Christian T-shirt company refuses to do gay pride T-shirts

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?

There’s no such thing as a person who’s not a member of a protected class.

:rolleyes:

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.

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.

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.

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. :slight_smile:

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?

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!

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

You’ll forgive me that I think YOUR argument is less than compelling.

Who wins?

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.

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.