Freedom of religion relies on the fact that I don’t give a rats rectum about what a store clerk does or does not believe and I assume that the feeling is mutual.
Morality is personal, business is public.
Freedom requires that we keep it that way.
Crane
Me not giving a damn about your imaginary friend DOES NOT HARM YOU!
You using your imaginary friend to deny other citizens their rights HARMS THEM!
Do you not see the difference?
In the former case, NO ONE IS HARMED! In the latter case, SOMEONE IS HARMED! (Actually, two people, except the harm for one is self-inflicted by their mistaken belief that their religious views trump other people’s constitutional rights.)
nm
I think I’ve got it now.
Intolerance of bigotry and attempting to eliminate it is bad.
Tolerating bigotry is good.
Where the hell do you learn crap like this?
Since you haven’t read the thread I won’t answer. You couldn’t have written that if you had.
You didn’t get it, sorry.
You still prove my point, though. Thanks
I did not claim that shaming alone was responsible for the entire swing towards support for gay rights over the last thirty years. I said it had an effect, and probably a positive one. Possibly it had no effect at all. I very much doubt it had a negative effect, because I have trouble seeing how the gay rights movement could have possibly gone any faster than it has.
Moreover, the specific claim I’ve made is that, since it’s beginning, the gay rights movement has made a concerted effort to convince the public that anti-gay discrimination is a form of bigotry, just like racial discrimination, or religious discrimination, or gender discrimination. We’ve done this by explicitly calling out anti-gay positions as bigotry, and anti-gay advocates as bigots. While this particular tactic has probably not been hugely useful in getting individuals with strong anti-gay opinions to shift, it probably has been successful in shifting the opinions of people who didn’t have strong opinions in the first place, or (more significantly) of people who have grown up in the era of the gay rights movement.
Which brought in your utterly bizarre claim that nobody outside the gay rights movement was aware of this, because they don’t attend gay rallies. Yet, somehow, as I demonstrated in my links, anti-gay bigots have adopted exactly that language in trying to defend themselves: arguing that, sure, they don’t think gays should be allowed to do certain things, but by God, that doesn’t make them bigots. Now, I would argue that the clearest sign that your messaging has been effective is when your opponents use your terms and language in discussing the issue. But I guess its possible that they just spontaneously decided that they had to go out of their way to declaim any association with bigotry while they try to craft laws specifically limiting our individual rights.
I rebutted that utterly lunatic idea by pointing out a long list of references in the media to gay rights being discussed in terms of hatred and bigotry. Your response to a list of twenty media cites was to ask a couple guys you work with if they’ve ever heard of the Chik-Fil-A boycott. And then decided that that was evidence that I’m the one living in a bubble.
Let me repeat that: I provided twenty links to multiple media sources showing gay people and homophobes both discussing gay rights in terms of bigotry. You asked some idiots you happen to work with. And I’m the one in the bubble?
Right.
And if Pete works in a rural county with only two deputy clerks and the other one is out for two weeks on vacation or on medical leave, would Pete denying someone a marriage license be preventing them from exercising their rights in a meaningful way? How about if the other clerk is out for a month after being in a car accident? Or if the other position is vacant and the county has to announce and a schedule cvil service test and then do multiple rounds of interview, which might take six months?
We already talked about this. In that case, Pete has to buck up and do his job, unless his boss is willing to fill in for him when need be.
Heck, even when you may always have people covering for the objecting employee until a proper transfer can be arranged and everyone’s at a job they can do fully, it’s still a hassle and a suboptimal use of resources so it needs to be resolved ASAP.
As it is, since in the US religious belief has tended to be especially privileged, it has become the go-to last resort on this and other issues. I wonder if things like this could end up actually eroding that privileged quality.
Considering that a lot of the reason that Europe is pretty non-religious is the historical close relationship between church and state in so many European countries, I’d predict that the more people use their religious beliefs as a reason to deny people their government-protected rights, the more those will erode in public opinion here.
I don’t think I’m imposing my beliefs on anybody. I’m not telling anyone what they have to feel.
“Belief” is an overloaded word here; I wouldn’t call “there is an infinite number of prime numbers” a belief, even though I believe it. That makes it difficult to communicate here. You don’t have to believe that same-sex marriage is acceptable; you don’t have to believe they are as good or as worthy as different-sex marriages. You do have to believe the two are the same in the eyes of the law. Similarly, I don’t have to believe corporations or institutions can have religious beliefs, but I do have to believe the Federal government recognizes their religious beliefs.
I’m pretty sure you understand the difference.
The entire county clerks office in Decatur County, Tennessee quit rather than issue any licences to gay people. Of course, no gays in that county have asked for one, but still.
LOL
That is exactly what the Decatur County Clerks should have done. It opens up some good paying jobs for those who are willing to do them.
Crane
As long as you get whatever “it” is, that’s all that matters. The rest of us will just have to muddle through, I guess. :rolleyes:
Your statement to which I first linked and have now quoted, again, while not claiming that shaming was solely responsible for the change in attitudes, certainly indicated that it was a significant factor in persuading people to support SSM. I see no evidence for that and have already provided an alternative scenario.
Nope. That was your incorrect inference that had nothing to do with what I posted. I noted that there was no mainstream effort to call people bigots. And there has not been. For decades, and certainly since the 1960s, the default view has been to label anyone who opposed civil rights as a bigot. The MSM, by couching the discussion in terms of civil rights provided the background in which the word bigot might have been thrown around in private conversations, but the MSM, (as opposed to Op Ed pieces in niche media), never actually made that accusation.
And if it had, we still have no evidence that anyone, having been called a bigot, suddenly decided to change their view of SSM–which has been the focus of my discussion.
The views of over 50% of the people in this country have swung from anti-SSM to pro-SSM. Rather than calling a few people you do not even know “idiots,” you are welcome to go outside your own bubble of people with whom you have discussed this, at length, and find out how many people are actually aware of the niche Op Ed pieces which you believe have had such an effect.
Believing that half the country changed from an anti- to a pro- position by being insulted is odd. An argument that they went from hostility to neutrality regarding homosexuals might be defensible, (although it would be interesting to see actual evidence), but a claim that they went from opposition to support of SSM because they felt insulted is just weird.
And then there’s this guy, who won’t let gays shop in his store unless they “behave”:
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/07/02/3676591/no-gay-hardware/
I don’t care if zero people changed sides when they were shamed. The point is to shame them into shutting up until they die and to disincentivize others from joining that side in the first place.
I agree with the tiny proviso that, during the 25 days SCOTUS gives, clerks should be given the opportunity to reflect and, if unwilling to issue the licences, resign if accommodating them would result in unacceptable problems.
So, you’d be totally ok with pro-life people calling pro-choice people “baby killers” even in polite conversation or SDMB, because shaming them so they shut up untuil they die will disincentivize others from joining that side in the first place.
You can’t oppose the tactic even if you dislike who uses it (goose-gander).
Once again, that 25 days is for the purpose of filing an appeal only.