# Christian T-shirt company refuses to do gay pride T-shirts **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 13, 2017, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504 "2017-05-13T02:42:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/122 "2017-05-14T22:49:51Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Obviously, you don’t have to ask me anything. But RO is lame. How does one type and wag his finger at the same time? So talking about something is finger wagging? Can you suggest a way to talk about the existence of bad things that’s not finger wagging? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/123 "2017-05-14T22:54:20Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > You seem to be advocating a “protected class of speech”. I don’t think that’s going to go well. Suppose I am _not_ a member of a protected class myself, just so we can be clear that’s not a factor in the transaction. Who decides exactly what range of slogans I can legally force any business owner to print on a t-shirt, and which slogans he can legally decline to print? Will there be a list? Who writes the list? There’s no such thing as a person who’s not a member of a protected class. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/124 "2017-05-14T22:56:23Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > There’s no such thing as a person who’s not a member of a protected class. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/125 "2017-05-14T22:58:10Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > So talking about something is finger wagging? Can you suggest a way to talk about the existence of bad things that’s not finger wagging? It’s RO, plain and simple. It doesn’t affect you, and it can’t possibly affect you. IIRC, you’re white, and live in Virginia. Nothing to do with being black in or around Vidor, Texas. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/126 "2017-05-14T23:02:37Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > It’s RO, plain and simple. It doesn’t affect you, and it can’t possibly affect you. > > IIRC, you’re white, and live in Virginia. > > Nothing to do with being black in or around Vidor, Texas. When is it okay for people to talk about bad things that don’t personally affect them? Was it RO for non-Jews to criticize the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany if they lived in the US in the 30s and 40s? Was it RO for white Americans to criticize apartheid in South Africa? Does it change things if there are black people in my family? Am I allowed to be worried about things that might affect them one day, or is that RO? I’d like to fully understand your argument by assertion that this is RO and thus shouldn’t be discussed. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/127 "2017-05-14T23:04:31Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > It’s RO, plain and simple. It doesn’t affect you, and it can’t possibly affect you. > > IIRC, you’re white, and live in Virginia. > > Nothing to do with being black in or around Vidor, Texas. I bet you don’t know how ridiculous this sounds. It’s like grandpa’s complaining about these new fangled reality shows while watching America’s Got Talent. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/128 "2017-05-14T23:09:12Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > You seem to be advocating a “protected class of speech”. I don’t think that’s going to go well. Suppose I am _not_ a member of a protected class myself, just so we can be clear that’s not a factor in the transaction. Who decides exactly what range of slogans I can legally force any business owner to print on a t-shirt, and which slogans he can legally decline to print? Will there be a list? Who writes the list? I stand by what I said. You can’t discriminate against homosexuality without discriminating against homosexuals. In my opinion, people who are claiming they are doing the former are just trying to create a loophole in order to do the latter. As for forms of discrimination, I don’t see the exception you’re trying to create. Businesses should not be allowed to refuse to serve customers on the basis that the customer belongs to a group they don’t like. The law should apply to t-shirt shops the same as it should apply to restaurants and hotels. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/129 "2017-05-14T23:22:14Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > His point was pretty clearly that the attitudes that Bricker implicitly dismissed as ancient history still exist in America at a city level. **Bricker** did not dismiss that as “ancient history”. If you go back and read his post again, you’ll see that he explicitly said it happened in his living memory. And he’s a lot younger than I am! However you did just implicitly call me ancient. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/130 "2017-05-14T23:29:17Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Does it change things if there are black people in my family? Am I allowed to be worried about things that might affect them one day, or is that RO? Yes, worrying about things that don’t affect you personally is the very definition of RO. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/131 "2017-05-14T23:32:02Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Yes, worrying about things that don’t affect you personally is the very definition of RO. Are you aware of the concept of compassion? Is compassion for others RO? You didn’t answer my other questions, since I really would like to fully understand your argument by assertion. Here they are again: When is it okay for people to talk about bad things that don’t personally affect them? Was it RO for non-Jews to criticize the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany if they lived in the US in the 30s and 40s? Was it RO for white Americans to criticize apartheid in South Africa? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/132 "2017-05-14T23:34:13Z")
Wait, let me get this straight. The claim was made that Vidor was a sundown town. In response to that, others provided a cite that says that the town grudgingly tolerates black people during the day, but runs them out if they try to stay. The claim is then made that this cite proves that Vidor is not a sundown town. What? That’s exactly what a sundown town is! ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/133 "2017-05-14T23:35:42Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > The social and political milieu has changes enough in the US that such a term as “sundown town” just doesn’t make sense anymore. It describes a situation that was not uncommon at a time when segregation was the norm and could be (and often was) enforced by the government. I think we cheapen the term and do a disservice to the folks who actually lived through that time. Not every racial situation amounts to a sundown town just like every heavy handed government action doesn’t amount to Naziism. I agree with this post. As late as the early 1970s, broad and vague vagrancy laws were used in “sundown” towns to ensure that undesirables could be rousted as needed. But those types of laws fell to the wayside with _Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville_. To use the same term to describe both a condition in which the force of the law was used to ensure racial homogeneity and a condition in which the opprobrium is merely social is a terrible idea. Neither condition is admirable, to be sure, but they are worlds apart. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/134 "2017-05-14T23:37:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Wait, let me get this straight. The claim was made that Vidor was a sundown town. In response to that, others provided a cite that says that the town grudgingly tolerates black people during the day, but runs them out if they try to stay. The claim is then made that this cite proves that Vidor is not a sundown town. > > What? That’s exactly what a sundown town is! Nope. A sundown town is one in which there is legal support for racially discriminatory actions. A sundown town is not the correct description for a town that is socially unwelcoming to people of color. As I understand the term, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/135 "2017-05-14T23:37:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I agree with this post. > > As late as the early 1970s, broad and vague vagrancy laws were used in “sundown” towns to ensure that undesirables could be rousted as needed. But those types of laws fell to the wayside with _Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville_. To use the same term to describe both a condition in which the force of the law was used to ensure racial homogeneity and a condition in which the opprobrium is merely social is a terrible idea. Neither condition is admirable, to be sure, but they are worlds apart. But there were many indisputable sundown towns in the past in which there were no laws on the table, but only the force of informal agreements and covenants such that not a single business owner would serve black people, and not a single property seller would sell to black people. Functionally, it was the same, as far as a black visitor or potential resident was concerned. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/136 "2017-05-14T23:40:57Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I stand by what I said. You can’t discriminate against homosexuality without discriminating against homosexuals. In my opinion, people who are claiming they are doing the former are just trying to create a loophole in order to do the latter. > > As for forms of discrimination, I don’t see the exception you’re trying to create. Businesses should not be allowed to refuse to serve customers on the basis that the customer belongs to a group they don’t like. The law should apply to t-shirt shops the same as it should apply to restaurants and hotels. You are straw-manning and dodging the question. Straw man: I have made abundantly clear (several times now) that _no business of any type_ can refuse to serve a _person_ because they are a member of a protected class. The question is whether a business can refuse to make certain _custom products_, regardless of who the customer is, when those products (perhaps arguably) entail some form of speech. You seem to be arguing that declining to print custom products that entail certain speech is equivalent to discriminating against _people_, and that both should therefore be illegal. And you imply that such an equivalence is somehow self-evident. Far from it. Historically, the US has a tradition that speech, even utterly abhorrent speech, is protected, except under certain narrow circumstances. And the stricture is surely symmetrical: just as the government cannot prevent me from speaking freely, so the government cannot force me to say things. You are advocating that, in a transaction where no _customer_ in a protected class is involved, that every business owner should be legally obliged to print some “protected” set of speech on t-shirts (“Gay Pride”, for example), while business owners are free to decline to print other “unprotected” speech (“Heil Hitler”, for example) if they choose. (1) How to you reconcile this with the First Amendment, and a centuries-old tradition of protecting free speech? (2) As a practical matter, how do you plan to determine exactly what speech is “protected” in this way? Will there be a list of approved slogans that all business are obliged to print on demand? ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/137 "2017-05-14T23:53:25Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > When is it okay for people to talk about bad things that don’t personally affect them? Yes, it’s Ok for people to talk about whatever they like. By the same token, it’s Ok for me to think that some people are being overly sensitive. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/138 "2017-05-14T23:56:59Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > Yes, it’s Ok for people to talk about whatever they like. > > By the same token, it’s Ok for me to think that some people are being overly sensitive. You’ll forgive me if I find your argument by assertion, that talking about bad things that affect others is RO or being overly sensitive, less than compelling. ---
**Author:** ![D\_Anconia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/139 "2017-05-15T00:03:15Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > You’ll forgive me if I find your argument by assertion, that talking about bad things that affect others is RO or being overly sensitive, less than compelling. You’ll forgive me that I think YOUR argument is less than compelling. Who wins? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/140 "2017-05-15T00:10:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Wait, let me get this straight. The claim was made that Vidor was a sundown town. In response to that, others provided a cite that says that the town grudgingly tolerates black people during the day, but runs them out if they try to stay. The claim is then made that this cite proves that Vidor is not a sundown town. > > What? That’s exactly what a sundown town is! You did not get it straight. You are conflating things that happened decades ago with things that happen (or, rather, don’t happen) today. The story of the black guy whom the cops harassed was something that happened in 1964. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504/141 "2017-05-15T00:11:08Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#): > > You’ll forgive me that I think YOUR argument is less than compelling. > > Who wins? You already appear to agree with me about Vidor, you just don’t think it’s worth discussing. You don’t have to discuss it if you don’t want to. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christian-t-shirt-company-refuses-to-do-gay-pride-t-shirts/786504.md?page=8)