I’m just fine with what I posted in the OP. If you want to keep complaining about it, go right ahead.
Right–it now falls on the baker, BECAUSE WE’RE WINNING THIS CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE. That puts it in exactly the same category as things like Ruby Bridges’s attendance at a forcibly integrated school. Do you consider Ms. Bridges not part of the civil rights struggle?
Could you quote the post that makes the comparison? The only one I seem to be able to find in that thread is the second post, which certainly doesn’t make the kind of wide-ranging comparisons you’re suggesting.
I think this is the question that has been danced around for two pages: Is sexual orientation the equivalent of race in terms of civil rights protections?
It seems like the OP complains that many beg the question by comparing the two when that is the issue that is being debated in society.
This is a rather strange argument. It’s true, I suppose, that the actually amount of time in which a black person in deep South 60 years ago experienced violence was pretty small, but, outside of wartime, is that ever untrue for anyone? Certainly the level of violence against blacks was high enough that one could fairly say that violence ruled their lives. The idea that one can separate the violence they faced from the “nonviolent discrimination” they faced seems pretty strange to me, since the entire system was based on violence. As I mentioned, if a black guy went into the “Whites only” part of a bus terminal, he could be arrested–nothing non-violent about that sort of discrimination. The clear aim of the Civil Rights Movement was to end all forms of violence that targeted blacks.
What differences would those be?
This is staggeringly disingenuous. You’re taking an event that occurred at the peak of violence against black civil rights protestors, and comparing it to an event that happened well past the peak of violence against gay rights protestors. If a black person today were denied seating on a bus, and complained, it would also take substantially less personal courage than that shown by Rosa Parks. But comparisons to Rosa Park’s protest would not be remotely inappropriate.
If someone claimed that the people who took that bakery to court showed a similar level of personal courage to Rosa Parks, that would indeed be a ridiculous comparison. But as you very well know, nobody has made that claim. What they’ve said is that the denial of services is comparable - which is absolutely true.
I would have thought the clear aim of the civil rights movement was equal protection under the law. Please tell me more I’m rather uneducated on how we should be re branding history in order to maintain discrimination against homosexuals.
Well I think it might as well be; what I’m against is anyone who objects to a supposed “civil right” to force a baker to bake a cake being compared, directly or indirectly, to politicians and white supremacists from the segregated South. I think that if the government wanted to make life better for Blacks or anyone else, its resources would be better spent fighting violent crime, improving education, and building infrastructure, rather than managing the schedule of bakers for any reason (except food safety). So in response to the question jsgoddess asked: yes. Though I’m sure some people will try to misrepresent what I’m saying, I’ve already made clear that I’m opposed to any use of violence to remove blacks or any other group from any public place, as happened 60 years ago. But that’s a different question from whether a black or any other group should be able to legally force a baker to make a cake. Regarding that, “The merchants will manage commerce the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves.” The market would react swiftly to a baker who refused to serve Blacks without any need for the law to be involved.
Sixty years ago, someone caught engaging in homosexual activity might have been confined to a mental institution. Recognized “treatments” for homosexuality included hormone injections, electroshock, castration, and lobotomies.
Fifty years ago, they’d merely have faced up to twenty years in prison. Police abuse in these arrests was, of course, rampant. The usual stuff - beatings, rapes, the odd murder. Often right in the precinct. Prosecutions for these crimes were rare, at best.
Forty years ago, the first openly gay politician in the country was murdered in cold blood. The all straight jury that sat on the trial gave the killer the lightest possible sentence. A subsequent gay rights protest at Town Hall turned violent, which I’m not defending - but even less defensible was the police raid on the Castro later that night where they indiscriminately assaulted residents who had no connection to the riot or protest, in naked revenge for damage done to police cars and city property earlier.
But, hey, right now, any gay person can legally buy the cake of their choice in Colorado, so apparently, gay rights abuses were never all that bad in this country.
This is an outright fantasy. Prior to the Civil Rights movement, the market punished places that catered to blacks, and rewarded those that discriminated against them. Market solutions do not work to address discrimination. They never have.
The OP quoted from the judgment against the baker, which explained that allowing the baker his own free choice in the matter had a “cost to society”. The OP wanted to know what this “cost to society” was, and the first response was “Ask Rosa Parks”. Parks was a well known civil rights activist, so that response implicitly compares the baker to the villains of the civil rights era in the deep South.
I presume, then, that you would find any comparison between anti-black prejudice today, and the politicians and white supremacists of the segregated south to be equally “overused, incorrect, and insulting?” If a black person were kicked off the bus today just because he’s black, his situation would be in no way comparable to what happened to Rosa Parks?
So, you are against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, at least in part. Yes? And you are trying to redefine “civil rights” as opposed to using the term in the way most educated people and the federal and state governments have used the term since at least 1964. So when you say it’s “overused, incorrect, and insulting” for people to use a term correctly, I don’t really have much advice to offer you.
You seem to want to paint the other people as trying to redefine the term, but the other people are using it in the way it has been used for decades. That ship has sailed.
There’s certainly a close parallel between forcing restaurants to serve customers of all races and forcing bakers to serve customers of all orientations.
The Black Civil Rights movement has been such a successful model of how to deal with oppression that it’s inevitably going to be a kind of standard for comparison. Other parallels include fighting for equal citizenship rights under the law, and the use of physical violence. Though, there are some differences that really are potentially insulting to ignore, such as slavery.
What’s fair to compare?
That’s not what the OP says. The OP isn’t asking what the cost to society of the* baker’s choice* is, it’s asking what the cost to society of unmandated inclusion is. It’s not specifically asking what the cost of the baker’s actions is, but the cost of allowing discrimination via refusal of service in general.
Srsly? This is some of the basis for your reasoning? This stupid, ill-conceived statement you quote and the equally poorly-thought-out conclusion you reached by applying that quote’s ideas to the situation under discussion?
Do you think that applies to pollution as well? How about just outright fraud, like a snake oil salesman might have committed? Surely the market will “react swiftly” to businesses (and real, actual people, too) who do that and they will be economically disincentivized to continue their poor actions, right? :dubious:
Of course groups of people, sometimes known as “society”, can force a business, through properly passed laws and enacted regulations, to conduct itself in certain ways.
Your argument here is as muddled and flawed as your OP was.
I was not complaining. I was hoping to demonstrate that you had failed to make whatever point you think you made, because nearly every respondent to this thread is operating on the perception that you don’t think civil rights for homosexuals is any big deal.
You are free to continue in this vein with everyone misunderstanding your position, (or understanding well the position that you do not choose to admit), but I was simply trying to head off one more lengthy trainwreck.
Have fun.
Clearly, you either were not around in the Northern U.S. (or chose not to see what actually went on in the Northern U.S.), prior to the 1960s.
The North did not engage in statutory discrimination, but blacks were still shut out of employment, housing, services, and the opportunity to shop in certain areas for many years. Their exclusion was not supported by law, but the law (and your odd claims about “the market”), utterly failed to help them overcome those obstacles.
Many people do think that way. During the Prop 8 campaign in California, one of the comment I heard against the comparison was gays could hide what they were, blacks couldn’t and can’t.
On the other hand, not too many black people were disowned by their families for coming out as black.