? That gay bar probably had to tear up their rewards cards. Shrug.

Amazon

Would those be Jonah Falcon sized sausages???

Gentleman's choice.

Thank you, Wendy. Trying to get a straightforward answer on these forums and I get met with contortions that would put an earthworm to shame.

quade

You've made no "move." You've just made a silly hypothetical.

Why is it silly? The bakery owners' actions are no more or less "satirical" than the actions of the bar owner. Are you going to defend the bakery's actions and bans the same way you have done for the gay bar? If not, why not?

quade

As for your hypothetical bakery example, it would only be satire if it was satirizing a situation. Do you understand how that works? See, FIRST there has to be something to make fun OF. If they do it without prior provocation (like a well known national story), then it's not satire, they're just being jerks.

They're satirizing the gay bar in the news story I linked. Your move.

quade

Your might want to consider yourself part of that 30% I talked about earlier.

YES! FFS.

Before you get too pleased with yourself--I was actually just trying to coax that out of you but lost patience. See, what you've just done is admitted the double-standard and lack of consistency that I've been alluding to. A gay bar can ban patrons outside their demographic, even posting a sign stating such. You assume it is ironic and satirical even though the tone of the story, the source of the story, and the owner of the bar suggest it is anything but.

Flip that around. The owners of a Christian bakery want to attract others like them to a place they can feel comfortable and do business based on shared values. They post a sign saying "No homosexual couples allowed" because that demographic does not comport with the beliefs of the owners and their clientele.

Would you still laugh it off as satire? Would society? Will it be considered just a joke to be shared by anyone who reads the sign?

I'm guessing not. How is one better than the other?

quade

It's satire. It's not as obvious as your example, but it's is in fact satire by the owner.

Since you won't just come out and say it, I'll assume you're referring to the fact that the establishment is a "gay" bar. So the legislators are unlikely to visit in the first place. Is that correct?

quade

Are you saying your original post was itself satire?

If so I think I can probably help you write better stuff.

Aaaaand I have no idea what you're talking about now. Did the second clicky not work for you?

In any case, a better example of satire or irony would involve the pizzeria or the bar offering all legislators who support the bill free jumbo sausages in fresh, hot buns or something along those lines. That would at least avoid giving the appearance of lowering themselves to the level of bigotry they're opposing.

quade

This is the problem with Rush Limbaugh. Not that he's a clown, but that people do not realize he's a clown.

Yes, yes. So, is that second link I provided tickling your satire bone yet?

quade

***Do people not see that it weakens the argument against being able to ban homosexuals from businesses on moral grounds?

It's called political satire. You might want to look into it.

Funny, I don't remember there being so many finely-honed senses of humor around when discussing satire by, say, Rush Limbaugh.

Read that second story I linked. The owner of the bar is gay. I don't get the impression he's joking.

Remster

It's called protesting. Maybe you've heard of it.

I'd say that demonstrates the point I was making about inconsistency pretty well. Thanks!

GeorgiaDon

I believe the point of the "no legislators" sign is to point out that a law that allows businesses to ban people because they are gay can also be used against other groups including legislators. They are an ironic protest against the law, not intended to be taken literally.

I'm sure everyone would appreciate the dry humor of a "No gays or blacks" sign with equally ironic intentions.

Do people not see that it weakens the argument against being able to ban homosexuals from businesses on moral grounds?

Is popular opinion the only reason one ban is condemned while the other is celebrated?

On a purely personal note, I say it serves the idiot legislators right. But on a political/philosophical level, it makes the business owners banning them just as bigoted as it would if they had banned gay people.

Just looking for some consistency.

Clicky 1
Clicky 2

Andy9o8

******It's a fact my wife and I feel safer and in deed are safer in our home with our firearms at the ready.

I wonder how many of the people shot dead by their partners and/or with their own guns felt exactly the same way.

A timely question, as it happens:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/man-shoots-himself_n_4853983.html

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A man from Independence Township, Michigan accidentally shot and killed himself on Monday while teaching his girlfriend about gun safety, the Oakland Press reports.

So does the tendency of morons to demonstrate gun safety by putting a pistol to their respective head and pulling the trigger make me less safe with a gun in the house? Assume, if you please, that I am not a moron and would not demonstrate gun safety in that manner.

champu

Having a gun in your home does not, in and of itself, make you safer. And (I can't conclude but I can easily surmise based on the acknowledged confounding issues with the studies raised in the article) it likely does not in and of itself make you less safe either.

The article is a bit of a Rorschach test, as most regarding highly politicized topics are. I read it and think, "Hmm, it seems people who keep firearms in their home don't do as good a job at securing them as they should." I believe some read it and think, "Stupid gun nuts... it's a good thing I vote for people with a (D) next to their name, they'll take care of this."

The non-intuitive thing is that the people who don't read these studies in a critical fashion and who cite them in support of "doing something" have a more direct negative impact on my life then the people in the study who are shooting themselves and each other.

Well put.

labrys

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Almost every private citizen receives those things.

We don't, as a rule, get to make use of business tax breaks and incentives unless we're running a business... and if you're using commercially zoned resources in a community, you actually *are* expected to make the property and services available to the community.

Yes, that is the law. We were discussing what the law should or shouldn't be, I thought. That's how the thread started.

quade

I think this is close but flawed because I believe every business is receiving government assistance in terms of police and fire protection and well as public access ways like roads.

If a business is open to the public, then it should be open to the entirety of it.

Almost every private citizen receives those things. It shouldn't make your house open to the public by default.

TriGirl

Bottom line, if you don't want to be hired for the job, don't take it.

Isn't that exactly what caused all the fuss that got the bakery closed?

quade

My problem with Lefty's argument is he seems to not to want to have any class of people protected against discrimination. While that's great in an ideal world, we do not live in an ideal world. It also opens the door for not just customer discrimination, but also employee discrimination and again it seems that in Lefty's world there should be no protected classes there either.

Okay, so what is the logical conclusion to this?

If a fireman shows up to a house owned by a class of people he personally doesn't like based on his "religious" beliefs, is it okay for him to not put out the fire?

Lefty's path leads to madness.

"Madness" might be overstating things a bit, but you make a valid point. However, in this day and age, I don't see a business owner's personal bigotry, if it exists in the first place, overriding his need to make money. With all the posts on this very forum deriding or celebrating the "greed" of capitalism, I'm surprised anyone is left who thinks greed will take a break when it comes to serving gays or any other given group, as a rule. There are instances, of course, like that cake shop a while back that wouldn't make a cake for a same-sex wedding. But look at the public response to their nonsense. That cake shop has since closed down, if memory serves.

And from personal experience: Back in high school I worked for a business that I later found out was owned by a white supremacist. I guess they're into Norse mythology which, looking back, explained a lot of the tattoos he had.

Anyway, I never saw him be anything but courteous and accommodating to every customer that came in, regardless of skin color or religion (which was often mentioned due to the nature of the business). Why? Because the need to make money took priority over the need to air his personal bigotry to the customers. The law did nothing to curtail his disgusting beliefs. The law didn't require him to go beyond grudgingly serving all perceived threats to the white race or whatever. The law didn't say he needed to leave the customers happy so they'd come back. Economics and greed did.

quade

But you're not. I realize you may believe you're on the side against bigotry, but you simply are not.

This law is toxic. It puts the right of a "company" over the rights of individuals based on "religious" beliefs.

I know the law is toxic. I'm against this law because it doesn't include EVERYONE. It singles out one group for discrimination and that's wrong.

quade

***Judging by the response the AZ and KS bills have received from the American people, I can see I'm not alone.

Also not alone; members of the KKK.

Just because you belong to a group, doesn't mean that group is right.

Indeed. But I'll just keep on erring on the side against bigotry and hope for the best.

kallend

No need for a discussion - all I did was give the name to what you already admitted.

If it waddles like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

As I suspected. More small, silly thoughts from a small, silly man. I'd be embarrassed for you, but that would be as useless a sentiment as being embarrassed for a pig rolling in its own excrement. It doesn't take long to see that's just what pigs do.

I went to a friend's coming-out party just three weeks ago to show support for her and her partner. I would not patronize any business that refused to serve her due to her sexual orientation. I would not patronize any business that refused to serve whites. Or blacks. Judging by the response the AZ and KS bills have received from the American people, I can see I'm not alone.

Andy9o8

Of course they do. They have the economic and political power to monopolize certain essential services, and effectively deny or restrict such essential services to entire segments of society based on nothing more than ethnicity. Recognition of that core reality was the policy underpinning the US's Civil Rights Act in the 1960s (and related federal court decisions of the same time period) which prohibited businesses such as restaurants, hotels, bus companies, etc. from discriminating against ethnic classes of potential customers. That was just the first generation of such laws. Laws prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals are the next generation of laws, but they have the same policy foundation.

Sorry, but in the US, the argument "I can refuse service to whomever I want" was consumed on the funeral pyres of the law almost 50 years ago.

From whence does this political power come? I'd like to think things have changed for the better since the civil rights movement. Now, when government tries to treat a minority unfairly it is met with overwhelming condemnation.