More Wedding Woes And Penalizing ‘Private’ Business Owners
[guest post by Dana]
We’ve already seen wedding cake bakers and bridal shop owners having complaints filed against them for refusing service to gay couples, and now we have wedding site owners being ordered to pay penalties for refusing to host a gay wedding. At their home.
Owners of a family farm in Schaghticoke, New York, are being fined $13,000 for refusing to allow a gay wedding ceremony to take place on their property in 2012, just one year after the state legalized same-sex nuptials.
Cynthia and Robert Gifford, owners of Liberty Ridge Farm, a family-friendly farm and special events venue, told Jennifer McCarthy and Melisa Erwin, a lesbian couple from Newark, New Jersey, that they were welcome to hold their reception on the property, but not the actual wedding ceremony, according to Religion News Service.
The Giffords live on the premises and these ceremonies are typically conducted on the first floor of their home or on the nearby property. Considering that they are Christians and consider marriage to be confined to relationships involving one man and one woman, the two weren’t comfortable hosting McCathy and Erwin’s nuptials.
The couple has apparently had gay staff members and hosted gay events, but were simply not comfortable with a gay wedding taking place on their farm. The ruling judge rejected the couple’s argument that their business entitled them to be able to legally refuse the couple.
Judge Migdalia Pares, who argued that the fact that the owners live on the premises does not mean that the business is private in nature, ruled that Liberty Ridge Farm is a public accommodation as it rents its space and regularly collects fees from the public.
What’s left to go after?
–Dana
UPDATE: The owners of Rice Creek Hunting and Recreation, which operates a lodge used for weddings in Minnesota, were the subjects of a discrimination complaint made by a gay couple after said owners turned down their request to hold their wedding at the lodge:
The Department of Human Rights investigated and determined there was probable cause of discrimination by the lodge owners due to sexual orientation.
“This is the first public accommodation case for the department related to same-sex marriage, and it serves as a reminder that businesses may not deny services based on a person’s sexual orientation just as they can’t deny services on the basis of race or gender,” Commissioner Kevin Lindsey said.
The owners of the lodge subsequently picked up the full tab for the couple’s wedding, reception and guest accommodations at another location.
Further:
The gay marriage law passed by the Minnesota Legislature in 2013 provides specific exemptions for religious entities from taking part in same-sex union, but it doesn’t exempt individuals, businesses and nonprofits from non-discrimination laws based on religious beliefs regarding same-sex marriage.
…
The Minnesota Family Council, which opposes same-sex marriage, said the government shouldn’t force family businesses to participate in ceremonies that violate their beliefs.
“The Minnesota Human Rights Department’s treatment of Minnesota families is deplorable. They are choosing to enforce the same-sex ‘marriage’ law in an unconstitutional manner, targeting Minnesota business owners and, to top it all off, claiming victory for settling with a hunting preserve owner who should have never had to face a human rights case against him,” Council CEO John Helmberger said in a statement.
Hello.
Dana (4dbf62) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:01 pmSerious question: Is there any aspect of public life that is exempt from mandatory tolerance?
Russ from Winterset (830aac) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:08 pmRuss- Nope.
Dissent is patriotic. Or something…
Jeff Lebowski (5e0c1f) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:17 pm#3….well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man!
Russ from Winterset (830aac) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:23 pmNope. Owners don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s not a church. The owners’ only “participation” is taking the money. So they live above the store. It’s still a store. I see a freedom to contract but not enough of a religious nexus. And I would rule against them under the discrimination statute on the freedom to contract. At some point, you’ve got to say “We don’t give a damn if they’re the children of Ishmael, or of Ham (or of chop or tenderloin) cursed by God to roam the wilderness*. Give them a room at your inn.”
*That’s dark people to some “bright” Christians.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:31 pmSo if one of my gay friends sends me an invite to their Big Gay Wedding and I already have plans for that weekend, could I be prosecuted for non-attendance?
A few years ago, I would have said either “hell no” or “shouldn’t you have said Big Gay Civil Commitment Ceremony?” Now, all bets are off.
Russ from Winterset (830aac) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:32 pmany more questions:
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/08/25/super-federal-grant-funds-plan-to-detect-misinformation-hate-speech-on-social-media/
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:38 pmSo if one of my gay friends sends me an invite to their Big Gay Wedding and I already have plans for that weekend, could I be prosecuted for non-attendance?
Mandatory minimum sentence of incarceration for five years in Illinois. Don’t make any gay friends from Illinois.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:49 pmI’ve got another question about Gay Weddings: Shouldn’t they all be held in churches with aisles on each side and all the seats in the center like a theater? That way, there’s no chance of offending anyone with hetero-normative traditions like “bride’s side” or “groom’s side”.
Russ from Winterset (830aac) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:50 pmIt’s a question I’ve always meant to ask people from Tennessee where fertile, first-cousin marriages are legal, myself.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:54 pmFunny how there’s never a law suit against some Moslem for refusing to “service” gays or lesbians, just Christians. Wonder why? Oh well, who cares? Any Christian today is a target for punishment and will be fined, jailed or punished in some way if they refuse to support and celebrate gay marriage. The beatings will continue until moral improves, or until Christians start fighting back to protect their 1st Amendment rights, hopefully with their 2nd Amendment rights.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:58 pmOh, don’t worry. That’s at least 36 months out.
What you have to worry about is when they criminalize non-participation in the nest five to ten years.
Bob Hope, visionary, discussing Kali’s 1975 Consenting Adult’s Sex Bill.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:58 pmnest = next
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 7:59 pmnk, how many buck-toothed inbred Tennesseans have tried to make you cater their weddings?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:00 pmI don’t really care what goes down in Possum Holler, TN, as long as I’m not involved in any way.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:01 pmBecause there arent that many of them in the first place, let alone in those businesses. Do you seriously think they would be treated any differently?! Yes, of course you do, but it’s a very stupid thing to think.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:07 pmIt’s like when you meet a guy from Tennessee and he says, “I’d like you to meet my wife and my sister.” And there’s one woman standing there.
I’ll be here all week…
Gazzer (b21aba) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:08 pmMy wife and I got married in a Lutheran Church that is widely used by wedding planners. Neither by wife nor I are Lutheran: she’s Jewish and I’m only Christian by baptism. Yet the church allowed us to be married in their sanctuary, by their minister in a Lutheran rite — it’s a business to them.
I am utterly positive, though, that they would balk at a same-sex wedding. Maybe this isn’t where the next battle will be, but it is very close to it.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:17 pmTennessee?! You don’t need to go there. There are many states where it’s legal, including most of the east and south-east, and California. I personally know several couples who are first cousins, all with large families, and none who’ve had any problems with their children.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:18 pm*
Kevin M (b357ee) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:18 pm…Neither MY wife nor …
Muslim wedding cake decorators? HAHAHA
“Will the bride be wearing a burka?”
“No”
“Okaaaaaaaaay” *finishes up the cake with a big red WHORE written right up there with the bride/groom figurines*
“Inish Allah, this is my finest work ever”
Russ from Winterset (830aac) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:18 pmi don’t think they should be penalized but for sure they should be nicer to people
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:20 pmHoagie, would you feel comfortable with a Christian car dealer refusing to accept a trade-in because the title was in both names of same-sex couple? This case is in the same area. If the people want to live pure religious lives, they have the Amish, the Shakers, and the Branch-Davidians as examples on how to do it, not to mention the monastics. When they invite the world into their business and take its money, there’s some point where they have to take their business invitees as they find them.
There’s a dark side to religion as we now see in the Middle East. The Nazis who executed my grandfather’s brother and his two sons (the younger only sixteen) had “Gott Mit Uns” on their belt buckles*. The state can give religion claims only so much of a pass in its dealings with its citizens.
*Up yours, Godwin.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:21 pmOf course, if a church CAN draw the line at SSM even if they don’t at religious belief, the Giffords should get some local church to consecrate the facility and then claim the consecration is important to their business and would be nullified by a SSM.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:22 pmBut they insisted on the Lutheran rite. Do you think tey would have allowed a Pagan or Satanic rite, or even a Jewish or Catholic one? I doubt it.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:24 pmNo, it isn’t stupid. Because they are treated differently.
http://eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/5-29-13.cfm
It’s a very simple thing. If a family farm that people actually live on isn’t a First Amendment zone because a court has ruled it a public accommodation, then neither is a trucking company.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:26 pmnk, this is not the same thing. And you know it.
Your examples involve commercial discrimination based on their STATUS as a same-sex couple.
The Giffords objection is in PARTICIPATING the actual SSM rite — a rite they believe to be sacrilegious. As they said they would be happy to host the reception — no discrimination there with respect to STATUS whatsoever.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:26 pmNo, it isn’t. Unless I missed something and car trade-ins have become a sacrament lately.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:29 pmBut they insisted on the Lutheran rite. Do you think they would have allowed a Pagan or Satanic rite, or even a Jewish or Catholic one? I doubt it.
You have a point, but I’m not sure it’s a complete one as one could say the same exact words in a SSM with the exception of either “husband” or “wife.”
Note this: I am not arguing this, I am saying that it COULD BE ARGUED and that someone will do so. Which I think was the challenge put down in Dana’s post. Churches get into a lot of trouble the moment they say “By the power invested in me by the State of _______”, if the state wishes to impose new rules.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:30 pmor even a Jewish or Catholic one? I doubt it.
I’m not sure if they allowed other clergy to conduct marriages. There are places that will.
Kevin M (b357ee) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:33 pmCan a Christian also be forced to allow his home or business to be used for a ceremony that involves spitting on a crucifix, or ripping up a Bible? What about any patriotic person who refuses to rent his premises for a ceremony that involves treading on an American flag?
No, nk, the state does not get to put conditions on the right to conduct a business. That is not a privelege granted by the state, it’s an inherent human right which the state exists only to protect, so it doesn’t and can’t come with any strings attached.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:34 pmThe owners are not performing the sacrament or participating in the ceremony in any way. They’re already renting the space for the reception. Where the couple will be dancing, and hugging, and kissing, and maybe sneak off to “you know”. The owners are not asked to express anything. Their objection is to their cusomers’ expression. Thin, very thin. I do not want to extend the First Amendment’s protection that far into the government’s power to be “be nice”. Like I said, “move to Mecca”.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:36 pmhi lesbians sorry about the whole farm thing but you want you can get married here in my apartment
you can even bring cake even though I’m carb-averse you know why?
cause I’m tolerant like that
call me
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:39 pmNo, nk, the state does not get to put conditions on the right to conduct a business.
In which universe? Certainly not this one. The state puts a gazillion condition on the right to conduct a business as my butcher told me when I asked for poodle steaks.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:39 pmYes it is stupid, because they are not treated differently.
And what makes you think the EEOC would not do the same for Christian employees? The law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for their employees’ religious needs. This law is regularly enforced for Christians just as for anyone else. The key word there is “reasonable”.
There is no such thing as “not a first amendment zone”. Both the farm and the trucking company are public accommodations, and thus subject to anti-discrimination laws (as bad as those are). And both are employers, and thus (if they have enough workers to qualify) subject to the EEOC and the requirement to reasonably accommodate their employees’ religious needs.
Neither the trucking company nor the farm would be allowed to require an employee to do something that is against her religion, if there is a reasonable way for them to arrange for that employee not to have to do it. The farm may have to allow the ceremony (which is wrong), but (provided it has enough employees to be subject to the law) it may not require a Christian worker to work the lighting for this ceremony if there’s a non-objector who can just as easily be assigned the task.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:44 pmWhat difference does it make what words are used? It’s the nature of the rite that they’d be objecting to. A black mass uses exactly the same words as a real mass, just backwards. Or what about an exact replica of a real Catholic mass, but with all participants naked, and the altar holding a crucifix upside down in a vial of urine? I’m sure no Catholic could in good conscience become an accomplice to such a blasphemy. And yet same-sex marriage is much the same thing; a deliberate act of defiance against the Bible.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:48 pmReally? By hosting it then they’re not participating in it? That’s obtuse.
How are the people hosting the event not participating in it?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:50 pmSure they are. They’re enabling it to happen.
There’s nothing in the Bible against that.
That’s pure speculation. The owners don’t know that this will happen, and if it does it won’t be with their consent. Don’t ask, don’t tell, and nobody has to be confronted with the necessity of being unpleasant.
This has nothing to do with freedom of expression, and everything to do with freedom of conscience. It’s the free exercise clause, not the free speech clause.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:53 pmMilhouse, I was referring to the absurdity of insisting that one person retains their religious rights by remaining an employee, while another has abandoned them by becoming an employer.
Where is this to be found?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:53 pmLet’s start with basics. In both public accommodations and employment the rule to refuse either is “for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all, except a discriminatory reason”. The discriminatory reasons nationwide are race/ethnicity, religion, sex, and disability*. Some states have sexual orientation. The state has the power to enact those laws, there can be no argument there. The defense is an individual right in the law — the the First Amendment right to freedomm of religion. I do not see enough enough of an infringement of the First Amendment right by the anti-discrimination law in this case.
*Collective bargaining too in employment.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:55 pmBeen to an airport lately?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:56 pmAlright. And now we see how there are concurrences and dissents in court opinions. 😉
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:57 pmThose laws (whether you like them or not) apply to anyone, business or not. They’re not conditions attached to the privilege of doing business.
The Supreme Court made a terrible mistake when it decided to ignore the Privileges and Immunities clause. That’s a mistake that must be corrected, and the Institute for Justice is dedicated to correcting it.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 8:57 pmThen it’s time to take a new look at the rule.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:01 pmThey haven’t abandoned their religious rights. Of course under Smith the Supreme Court says the states are allowed to force people to violate their consciences so long as that it’s a generally applicable law, and wasn’t made for that purpose. Since this is a state law, they have no religious rights against it; it’s not that they abandoned their rights by going into business, it’s that they never had the rights in the first place. That doesn’t mean it’s right.
In any case, though, the point of this sub-thread was Hoagie’s assertion that Moslems and Christians are treated differently, and that is paranoid nonsense.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:02 pmHowzabout a college campus, where everything outside the “free speech zone” is a “not first amendment zone?”
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:02 pmThe first amendment is fully operatoinal at airports. The fourth, not so much 🙁
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:03 pmShow me a court that has upheld that. Show me someone who has sued over that and lost. That people occasionally break the law is not news, and doesn’t signify a change in the law.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:05 pmWhat about a KKK wedding, feets, or a Phelps family wedding? Will you host those too?
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:06 pmIn the age of Eric Holder, proud to be an activist AG, when justice is no longer blind, it is not exactly paranoid.
And yes, maybe it hasn’t been blind for a long time. But this is the first AG in my memory who’s dropped the pretense it even ought to be.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:07 pmfunny how they always will sue a Christian, but no one ever demands accommodations from the head bangers…
it’s almost as if lieberals are afraid of the religion of pieces or something.
😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:10 pmWhy, in a free country, should someone have to go to the trouble and expense to sue over this?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:14 pmThere are two branches of First Amendment freedom of expression analysis — content/viewpoint and time, place and manner. Content/viewpoint the line is at obscenity or clear and present danger. Time, place and manner is more restrictive and that’s what gives rise to non-First Amendment zones.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:15 pmSo they do exist!
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:21 pmHolder is not Moslem or pro-sharia. He’s tilted federal law enforcement to be pro-black and anti-white, but he hasn’t done anything about religion. In any case, he doesn’t control the courts, or the states.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:25 pmThis is just not true.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:26 pmYes, and it came to a head with Hare Krishnas hitting on the Supreme Court Justices at airports on their way back and forth from Washington. Really. But even before that you could not yell “movie” in a crowded firehouse.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:28 pmWhat are you talking about? A small business put up an ad, someone in the community didn’t like it, so the business was nice enough to take it down. What makes you think they wouldn’t do the same for a Christian, or someone with an allergy, or just someone who got upset for no reason at all?
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:30 pmBecause how else is the law to be upheld? People break the law all the time, and if their victims want justice they have to sue for it. How else could it be?
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:33 pmSanction people for breaking the law. Til it hurts, and they stop.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:35 pmIf you really believe that is “paranoid nonsense” Milhouse you have not been paying attention for the last 15 years. And thanks for asserting that I’m paranoid, talk nonsense and am stupid because you disagree with me.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:36 pmNo, they don’t. Time, place, and manner restrictions on speech are valid everywhere, not just in certain zones, but they’re subject to strict scrutiny, and they can’t discriminate based on viewpoint. The first amendment doesn’t mean the city has to let you use a bullhorn on a residential street at 2am, no matter what you’re saying; but if it makes an exception for one person it must make a similar exception for anyone else.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:37 pmAnd how are you going to do that without suing? How is it going to be brought to the attention of those with the power to sanction the offender?
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:38 pmIt is paranoid nonsense, and I have been paying close attention. Every single alleged instance has turned out to be nonsense.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:39 pmThere’s nothing preventing this nice couple that owns the farm from placing Chick Tracts at every table. I’m sure there’s one for gay marriage by now.
Xmas (f65ded) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:39 pm“Holder is not Moslem or pro-sharia.”
Milhouse – Nice strawman. Who said he was?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:42 pmThere is no such thing as a criminal offense?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:43 pmHow about interrupting the music for a sermon on the evils of homosexual relations? That might be a breach of contract, but they can tell the couple in advance that they plan to do it, and if the couple objects they’ll be glad to return their deposit and release them from their booking.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:44 pmSteve did. Otherwise why invoke his name at all in this discussion?
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:44 pmEverybody, their own DA.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:44 pmWhat would be the crime? And who would police it? Civil rights laws depend on a plaintiff to bring action.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:45 pmAhem.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:46 pmAt what point did I say Holder was a crypto-Muslim?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:47 pmTah-may-tow/toe-mah-toe, Milhouse. Places like courthouses, movie theaters, and airports where the time, place and manner rule is more strictly are more non-First Amendment than they are yes-First Amendment.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:50 pmA state college not allowing someone to set up a table in a place where it wouldn’t be in anyone’s way is a violation of that person’s rights, just like cheating him of money or destroying his car. If he won’t take action, nothing is going to happen, and the offense will continue. But you claimed that this makes colleges non-first-amendment zones; if that were so, the suits would not succeed.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:50 pmYou didn’t. You said “in the age of Eric Holder” it was not paranoid to imagine that the law treats Christians and Moslems differently. That could only be the case if Holder was pro-Moslem or anti-Christian.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:52 pmI don’t see why it’s a criminal matter if a cop violates a suspect’s civil rights, Milhouse, but only a civil matter if a universtity dean violates a student’s civil rights.
Please expand on your point.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:52 pmHolder is an INCOMPETENT CLOWN. He has gotten rich and famous by being a FUKTARD.
Gus (70b624) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:55 pmI said in the age of Holder justice is no longer blind. You read into that statement something about him being pro-Muslim or anti-Christian.
By his own remarks he says he considers himself an activist. Personally I think that has more to do with race than religion. But regardless, he’s declared that he does not intend to be objective, no matter how he intends it to play out.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:56 pmIt could mean that. It bears watching.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 9:58 pmIt depends how the cop violates the suspect’s rights. By beating him up? That’s a crime, though the victim still has to pursue it if charges are to be brought. By not reading him his rights, or not giving him dinner, or damaging his personal effects? The victim has to take legal action if he wants to see justice. If the police illegally tow your car, that’s a civil suit. If they deny you a permit for something because of your race, that’s a civil suit. Most violations are civil matters, whcih you have to sue for if you want justice.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:00 pmFirst of all, even in the age of Holder justice is blind; only the federal department of justice is not. But even if he had managed to unblind justice, for that to mean that it’s not paranoid to think Moslems and Christians are being treated differently, he would have to want to treat them differently, and there’s no evidence for that. I’m sure he would side with a black church over a white mosque.
Milhouse (9d71c3) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:04 pmNon crimen sin legen. There are no crimes without laws. Only the legislature can make something criminal. Or both criminal and civil. But the common law cannot make something criminal in the United States and private citizens cannot prosecute criminal cases.
nk (dbc370) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:06 pmWhich is why I said it bears watching. Still, I think Eric “My People” Holder has dropped more than a few hints over the years. I’m leaning towards race.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:18 pmAhem.
Steve57 – I missed where you claimed Holder was a Muslim. I agree he enforces the law unevenly and contrary to Milhouse’s assertions that does not necessarily mean through the courts. The threat of legal action is often enough to get what the wants, which is to avoid offending Muslims at the expense of offending Christians in pursuit of the administration’s agenda of social justice. And no, that is not the same as being pro-sharia.
And yes, states impose all sorts of restrictions on people establishing businesses, but that is not the same as barring them from pursuing their chosen trades and I have no desire to hear a long-winded pedantic discourse regarding the Slaughter-House Cases and the Privileges and Immunities Clause and the 14th Amendment because that is so far afield from the subject of this post to be completely moronic to introduce it.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:19 pm“You said “in the age of Eric Holder” it was not paranoid to imagine that the law treats Christians and Moslems differently.”
Milhouse – What did Steve57 actually say versus your paraphrasing?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:22 pmActually, I used to work for Countrywide where it was okay for my Muslim coworker to say:
However I was told I could not talk about religion at work when I answered a direct question from a coworker. Muslims are treated differently than Christians.
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:25 pmSteve57 – I still can’t find where you said Eric Holder was a Moslem as Milhouse claims. Can you point me to the comment please?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:28 pmdaley, it was probably this comment, when I responded to Milhouse’s assertion that Hoagie accused Holder of being a Muslim.
My meaning was that since Holder himself declared he was an activist AG, ALL things should be examined through that prism.
Saying that something is not exactly paranoid, i.e. outside the realm of possibility, is not the same thing as asserting it is an definitely happening.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:34 pmI wonder, if a hospital was willing to treat Jews, allow Jewish visitor, and in general treat Jews just like everyone else, but they refused to allow circumcisions in the hospital, could they be sued for discriminating against Jews?
If a shop serves Muslims just like anyone else but refuses to let people get down on their hands and knees to pray towards Mecca if the time comes during their meal, could the restaurant be sued for being anti-Muslim?
If a restaurant serves Hindus just like everyone else but refuses to make anything that isn’t fried in lard, can they be sued for being prejudiced against Hindus?
But being gay is a special category. It doesn’t matter if a business owners treats gays just like everyone else, if that business owner refuses to participate in a particular kind of ceremony, if that ceremony is associated with gays, you can sue them for being prejudiced against gays. Even if they never treated gays any differently from anyone else.
I remember a few years ago when you gay marriage proponents were still a minority and still trying to persuade people –before you all decided to switch to the tactics of coercion. You were almost all opposed to forcing people to engage in gay weddings against their will. The court that found against that poor woman in New Mexico was an outlier, you assured us, not at all typical of the way things would be once gay marriage was legalized. You were all lying, weren’t you? You never intended to let people have freedom of conscience once you had the power to force them to submit to your belief system. You’re no different from Muslims in that sense.
Cugel (9be543) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:36 pmhttp://nation.foxnews.com/2014/08/04/holder-i%E2%80%99m-%E2%80%98proud%E2%80%99-be-%E2%80%98activist-attorney-general%E2%80%99
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:36 pmYou guys do realize that the farm is the Gifford’s home and that their bedrooms were used as changing rooms? They did not mind hosting parties for anyone, just not the sacrament of marriage in their home. The government is violating their 1st amendment right to freely exercise their religion.
Just like the baker who said anything but SSM.
Just like the photographer who said anything but SSM.
Not only do you have to tolerate it, but you are forced to participate too.
My grandmother and her brother were the only survivors in her family of concentration camps during WWII. Being a member of a neo nazi group is legal in the US, should my grandmother have been forced to serve them in her place of business? I was raped when I was 10 years old, should I be forced to serve a NAMBLA member?
Christians look at homosexuality as a sin that prevents a person access to heaven, should they be forced to participate in that sin by hosting a same sex marriage? Should they be forced to violate their religion by saying that SSM is not a sin like in Canada?
Seems intolerant to me, and a violation of their 1st amendment rights of free exercise of their religion.
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:47 pmOr rather of being a Muslim apologist.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:47 pm“Or rather of being a Muslim apologist.”
Steve57 – In other words, Milhouse ignored what you actually said and instead layered on his own distorted meaning, sort of like a strawman in Obama’s speeches?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:26 amIt looks like, daley.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:36 amThat was my take.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:39 amI have not asked anyone in the publishing business yet, though.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:41 amand unexpectedly at that…
😎
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:44 amDamn!
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:45 amthere’s no such thing as KKK weddings you just made that up
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:48 amYou just haven’t met enough people who did time.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:51 amUsually at the KKK wedding, the bride is just out of prison but has slept with the groom and all the groomsmen regularly since what should have been high school but was instead juvie. Depending on who had the best supply. Then when the groom’s parole officer violates him, the bride starts sleeping with the best man. And stealing copper. And gets pregnant. And gets busted because the best man says he never met her, and all the copper is in her car registered to her. So grandma raises the kid while she goes away.
So the best man can start selling crack with one of the bridesmaids.
There’s your KKK wedding. Romantic, no?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:01 am3% rules.
mg (31009b) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:00 am@ Cugel #91
To which belief system are you objecting to? The one where we believe “all men are created equal”?
Gil (27c98f) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:42 amIt’s time for folks to become conscious law breakers.
Arrange your business so that pertinent details will
emerge soon enough in the process so that you can formulate
a reasonable excuse for denial. (if you so desire)
In the case of same sex weddings, require that both participants
appear at any application. Then refuse them for some other reason.
Or use other mechanisms to discover in advance any requests that may
be troubling to you.
You can also decide to provide bad service to those who force
your compliance.
C’mon it’s not rocket science how to fight back against this
sort of stuff.
It’s repugnant that it must be done under the counter due to
jakee308 (ba1e65) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:58 aman overbearing legal system but that’s the breaks.
The one where we believe “all men are created equal”?
I question whether Jeffrey Dahmer was created equal to Albert Schweitzer. But the real issue is one of behavior, not of status. Any and all behavior is not equal.
Here’s another borderline case. Deeds to property uniformly include the marital status of the grantors and grantees to answer questions of dower, homestead, community property etc., and it is mandatory that it be included if the conveyance is to tenancy by the entirety. Tenancy by the entirety is a special protection of the marital residence from the individual debts and liabilities of each spouse — nobody can touch the house unless both people are jointly liable for the whatever. So, you’re selling your house. Would you sign a deed that said “to John Smith and Jack Jones, married to each other”? Alternatively, would you spend a thousand dollars to use a land trust as an intermediary and even then would you really be fooling God?
nk (dbc370) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:50 amnk
Your point is extremely precise.
I think this is somewhat like the second amendment. I look at the language and I don’t see a clear right to bear arms except in the defense of the state, but even that is larger and wider than an armed conflict.
BUT, I don’t think the founding fathers FELT the need to even have to address the issue of personal defense – it was understood fundamentally by everyone at the time of the drafting and founding of the country that ANYONE had the clear right to carry a weapon for self defense.
Bearing arms actually in that time meant to point it at someone or carry them in open conflict and resistance to powers that would infringe upon liberty. To carry them into battle – the drafters of the constitution never envisioned a world where we would let women who we entrusted with the schooling of our children, we would let these trusted servants of the community rush a mad man and die in a gruesome hail of bullets one after another to buy time so some could escape – that some group of lawyers and legislatures DISALLOWED them from carrying even a small revolver because someone thought they were the greater threat to society as a whole. Even worse these insane enablers used the sacrifice of these brave women to make sure all the responsible arms bearers would have even further restrictions on their ability to prevent the next madman from killing our children.
Those teachers ran to the gunfire, and died, unarmed because some lawyer felt they knew better than a loaded gun pointed at a child
EPWJ (775325) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:10 amStay classy!
carlitos (c24ed5) — 8/26/2014 @ 6:59 amNope. Owners don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s not a church.
nk, I recall your being indignant about my raising the concept — and reality — of “compassion for compassion’s sake.” Given your take on this case, that’s hardly surprising.
The idiotic judge who is forcing the owners of the property to accommodate same-sex couples is only ideologically a few inches away from deeming that such businesses also must accommodate customers who want to hold a swingers party or wife-swapping festival. There is now no slippery slope that can be dismissed as too slippery, too steep.
Mark (14a4db) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:32 amObviously, there are laws against public lewdness that would preclude a swingers party or wife-swapping festival. So the slippery slope argument is silly in that sense.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:35 amSo the slippery slope argument is silly in that sense.
That’s as much a contortionist routine as your rationalizations about AGW.
There is nothing publicly lewd about activities behind closed doors in a privately run business. Moreover, a property owner could easily be strong armed into accepting such customers by their saying they’ll be doing their picking and choosing in the open reception room and then act upon those selections in the room with the closed door and covered windows.
Mark (14a4db) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:43 amWhat if they just lie? “Oh, I’ll be out of town that weekend, sorry.” For a small business, that is quite possible. “Oh, we are having the place closed down for work that weekend, sorry.”
I love this idea of forcing people to do work for people they can’t stand. If I found out that someone like nk wasn’t interesting in catering my party because I am a Christian, screw him, I’ll do business with his competitors. I will probably recommend that people stay away from nk catering if asked. If you don’t want my business, I’ll find someone who does.
OmegaPaladin (f4a293) — 8/26/2014 @ 8:07 amIt’s mostly an outdoor venue. I’m not sure how they could accommodate a swingers party. Perhaps a lot of bug spray would be involved. And beach towels, probably.
http://libertyridgefarmny.com/venues-and-ceremonies/
carlitos (c24ed5) — 8/26/2014 @ 8:15 amMark likes sexual fantasies.
nk (dbc370) — 8/26/2014 @ 8:53 amI do too, but I mostly try not to post them here.
nk (dbc370) — 8/26/2014 @ 8:54 amIf one can be made to violate their religious principles in their own house, because their house is their place of business,
then there is either no actual freedom of religion,
or you have greatly restricted the ability of someone to economic freedom.
This sentiment means, “You can practice your religion on your own time in your own private space any time you want,
just don’t let it impact how you relate to the ‘outside’ world in any way.”
You know, it does say in Revelation that there will come a time when no one is allowed to buy or sell anything unless they have permission to do so by pledging allegiance to the head of the government. Not being allowed to conduct business in your own living room unless you are willing to do it by the government’s rules that violate your faith sounds pretty much the same thing, at least the beginnings of it.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:32 ampeople shouldn’t need government to make them act like nice normal people
it’s not a big ask
these stupid religious nutjobs who think it’s somehow their god-given responsibility to piss on two people what are in the process of declaring a loving and sincere commitment to each other are stupid
this is why I call them stupid
cause of they so stupid
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:36 am91. Cugel (9be543) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:36 pm
I wonder, if a hospital was willing to treat Jews, allow Jewish visitor, and in general treat Jews just like everyone else, but they refused to allow circumcisions in the hospital, could they be sued for discriminating against Jews?
Well, a hospital isn’t really the place to do it anyway, and mothers are now rarely there till the 8th day, and if someone wants a mohel who’s also a surgeon, this can be done almost anywhere else.
It is the circumcisions that are done/offered in the hospital that are not according to Jewish law.
If a shop serves Muslims just like anyone else but refuses to let people get down on their hands and knees to pray towards Mecca if the time comes during their meal, could the restaurant be sued for being anti-Muslim?
No, and the only basis on which you are not allowed to discriminate is one of the several basis listed in the 1964 Civil Rights act or similar state laws.
Not wanting to host a marriage dinner isn’t one of them. Wanting certain marriages and not others isn’t one of them. And it’s torturing langiage to call this discrimination according to sex, or religion even. I suppose you could have an issue if something had been advertised as open to everyone for anything.
I remember a few years ago when you gay marriage proponents were still a minority and still trying to persuade people – before you all decided to switch to the tactics of coercion. You were almost all opposed to forcing people to engage in gay weddings against their will. The court that found against that poor woman in New Mexico was an outlier, you assured us, not at all typical of the way things would be once gay marriage was legalized. You were all lying, weren’t you? You never intended to let people have freedom of conscience once you had the power to force them to submit to your belief system.
It looks very much so. It looks like submitting to their belief system is the idea.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:43 ampeople shouldn’t need government to make them act like nice normal people
But they decided to sue anyway you wonder why their momma didn’t teach them no manners
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:45 amthe lesbians didn’t sue that was the state of NY
NY is not a business friendly state Mr. daley
i guarantee you this is not the mostest onerous crap these farm-owners have faced in trying to do business in NY
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:50 amthese stupid religious nutjobs
this is why I call them stupid
cause of they so stupid
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:36 am
Thanks for the thoughtful comments, feets. /s
Philosophically and logically, the only way this can be justified is by defining “religion” narrowly as a belief that has to do with some specific deity (even though some “religions” really don’t have a deity like monotheists), rather than the fundamental belief system that a person uses to make sense and purpose out of life. Hence, while secularism and claiming there is no God to be bothered with really is an alternative belief system, it is not treated as an alternative, but somehow as “neutral ground”. It only appears neutral ground, there is no neutral ground. But AFAIK, the courts in the US do not recognize this, but only call something a religion if there is some specific deity involved.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:05 am“the lesbians didn’t sue that was the state of NY”
the immature lesbian sluts got the State of NY to sue because their feelings were more important than the religious beliefs of other people and they absolutely positively had to get married at liberty farms even though there there were plenty of other places to get married but because their mommas didn’t teach them not manners they had to get all stompy foot gay nazi.
got it mr. feets
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:08 amyou assured us, not at all typical of the way things would be once gay marriage was legalized. You were all lying, weren’t you? You never intended to let people have freedom of conscience once you had the power to force them to submit to your belief system.
Cugel (9be543) — 8/25/2014 @ 10:36 pm
I don’t know if they were all lying, Cugel. I bet quite a few folk were not thinking past the “How will letting two gays get married hurt your marriage?” line.
But that doesn’t help much. Instead of being surrounded by liars, we’re surrounded by liars and people who don’t think past the cliche’s.
I remember that I first heard about the Roe v. Wade decision over the radio while I was playing tennis. I remember at the time thinking that I thought that was wrong, but I wasn’t going to have an abortion myself so it didn’t effect me. Of course, at the time I was a mere ignorant and blind youth who thought he knew a lot more than he did.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:13 amthanks Mr. Dr. it’s all about doing unto others like how you’d like them to do unto you
the ungracious farmers have learned their lesson the hard way, but God sent those lesbians to them for a reason to where the Giffords would learn to be better people and to serve Him and glorify His name
mysterious are his ways
but he git r done
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:15 amMr. feets loves him some fascism. Every time.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:26 amteh godless state punishing teh true believers was a harsh message but teh immature mannerless lesbian whoresluts were married elsewhere. This country was founded by people fleeing religious persecution but now it is returning courtesy of progressives.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:29 amFTFY, mr. feets.
God doesn’t use nazis to make other people better people.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:30 amnonono Mr. 57 i think the Giffords should be free to poop on gays to the glory of the Lord all day long
but people should be free to criticize them and take their business elsewhere
at the end of the day all these lesbians did was to expose these Giffords for who they are
the State of NY did the rest
but thanks to our lesbian friends everyone can make their wedding plans on a more informed basis going forward
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:33 amThey could have done that on facebook.
Instead they initiated grievance procedures with New York’s Division of Human Rights, claiming discrimination. The state of New York wouldn’t have done a thing unless the lesbians pursued it.
Don’t fib for the gaystapo, mr. feets.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:44 amfeets,
I prefer for people to treat me by telling the truth, not pandering to lies to keep me happy.
Instead of being surrounded by liars, we’re surrounded by liars and people who don’t think past the cliché’s.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:13 am
I’ll modify that a bit. I suppose there were some who were not lying and able to think past cliché’s, but they believed the lies that a little freedom to do their own thing was all they wanted, or figured they would go for imposing their ideology but didn’t think they would get very far and are surprised.
feets, if a patient of mine has cancer that could be treated and I don’t tell that person because it would make them frightened and sad, and I don’t like being frightened and sad, would that be a good thing or short-sighted?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:44 amLikewise, if I am set on doing something that is or will alienate me from God, I think it would be a good thing if someone concerned about me would tell me the truth.
but thanks to our lesbian friends everyone can make their wedding plans on a more informed basis going forward
you would thing these immature mannerless lesbian whoresluts would actually do a little research before approaching places to hold their nuptials, like asking other immature mannerless lesbian whoreslut couples where they held their nuptials and if the services were good or bad and similarly with things like bridal dresses and cakes and photography and such but instead it seems like some effort may be made to seek out service providers not yet on board with current progressive accepted thought and bludgeon them into submission instead, but that’s just me wishing to see people acting like wise consumers which is not a big ask really.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:44 amunlike you, i see no need to kowtow to those who would either enslave or kill me, should they be given the opportunity.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:46 amThe Giffords’ new motto.
“Liberty! Ridge! Farm! Where you have to shut up and do as you’re told.”
Yeah, liberty!
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:47 amI agree about the lesbians and facebook Mr. 67, though I think the State would’ve or at least could’ve taken up the case on that basis without a formal complaint
but on the other hand…
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:48 amwhat people in the wedding business who feel like how the Giffords feel should do is just put in their advertising and promotional materials that there are certain people they refuse to do business with
saying that you’re a wedding venue or service but then turning people away that want to get married is false advertising I think
and me personally I would appreciate the forthrightness
I think a LOT of people don’t wanna do business with these Giffords types same as how they don’t want to do business with gay people, but the views of the Giffords ones are always a big secret until some lesbian or gay couple does us the courtesy of informing us about the business practices of these places
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:48 amMr. feets, why do you hate America so much you want to make it not America?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:49 amMr. *57* I mean
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:49 amJust FYI, this is not cool.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:50 amFirst, the state wouldn’t have taken action against the Giffords without a formal complaint. How would they know.
And in what used to be America, you had the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:51 amUnlike you, I see no need to kowtow to those who would make junior high school insults.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:52 amAmerica is already not America you can only find America in the in-between places
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:53 amOk, maybe I’m a little jaundiced about this because the camel jockey who took my money at the Shell yesterday was rude; either because he saw my crucifix or because he thought I was a Mexican — I’d been doing landscaping all week and I had the pickup.
First off, no single fact in this case is dispositive for either side. We need to look at the totality of the circumstances. That the Gifford’s place of business is also their abode is not dispositive. Not for me, anyway. And, please, a farm is primarily a place of business which may or may not have a farmhouse on it.
First Amendment protection is not as broad as the RFRA, and the RFRA does not apply to the states. New York’s anti-discrimination statute must be weighed against the SCOTUS cases outside of Hobby Lobby. Those cases do not allow absolute religious freedom. Your employer can still fire you if you test positive for sacramental peyote in a zero-tolerance workplace. The Amish must still send their children to school until a certain age. The Greeks must have a fire extinguisher system in their churches if they want to have a thousand people holding lit candles in them on Easter.
Hobby Lobby helps the employer in the case of the Muslims who do not want to deliver liquor in my opinion. The RFRA applies to the EEOC. The employer can claim that the EEOC is forcing him to comply with Sharia law. It’s workplace discrimination under the Commerce Clause vs. the First Amendment establishment clause. It will be an interesting case if the employer wants to keep on paying his lawyers.
nk (dbc370) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:57 amJust FYI, this is not cool.
mr. carlitos – that is mr. feets speak
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:01 pmJust FYI, this is not cool.
carlitos – Just FYI, what is not cool is for you to hold you objection to language here in the face of Mr. Feets constant misogyny, misandry and anti-religious bigotry until I mirror it back to him.
Just FYI, you know what that makes you, a BIG FAT HYPOCRITE!!!!!!!11ty!!!!!!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:05 pmYou’re right.
This is so not cool.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:06 pmThen again carlitos, you seem to have no problem with anti-religious bigotry, so suck my dick!
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:07 pmAnd then after finding it have the lesbians do the lord’s work of destroying it?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:07 pmHave they allowed a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Taoist, Shintoist, Wiccan, or Methodist wedding before this, I wonder. To a devout Christian all those should be blasphemous.
nk (dbc370) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:11 pmMIRROR MIRROR ON THE WALL
you are very shiny
happyfeet (a7d317) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:20 pmFeets? give carlitos a reacharound, tame that shrew!
Colonel Haiku (9298f8) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:25 pmI apologize if I missed your sarcasm with the lesbians, but “moose slimes” is not something I’m going to leave unchallenged.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:34 pmnk, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Other faiths are not “blasphemous” to Christians after all it was we who coined the term “Freedom of Religion”. Christians respect other faiths but we don’t respect what we consider perversion. Unless you’re saying gay sexual deviancy is now a religion?
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/26/2014 @ 12:46 pmcarlitos – Accepted. You don’t have to suck my dick if you don’t want to. I’m not the boss of you. It was wrong of me to say that. I apologize.
If you go back to the wedding dress thread you will see I am mirroring his anti-religious bigotry, and my words also repeat his every day misogyny and misandry against non-gay people.
The moose thing was not mine.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:05 pmnk, I don’t see how allowing a Jewish wedding (for example) would be blasphemous.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:26 pmI’ve said that for years.
In fact it was making the breakthrough to understanding that led me to my breakthrough in understanding the relationships between all “ideologies” and “theologies” beyond the simplistic “economic freedom”/”individual freedom” x/y axis set up.
And that is why I have said for years that Atheism is the second most intolerant religion on the planet.
Sam (e8f1ad) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:26 pmWhich of course never fails to send the most aggressively intolerant and fanatical among them into a frenzy attempting to deny that their belief is not based on faith in something they declare cannot be proven.
As usual with such cases, this has nothing to do with the state’s recognition of same sex marriage, and instead is a result of the state’s general anti-discrimination law.
NY Exc Law Section 296 says, in part:
It shall be an unlawful discriminatory practice for any person, being the owner, lessee, proprietor, manager, superintendent, agent or employee of any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement, because of the race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, or disability or marital status of any person, directly or indirectly, to refuse, withhold from or deny to such person any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities or privileges thereof, including the extension of credit, or, directly or indirectly, to publish, circulate, issue, display, post or mail any written or printed communication, notice or advertisement, to the effect that any of the accommodations, advantages, facilities and privileges of any such place shall be refused, withheld from or denied to any person on account of race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, or disability or marital status, or that the patronage or custom thereat of any person of or purporting to be of any particular race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex or marital status, or having a disability is unwelcome, objectionable or not acceptable, desired or solicited.
The “wedding site owner” is the owner of a place of public accomodation (a venue for hosting a wedding).
The “wedding site owner” is denying access to the place of public accomodation based on the sexual orientation of the wedding participants.
This seems like it’s a cut-and-dried thing: the law in NY state *clearly* prohibits the behavior of the “wedding site owner”.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:31 pmYeah, the world is really a scary place, with those aggressively intolerant and fanatical atheists running around.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:33 pmTo a devout Christian all those should be blasphemous.
Um., no. The validity of marriage rites is recognized by default by ecclesiastical tribunals. There would, in certain circumstances, have to be an inquiry to ascertain if the parties’ marriage was defective of form. The thing is, a sham ceremony with two men is not recognized as a ‘marriage rite’.
The implication of Catholics in non-Catholic ceremonial is the subject of pastoral advisories There is neither dogma nor specific discipline appended for mere attendance and facility. The advisories used to be much stricter than they are as we speak. It would be an issue of a Catholic adherent actually was a party to or a participant in a non-Catholic wedding (above and beyond being present).
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:34 pmAnd, again, nk, both the plaintiff and all the lawyers participating in this legal travesty are engaged in a series of acts which subject other people’s free association and use of their property to the second-guessing of lawyers. The legal profession is evil.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:36 pmThis seems like it’s a cut-and-dried thing: the law in NY state *clearly* prohibits the behavior of the “wedding site owner”.
1. The law is asinine.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:37 pm2. As are its defenders.
Art – it’s not asinine at all to have a law which says that someone who provides goods and services for sale to the public may not discriminate among customers on the basis of characteristics which the people of the state have agreed should not be the basis for discrimination. *Every state in the country* has such laws, as does the federal government, and the existence of such laws has done a great deal to make the marketplace fairer and more open.
I would support broadening NY’s law to include things like religious affiliation.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:41 pmIt’s included in “creed”.
nk (dbc370) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:53 pmNK – fair point, I’d skimmed over creed and missed it.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:56 pmrt – it’s not asinine at all to have a law which says that someone who provides goods and services for sale to the public may not discriminate among customers on the basis of characteristics which the people of the state have agreed should not be the basis for discrimination.
Oh, yes it is. The people involved are not monopolistic common carriers and the only people who have a cause of action are on the legal profession’s approved list of mascot groups. In a non-asinine legal order, the pair involved go find someone to voluntarily provide a venue.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 8/26/2014 @ 1:59 pmI was kidding about the Methodists, guys. I don’t consider Judaism blasphemous either, MD. My point was that if you allow weddings you’ve let more than the tip in. If there was a policy of “this is not church, marriages may be made in Heaven but I make hay here”, the owners would be on stronger ground.
nk (dbc370) — 8/26/2014 @ 2:04 pmThat’s not so cut and dried as you might think. The owner may well allow anyone to enter the place of public accommodation, he just won’t let everyone get married there. And if he doesn’t allow two heterosexual men to get married there, either, then it’s hard to claim that sexual orientation is the discriminating factor.
Chuck Bartowski (11fb31) — 8/26/2014 @ 2:09 pm#155… what did I miss?!?! If I have a vote, I say he still does…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/26/2014 @ 2:24 pmas teh saying goes
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/26/2014 @ 2:29 pmin for penny, in for pound… ing!
man up carlitos!
To get serious for a moment, why isn’t America already not America, and the in-between places where you can find the last few vestiges of what was America fewer and fewer and farther between?
It is of course because there once was an American culture, a civic religion it was, and leftists hated it and set out to destroy it.
As we can see, they’ve largely succeeded.
Still, I think our culture (and western civilization in general) is worth fighting for. So I don’t see the need to help the leftists destroy it.
Hence my opposition to gay marriage AND our immigration policy.
You see, no society without a cultural death wish would pursue those policies. But the leftists clearly want to kill off American culture, and to a great extent a lot of people who aren’t committed leftist want to prove they’re open-minded and nice people by helping them?!?!
Marriage has been how society reproduces itself. People will screw with or without marriage. But if you want to pass down the customs, norms, and values from one generation to the next you need marriage.
Leftists do not want those customs, norms, and values to pass down from one generation to another. So they set out on what is now approaching a century long project to destroy marriage. Beginning with no fault divorce, and now ending with SSM. Marriage is now officially no longer about having and raising children, which is a fatal redefinition. There will still be children, but government will be the surrogate parent. What shall be passed down is not culture but policy, because the people in charge think that culture not only shouldn’t be passed down it should be erased from the face of the Earth.
If you don’t believe me look at Obama’s “Life of Julia” presentation. Julia doesn’t need a man in her life. She has government from cradle to grave as a substitute for father/husband. She has a son. He appears in one slide. Why? He too has government from cradle to grave. What does he need a mom for?
Meanwhile we import a massive replacement population by destroying our borders and our immigration laws. A replacement that has no connection or even knowledge of what was once American culture. Instead they will be indoctrinated to believe aforementioned government policy is American culture. And why wouldn’t they believe it? They don’t know any better.
It isn’t just happening here. It’s happening throughout the west.
http://www.amren.com/news/2012/08/ingrid-carlqvists-tale-i-bruxelles-i-want-my-country-back/
Of course there is/was such a thing as Swedish culture, but the leftists hated it so they denied it existed. And there are/were Swedish traditions worth mentioning, so the leftists who hated them branded them as racist to intimidate people so they wouldn’t mention them.
I guess it depends on the price you have to pay for mentioning them that makes it worth it or not.
Pim Fortuyn was a gay Dutch politician who thought those cultural values and traditions were worth mentioning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pim_Fortuyn
In the name of tolerance he was assassinated for mentioning them. He wondered why the famed Dutch tolerance that allowed him to live freely and openly as a gay man also meant Holland should import a hostile Muslim population that wanted to crucify him, hang him from a crane, topple a wall on him, throw him off a roof like the Palestinians with whom the LGBT community shows so much solidarity for some reason, or whatever is the popular method of execution at the moment amongst the intolerant Muslims the Dutch were importing in the name of tolerance.
That made him “far right.” And to the tolerant left, that made him intolerable. So a tolerant leftist killed him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkert_van_der_Graaf
I don’t see my stance opposing gay marriage as “homophobic.” If Pim Fortuyn were alive today I think I could explain why I’m opposed to gay marriage sufficiently to where he might actually agree with me. If you want to live in a tolerant western civilization, then you need to maintain the western culture that preserves that civilization. Continuing to recognize that children are the central object of marriage is key to maintaining that culture.
Deliberately blinding yourself to that fact, as our overly educated mediocrities in the judiciary have done, while insisting the DREAMers or whatever are our future doesn’t imply you think that culture needs to be destroyed and replaced with something else. It’s saying it loudly and in no uncertain terms.
They have been saying it in no uncertain terms, mr. feets. Which is why America is already not America, and you can only find what’s left of it in the cracks and crevices where they haven’t got around to stomping it out. When they finish the project that’s going to hurt gay people as much as it’s going to hurt the rest of us.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 2:32 pmTo elaborate on Steve57 point. It has been remarked that ‘popular culture’ is not ‘mass entertainment’. ‘Popular culture’ consists of the songs people sing themselves, of the civic story that they discuss over their own table, of the fragments of wisdom and rules of thumb about living that are passed down in families. As popular culture is not mass entertainment, neither is it the artifact of occupational guilds. These are guilds not of intelligent people (engineers as a class of people are not promoting any particular social vision bar that their work is incongruent with Luddism). They are guilds of articulate people. Their business is replacing the organic culture with the issue of their own study committees. The teacher-training faculties, various and sundry professional associations, the Bar, the arts-and-sciences faculty, the mental health trade, the social services apparat. They’re there to tell you how to live with their dubious ‘expertise’.
An aspect of all of this is regulating spot human relations. An ever expanding collection of mascot groups – clients of the Anointed – have a cause of action. You do not. Ever expanding shares of the labor market are subject to the sorting mechanisms the Anointed devise (and with horrendous tolls attached to them). These are not precisely meritocratic (see what’s happened to civil service recruitment). Ever expanding shares of human activity are subject to the second-guessing of lawyers. Ever expanding shares of humanity are subject to the ministrations of the mental health trade. The news media invariably report all stories with the assumptions of the Anointed encoded with them; only a few screwballs like John Stossel use any other framework.
It was a generation ago that Christopher Lasch offered that the social services and mental health trade held to a conception of family life wherein parents were mere gatekeepers for an array of salaried professionals. The Anointed hold to a vision of commerce where everyone is the legal profession’s bitch. They hold to a vision of maturation where everyone is fodder for the higher-education rent-seekers.
One impediment to the artifact culture designed by the Anointed is the actually existing popular culture. So, that has to be destroyed by preventing its expression and packing the meeting with those who do not adhere to it.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 8/26/2014 @ 2:59 pmYou are so right Steve57. In order to kill off American culture they had to kill off the American Family. They did start with a three pronged attack: no fault divorce, abortion and now same sex marriage. The defining cultural identity is how we treat our children, how we maintain our families and progeny and how we structure our moral base. SSM inserts some new entitlement to previously unacceptable behavior all through history simply to undermine the Judeo-Christian heritage of our country. Devout Christians cannot be tolerated and must either be neutralized or if needed stomped out because they: 1. don’t believe in abortion, 2. don’t agree with the legitimacy of SSM and 3. don’t believe the government should be a child’s surrogate father or mother.
After 50 years of aborting as many ( would be ) natural born American children it is now time for the leftists to import, DREAM or amnesty as many non American cultures as they can an mold then into dependents of the state and loyal Democrat voters. And I say Democrat voters simply because that is the party the leftists-anarchists-socialists-communists-atheists managed to take control of. The real Democrat Party died in Dallas in 1963 and there hasn’t been a real, loyal, American Democrat since.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:05 pmthere’s nothing more un-American than saying go away gay people we don’t want you here
and there’s nothing more un-Christian than telling gay people they’re unworthy of being married in the eyes of the Lord
people are people so why should it be christians have to treat gay people awfully
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:07 pmHelp me understand, feets… the intolerant must be accommodated and tolerated?
Colonel Haiku (9298f8) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:17 pmWhen did gays become a protected class? You can refuse service to someone because you don’t like their eye color. A new “class” based solely upon behavior is ridiculous.
Marko (7deb77) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:28 pmMarko – in NYS, at least, sexual orientation became a protected classification in 2002, when the legislature passed, and the governor signed, an amendment to the state human rights law which added it to the list of protected classifications.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:34 pminfidel.
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:35 pmaphrael @158, I realize that as a matter of law you are correct. But are these laws more harmful then beneficial?
“We can not tolerate intolerance” is in and of itself a form of intolerance.
And I can speak as someone who fell into one of the protected classes.
Most people would be surprised to find that there are some businesses that just don’t want service members as their customers. But there are. I remember once when I and my compadres were young and foolish we encountered just such a place. So we went home, put on our choker whites with medals (not many, just marksmanship and National Defense) and ribbons (had a couple from going to sea) and went back and basically dared them to turn us away.
They let us in. It was still foolish for a couple of reasons. One, you don’t wear a Navy uniform, even a liberty uniform, to score what basically amounts to a political point. That’s just wrong.
Point being, I understand the resentment when someone doesn’t want to serve “your kind.” So much so I stepped over a line I shouldn’t have stepped over. Fortunately the statute of limitations, if any, has long passed.
Just once did I do that. Every other time I went somewhere where I was welcome. I’ve also lived in countries where there are no antidiscrimination laws. There were some places that wouldn’t let me in. At first. Then I made friends with the locals, who would vouch for me. And those places weren’t that great anyway. Between the time they first wouldn’t let me in until they finally relented I found better places anyway.
Final recollection. I recall a liberty call in the SF Bay Area. On my last night me and my GF decide to go by a friends place to have a drink. He had a bar on Market St. It turns out on that night he had signed an agreement with a group called “Code Blue.” It was a lesbian group; they collected the cover charge, and he retained the bar receipts. They wouldn’t let me in because of my gender. Keep in mind it was still what you would call a public accommodation. Any member of the public could enter if they paid the cover charge. Code Blue just illegally excluded members of the public if they were the wrong gender, illegal back then under Kali law.
What made it particularly absurd at the time is a SF golf club, the Olympic Club, was hosting a tournament and was under fire because it didn’t allow female members. This was perfectly legal. It was a private club and the organization and had the right of free association. As opposed to the bar that had no members discriminating against people of one gender. A cover charge does not a private organization make. If an unknown person has the right of entry upon paying a cover charge, it is still a public accommodation.
I walked on. I had no desire to spend my last night ashore in jail, to miss movement, or to harm my friends business.
Did I mention they had a uniformed SFPD officer as a bouncer? He was off duty, but he was still in uniform, telling me I couldn’t go into a bar that was open to any member of the public as long as they paid the cover charge and had a vagina. Meanwhile, the city of SF was trying to (and ultimately succeeded) in strong-arming an honest to goodness private organization with real membership requirements to make them take people with both variations of genitalia as members. Or else.
It being a free country (it was back then) I found another place.
Honestly, what’s the big deal?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:35 pmArt – in general, state anti-discrimination laws do not apply only to monopolistic common carriers; they apply to anyone doing business with the general public.
It’s one thing if you are arguing that such laws shouldn’t extend to sexual orientation. But you seem to be arguing that such laws are per se asinine, which to me means that you object to them in toto – even the part of them that bans discrimination on the basis of race or creed. The dramatic reduction of such discrimination is one of the great achievements of the latter half of the twentieth century, and the laws you describe as ‘asinine’ played a big part in that reduction.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:36 pmCorrection. I fell into two protected classes. I was in the Navy, and I had a penis.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:38 pmit’s so easy Mr. Colonel
hi welcome to my place of business how can i help you?
yes we can do that
ok so what date do you have in mind?
ok very good we have an opening then so now we’ll need a small deposit to hold the date
ok then no worries let’s pick a day in the next week or so to sit down and talk about the details – I can put together a quote for you then but just so you know the range is probably in the area of this to this
good good let me know if want to know about local services around here – we have a florist we work a lot with and we can recommend a range of bakeries, caterers, local dj people… we have a pianist we really really love he went to julliard we love him to death he always elevates every occasion he’s a part of
but we can hash all this out later
thank y’all so much for coming by I’m excited to have the opportunity to work with you on this
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:39 pmd let me know if *you guys* want to know about local services I mean
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:39 pmSteve57 – *personally*, I would never push the issue; if a business doesn’t want my business, I’ll take it somewhere else. I think the people who insisted on a wedding cake from someone who didn’t want to bake them one were crazy to do so, and I think their antics do more to hurt the cause than to help it.
But that just means that sometimes the right thing to do is to tolerate illegal behavior, because doing so is overall more productive and better for bringing people together.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:39 pmJim Crow laws were more anti-business than anti-black.
If you’ve got a county that’s 80% black, and no locals want to serve them lunch, then some carpetbagger like me is going to come in and let them sit at the counter and I will take their order. So long as their money is green.
So Jim Crow laws had to be implemented to stop someone like me from taking advantage of the market opportunity. Jim Crow laws stopped businesses from accommodating people they would have otherwise been perfectly willing to accommodate.
All that was necessary to stop discrimination was to abolish mandatory, “must discriminate” laws. There was never a valid reason to compel a private property owner to provide services to everyone if that private property owner provided services to some people for a fee.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:47 pmColonel, Happy is getting his hate-on. Somewhere, right now, a gay is getting beheaded by a non-Christian. and Happy is absolutely outraged by his imagined Christian sleights.
felipe (40f0f0) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:48 pm“They” also undermined the family by providing economic support to a woman and her children as the rule, rather than the exception.
It seems to me that the long term goal of anti-discrimination laws is no where near being met, if the goal was to promote a society that “got along with each other”. I’ve lived in predominately black or Spanish speaking neighborhood for the majority of my life and served more patients that were not English speaking white than those that were, but I’d like for folks to believe that I did so out of choice, not because I was told to.
I wonder if whether or not we would be better off as a country and as individuals in that country if anti-discrimination laws had been limited to the public sector, i.e., govt. And instead of false cries of “racism” here, there, and everywhere, one could really tell who the racists were after all.
Aphrael, as said by others, maybe the specific issue in NY law is the anti-discrimination laws rather than same sex weddings, but in my mind, so what. You want to make a law that says a person must violate their conscience in their own living room or go out of business?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:12 pmLike I said above, if one’s religious freedom is defined by what one is allowed to do by the government, that really isn’t freedom.
[Yes, we know religious freedom for one cannot include making someone else do something or be the victim of some act, but freedom of association seems that it should not be that difficult.]
All that was necessary to stop discrimination was to abolish mandatory, “must discriminate” laws. There was never a valid reason to compel a private property owner to provide services to everyone if that private property owner provided services to some people for a fee.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 3:47 pm
yeah, that.
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:16 pmThis goes along with what I once said (not uniformly accepted) that the government should make it hard to be bad and easy to be good. Getting rid of laws that said one cannot serve blacks would have made it easier for people to be good,
instead of the illusion of making people “be” good.
But why should that behavior be illegal? I can tolerate all sorts of behavior without thinking there should be a law against it.
Isn’t that the definition of “tolerate.” As in, “I don’t like what you’re doing, I would never do it, but you should be free to do things I don’t like?”
After the Foley beheading I found myself thinking of Pim Fortuyn. There is a reason why Foley’s murderer had a British accent. He lived among us. I think Fortuyn was something of a canary in the coal mine. I’ve been thinking that for years.
Foley’s murderer thinks there is nothing we have to defend. We have no soul. I’ve been thinking over the past twenty years about what it is I’m willing to defend. My understanding of Fortuyn is that he woke up to the fact that in the name of tolerance he was planting the seeds of destruction that would eliminate the very society that allowed him to live as he wished.
What if I’m right, and in order to keep the barbarians away we need a strong society. And to have a strong society having and raising children have to remain central to the purpose of marriage. Which would mean gay marriage is not an option.
What if it turns out you can have one thing, but not the other at the same time. Peace and freedom to love how you want, or gay marriage? But not both.
This goes to the heart of the matter of why groups like ISIS think this is their moment. We are questioning the most basic underpinnings of our society, and they aren’t. A Muslim who lived all his life in Jordan wouldn’t know that. A Muslim who grew up in Britain would.
Sorry for the “homophobia.”
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:19 pmWould it make any difference if this farm no longer charged for their services, but would accept donations irrespective of service, and any body that used their facility would be guests?
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:26 pmThere are people who run their businesses that way.
No, doc, it wouldn’t make a difference. The point isn’t to resolve a conflict in a way that’s fair to all but to create a problem that empowers government to impose a solution.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:37 pmDoes my cynicism show in this outfit?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:38 pmLegally, I think it would make a difference – at that point they’re no longer providing a public accomodation legally speaking, and so the anti-discrimination statute doesn’t apply.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:38 pmErr, does this dress make my cynicism look big?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:41 pmaphrael, I wasn’t trying to explore the legality of the decision but the thinking behind the law that resulted. Which I’m convinced is wrong.
You appear to have a different opinion, which I’d like to hear.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:44 pmfeets, I got a better idea… what say the gayplainants find another place to accomodate their special needs? There must be many of those out there… unless that really wasn’t what they were interested in doing.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:50 pmthat’s fine Mr. Colonel but the wedding business people what hate gays should still advertise it so gay people don’t have to waste their time
as it is it’s not unreasonable for people to be annoyed when they go to a business and get turned away
it’s a huge waste of time for them at a time when they have a lot to get accomplished
weddings are a huge pain in the ass to put together you know
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:52 pmWho hates gays, mr. feets?
The wedding people who say you are welcome to have your reception at my home, just not the ceremony?
Or the people invading Iraq who think gay people should be disemboweled and their heads put on pikes?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:56 pmDon’t fib for the gaystapo, mr. feets. It’s unbecoming.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:57 pmnonsense, feets, people spend a lot of time getting into trendy eateries (for example) and often must call several before being accommodated… no?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:58 pmbut finding a place wasn’t REALLY what these two were after, feets.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/26/2014 @ 4:59 pmYou look ten years younger when you’re not trying to fraudulently tell Christians that Christ demands they host gay marriages in their living rooms.
For reals.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:00 pmReally. And your coat is sleek and glossy when you’re not advocating fascism, but instead tacos.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:02 pmChrist likes gay people more than beans you can tell it’s so obvious
jesus loves the little children all the children of the whirl
he likes it when people make loving commitments to each other
it’s one of his things like fish tacos and craft beer
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:07 pmah yes, Pim Fortuyn, funny how tolerance only runs in certain direction,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27261291
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:08 pmi may not agree
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:19 pmbut will defend to teh death
yer right to Eff (_____)
“He has expressed remorse for the murder, and prosecutors do not think he will be a repeat offender”.
Well, at least we have that.
felipe (40f0f0) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:23 pmA musical interlude for you, mr. feets.
What was formerly Portagee West Africa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grc8rHTG81s
And what was formerly Portagee East Africa:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yH9Yq5j6zk
I only bring it up because a) it’s nice to take a break and b) I enjoy the music but c) I wanted to see if carlitos would take offense to my use of the word “portagee.”
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:24 pmWhat moms is cooking up at about the 2:05 point in the Mozambique video makes me hungry.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:34 pmi love the Perola but Amazon doesn’t have it for my cloud
music-wise they’re kind of lame
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:36 pmthe other one sounds too disney for me right now
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:37 pmi’m bookmarking the mozambique one though cause i love the buried tires as lawn furniture idea
that’s very clever in a keepin-it-real way
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:39 pmIt’s a developing country, mr. feets, cut them a break. I love Mozambique piri piri sausce, though.
http://fishcooking.about.com/od/saucesforfishandseafood/r/piripiri_sauce.htm
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:41 pmPerola is from Angola.
I made a rhyme?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:42 pmno for reals i love the tires
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:49 pmthat would be cute at my brother’s river house
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:50 pmI tried. I thought you might like it as a peace offering. Since I thought you were being a bit too authoritarian about who had to host gay weddings on whose farms.
I guess my taste in music is like my taste for what I should be able to do with my own farm; a little too disney and make believe.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:50 pmMy HOA is going to lose control of it’s bowels when I color match that green and say that’s what I’m painting my house in.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:52 pmnonono
i’m all about the peace
here’s a disney one i love Darleen found
i bought the whole cd which I love except for it has a bunch of patriotic America songs on it which sound stupid stupid stupid these days but maybe on some future day they won’t sound stupid
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:52 pmHOA’s are frightening and arbitrary like ebola and race riots and Burger King tax inversions
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:54 pm(just kidding about Burger King)
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:54 pmArt – in general, state anti-discrimination laws do not apply only to monopolistic common carriers; they apply to anyone doing business with the general public.
I am aware of that. I am pointing out the obvious: that they are not legitimate unless they apply only to common carriers.
—
You need to get over this notion that the positive law is its own justification.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:56 pmThis one’s more up feets’s alley… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGNiXGX2nLU&sns=em
Colonel Haiku (b5bc8f) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:58 pmi have that whole cd too Mr. Colonel!
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 5:58 pmHOA’s are somewhat like the bloc committee’s you might find in a people’s republic:
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/pentagon-unaware-that-qatar-funds-terrorism/
don’t let the fact that they practice Sharia law, bother you.
narciso (ee1f88) — 8/26/2014 @ 6:01 pmEnjoy the piri piri sauce. I think, but I’m not sure, if you use enough pepper it will kill the ebola virus.
Dunno.
But I’ve been to Africa a few times and never caught ebola.
Maybe it was the Windhoek Lager.
This will take further testing, come to think of it.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 6:01 pmI knew you would, feets! Here’s another… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm9drIwmmU4&sns=em
Colonel Haiku (b5bc8f) — 8/26/2014 @ 6:08 pmThe dramatic reduction of such discrimination is one of the great achievements of the latter half of the twentieth century, and the laws you describe as ‘asinine’ played a big part in that reduction.
See Charles Murray on this point. Evaluations such as yours commonly confuse cause with manifestation. In any case, there is not at this time great pent up demand for kicking blacks out of luncheonettes willy nilly.
Certain systemic insults directed toward the black population were worthy perhaps of a different dispensation. Keep in mind that the antecedent system in the Southern United States was not libertarian in character. Segregation was obliged by the state commercial law of the day and law enforcement and the courts were systemically corrupted. Private carriers like Greyhound ignored federal statutes mandating desegregated facilities in order to avoid extra legal trouble down South (statutes that did not depend on creative interpretations of the federal constitution).
Since that time, there has been the progressive multiplication of ‘protected’ categories which not only subject parties to legal process unjustly. They also seem, either in black letters or in practice, to provide a cause of action only to clients of the Democratic Party. The courts and administrative agencies cannot be trusted to administer these laws in a non-sectarian fashion even as written.
And the laws have proved metastatic, and have injured the labor market, civil service recruitment and promotion, and the integrity of higher education (though not higher education conceived of as a business). Some of the mentality behind them has also injured primary and secondary schooling as well. It is time we turned to comprehensively voluntary social relations, and stopped allowing lawyers to boss us around.
Art Deco (ee8de5) — 8/26/2014 @ 6:11 pmgive me time to realize my crime!
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 6:16 pmTime’s up.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 6:30 pmHe’s stuck on stupid.
Gerald A (d65c67) — 8/26/2014 @ 6:46 pmIt’s the farm people who are cool with the reception, that’s fine, but just would rather have you hold the gay marriage ceremony somewhere else who hate gays.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_QfVWU-2pVL4/S2IvOJdnVtI/AAAAAAAALsY/wAzMrORcz1k/s640/Iran-Hanging.jpg
I ask you, how did we XtoFascists become so evil?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:03 pmAnd the people who don’t want to bake a SS wedding cake would have no problemo with baking a birthday cake for a gay.
Gerald A (d65c67) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:13 pmno way Mr. A I’m very savvy at negotiating my way through business dealings involving both christians and homosexuals
they give me monies and I provide them a service!
i’m thinking of getting a patent
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:13 pmI can tell. It’s uncanny.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:23 pmi just make it look easy is all
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:24 pmYou suave, silver-tongued devil, you.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:28 pmnice doing business with you!
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 7:32 pmIt’s mostly an outdoor venue. I’m not sure how they could accommodate a swingers party.
Carlitos, come on. Of all the arguments that can be made about why it’s a slippery slope to theorize what businesses like the one in New York may face in the future, to claim the physical layout of such operations will automatically prevent pushy, radical customers from demanding the right to hold wife-swapping or swingers party is the weakest one.
Mark likes sexual fantasies.
nk, you have to admit that the ethos of compassion for compassion’s sake — in all its cheap, dumb glory — can be sexy and stimulating in it’s own right. Hubba, hubba.
people are people so why should it be christians have to treat gay people awfully
happyfeet, you’re so full of it. You yourself are always making cracks about “gays” and gayness, so you know full well there’s something mock-worthy about homosexuality. Moreover, if gays and homosexuality are such a no-BFD matter to you — and you’re sputtering about how dare people feel uneasy about GLBT! — why don’t you come out and gladly, proudly declare your significant-other relationships with males?
Mark (14a4db) — 8/26/2014 @ 8:17 pmAgency Charges Trucking Company Failed to Accommodate and Wrongfully Terminated Two Muslim Employees For Refusal to Deliver Alcohol Due to Religious Beliefs
That’s why while any number of legal and political arguments can be made either for or against businesses that refuse to accommodate the GLBT, in reality it comes down to — as the saying goes — whose ox is being gored.
I can easily imagine a wide variety of liberal judges getting tongue tied and having to do a contortionist routine to reconcile their belief that business owners, in spite of their religion, must accommodate the whims of homosexual customers, while telling other business owners that they must accommodate the whims of employees because of their religion.
Since many on the left are strangely quite permissive about and tolerant towards Islamicism (hello, students and academicians at Brandeis University!), if a day ever comes in America’s future when liberals face their heads getting chopped off — literally or figuratively — by those same Islamicists, forgive me if I pause in knowing who to root for, who to root against.
Mark (14a4db) — 8/26/2014 @ 8:36 pmI’ve updated the post with yet another complaint made against a private business for refusing to host a gay wedding on the premises.
Dana (4dbf62) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:05 pmI think Mr. Rogosheske is conveying the sincere regret of his clients about how they handled this. In the future they won’t have this kind of problem cause they’ll treat everyone with respect even the gay people! That’s so cool how people can change.
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:24 pmThis will not end well. For gay people. Gays are, what, less than 2% of of the population?
People with some sort of religious belief are in the vast majority.
Gay people, is this really how you want it?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:36 pmthe vast majority of people with religious beliefs aren’t super-interested in discriminating against gay people Mr. 57
and even a lot of the people who are kinda interested in discriminating against gay people have the good sense to pick their battles
it’s definitely a tiny percentage of religious people what are lathered up enough to be mean to gay people to their face, and as the Minnesota story shows even some of these ones are repentant after they do it
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:40 pmOk, feets, you call it.
The vast majority of religious people have no patience for religion.
Go with that.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:43 pmYou will notice, feets, that you have much more success with your tactics with peeps who’ve never been within shouting distance of a Bible.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:46 pmi’m just saying there are tons of religious people happy to work with gay people on wedding stuff
you just never hear about those ones cause they’re normal
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:48 pmNot that I was making a biblical argument for keeping marriage as it has no business being otherwise. A man and a woman. I was making a cultural/anthropological argument.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:49 pmI’m just saying peope of all political stripes want to destroy America. Not knowing any better, like you. Why should I help any of them?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:52 pmpeope = people
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:52 pmPeople who invest in their own destruction are “normal?”
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:54 pmsad incompetent corrupt little America is definitely in big trouble but gay marriage is the least of its worries
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 9:56 pmPerhaps, mr. feets.
But teh gay marriagings wouldn’t exist unless Americuh was sad and currupt.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:00 pmit’s just plain old social change i think, and it doesn’t really meaningfully impact the vast majority of people one way or the other
life goes on
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:05 pmMr. Feets,
Since you seem to be an expert on Christian beliefs and Christians believe that the Bible is their handbook on life, can you provide Bible verses backing up your assertions?
If a Christian believes that homosexual behavior is a sin that prevents a person from going to heaven, why would they encourage that behavior? It seems to me that encouraging behavior that prevents a person from going to heaven is hateful and treating someone awfully. Wouldn’t the compassionate thing for the Christian to do is tell the person to stop the behavior so that they can go to heaven?
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:21 pmjust talk to people
it’s getting really hard to find militant anti-gay Christians in real life
especially among educated people
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:23 pmHow is a belief system that is over 2,000 years old extreme? I think the SSM are the ones who are acting militant. Are you going to provide Bible verses that back up your position?
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 8/26/2014 @ 10:43 pmyour position doesn’t really make sense
about half of all gay people in America are as religious as you or me, which means a lot of them accept Mr. Jesus Christ as their lord and savior
sure, about half of them are not religious, but these hostile and confrontational wedding business Christians don’t bother themselves about whether their straight customers are walking with the Lord, so it seems really silly that they would care so much about whether gay people were believers
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:00 pmI continue to find it hilarious that Mr. Feet rails against bigotry. I particularly liked the comment about “educated people.”
But there you go.
Simon Jester (5d9886) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:02 pmEven more amusing.
Hmmm. Something about motes and logs, am I right?
Simon Jester (5d9886) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:03 pmbut it’s true Mr. Jester survey after survey confirms that anti-gay prejudice is strongly inversely correlated with the level of education somebody has had, so if you want to find an anti-gay person in a pinch, your smart move is to look in places where you’re likely to find less-educated people
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:05 pmAh, c’mon, Mr. Feet. Your history of posting says it all.
You aren’t serious about much of anything. You are just emitting your own prejudices and opinions. Most snark in this odd performance art of yours.
Which is fine. Lots of people I like and respect think you are a riot.
But the comments about education and the related ones really show that you are indeed a bigot. You and I both know people who are good and kind and educated….and don’t believe the way you do. But you persist in insulting them. Here. In Patterico’s house.
He’s fine with it.
Which is cool. Your schtick will get you into allllll kinds of parties with the cool kids. Which is what you are all about, of course.
As Chef said to Meat Loaf on the South Park album, have a taco.
But I wish you wouldn’t insult people who post here. That’s just me.
Simon Jester (5d9886) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:09 pmMr. Feets – I sense a big business opportunity for you in gay wedding planning since SSM can’t seem to make wedding plans without tripping over somebody’s religious beliefs. Educated consumers are the best consumers. You could even put one of those rainbow thingamajigs on your ads!
Epic
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:23 pmYou and I both know people who are good and kind and educated….and don’t believe the way you do.
duh of course
but statistically speaking I’m still way more likely to find anti-gay people in a less-educated sample than in a more-educated sample
that’s not an insult that’s just reality
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:29 pmi’d love someday to have a farm like the Liberty one what could double as a venue Mr. daley
but not someday soon cause I would have to learn quickbooks
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:30 pmI’m feeling a message about indoctrination in there somewhere mr. feets
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/26/2014 @ 11:49 pmHostile? I think you’re projecting. Disagreement does not mean hate or hostility. They were not violent unlike the hostility of the gaystapo.
Maybe, because marriage between a man and woman is ordained in the Bible? Are you going to provide Bible verses that back up your position that Christianity endorses homosexual behavior and SSM?
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:17 amHostile? I think you’re projecting.
His reaction is so defensive and personalized about this matter, it’s not a stretch to assume he himself is either gay or bisexual. If so, the very fact such people often don’t nonchalantly come out and proclaim that about themselves, compared with the average guy who’s perfectly comfortable stating that he’s popular with all the ladies or is dating or getting married to a hot-looking girl, of and by itself, illustrates that homosexuality — particularly involving males — does make most folks pause and/or flinch, consciously or unconsciously.
BTW, famous ancient Greek philosopher Plato, after originally sounding like a big do-gooder modern-day liberal regarding homosexuality, eventually became quite scornful towards it. As far as I know, there were no bible-spouting Christians loitering around his part of the world at the time.
Mark (14a4db) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:09 am“There is a way that seems right to a person, the end thereof is death.”
“Not everyone who says Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but the one that does the will of my Father in Heaven”.
One can believe that it doesn’t matter what one’s religious beliefs are, for a number of reasons, but if you do that one is assuming that religious reality is different from the rest of reality. In the rest of reality, what one does has consequences. I drop a glass on a hard floor and it breaks. Cancer that is ignored typically grows and kills a person. Some think God wants them to kill gays, others think God wants them to warn gays that they are caught up in something destructive to their soul, others think God says no big deal, and others think there is no God to care one way or another.
You get to ponder the evidence between the various claims and takes your pick, choose carefully. (My customary Brothers Karamazov reference).
I’m not sure if it is reasonable for me to continue to dialogue with happyfeet, as there are things in the Bible about not casting pearls before swine and avoiding arguments with foolish people, and feets certainly indicates he has his mind made up about us hateful, ignorant, uneducated Christians.
But as is often the case, I do at times say things more for the benefit of others who may be thinking, “Yeah, why do they think that?”
I will say one more thing as far as how to live life in this country. This country has and can tolerate people believing different things. It cannot tolerate dishonesty as the norm, like the dishonesty that says in the public square that gays should be left alone to do what they want and it will not hurt anybody, when in reality everybody gets told what to do to comply with the new moral standards set by the state. Moral standards set by the state are usually pretty good when it is about what I cannot do to you against your will. When it becomes what I am not allowed to do with my own life then it is mainly arbitrary opinion.
As said of times past, “Everyone wants to do right in their own eyes”. That is the uniting factor of the Democratic party, promising every little group the right to do their own thing, including not going to school and not working and letting other people pay your way.
The fact that they are getting away with it so well is an indicator of how corrupt as a society we have become. Has the moral cancer already spread so far as to be fatal? Probably so, unless by God’s grace there is another Great Awakening.
America is not the worst nation on earth as many would have us believe, but relative goodness was never a good reason in God’s eyes to spare judgment, Habakkuk wondered why so much evil was allowed to happen in his land, God said he would take care of it by allowing a brutal and savage nation to come in and take over. Not quite what Habakkuk expected for an answer.
As others have said about Holland and other parts of Europe, thinking they had nothing to stand for or preserve, they are losing it all. Being able to find a business to take your money without forcing another to take your money should look pretty good compared to the rest of the world, but apparently it doesn’t,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:30 ambecause it isn’t about freedom, it’s about enforcing a minority standard of morality on everyone else.
i suspect if the shoe were on the other foot you’d have no problem characterizing the ungracious wedding peoples as “hostile”
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:37 amMr. Dr. your views are disappearing from America my views are flourishing
it’s a thing
sometimes I do say, more for the benefit of others, “wonder what that’s all about?”
all I can think is it’s all Darren Criss’ fault
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:42 amThen you suspect wrong. I think you should swap “project” for “suspect”.
Wrong again. Your views are just being shouted all over as ours are deeply held beliefs. You know happyfeet, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. And as MD in Philly asked “Has the moral cancer already spread so far as to be fatal? Probably so, unless by God’s grace there is another Great Awakening.”
So happyfeet you can remain part of our social, moral and cultural problem or you can open your mind to understand that we Christians don’t have to celebrate what you believe and we can still love you as a person. You should also understand that just because 3 or 5% of the population is gay does not mean every time they feel “slighted” the rest of our culture should genuflect in their direction. After all, the only thing keeping gays safe is our culture of tolerance. Christians and Jews don’t cut off gays heads, Moslems do. But if all the little petty factions keep eroding the strength and will of our culture guess who will step in to fill the void? Wedding cakes will be the least of their problem. In other words, they should stop biting the hand the feeds them, or frees them, however you look at it.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:12 amDidn’t think you would answer my question, you haven’t in the past. By not answering my question, I can only come to the conclusion that you don’t know.
Well, off to work, be back later.
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:16 amlook being nice to people is easy for normal people
it’s only hard for Christians
they need to take a serious look at how they got to be such assholes
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:16 amPatterico, you have my email, could you please let me know what part of my comment #209 has caused me to be in moderation since 8/26/2014 @ 5:24 pm ? I want to avoid doing that again, thanks.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:19 amit’s only hard for *some* Christians I should say
and the majority of these ones are ignorant trailer trash
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:21 amand that is a deeply held belief, #276
it is NEVER going to be ok to treat gay people like crap in the name of Jesus
it might be legal, which is fine
but it’s not ok
not in America
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:23 amAssholes? Ah, Mr. Feet. You really are the guest at Patterico’s party who makes the host proud you were invited.
You have many friends, but your bigotry continues to show. That can’t make them proud.
It’s embarrassing, and takes away from your point about tolerance.
Kind of like a person kecturing others about dignity with his fly being down.
You should zip up.
Simon Jester (5d9886) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:24 amMr. Jester discriminating against people on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong
pure and simple
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:34 amSigh. You keep doing this straw man thing. Pardon me, straw cisgendered heteronrmative thing.
You are being actively rude to any number of people here, on this blog, who have been kind and patient with your bizarre and childish antics.
You keep saying you respect differences. You also say your opinion is the correct one and is “winning.”
I doubt you actually feel that way. And if you did, why insult them?
Calling people whores and hootchies and getting weird about Sararh Palin is one thing. Calling people of faith assholes is, um, not very Christian of you.
Please stop.
Seriously, zip up your fly. Be polite to folks here.
Simon Jester (5d9886) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:43 ami called some people of faith assholes Mr. Jester, the ones who discriminate against people who are gay
it’s not ok
After all, the only thing keeping gays safe is our culture of tolerance.
it’s simply not ok
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:48 amHere’s one for you happyfeet:
Those asshole Christians!
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:49 ami will point out the obvious for you Mr. Jester
none of the people here as far as we know have actually discriminated against any gay people, so they’re not included amongst those upon which i have cast my scurrilous aspersions are they?
no they are not
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:50 amfeets,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:52 amHad more people acted like you when the issue of gay rights first came up, there would be no need for any of this discussion, the vast majority of people would have realized this is not about tolerance, but changing societal norms with the force of law.
Mr. Hoagie I have NEVER advocated ostracizing religious people
never ever ever
but I don’t condone discrimination against gay people, and I think it’s reflective of poor character and breeding
Sneaker’s Bistro bless their hearts they stepped in it
if their pancakes were only marginally good i would stop going there, but if they were really tasty I would keep going there
that is my opinion about the Sneaker’s Bistro
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:53 amfeets,
MD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:58 amIt depends what you mean by discriminating against.
If believing that the SS lifestyle is harmful to people and wrong is discriminating, then I do it 24/7.
That doesn’t keep me from being kind and treating their diseases, but if someone asked me to be the best man at a gay wedding I would say no, and I would not bake them a wedding cake or let them use my living room for their wedding, no matter how much they wanted to pay me. (I wonder if refusing to be best man can be litigated as causing harm, emotional pain and such).
Mr. Dr. I absolutely do NOT think that the wedding business people who are so ungracious to their gay would-be customers should face legal sanction
but I think they’re sociopathic and I’d prefer to do business with people who don’t discriminate against gay people
and further I think business what are discriminatory are committing false advertising if they don’t communicate their discriminatory policies in their advertising and promotional materials
letting people know ahead of time they’re not welcome to do business with you is just basic courtesy I think
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:59 amNo happyfeet, it may be illegal but it isn’t wrong. If I choose not to associate with someone for any damn reason I want it’s my right as an individual. For another to force me to is tyranny. I may be wrong “pure and simple but I ain’t no tyrant. I respect your right to free association enough to let you associate with whom you wish, grant me the same.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 8:59 amMD in Philly (f9371b) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:30 am
That’s why they want to reduce the number of mammograms and other cancer tests. (the problem may be with the definition of cancer)
Sammy Finkelman (7d0d47) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:00 amHF
Look, I have gay people in my life and do understand the intent to be married, to own property, to have children and to be accepted by society.
Explaining to them the personal level of acceptance, do we all really accept people? I mean, just this morning because my family is scattered on 3 continents, people question my marriage, our devotion to each other and some days it gets very trying, two good friends of mine just left and I showed them an email from my wife from work she sent at 5am – to reassure them that everything s good even after 25 years – things are tough in Jakarta, just like things are tough for people everywhere.
But getting back to the topic – There are also those who marry young, who marry in high school, who just are not taken seriously and many marriage sites, bakeries refuse them service.
The main thing is the devotion to each other cannot be brought asunder by the callowness of intolerant people. But those people in their intolerance are committing a statement to the devotional ties of a family, so their intolerance isn’t one of avarice but of faith and deeply held beliefs.
I would be highly agitated if a gay couple were denied employment, the right to adopt, the right to adjoining funeral plots – and god forbid, if they died together – I would be really angry and upset if a priest would not perform the ceremony.
I am not Jesus, I listen to the Sermon and remember what he said, don’t think the word a..hole was in it.
For us to make a new entitled group of people is trying and can backfire more than propel forward – to accept them is to deny the existence of the belief system that motivates our judicial system and founded the country.
Some things cannot be changed as easily as a speech and a march on Washington
EPWJ (db4127) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:04 amI’m not forcing anyone
I’m simply saying that people who open up a business and turn away gay customers are bad people
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:06 amI should have said – to force acceptance, too many, is to deny the existence of the belief system…
EPWJ (db4127) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:06 amHF
No they are forcing acceptance and its not going to happen – ever
EPWJ (db4127) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:07 amHF
I don’t judge them, because it’s their business all business’s have the right to refuse their services to anyone – federal statutes notwithstanding – the inherent right of free will take’s precedence over what the state can dictate
Also, if they don’t want me – hell – why in the F.. should I ever give them my money – screw em
EPWJ (db4127) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:10 amMr. EPWJ I ‘m not advocating a new entitlement I don’t think that’s the answer
I do think though that people who are appalled at this tacky tacky discrimination against gay people that we see in the two instances in the post should register their opprobrium (sp?) in no uncertain terms
it’s not “polite” to act like discrimination against gay people is ok
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:10 amSo, Mr. Feet, I guess I can say that people who don’t vote are lazy and intolerant assholes, right?
That’s not a slam at you. Because I said it wasn’t.
You really are a piece of work.
You have directly insulted several people here, and your claim that you don’t mean anyone here is silly and juvenile sophistry.
But hey. You are funny and cute. Right?
And very, very tolerant.
Simon Jester (5d9886) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:11 amYou will also notice I haven’t discussed my own opinions on the issue that has you so inflamed.
Here is a hint: I’m a libertarian.
But I don’t think people who disagree with me are evil, stupid, whores, or whatever expletive you care to hurl.
When people disagree with me, while I am visiting in someone else’s house, like this one, I try to be polite.
My parents raised me that way.
Simon Jester (5d9886) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:15 amMr. Jester the stuff you say is fine it has little effect on me the thing what most affected me in this thread was where Mr. Hoagie said about “the only thing keeping gays safe”
that really startled me, and I was unduly frank in my response
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:24 amI don’t really care about these ‘hot’ domestic issues much because we’re going to be sorting out the gene pool in a big way.
Darwin is not mocked.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:29 amWow! I wonder Mr. Feets what you think of people who supported proposition 8?
You missed sociopath.
I really do have to go to work now.
Tanny O'Haley (f5a155) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:49 amI hope mr. carlitos kept reading the thread 🙂
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/27/2014 @ 10:31 am🙂
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 10:40 amThey weren’t ungracious. They were very gracious. The said they were willing to host the reception. They politely declined to host the ceremony.
They simply just refused to be your beeotches in all things.
And that infuriates you down to your happy-go-lucky, I’m-just-a-pikachu fascist heart-of-hearts.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 10:43 amWhen fascism comes to America, it will support gay marriage and discuss Mexican food recipes.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 10:50 amDidn’t mean to startle you happyfeet. What I meant with the ““the only thing keeping gays safe”” comment is that we Christians are taught to be tolerant and accepting of people not necessarily what those people do. And that the Judeo-Christian philosophy, culture and social contract we call The Constitution is the bulwark of that belief in our country’s law. I would no more dream of harming a gay person than I would stomping on a puppy but I would also never accept the legitimacy of SSM and therefore would not enable nor participate in one.
BTW, what happens when a gay couple demands to be married in a Christian church because if not they are being discriminated against? Then the Christians should just disband as a religion because they don’t accept the legitimacy of gay marriage? Or do we send in the legions of lawyers and if necessary cops to enforce the edict of The Chosen “more intelligent” Elites among us who know better than 2000 years of Christian thought and teaching?
Tell me, exactly what are Christians allowed to believe in your politically correct world, if anything?
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 10:54 amThere are actual recipes for Mexican food? I thought they just slapped things together in layers and made up funny names for it.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 10:56 amHave you suggested attending a remedial biology class or two? Because if having children is your goal, same-sex relationships ain’t the way to go about it.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 10:59 amwell i apologize for my intemperate response Mr. Hoagie
i can’t draw a line between letting someone get married on your property and being in anyway culpable for their marriage
no more than people who own motels are accountable for the unspeakably fun things what happen in the rooms there
but nonono churches have to make their own minds up about whether they want to do gay marriagings
I don’t really see the big deal everything’s better with god’s blessing
a my church we had a ceremony to bless the new sprinkler system one time
you should see how pretty the lawn is
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:01 amin *any way* i mean
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:01 amMy goal is to be able to fly, so I married a penguin. Then I found out how unfair life is. Where do I file a grievance?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:01 amoh and that should be *at* my church
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:02 amMr. 57 the only good thing about the grievances is it helps put businesses on record as to how they can be expected to treat gay people in the future, and I think that is good consumer information…
and I think that the grievance committee, whatever form it takes, will have done all it needs to do if it makes a record that this is a business what is discriminatory so that people can decide whether or not they want to go to that one or maybe go to a different one
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:04 amI luv how feets endorses the iron fist of fascism by trying to use the language of freedom. As if nobody would see through it.
It’s wearing a bit thin, doncha think, feets?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:15 amFTFY, feets
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:20 amHappy feet are wearing steel toed boots and stomping on your face.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:21 amnonono I just want people to be nice and make cakes and stuff
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:26 amSteve, that’s nothing new. It’s just whatever Mr. Feet likes. He is not exactly a heavy lifter with regard to research or deep thought, after all. More reactive, I think, from his heart. I think everyone is like that, to an extent. I have learned a great deal from many posters here (some of whom I decidedly do not agree with), and I miss a number of them who no longer participate. I do admit I wonder if all the “whores,” “hootchies,” “trailer trash,” “stupid,” and “asshole” comments have driven them away. I hope not. I truly think of this comments section like a cocktail party at Patterico’s house. Perhaps I am wrong to think that way.
There are many examples of issues that Mr. Feet—whom people I know well and respect like—is, um, inconsistent upon. He says he doesn’t like discrimination, and wants people to do what they like in their personal lives. Except for multiple marriages. Mr. Feet can’t help insulting those people, which I find ironic and…a bit inconsistent. It’s like the comment he just made that people who oppose SSM are “uneducated.” “Studies have shown,” we were told. But hey, there are studies that say all kinds of things—including the facile nonsense that “Democrats” are “smarter” than “Republicans” and that “Fox News” is the “most dishonest” news program. Everyone has an axe to grind, I guess.
And people are not civil and polite these days. I guess I’m old fashioned.
Me, I know many religious people, some of whom post here, who respect gays but feel that SSM is a difficult thicket to negotiate in terms of their own faith. Further, the idea that a business can choose particular customers is rife with complexity in our Big Government World.
You can’t blame Mr. Feet. He has, like all of us, been basting in popular media all of his life. How many times have you heard an equivalence between SSM and the civil rights movement? That’s the NewThink. So his attachment to the idea that everyone should think as he does—or be an awful person—is not surprising.
We see every day on the news.
That’s just my viewpoint.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:27 amOr else.
finished your sentence for you, mr. feets.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:28 amso i said to this feller no sir young man it’s adam and EVE not adam and steve
and he says to me no no no it’s adam and steve… these are two gay guys what are getting married
and I said well bless my soul I just assumed you misspoke …. adam and steve you say
so I wrote it up on the cake adam on one side and steve on the other and I put two lil groomsmen on top
what a world
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:32 amHF
I think you need to look at the actions of the aggrieved party – their intolerance of the beliefs of others is just as noxious if not more than those who POLITELY refused to honor their request which was their right to.
EPWJ (775325) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:33 amwhich case are you talking about Mr. EPWJ?
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:34 amWhat about discriminating against people on the basis of sexual paraphilias – is that acceptable?
Sam (e8f1ad) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:40 ambut no i don’t agree that there’s a polite way to discriminate against your fellow americans just for being gay
especially as we talked about lots of these gay people getting married are of the christian faith themselves, so it just don’t make no sense
turn on your heartlight and let it shine wherever you go is what the good book says to do, not discriminate against people for silly stuff
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:41 amSimon Jester @317, your words are wise and judicious.
I’m just saying while we will end up with gay marriage (even I can read the writing on the wall) we will also end up with ISIS at our throat. And both for the same reason.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:42 ami’ve never been in a situation with paraphilias Mr. Sam I’d want a more specific example to think on I think
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:43 amdon’t encourage him Mr. 57 he’s plenty weird and obsessey about me without anyone encouraging him
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:44 amWhat are the distinctions between discrimination, association, and participation?
Sam (e8f1ad) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:47 amOr is there a simple binary of Bigotry:Unity?
Mr. Feets is a variation of raconteur and a proud thread provocateur. If people here just accepted that and then went about their business these threads would be shorter and far less confrontational. This is just one woman’s opinion.
elissa (689d77) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:48 am328. Yep.
gary gulrud (46ca75) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:51 amSorry happyfeet, that was Neil Diamond, not God who said that. I realize that in todays world a leftist celebrity is treated as God but he ain’t.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:53 amWell . . .
Some people still consider homosexuality a paraphilia, despite the revision in the diagnosis from the shrinks.
So yes, you have been in a situation with paraphilias.
Since you cannot, or are unwilling, to conceive of any on your own, here is a selection to start:
Polyamory (polygamy)
Exhibitionism (which is pretty much inherent in these complaints to begin with)
Sadomasochism (fifty shades of taste rainbow)
Pedo-/Hebe-philia (acknowledged by Planned Parenthood!)
For bonus points, you can address:
Drinking (alcohol)
Smoking (tobacco)
Smoking (marijuana)
Firearms (it is a gun AND I am happy to see you)
Chocolate (is it better than sex?)
Coffee (because caffeine is legal and meth isn’t)
Soda (I like Big Gulps and I cannot lie)
Puppies (Kittens for extra bonus points)
Which of these is is okay to discriminate against and which is it a horrific sin?
Sam (e8f1ad) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:55 amMr. sam ok here’s the deal
you are a baker
and a pikachu come in and he want a wedding cake and what happens
he tells you what kind of flavors and colors he wants and any specific decorations
then he tell you where that cake need to be on what day
then the goodly young pikachu will either give you a deposit or pay in full
then you make the cake
then you deliver the cake
you are not associating you are baking and decorating and delivering
you are not participating you are baking and decorating and delivering
for you are a baker, and this is the lonely path you have chosen
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:55 amelissa got my number I’m a go watch a movie
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 11:58 amSo you would bake a cake with the inscription “Gays Are Cursed” and decorate it with images of gays burning in hellfire?
Just to be clear on that point.
Sam (e8f1ad) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:01 pmMr. Jester – As I have pointed out on other threads here we have one of the founding impulses of the country, enshrined as a right in the constitution, colliding with new non-uniform laws popping up around the country, sometimes by judicial decree, sometime by legislation, rarely by referendum with a buy in by the population. There is no easy solution or resolution. Our semi-retired president held the view that marriage was between one man and one woman until he recently revolved. We have had various employment discrimination protections and ways to address hospital visitation, inheritance and other issues, but marriage appeared to be the final frontier from my perspective and we are feeling our way through. For one side to characterize the other’s as uneducated, intolerant and hateful as they force shows from television, executives from jobs and boycott businesses is more than brazenly dishonest. When I look at pictures from the Folsom Street Fair I don’t know how you could describe those folks as anything other than uneducated trailer trash, but that’s just me and the way my momma raised me.
I agree that Mr. Feets hyperbole and bigotry are offensive to a lot of people, which is why I crank up the mockery when he starts unwinding it. I hope that people realize that’s why I do it.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:01 pmand a pikachu come in and he want a wedding cake and what happens
don’t call it a wedding cake and you get all the delicious foozle you want or go somewhere’s else and call it a wedding cake and put two wimmins or two mens on top and play Judy Garland music 24/7
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:04 pmHi Mr. Baker you look sad what happened
i had to bake a cake for these homosexuals I didn’t want to but I was forced to do it
omg Mr. Baker are you ok?
no I’m not ok I feel violated and dirty
I’m so sorry what can I do?
Nothing. I just gotta pick up the pieces and try and put my life back together.
Ok well you call me anytime night or day you need to talk.
I will you’re very kind.
Alright Mr. Baker I’m a pray for you.
You do that for me I appreciate that.
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:08 pmSteve, I just hope that when the time comes, the people in our society who are so concerned with our own supposed flawed behavior toward gays, women, and minorities will be willing to step up and condemn the actions of people in other nations who do far, far worse.
I have not yet seen it.
It’s due, I think, to a weird form of narcissism (and that narcissism, sadly, defines our decaying culture). So many people are more interested in spraining their elbows patting themselves on the back for thinking the “correct” way than changing things or thinking deeply about consequences. Reactive versus deductive thinking? I like how a college president put it to me some years ago: “Some people would rather have a cause than an effect.”
And despite all the humblebrags from progressives, I believe that they think our own culture is superior to others—which is why they hold it to a higher standard than other nations.
Well, that and Daddy hatred.
But I will admit that the combination of electron microscope focus on our flaws, with Mr. Magoo myopia about other nations concerns me. I shouldn’t be surprised; people do that kind of thing often.
Anyway, thanks for your kind words.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:31 pmDaley, you always make me laugh. I just don’t like it when people of faith are insulted. Even when I don’t agree with them.
Your personal style is one I admire. Thank you.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:32 pmOk well you call me anytime night or day you need to talk.
mr. pikachu since you are so kind will you pay that big fine the government is forcing me to pay for sticking to my religious beliefs like the constitution says I can?
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:37 pmThank you. The same to you Mr. Simon.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:38 pmAnd you won’t see it. As people of other nations do far, far worse in their rape of civilization, the people in our society who profess to be so outraged at our own flaws will be willing to hold down civilization’s legs at the smallest nudge.
Anything to help.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:47 pmHate to disagree Simon Jester but I think the opposite. I believe the progressives hold our culture to a higher standard just to see it fail. They want it to fail. They loathe our culture, society, technology, ability and they loathe people like us. But above all they loathe the very concept of American Exceptionalism and want to drive our entire nation over a cliff. The reason they hold other nations to a lower standard is because they, the progressives, believe themselves better than the others and therefore look down upon them. Progressivism is no more than advanced narcissism which is why when someone disagrees with them they can’t just be wrong, they must be stupid, or evil or ignorant. They are motivated by cause rather than effect as your friend said. For example, you and I would figure the War on Poverty is a success if there are no more people in poverty. They believe it’s won the more people they can get on food stamps.
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 12:58 pmThey only want to fundamentally transform us because they despise us.
This needs to be explained, why?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 1:04 pmInteresting question, Steve. I think it’s a form of Daddy Hatred. What they don’t get is that the world is full of authoritarians far, far worse than we are…
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 8/27/2014 @ 1:34 pmSimon Jester, a course of study that truly compared American culture against other relatively developed countries would reveal truths harmful to the narrative. We really aren’t the most racist, sexist, whatever, country in the world.
In fact, just about every country I’ve ever been to has been founded on the concept of race or ethnicity.
Ours isn’t. Naturally, our educational system exists to hide that truth. So we can be the worst of the worst, even though it’s not true.
The rise of groups like ISIS would not be possible without the America-haters thinking our very existence is illegitimate. Nature, I hear, abhors a vacuum.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 1:56 pmDADDEH
DADDEH!
what’s a three doller beeyull?
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 1:57 pmSteve, that is why I shake my head at the Aztlan/Reconquista people. They speak in the very language of their conquerors, Spanish.
Santayana was right.
Vernor Vinge, in his great SF novel “The Peace War,” refers to the Jonque warlords of Southern California. That might be the future.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 8/27/2014 @ 2:00 pmSimon Jester, I remark on my time in the Navy far too much, maybe. I was just a middling officer in a large bureaucracy. For a while.
But do you really need to be Clausewitz or Sun Tzu to see what’s happening?
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 2:25 pmI would be shaking my head even now, but my neck grew tired a while back.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 2:27 pmNo, sir. It interferes with my inner harmony. I hold my children close and remember that the future is seldom as bad as our nightmares, nor as beautiful as our daydreams.
Simon Jester (2557d7) — 8/27/2014 @ 2:32 pmHow do you judge nightmares, Simon Jester? By the ones you have?
Just saying, that’s not the yardstick for predicting hell on earth.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 2:53 pmThat wasn’t meant as an insult, Simon Jester. What I meant by it is that I have encountered individuals who were capable of hellishness that exceeded beyond my nightmares.
So I don’t use my own ability to imagine as any sort of measure.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 3:09 pmOh, I didn’t take offense, Steve. I had to go do some faculty workshop stuff. Lots of new freshmen, transfer students, and I’m trying to get some lab work going on. Too little time.
Pretty much everyone around here is pretty nice to me. So all my curmudgeonly stuff doesn’t win me fans. I suspect I need a vacation.
Anyway, to get to your comment, I have pretty bad nightmares.
But that’s relative, as you correctly point out.
Thank you again.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 8/27/2014 @ 4:44 pmJust one more example of political correctness as applied to everyone else except Moslems:
Do you think they would have given Methodists a pass?
Hoagie (4dfb34) — 8/27/2014 @ 6:32 pmit reminders me of my beautiful laundrette
that was set back in the day when the British were way more comfortable treating pakis with hostility and suspicion
and you know what
i still don’t get what that movie was about really
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 6:55 pmfamilies
i hate families
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 6:56 pmi guess one of the things what memory highlights is how the pakis were very entrepreneurial whilst the native British folk were on the dole
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 6:58 pmHF, I feeling close to Samuel Clemens tonight and I just gotta tell you your post 357 powerful sucks…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:07 pmthat’s a quote from the movie Mr. Colonel
it might’ve actually been “Family. I hate family.”
i hear it both ways in my head and google isn’t helping
but the p.o.v. was from a young lady, a paki immigrant, who felt smothered and suffocated by all the family baggage her paki family had brought along with them to England
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:12 pmshe runs off and we don’t know what becomes of her
just that the center cannot hold
stephen frears has never really been acknowledged properly he just plugs away
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:15 pmSeveral staff described their nervousness about identifying the ethnic origins of perpetrators for fear of being thought racist;
I can’t help but snicker when I think of how the left throughout the Western World is helping pave the way for the dynamics of Islamism, symbolized by one poll showing that many Muslims in the US have a more favorable view of the Democrat Party than the Republican Party.
Talk about odd bedfellows. But there’s the phrase of “useful idiots” directed by Stalin-era Communists towards pushover liberals in Europe and the US, and I have a hunch various Islamcists see a similar opening carved out for themselves by the same leftwing in the 21st century.
When feel-good liberalism collides with reactionary Islamism, it will be only right and fair if the two annihilate one another.
Mark (14a4db) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:32 pmWellm then, let’s just revenge f*%$ everything else up.
See, feets, I did learn something from the wymynz studies dept.
Steve57 (99bd31) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:47 pmthis was like in Thatcher’s London Mr. 57
everything’s different there now
Princess Hipbones is cracking the whip (when she’s not flashing her)
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 7:53 pmwhile we’re on the subject…
redc1c4 (abd49e) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:06 pmthe modern rationalization of homosexuality signals a radical moral upheaval
the modern rationalization of homosexuality signals a radical moral upheaval
the modern rationalization of homosexuality signals a radical moral upheaval
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:14 pmThree times makes it so.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:20 pmi ain’t saying you’re wrong Mr. 80
i just freaking hate me them radical moral upheavals
drama drama drama
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:22 pmI’m just saying what I hear on radio commercials and from useless motivational speakers.
Ag80 (eb6ffa) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:29 pmthe motivational speakers are only useless if you just hear them once or twice
the third time’s the charm i swear to god
happyfeet (8ce051) — 8/27/2014 @ 9:39 pmGiggityGiggityGay
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/27/2014 @ 10:26 pm