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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: And there's another gay bakery case
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Leaf
Shipmate
# 14169
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
It's part of the "private" in "private enterprise". People sell whatever goods and services they want to sell.
But if they want to sell those goods and services to the public, they will be governed by public rules.
If they wish to form a select private club of like-minded individuals who must adhere to a certain lifestyle, and sell goods and services only to those other club members, you might have a point. Sadly, their greed makes them want to sell to the broader public as the widest possible market, while at the same time wanting to enforce their private morality on to the public. It's almost as if they want to have their cake and eat it, too.
Posts: 2786 | From: the electrical field | Registered: Oct 2008
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
This shows such a stunning lack of insight into the thinking of the 45% or so who voted against gay marriage in the referendum...
You mean the 45% who wanted to cause unnecessary harm to ~10% of the population? Well, you're right: I don't know what they were thinking to justify such an obviously immoral and unjust action.
Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
This shows such a stunning lack of insight into the thinking of the 45% or so who voted against gay marriage in the referendum...
You mean the 45% who wanted to cause unnecessary harm to ~10% of the population? Well, you're right: I don't know what they were thinking to justify such an obviously immoral and unjust action.
Russ's post shows a stunning lack of awareness into the thinking of the 55% who voted in favour of the change.
Can anyone tell me how many straight women and men have been forced to undergo a same sex marriage since the referendum; then to show how many LGB people were denied the right to marry before it?
[ 19. January 2017, 07:21: Message edited by: Gee D ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
If, of all that vast range of slogans, the only ones a person has a problem with are those asking for gay people to have equal treatment in law - not even equal esteem or moral worth, just equal legal rights - then I think it's entirely fair to conclude that that person is a bigot.
This shows such a stunning lack of insight into the thinking of the 45% or so who voted against gay marriage in the referendum in the Republic last May that I can only imagine you're doing it for rhetorical effect.
Or maybe because it's irrelevant. The exact motives behind denying people their rights is usually not as important to those at the receiving end of such denials as the fact of the denial itself. Contrary to what you're trying to argue, you can't deny people their rights and be nice about it.
quote:
I thought of Ruehl’s performance, and of Dianna’s post, when I read this self-serving attempt to be the “nice” bigot by Halee Gray Scott at Christianity Today’s her•meneutics blog, “I Am Not Charles Worley: The Plea of a Christian Who Opposes Gay Marriage.”
Scott wants you to understand that she’s not at all like the infamous homophobic preacher Worley. She’s totally different.
Worley wants to deny LGBT people their basic civil rights and legal equality because he hates them. Scott wants to deny LGBT people their basic civil rights and legal equality for other reasons.
See? See how very different they are? Same result. Same vote. Same fundamental discrimination enshrined in law. But Worley is mean. Scott is nice.
And Scott has had it up to here with people not recognizing the extreme importance of that distinction:
quote:
I am not Charles Worley, and I’m tired of others, especially fellow Christians, assuming that because I’m opposed to gay marriage that I’m hateful like him. It’s time to extend a hermeneutic of grace to each other — especially to fellow Christians who still do not favor gay marriage and believe that homosexuality is not God’s intent for human sexuality. …
Scott shares Worley’s hateful goals, but not his hateful sentiments, so how dare anyone compare them?
<snip>
Look, here’s the deal: It doesn’t matter if you think you’re a nice person. And it doesn’t matter if your tone, attitude, sentiments and facial expressions are all very sweet, kindly and sympathetic-seeming. If you’re opposing legal equality, then you don’t get to be nice. Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.
Nice is different than good, but opposing legal equality for others is neither. It’s simply unfair.
So be fair.
It’s probably best to be fair and also kind, but fairness is the important part. As long as you’re fair, no one else will really care whether or not you’re particularly kindly about it. But if you’re not fair, then kindness isn’t even a possibility.
If you're at the receiving end of Jim Crow it doesn't really matter that much if the enforcers are Klansmen who really hate black people or the White Citizens Council who have sincere religious convictions that racial integration is unchristian. Likewise if your family has second-class legal standing, then the "thinking" behind that denial is at best a secondary problem compared to the denial itself.
And because I'm farming out my points, here's a related post by Dan Savage:
quote:
When gay men were dying by the tens of thousands at the height of the AIDS crisis — when gay men were being dragged out of the hospital rooms of their dying partners by homophobic family members, when gay men were being barred from the funerals of their deceased partners, when gay men were being evicted from their homes after the deaths of their partners (many evicted gay men were sick and dying themselves) — conservative Christians could've stepped in then and said, "This is wrong. Whatever we believe about homosexual acts, brutalizing people like this is shockingly immoral and deeply un-Christian. Clearly there needs to be some sort of legal framework to protect people in loving, committed, stable same-sex relationships from these appalling cruelties."
Conservative Christians did no such thing. They celebrated AIDS, they welcomed the plague, they said it was God's judgement and they insisted that gay people deserved this pain and suffering — those of us who were sick and dying; those who were being dragged, barred, and evicted; those of us who were watching our friends and lovers die — and that it was only a taste of the pain and suffering that we would face in hell after our deaths.
Once again, the "thinking" behind appalling acts of cruelty is much less important than the cruelty itself. There's a lot of arrogance in turning the sick and dying out into the street and then claiming that the real key factor is your own motivation. For some folks it's all about them.
Though even on a tactical level this was a failure.
quote:
The way gay people were treated at the height of the AIDS crisis made the importance of marriage rights — the importance of being able to declare your own next-of-kin — scaldingly apparent. Some of the most impassioned fighters for marriage equality, like Andrew Sullivan, cite what they witnessed in AIDS wards as their primary motivation. If Christians had looked at the suffering of gay men in AIDS wards in 1985 said, "The lives, loves, and rights of these couples must be protected," and if conservative Christians had proposed civil unions then and gotten a civil unions statute signed into law by the conservative Christian president they helped elect, that might've halted the push for marriage equality before it could even get off the ground.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
we just don't want cat pee in the hallways, we don't want strangers to have access to the building, we want the building to look nice from the street, and we don't want to attract rodents.
Those all sound to me reasonable things to want.
The question there is who "we" are. If you're saying that you consulted everybody, had the equivalent of a town meeting, and this was the consensus, that's grand.
If instead there was deep division, and you managed to get a small majority for your side by means of being more organised about encouraging your supporters to turn up, then that's not so fine.
If that were the case then maybe there's a better approach. One that recognises the point at which A imposing on B tips over into B imposing on A. Make your own choice as to whether you carry your dog (because I shouldn't impose that on you). But if it misbehaves then you clear up (because you shouldn't impose that on me).
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
And, of course, that will depend on how much inconvenience, or harm, each option will cause to the other group. In the US Supreme Court decision linked to previously the court found there was no case presented to the court where allowing two people to marry would cause explicit harm to anyone.
So who should have priority when A wants to harm B, and B just wants to be able to walk down the hallway like everyone else without getting beaten up? Somehow it doesn't seem like, "I'll only beat you if I happen to see you walking down the hallway, and the rest of the time I won't" is a reasonable compromise in that situation.
Under what conditions do you think it is OK for A to do intentional harm to B because A he wants to, when B is not causing harm to A? Is that something that should be open for negotiation?
Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
...
If instead there was deep division, and you managed to get a small majority for your side by means of being more organised about encouraging your supporters to turn up, then that's not so fine.
If that were the case then maybe there's a better approach. One that recognises the point at which A imposing on B tips over into B imposing on A. ...
It sounds like you're suggesting that any time an issue is decided by a small majority, the minority should be free to ignore it and the majority should not impose it on everybody. I'm sure there are a lot of people who wish Brexit and Trump never happened, myself included. How big a majority would you consider sufficient moral authority to require all citizens to comply?
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I wonder what it's like to feel that somebody else having rights equal to one's own is against one's religion? I've never had that particular feeling.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Admonishing sinners, instructing the ignorant, and counselling the doubtful are spiritual works of mercy. They do seem to be inconsistently applied, some sinners being apparently more equal than others. I wonder how many second marriage wedding cakes those self-righteous bakers have produced ...
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
Croesos--
Thanks for the link to that great Patheos article.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The exact motives behind denying people their rights is usually not as important to those at the receiving end of such denials as the fact of the denial itself...
...If you’re opposing legal equality, then you don’t get to be nice. Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.
You're so right. And so wrong.
Right to insist on the reality of wrongful acts.
Right to insist on equal rights under the law. (For equality under the law is based on the idea that if it's wrong for A to do to B then it's wrong for B to do to A - the basis of Golden Rule morality).
Right to criticise the sort of exceptionalism that says "we're the good guys so what we do is OK". The label "good guys" has to be earned by right action.
But wrong when you use that to demonize as horrible hateful people those who disagree with you.
Well-meaning people can do bad things. We're supposed to disapprove the wrong actions without antagonism to those who do them...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
If you're the sort of classical utilitarian who thinks that the greatest good of the greatest number is the last word, then that seems fair enough.
You don't have to be a classical utilitarian to ask what the practical effect of a proposed change might be. And if the advocate for the change has literally nothing to say when asked what improvement it might make, he's probably lost the argument.
quote:
If the baker is a conservative Christian then there are likely to be a whole range of slogans - "Burn a Bible today!" "Jesus stinks!" which they would object to.
But those aren't in the category of slogan I'm talking about. They are insults.
The point is, if you are in the business of "saying" something that you do not personally believe, in a context where no one expects you to believe it: like a printer producing a pamphlet, or a baker icing a cake, or an actor reading a script, there's a vast range of inoffensive words that you wouldn't object to, even if they don't match your own opinions. The test is "I wouldn't say that as my own opinion, but I've no objection to it's being said".
I'm not talking about insults. A person could reasonably disapprove of the insult being said at all.
But you have illustrated what I mean pretty well. A Christian who considers the words "support gay marriage" to be in the same offensive category as a direct and scurrilous insult to the creator and saviour of the world, either has no sense of proportion whatsoever, or is a homophobe. I know which I'd bet on.
quote:
quote:
...then I think it's entirely fair to conclude that that person is a bigot.
This shows such a stunning lack of insight into the thinking of the 45% or so who voted against gay marriage in the referendum in the Republic last May that I can only imagine you're doing it for rhetorical effect.
![[Confused]](confused.gif) Why would I show any insight at all into their motives when we weren't even talking about them?
But ... to re-wind a little ... isn't your whole argument based on the premise that it is unjust to give one group of people "more rights" than another. So opposing gay marriage is, presumably, unjust.
Well, "bigot" is simply the word I'd use for a person who is unjust in that way. And "homophobe" similarly is the normal English word for someone being unjust to people because they are gay. Someone who thinks that gay people should have fewer rights than straight people is a homophobe by definition.
quote:
You jump straight from the feeling of being temporarily pissed off by this event to the practical judgment that it's too trivial to warrant legal redress. Without apparently pausing to consider whether you have been genuinely wronged (and what exactly the wrong consists of)
You're missing the point. I'm answering your suggestion that rather than ask what characteristics we need to identify as protected in order not to exclude vulnerable groups, we should instead be looking at acts that are "individually damaging".
I'm telling you why that's a bad idea.
In my experience, being refused service in a restaurant isn't "individually damaging". It's "mildly irritating". I haven't considered whether I was genuinely wronged, because I don't really care. Life's too short. It's too trivial a complaint to worry about.
But the key words there are "in my experience". My experience as a straight, middle-class, white man doesn't include being excluded from social and commercial interactions because of who I am. I'm at no risk at all of that.
This is not automatically true for everyone. If you were black, or gay, and every so often (I reckon once a year would be enough, but that's a guess) you were made to feel unwelcome just because of who you were, the sort of exclusion that I experienced as trivial when it was a one-off would be highly damaging, because you'd be aware of the possibility of it every day.
Do you see the problem? The same act, done to me less than once a decade, is experienced as a mild misfortune, but done to a black guy once a month would be experienced as serious and systematic exclusion from his own society. You can't say that the act, considered in isolation, is, or is not "individually damaging" without considering what characteristics particularly expose people to the risk of damage. Then you can address the problem of damage, by saying that worse treatment on grounds of race or sex, or sexuality is especially socially harmful, and may legitimately and justly be prohibited.
[ 20. January 2017, 21:27: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The exact motives behind denying people their rights is usually not as important to those at the receiving end of such denials as the fact of the denial itself...
...If you’re opposing legal equality, then you don’t get to be nice. Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.
But wrong when you use that to demonize as horrible hateful people those who disagree with you.
First off, the second half of the post you're attributing to me is actually a quote from blogger Fred Clark. I obviously agree with the sentiment or I wouldn't have used the quote, but credit where credit is due.
Anyway, your claim that I am (or Mr. Clark is) demonizing people as horrible and hateful is itself wrong, and demonstrates you've clearly missed the entire point I'm trying to make. To repeat a key bit of Fred Clark's post in a more complete manner than you, because I think you missed the key bits:
quote:
It doesn’t matter if you think you’re a nice person. And it doesn’t matter if your tone, attitude, sentiments and facial expressions are all very sweet, kindly and sympathetic-seeming. If you’re opposing legal equality, then you don’t get to be nice. Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.
I'm not saying that those who commit horrible actions are necessarily horrible and hateful people. My point is that the distinction is irrelevant to the much more important point that horrible acts are horrible and whether they're driven by hate or some other motive is, at best, a secondary consideration or, at worst, a means of trying to distract from their horribleness.
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Well-meaning people can do bad things. We're supposed to disapprove the wrong actions without antagonism to those who do them...
This seems like a reversal of your earlier argument that an action can only be judged "bad" if you have "insight into the thinking" of the person committing the act. In other words, that well-meaning people can't do bad things, because the fact that they mean well means the things they do aren't bad after all.
[ 20. January 2017, 21:36: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Croesos (quoting Fred Clark?);
quote:
Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.
Which is a good reason to object to a considerable part of what so-called 'gays' currently demand....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
"So called"? Oh yes, the worst have taken your word to represent filthy behaviour.
What you are asking for is the right to discriminate. What the filthy gays are asking for is the right to not be discriminated against.
I know, so very unreasonable.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
... We're supposed to disapprove the wrong actions without antagonism to those who do them...
So how about disapproving of teh gayz but not antagonizing them by denying them cakes and books?
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Croesos (quoting Fred Clark?);
quote:
Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.
Which is a good reason to object to a considerable part of what so-called 'gays' currently demand....
You've got to be joking.
Except that I know that you're not, and that's frightening.
When privileged people lose their privilege, all they notice is the loss. And so they claim that those who've not had that privilege are getting MORE.
Go on. Name me one thing where gays are asking for something that heterosexuals don't already have. One.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
sounds like you're suggesting that any time an issue is decided by a small majority, the minority should be free to ignore it and the majority should not impose it on everybody. I'm sure there are a lot of people who wish Brexit and Trump never happened, myself included. How big a majority would you consider sufficient moral authority to require all citizens to comply?
Some decisions have to be made. If the governance of the country requires there to be a president, then somebody has to be president. Seems like Britain has to be either in or out of the EU.
This probably isn't the place to get into the merits of the US electoral system. But if a decision has to be made and there is no prior reason to favour either side, then a simple majority is normally considered enough.
Where drastic change is proposed, there is some sense in requiring a greater majority, perhaps two-to-one in favour, before changing the status quo. If you were to suggest that this should have been the case for the Brexit vote, that seems to me an entirely reasonable position.
But the point I was making was more that there is such a thing as "tyranny of the majority". Some decisions don't need to be made collectively. If the issue is such that everyone can make their own decision (and be held responsible for it if appropriate) then that's the way to go.
It's necessary for safety that everyone in a country drives on the same side of the road. It's not necessary that all cars be the same colour. How you vote on what that colour should be isn't the right question.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Russ, I go back to what I asked you before. How many straight women and men have been forced into same-sex marriages since the referendum succeeded (by a good margin, I'd say).
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
This seems like a reversal of your earlier argument that an action can only be judged "bad" if you have "insight into the thinking" of the person committing the act. In other words, that well-meaning people can't do bad things, because the fact that they mean well means the things they do aren't bad after all.
Not saying that. If an act is wrong, having a good motive doesn't make it right.
Judge the act for what the act is. But don't judge the person without insight into why they've done it.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
... But the point I was making was more that there is such a thing as "tyranny of the majority". ...
And the reason that expression exists is that if something is only of concern for a minority of the (enfranchised) population, there is no personal incentive for the majority to even care, let alone do anything about it. So, for example, straight people - the majority - might hypothetically not care about the rights of gay people, a minority, if put to a straight vote; men might not care about whether women can vote or not, and so forth.
Of course, you are turning that expression on its head. You are arguing that the majority - which supports equal rights for everyone - is tyrannizing the minority that wants to continue to deny some people equal rights. Of course, what's really happening is that the minority is obstructing what the majority wants - something which will benefit everyone - but that doesn't sound as sympathetic and victim-y, does it? There is such a thing as a "dog in a manger" ...
Anti-discrimination laws are a sign that the majority actually does care about not just minorities, but all citizens. They are there so we are all safe from the tyranny of the majority if the majority happens to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
But the point I was making was more that there is such a thing as "tyranny of the majority". Some decisions don't need to be made collectively.
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
I see. The tyranny of the majority was fine when it was your majority. Now it is teh evilz.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by orfeo;
quote:
When privileged people lose their privilege, all they notice is the loss. And so they claim that those who've not had that privilege are getting MORE.
Ahem...! Anabaptists consciously not privileged, or expecting 'rights'. Those like myself who have come to Anabaptism as adults rather than brought up in it are very conscious of how wrong the former privilege was, but also sensitive on the basis of our beliefs to the undesirable - and very much to be avoided - tendency for the formerly persecuted to turn into persecutors when given the chance.
Remember our actual or spiritual ancestors were also persecuted by the people who persecuted 'gays' - and in many ways it was our lot who invented the idea of a plural society as equal as practical.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
So your spiritual ancestors were persecuted and this gives you the right to persecute others?
Does it also make you something other than a white Christian male in White Christian Male-topia?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by orfeo;
quote:
When privileged people lose their privilege, all they notice is the loss. And so they claim that those who've not had that privilege are getting MORE.
Ahem...! Anabaptists consciously not privileged, or expecting 'rights'.
Begging your pardon, but that's exactly what the straight Anabaptist I'm talking to now seems to be expecting.
Don't dodge the issue. If you're claiming that gays are expecting privileges, they're expecting them relative to straight people, not relative to Anabaptists. Choose the correct comparator.
Heck, for all I care, you can compare gay Anabaptists to straight ones.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
I'm sure there are no gay Anabaptists. Can't be that right with the Lord and that wrong all at the same time.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
More than a bit of a tangent, but I like this baker's style. A Washington, DC bakery was asked to copy the cake from Obama's inauguration celebration for the Trump celebration (except that the original five-layer cake was all edible cake, and the copy only needed a small part to be edible and was otherwise made of styrofoam). The baker took the order and the money, but made good use of it:
quote:
MacIsaac did not want to state her political affiliation, but said her bakery began planning how it would donate its proceeds from the Trump inaugural cake to charity. The baker and her staff chose the Human Rights Campaign, a nonprofit group that advocates for equal treatment of the LGBT community — and that has declared Trump “unfit for the presidency."
“I’m a small-business owner and one of the things I’m very, very proud about is that I don’t discriminate,” MacIsaac said. “I would never turn someone away based on their age, their sex, their sexual orientation, their political views. It’s just not the way we operate.”
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
<tangent> Who the hell plagiarizes a cake? And how symbolic that the Trump version only has one edible layer. </tangent>
Funny how some bakers' first impulse is to refuse service, rather than refuse to profit from the service. I guess it's back to the wisdom of the Ship: "Suffering for your faith makes you a martyr. Making other people suffer for your faith makes you a prat."
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
<tangent> Who the hell plagiarizes a cake? </tangent>
Quite a lot of people? There are entire websites full of people making bad copies of cakes.
It seems a little déclassé for POTUS to rip off a predecessor's cake, though.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I'm sure there are no gay Anabaptists. Can't be that right with the Lord and that wrong all at the same time.
Or in other words you can't be one of the best and one of the worst.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Ahem...! Anabaptists consciously not privileged, or expecting 'rights'. Those like myself who have come to Anabaptism as adults rather than brought up in it are very conscious of how wrong the former privilege was, but also sensitive on the basis of our beliefs to the undesirable - and very much to be avoided - tendency for the formerly persecuted to turn into persecutors when given the chance.
Remember our actual or spiritual ancestors were also persecuted by the people who persecuted 'gays' - and in many ways it was our lot who invented the idea of a plural society as equal as practical.
We're talking about "so-called Anabaptists" and not real "Anabaptists". Of course we get to judge that and not the purported Anabaptists in question, they're too biased to judge.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
... We're supposed to disapprove the wrong actions without antagonism to those who do them...
So how about disapproving of teh gayz but not antagonizing them by denying them cakes and books?
I have no desire to deny anyone cakes and books.
I harbour no antagonism to gayz, who are human beings just like everybody else. I desire the law to protect them from bullying, to the same extent that it protects everybody, and not to single them out for special treatment whether better or worse. And that includes the right to make a civil contract.
But this isn't about my desires (or their desires). It's about how we draw the rules of behaviour in a society where people hold different convictions about homosexuality and a whole range of other topics.
Respecting people's right to disagree. And to manage their own lives on the basis of their own beliefs (putting up with the consequential impacts on other people). Up to and falling just short of the point where they commit a morally wrong act in so doing.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by lilBuddha;
quote:
So your spiritual ancestors were persecuted and this gives you the right to persecute others?
If you'd bothered to read what I actually wrote you would have realised that I was saying the exact opposite of that! Both about Anabaptists and about 'gays'.
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by lilBuddha;
quote:
So your spiritual ancestors were persecuted and this gives you the right to persecute others?
If you'd bothered to read what I actually wrote you would have realised that I was saying the exact opposite of that! Both about Anabaptists and about 'gays'.
I read what you wrote. As did several other people and they interpreted it as I did. What you wrote, by itself, does not communicate what you think it does. In context of everything else you've written, it says the opposite.
Your continuing to write 'gays' underscores this.
[ 22. January 2017, 10:39: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Steve, you previously said:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Croesos (quoting Fred Clark?);
quote:
Opposing legal equality is not nice and it cannot be done nicely.
Which is a good reason to object to a considerable part of what so-called 'gays' currently demand....
Which looks to orfeo (and me) as if you are saying that the "so-called gays" are demanding something more than legal equality, some privilege that straight people don't have. And therefore there is good reason to resist those demands.
Is that what you meant?
If so, can you even remotely justify it?
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
I harbour no antagonism to gayz, who are human beings just like everybody else. I desire the law to protect them from bullying, to the same extent that it protects everybody, and not to single them out for special treatment whether better or worse. And that includes the right to make a civil contract.
What "right", exactly?
Because much else of what you say suggests that actually, no, because it takes two to make a contract, this "right" disappears if the other person you try to make a contract with happens to be one of those folks who thinks homosexuality is a sufficient reason to not make a contract.
You see, later on you say this...
quote:
Respecting people's right to disagree. And to manage their own lives on the basis of their own beliefs (putting up with the consequential impacts on other people). Up to and falling just short of the point where they commit a morally wrong act in so doing.
You can't have it both ways, Russ. You can't actually coherently bring together the notion that homosexuals have a "right" to make a contract with a separate "right" of people to refuse a contract purely on the basis of homosexuality. Those two "rights" are mutually incompatible.
Either you are protecting homosexuals from being excluded on the basis of homosexuality, or you are protecting people who dislike homosexuals from having to deal with homosexuals. It's one or the other.
Either I suffer the consequences of people's prejudices, or prejudiced people are told that they are wrong. CHOOSE.
[ 22. January 2017, 13:05: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by Eliab
quote:
Is that what you meant?
If so, can you even remotely justify it?
In the present state of play, yes and yes - though I might think it's a lot more than 'even remotely'....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Eliab
quote:
Is that what you meant?
If so, can you even remotely justify it?
In the present state of play, yes and yes - though I might think it's a lot more than 'even remotely'....
We'll wait here.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In the present state of play, yes and yes - though I might think it's a lot more than 'even remotely'....
I really struggle to understand what world you think you are living in, Steve Langton - or why anyone else should share in your delusion.
In the real world where we live, it doesn't actually matter what you or I think about how other groups of people collectively arrange (or name) themselves - justice says that society (and the state) should treat them fairly. Whether you or I happen to like the choices they've made or not.
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arse
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Steve Langton
Shipmate
# 17601
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Posted
by mr cheesy;
quote:
justice says that society (and the state) should treat them fairly.
And Steve Langton is on the side of justice - 'gays' seem to want more....
Posts: 2245 | From: Stockport UK | Registered: Mar 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by mr cheesy;
quote:
justice says that society (and the state) should treat them fairly.
And Steve Langton is on the side of justice - 'gays' seem to want more....
Explain how.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by mr cheesy;
quote:
justice says that society (and the state) should treat them fairly.
And Steve Langton is on the side of justice - 'gays' seem to want more....
Explain how.
Yes, explain. Don't assert. You've been asked MULTIPLE times now do give some kind of evidence about how homosexuals are trying to get "privilege" rather than equality, but over the course of several posts you've steadfastly failed to give any evidence at all.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Carex
Shipmate
# 9643
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
'gays' seem to want more....
Our Supreme Court concluded that:
1) allowing same sex marriage caused no harm to anyone.
2) prohibiting same sex marriage caused demonstrable harm to real people (including many children who are not themselves gay.)
Are you saying that "not being harmed" is more than they should ask for?
You really need to be more clear about your claims that "gays" want more than equality. A "wink and a nudge" doesn't communicate well on text-based message boards, and it certainly doesn't do anything towards advancing an argument.
Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I'm grasping at straws, but can it be that The Langton thinks gays being able to be married diminishes it for heterosexuals? That somehow giving marriage rights to a group which didn't have it waters it down for those who already have it.
Or something.
C'mon Steve, put us out of our misery.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Yes, explain. Don't assert. You've been asked MULTIPLE times now do give some kind of evidence about how homosexuals are trying to get "privilege" rather than equality, but over the course of several posts you've steadfastly failed to give any evidence at all.
I think I know why that is.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I think I know why that is.
Indeed. But there's a rule in showjumping about how many opportunities a horse is given at a jump before the refusal constitutes a failure.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I'm grasping at straws, but can it be that The Langton thinks gays being able to be married diminishes it for heterosexuals? That somehow giving marriage rights to a group which didn't have it waters it down for those who already have it.
Or something.
C'mon Steve, put us out of our misery.
Which would be an absolutely perfect example of the privileged complaining about loss of privilege.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Goldfish Stew
Shipmate
# 5512
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Eliab
quote:
Is that what you meant?
If so, can you even remotely justify it?
In the present state of play, yes and yes - though I might think it's a lot more than 'even remotely'....
It's not enough to allude to your reasons. Please regale us with these alternative facts...
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Posts: 2405 | From: Aotearoa/New Zealand | Registered: Feb 2004
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
if you are in the business of "saying" something that you do not personally believe, in a context where no one expects you to believe it: like a printer producing a pamphlet, or a baker icing a cake, or an actor reading a script, there's a vast range of inoffensive words that you wouldn't object to, even if they don't match your own opinions. The test is "I wouldn't say that as my own opinion, but I've no objection to it's being said".
I'm not talking about insults. A person could reasonably disapprove of the insult being said at all.
Yes there's a distinction between objecting to something being said at all and not wanting to be the one who says it.
I wouldn't hesitate to allow an actor who's Catholic to decline a role involving a sympathetic portrayal of Ian Paisley because that's not what he wants to be known for. Or a Sunni printer to refuse an order for a Shia tract because he doesn't want his name on it. Or a baker who's a fervent United supporter to pass up the opportunity to profit from an order for a "City for the Cup" cake.
If they choose to set aside their own convictions and take the money, fine - that's their choice to make.
It may be that they refuse with the hope in their hearts that everyone else will refuse also, thereby scuppering the project. That seems to me to show a lack of generosity.
Conversely, they may take the Voltairean line of publicly defending the rights of others to do what they choose not to. But whatever their attitude, it doesn't take away from their right to limit their own participation, and cannot be accurately inferred from that decision.
As for insults, I suspect they're in the mind of the beholder. Insult can be offered but not taken, or taken when not intended.
Ask a conservative Christian whether "gay marriage" is an insult to the sacrament of marriage...
quote:
isn't your whole argument based on the premise that it is unjust to give one group of people "more rights" than another. So opposing gay marriage is, presumably, unjust.
If the civil partnership legislation that existed previously denied civil partners any of the legal rights that traditionally married people have then yes that is unjust and is a good reason to act to remove the discrepancy.
Given your knowledge of the law, you may be able to tell us what those additional legal rights are. It certainly wasn't clear from the referendum campaign here that there are any.
quote:
I haven't considered whether I was genuinely wronged, because I don't really care. Life's too short. It's too trivial a complaint to worry about...
...The same act, done to me less than once a decade, is experienced as a mild misfortune, but done to a black guy once a month would be experienced as serious and systematic exclusion from his own society.
Or presumably done to anyone once a month, regardless of skin colour ? I assume you're not asserting that black skin is thinner than white ?
But do you really believe that every black person in the country is in the "happens once a month" category and every white person in the country is in the "once a decade" category ? All the people who don't fit your neat black-and-white generalisation are misclassified - taken too seriously or not seriously enough.
It's not a just law.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
You're advocating feeding steak to the rabbit
No, I'm not urging you to feed steak to your rabbit. Not am I saying it would be a good thing if the rabbit starved (as some people do who think that rabbits are vermin).
I'm saying that the butcher who sells dogmeat doesn't thereby incur a moral obligation to sell lettuce.
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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