Gay marriage in Utah put on hold
- Thread starter colton
- Start date
Stifle Tower
Punch Bowl Re-Filler
Me too. I thought the whole idea was to let people live their lives as they see fit. But that isn't the case at all.
If I'm a photographer, for example, and I don't want to spend my day watching gay people hold hands and kiss because I find it morally objectionable, why should I be forced to? Can't I select my own clientele? What if a straight couple asks me to film their wedding at a nudist resort? Can I turn down their business or is that discrimination?
In the case of the baker, the court fined the business $250K, IINM. That essentially puts them out of business.
DutchJazzer
Banned
thats irrelevant
DutchJazzer
Banned
i stopped watching modern family. i am free to do so, because those **** got married!
but if someone would force me to watch their wedding and honeymoon eps i would kick their ***.
my fiance still watches it
The law that protects persons from discrimination by businesses is Federal Civil Rights Act:
Some states have their own Civil rights acts that expand on that and include other protected classes based on other characteristics. In the bakery case for Oregon the protected classes are enumerated as follows:
Places of public accomodation are defined as "any place that offers the public accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges, whether in the nature of goods, services, lodging, amusements or otherwise."... In general, if you have a private business that works in the public square and profits from the public, you cannot discriminate against any protected class. It is harder to see why this has to be the case in the current situation when you have almost universal acceptance of homosexuality and you have great choice of services. But imagine if you were part of a minority that was universally discriminated against. Then laws like that are very necessary to ensure equal opportunity to the citizenry.
By entering the public square(offering its services and products to the public) a business(even if private) agrees to be treated as public accommodation, and as such is subject to laws prohibiting discrimination against protected classes. I don't get what's so hard to grasp. Those rules don't apply to private clubs and religious organizations. If you want to discriminate, make your business a private club and don't accept any business from people out of that club. By making a for-profit business and taking advantage of the opportunities that the state and the public provides to you as a business, you automatically agree to the civil rights statutes that are valid for the state itself.
@Stifle Tower: in other words, as a photographer you cannot refuse services to people based on those enumerated protected characteristics(or whatever they are in the state you operate your business). You cannot refuse the same service to gay people if you provide it for straight people, you cannot refuse service for black people if you provide it for white people, etc... You can choose what services to provide and what services not to provide(naked photography sessions, for example), you cannot choose who you provide them to - if you provide them to one group of people, you provide them for all(protected classes) .
Some states have their own Civil rights acts that expand on that and include other protected classes based on other characteristics. In the bakery case for Oregon the protected classes are enumerated as follows:
Places of public accomodation are defined as "any place that offers the public accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges, whether in the nature of goods, services, lodging, amusements or otherwise."... In general, if you have a private business that works in the public square and profits from the public, you cannot discriminate against any protected class. It is harder to see why this has to be the case in the current situation when you have almost universal acceptance of homosexuality and you have great choice of services. But imagine if you were part of a minority that was universally discriminated against. Then laws like that are very necessary to ensure equal opportunity to the citizenry.
By entering the public square(offering its services and products to the public) a business(even if private) agrees to be treated as public accommodation, and as such is subject to laws prohibiting discrimination against protected classes. I don't get what's so hard to grasp. Those rules don't apply to private clubs and religious organizations. If you want to discriminate, make your business a private club and don't accept any business from people out of that club. By making a for-profit business and taking advantage of the opportunities that the state and the public provides to you as a business, you automatically agree to the civil rights statutes that are valid for the state itself.
@Stifle Tower: in other words, as a photographer you cannot refuse services to people based on those enumerated protected characteristics(or whatever they are in the state you operate your business). You cannot refuse the same service to gay people if you provide it for straight people, you cannot refuse service for black people if you provide it for white people, etc... You can choose what services to provide and what services not to provide(naked photography sessions, for example), you cannot choose who you provide them to - if you provide them to one group of people, you provide them for all(protected classes) .
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The refusal to seal gay marriages is, in effect if not intent, saying they are inferior to straight marriages. If the Mormons had gay bishops(?) who could preside over gay weddings and refuse to preside over straight weddings, as well as the straight bishops and vice-versa, that would be disagreeing and not taking part personally. The LDS enforce this institutionally.
I would not want to presume on your personal opinion here, but I'd wager if the LDS came out for the sealing of gay marriages, you'd find yourself supporting that in less than a year, if you don't right now. I believe that, on some level, you think that love is love, and humans shouldn't discriminate against certain types. Perhaps I'm wrong.
then they should run a business that is not open to the public.
Of course you can. Just don't open the business to the public. Do everything by referral and appointment. Advertise selectively.
Again, the fact that they are private owners of businesses doesn't magically lift the anti-discrimination laws for places of public accommodation.
There are very good reasons why such laws should exist. It is relatively hard to see it in a society that in its majority wouldn't reject services for people based on their gender, race, sexuality, etc. and in a society where there is a great choice of such services, so if one is rejected by 1 business, one can go to the next one and get those services without a problem. The reason for such laws is to protect the minorities against discriminatory and oppressive practices by the majority. For you to see where the problem lies you need to imagine that it was the only bakery in town or that all bakeries refused baking cakes to you.
In the case of bakeries and florists, it's a trivial case, but imagine if it was a vital service you required. Lets say you get into a car crash and you are driven to the nearest hospital, which happens to be 100% privately owned. The emergency room is in full panic mode - "but he's black! we don't service blacks here" or "but he's homosexual, what if I get AIDS from all this blood spewing, and according to my religion I shouldn't be helping the gays", etc.
That's why anti-discrimination laws apply to private businesses in the public square - once you agree as a private business to operate in the public and profit from the public, once you agree to use all the rights as a business provided to you by the state, you agree not to discriminate against people based on some prefixed protected characteristics. If one wants to discriminate on those characteristics, they have the right to make that business a private club and offer services only to members.
I agree that they are prevented form doing so under the law. That was never in question. Doesn't mean I have to agree with it though.
Sure, you don't have to agree with it. I was just giving the reasons why I think those laws are pretty reasonable(if not desirable) and it's great that they are in effect.
Personally I think that a private business (using private in the sense that they are not taking government subsides and are not city/state/federal offices...) has the right to be a hate filled place if they want to be. Society will respond accordingly.
Like that photog in NM that got sued for not doing a Homo wedding. That photog shouldn't have to imo. But if I was in that community I would not take my business to them as a result of their decision.
Those kinds of policies(allowing discriminatory practices by privately owned businesses) are as good as the society you live in.
Think pre-Jim Crow situation or worse. Imagine a society where no one thinks discriminating against race for example is reprehensible. Imagine a situation where say 90% of the businesses refused to hire or serve black people. Now imagine that nobody objected to that and noone punished those businesses by not doing business with them. A lot of libertarian ideas have never been implemented to full extent and thus we can't really know if they'd work. This one is not one of them - this one is an idea that has been shown to not work and to produce horrible results both for the people discriminated against(unable to get jobs/services/etc. with everything that it entails) and to the society as a whole(increased crime rates, violence, etc.).
Again, the question is not "so what if one bakery shop refused to bake me a cake?", the question is "what if all of them refused?" and "what's stopping them?"(substitute bakery with hospital if you think acquiring a cake is trivial and non-important). What's stopping them is the law, what's allowing it is the societal tendencies.
Think pre-Jim Crow situation or worse. Imagine a society where no one thinks discriminating against race for example is reprehensible. Imagine a situation where say 90% of the businesses refused to hire or serve black people. Now imagine that nobody objected to that and noone punished those businesses by not doing business with them. A lot of libertarian ideas have never been implemented to full extent and thus we can't really know if they'd work. This one is not one of them - this one is an idea that has been shown to not work and to produce horrible results both for the people discriminated against(unable to get jobs/services/etc. with everything that it entails) and to the society as a whole(increased crime rates, violence, etc.).
Again, the question is not "so what if one bakery shop refused to bake me a cake?", the question is "what if all of them refused?" and "what's stopping them?"(substitute bakery with hospital if you think acquiring a cake is trivial and non-important). What's stopping them is the law, what's allowing it is the societal tendencies.
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I get that but we no longer live in that society. Have not for a long time (yes there are still problems but 2010s America is not 1920s America). I see the purpose of the law and get the good it does. So it is a mixed bag. Don't care for it over all but I won't fight to overturn it either.
That's the thing, even in the current society it presents problems. I set up the example to the extreme, just so people could more easily see the shortcomings of the proposed policy. In the current society such discrimination is to a huge extent hidden and a lot of people condemn it when it is in the open, but it still exists and it still creates clearly noticeable problems.
true...
♪alt13
Well-Known Member
I think this kind of argument with regards to gay marriage is a bit of a straw man. Those laws can be addressed without banning gay marriage. If people don't like those laws then they should focus on those laws but they shouldn't use them as their reason to oppose others exercising their rights. Further weighing the concerns of the baker against those of the couple it is clear that exclusion from marriage has a greater negative effect on the couple than forced baking for profit has on the baker.
I had left the gay marriage argument on a tangent when I made this.
♪alt13
Well-Known Member
Yes I know but this argument is one you often here from those that oppose gay marriage. It has been used in this thread as a reason for opposition. Yours just happened to be the most recent post addressing a private companies concerns.
