This is where we separate on the issue ma man. I view what the bakery owners did as protecting their religious beliefs. The bakery owners have no problem baking for gays as long as it's not for a "gay wedding". Not seeing this systemic bigotry or hate you're comparing to pissing on someones grave based on racial/sexual differences. It's almost on the same level as when you say no matter how many operations you get you will still be the same sex you are born as(a man is a man, a woman is a woman), and then you are accused of being a bigot because you don't want to go along with the whole transgender thing that is so politically hip to identify with right now. I feel like society is disconnecting from reality and rushing into this movement that is forcing everyone to bulldoze all traditional freedoms in the name of EXTREME TOLERANCE and POLITICAL CORRECT. Feelings are now more important than facts. My feelings>your facts.
Hey man, props I don't give you enough credit for at least being realistic sometimes. Don't let it get to your head though
Being treated like a human-being is NOT special treatment. Using religion as a reason to be homophobic is archaic. Hate speech is not protected by freedom of speech, so why would it be protected by freedom of religion? FoR is not inherently given priority over all other aspects of our country.
No, it doesn't. It has been made abundantly clear in this thread that religious is not protected to the same standard as "gay".
Nobody should be able to force anyone to do anything they don't want to do, no matter how much you disagree with their reasoning. That's basic liberty. It's not the government's job to speculate about the reasons behind someone not wanting to do something and whether or not those reasons are "sincere" and how they stack up against other considerations. Govt needs to gtfo of the business of forcing citizens to do anything and laissez faire!
You shouldn't be able to force me not to kill your family, no matter how much you disagree with the reasoning. Absolute freedom is absolute chaos.
Educate urself fool: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights [edit] to elaborate: You do not have a right to other people's baked goods or a right to other people's catering services. (Positive right) You do have a right to not be forced to do something you don't want to do (Negative right) You do have a right to life, to not be murdered or subjected to force or fraud (Negative right) [edit 2] And before kalisle comes in and continues to disrupt the conversation by misunderstanding everyone's normative arguments as legal arguments, when I said "do not" and "do" above I mean should not and should. [edit 3] don't f|_|ck wit me im a philosopher king spin yo head wit my lyrics, man crush u like plato's levia-than but i aint about dat central state federalist homey all up in yo face best leave my rights alone fool or i aaron burr u in dis lyrical duel get rekt
just to throw the free market into this. i think that the level of choice available is a factor here. if the baker was one of a hundred bakeries in the area then it seems this shouldn't be an issue at all. go use another baker dude. but what if it was the only bakery in town or within a hundred miles? then i think there is a certain duty to that bakery to service the community. sort of like if it was the only hospital it should offer abortions (though inndividiual dr's should be able to refuse). hmmmm, maybe that bakery should have a baker on staff who wouldn't mind doing the wedding. but again only if its the only bakery in town. also, i don't know how easily law trumps religion and would suggest not using that argument to simply dismiss the discussion. laws change a lot easier and more frequently than religions do and people will die to defend their religious beliefs more readily than they will to uphold a law. so yeah, lets not take the easy way out and rather discuss what should be rather than just say, well this is the law so there.
Civil rights are negative rights, thus discrimination based on sexual preference is acting against a negative right What exactly would this laissez faire imply, completely unregulated businesses (or at least how they interact with customers). However, how does that work with these negative and positive rights, they would be breached, would they not?
nope the baker is asking to be left alone, free from government coercion. this is a true, legitimate negative right to religion that only involves two parties (the citizen and the govt) the gays are demanding catering services and or baked goods from a third party, requiring the government, the 2nd party, to coerce the baker into providing those goods/services against his will and in violation of his true right to religion. easiest way to tell positive rights is if you're needing the government to coerce somebody to do something or give something to you. negative rights OTOH just means government leaving somebody alone.
it goes back to my theory that there is a duty to community that should be part of the mission statement of any business in addition to the quest for profit.
Ok, so is everyone on board with the understanding that the bakers were in the legal wrong? Or is that still a disputed point?
i don't think that was ever a disputed point. i even linked the court ruling. but the controversy rages on nonetheless. im hoping this thread can go beyond the obvious discrimination is bad conversation that fifth graders have and get into the grey areas.
exactly. nobody is debating the court's ruling and whether it happened or not. which is why i found your repeated references to law puzzling.
where we might disagree is that i feel the 'duty to community' used to be a given before our society became so secularized and selfish (thanks a lot pop culture). but it should be there. now what to do about it? i don't think its the job of government to put it there (though it happens coincidentally by the enforcement of civil rights laws). i believe that there is an economic incentive for it to be there, its just that its never been formulated and isn't easily recognizable. if there is a role of government in that,i think it should be to incentivize duty to community rather than to impose it or penalize the lack of it.
