George Brandis, is that you?
Video surveillance has done wonders to prevent people from making false claims. Civil rights law protect classes of people, not individuals whose behavior is unacceptable in an establishment. So, thatâs a poor argument against laws protecting equal rights.
Sorry to pull quote a partial sentence, but that isnât a trivial matter. These are women who, until recently believed they would never be able to go through a wedding ceremony. For many women, being a bride is an extremely important thing, and having the right dress for the day is very personal and emotional. Weddings are already stressful events, so for the store to add stress by refusing service purely because of who they are was an unkind act (and theyâd know it).
We arenât punishing them for their honesty. They could have honestly said, âWe disapprove,â and still provided service. They could run a full-page ad for their shop that says, âWe donât support homosexual marriage, but we will sell you your gown as is your right,â and it would be fine. Weâre not bashing them for honesty, weâre bashing them for being bigots in a state with no legal protections.
As long as prices are standard, thatâs not going to be an issue. Itâs probably true that the women would receive poor service at that shop, but they should have the right to buy there. If they choose to do so, caveat emptor.
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Pretty good breakdown of everything wrong with what I said honestly. Thanks.
Iâd rather like to support requiring them to provide service across the board, as a human rights issue, also on the principle that whatever their religious beliefs are, I have difficulty imagining they have some sort of religious test for mixed sex couples. Would they sell a dress to a Mormon? Or if they are Mormons to a non-Mormon? Muslim? Hindu, Atheists, hypocrites, do they ask if the bride is a virgin and refuse her a white dress if sheâs not? (Do they require medical proof?)
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The business owner has an economic advantage, as well as visibility, both of which provide prestige in the community. Businesses employ people, which gives them an advantage. You can claim theyâre equal all you want, but that doesnât make it so, any more than your convoluted statements about rights you happen to believe donât exist mean people should be deprived of those rights.
You claim that civil rights legislation has deprived us of liberty. What you mean is itâs deprived businesses of the ability to act with impunity. Why should businesses have all the rights and customers not have any? Before you answer take some time and examine your faith in the free market, a faith which isnât supported by history, and which has been addressed here repeatedly.
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The American right for lack of a better term, has created an entire structure based on demonizing, well groups it doesnât like, or didnât because they were powerless. Hate puts asses in the pews, pick a group no one will stand up for, and hate them like crazy, make wild statements about how they are going to destroy the children, and Gawd is going to punish the Nation (the idol of this subset of Christianity.) for whatever thing they are doing you donât like. In the past it was booze, gambling, cards, fun, sex, idolatry, whatever else, at some point they turned on Gays, who seemed unpopular and unlikely to resist, times changed, the message hasnât. Theyâre starting to struggle with this, expect them to evolve a hatred of some new group they suppose canât resist.
Hate putting asses in pews is not limited to Christians, Conservatives, or any other group, progressives do it, both sides of the climate change debate do it, etc. (One side of the climate change debate is composed of idiots who deny basic science, sure, but hating those idiots isnât going to convert them to reason, I mean whichever side you oppose they are the idiots.)
Thanks for understanding that it wasnât a personal attack of any kind. 
Your points here explain why they canât just exclude one group and claim itâs for âreligious reasonsâ. Current federal civil rights law protects groups under religious right, so they couldnât take same action against a person whose religion theyâre opposed to - homosexuals are just an easier target in a state that hasnât yet provided them with the same care.
I think freedom of association comes into play here.
This is not a new concept, hotels and motels used to be able to freely discriminate based upon the reputation of the client.
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Honest question: What is your opinion of a hypothetical kosher butcher refusing to process a pig for a client? Keep in mind that there is a 14th Amendment.
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The Boingers ask: âLets ask the Troll what s/he thinks of all of thisâ
Hey, guys! Thanks for asking!
Ok, I believe that the business owners have the right of association. They can refuse to do business with anyone they choose, we have all seen the sign; âwe reserve the rightâŚâ
Now, the way I see things is that if a certain thing, according to my beliefs, is an affront to God( or whatever), then that is between God ( or whatever ) and the customer. My involvement is secondary.
I dont sell wedding dresses, I make software. What is the moral implications of the use of my software⌠well that is between God( or whatever ) and the user, I just work here.
So are the wedding shop owners being a bit assholish? Yea, a little⌠but that is their right. And the money will go elsewhere.
Until the grocery store stops selling food, i guess. Or the private utility, electricity.
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Reminded me of this:
Iâm sick and tired of these Visigoths.
(Thereâs a better clip in Italian with subtitles, but it isnât embeddable)
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What kind of âprestigeâ is there in being bigoted?
And you can claim one has an an advantage all you want, but that doesnât make it so, either.
No, it deprived everyone of the ability to act with impunity on decisions about who they were going to associate with. If Iâm renting out a room in my house, and I suffer from {bigotryFlavor}, then my freedom to not associate with {bigotryClass} is removed.
Iâm not sure why anyone feels that they have a ârightâ to force someone to do business with them.
You canât force me (as a private citizen) to - say - sell you my car, so why do you feel that you can walk into an auto dealership and tell them they have no right to decide to not sell you a car as well? When did the owner of that dealership lose the right he had always had, to simply not associate with you?
Youâre advocating for a right that had never existed until the abomination of the civil rights legislation - the right to force someone else to engage in commerce with you.
He didnât. You seem intent on avoiding the point, but he doesnât have to associate with anyone he wants, or do commerce with anyone he wants. He just canât do so and choose to operate a dealership.
I have the choice to never touch certain people - but that would mean I donât get to be an EMS. Letting them exclude people from their service is an obvious nightmare. So if treating everyone goes against my beliefs, well thatâs up to me, but it means I have to choose some other line of work.
Anti-discrimination laws are built on the same principle. Because while itâs not quite as overt as letting someone bleed to death, it turns out that having restaurants, shops, and so on all exclude certain minorities can end up a nightmare too. So if you want to do that, you donât get to do those types of work.
Thatâs the choice at stake. Not freedom of association in any meaningful sense, but whether a private citizen should be able to run any business they like, any way they like, regardless of how it affects other people. It seems most commenters here donât think thatâs a right, and itâs hard to see any reason it should be treated it as one.
I gather you do, though. Then fine, criticize from that perspective, but stop crying itâs freedom of association. Itâs not, unless you apply it to businesses instead of people, which would make it one more term youâve redefined to mean a concept with no obvious value.
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So in effect, he lost a right that he had as an individual just because he decided to sell cars for a living as opposed to onesy-twosy in the classified ads.
Making a comparison to EMS is weak-sauce, because EMS is an emergency service (the âEâ, donchaknow), and also in most states EMTs take an oath (along the lines of doctors) to provide service to all specifically because peopleâs lives are in their hands. Comparing âIâm going to let you dieâ to âIâm not going to (bake you a cake, sell you a car, make you a dress)â is specious, at best.
A âbigot businessâ doesnât affect anyone. Hereâs how it plays out, under the rules you yourself have put forward:
- According to you, if they donât want to sell dresses to same-sex couples, they donât go into business. Hence, the same-sex couple canât buy from them.
- If they go into business and refuse to sell to same-sex couples, the same-sex couple canât buy from them.
Can you spot the similarity? Yep, the outcome is the same in both scenarios.
Individuals should not lose their freedom of association simply by virtue of engaging commerce âregularlyâ [as a business] as opposed to sporadically [as a one-off individual transaction].
There is a certain dissimilarity. In the first scenario, nobody gets served and there will be an empty space in the market, soon to be occupied by somebody non-bigoted. In the second scenario, most of the market demand is satisfied and the remainders are screwed. A big, big difference.
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Heâs not losing a right, heâs chosen to go into a situation where it doesnât apply. Thatâs his choice. As you said above, life isnât about getting everything you want, where you want it, and how you want it; only for some reason you only apply that to the discriminated and act like businesses should be exempt.
Again, businesses donât have the same rights as individuals. I can lie about what I am capable of, but when I do it as a business it becomes false advertising. My house doesnât have to be safe for strangers, but my store should be. And if Iâm despicable enough, I can tell blacks they arenât welcome in my living room, but not at my counter.
Those sorts of things are the price of admission our society asks for running a business. There are still lots of societies that donât if you prefer them; it just somehow happens theyâre not very nice places.
[quote=âDerekBalling, post:76, topic:38614â]
A âbigot businessâ doesnât affect anyone. Hereâs how it plays out, under the rules you yourself have put forward:[/quote]
Those have very different outcomes, which youâre ignoring by refusing to consider any but the most myopic take on the situation.
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If they donât want to sell dresses to same-sex couples, and canât go into business because of it, nobody can buy from them. If thereâs demand, that leaves an opportunity for someone less bigoted to start one, and then everyone including same-sex couples can buy dresses from them.
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If they can go into business and refuse to sell to same-sex couples, the same-sex couples and only the same-sex couples canât buy from them. When thatâs even remotely common, they become second-class citizens, with all the harm that entails.
Hereâs where you are simply and completely wrong: allowing âbigot businessâ does affect people. To claim otherwise is to display a total ignorance of just about every case where discrimination has been commonly allowed.
Look where anti-discrimination laws came from, the origin of signs like this, and then tell me it doesnât affect other people. Unless youâre also going to redefine that in some exceptionally limited property-centric sense.
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If you donât approve of a legal form of marriage as a bridal shop owner, you should get out of the the bridal shop business. Itâs like the owner of a bar who doesnât approve of 21 year olds drinking and thus refuses them service. If you donât like your potential clientele, get out of the business. Would you support their right to not make their shop accessible if they didnât think people in wheelchairs should get married?
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When they offer services to the public, they are arguably no longer private actors. They have to get business license that are approved by the local government. If they incorporate, then their charter has to be accepted by the government. If they want to sell wedding dresses out of their home during invite-only exclusive bridal parties, they can pick their customers and be private actors. Businesses, however, are not the people who run them or own them, and a business that is otherwise open to the public shouldnât be able to be a proxy for the bigotry of the owners or employees.
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And yet pharmacists have effectively used the religious freedom argument to get out of dispensing prescriptions they donât like.
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