Then I have good news! The New Mexico law doesn’t do that. This isn’t your first post in this thread, so I suspect you already knew that. In any case I thought VegasReno was asking a general question about freedom and not the Constitution specifically, which is why I pointed out that the freedom of minorities also matters. He can correct me if that’s not what he was asking.
It seems like a safe assumption that if you had a legitimate argument against what happened here, you’d make it, rather than arguing against ridiculous hypotheticals instead.
If as a society we decide that they deserve protected status, then so be it.
“But maaaaaaa, I want to oppress and violate the civil rights of the darkies, the kykes and the fags!”
“Now now, The Left has granted some of them Special Privileges, but you can still make life miserable for the fags in some states where they’re not protected by the law.”
“Well… I feel a bit better now.”
“I thought it would help. Do you wanna go gay bashing?”
About this whole “It was free speech, therefore protected” bit going on here - it sounds a lot like post hoc rationalization on the part of the business (and by some posters here)
Initially, it was “Oh, we don’t photograph same sex ceremonies because of our religion.”
(pssst. You can’t use religion as an excuse to deny services to a protected class)
“Whoops! did we actually put that in writing? We meant that we don’t photographs fags because we are artists”
Really, you can’t just get a pass on this by calling yourself an artist. You can’t deny service to black in your restaurant because you don’t have chefs, you have “food artists”.
I would ask these questions:
- Does the photography business advertise themselves publicly as “artists”?
- Does any of their work hang in a public gallary?
- Have they ever been reviewed by an art critic?
- Have they ever had work published in a recognized art periodical?
and also:
- Do they advertise as a business in the yellow pages?
- Do they have a business licence?
I grew up next to Utah (western Colorado). I heard my share of Mormon jokes, but that one’s new to me. Two thumbs up!
What’s ridiculous about the hypothetical suggestion I made? Fundamentally we have two different views of the role of government clashing here. My view, and the view of Elane Photography and its defenders, is that government exists to protect individual freedom for everyone, including business people and their freedom to make business decisions. The contrary view is that government may designate certain classes of people as “protected”, which really means that those classes of people can sue and take money from any business that chooses not to contract with them. If so, then there’s nothing ridiculous about speculating that some day governments may add other classes as protected-privileged. After all, IvoryTowerDenizen has made clear that he’d be fine with professional photographers being compelled to work on a porno shoot.
“The Government” in the United States is not an evil entity, that exists to put rules in place that the people don’t agree with.
“The Government” in the United States represents the collective will of the people.
So as long as you don’t have enough folks like IvoryTowerDenizen , who want to make porn produces a protected class… and elects like-minded politicians, then I think you’ll be OK.
To forstall more hypotheticals, it is unlikely that protected class status will be given in the near future to martians, pedophiles, or guys who rub up against you on the bus.
I said no such thing. I said that if society deems they to be protected classes, then people should uphold the law.
My personal feelings are that the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim to none and I’d be disappointed if it happened. But that’s the price of being in a society. There are things today I find offensive that by law I have to put up with. No future, porn-protecting society hypotheticals needed.
FYI, I’m a she.
For one thing, it’s ridiculous because it’s not happening, anywhere, and so you’re arguing against a problem that doesn’t exist. Again, that suggests you can’t form a real argument against what is happening.
Fortunately, as a society, we have decided that the “freedom” to engage in discrimination against oppressed groups for invidious motives is not one we need to preserve. I understand that you and many others think that “freedom” is very important; that’s the very reason why such laws are a sad necessity.
She, and no she hasn’t. And you having to attribute motives to her continues to illustrate the fact that you can’t actually argue against what actually happened.
I’m sorry, but what??? I want to make porn producers a protected class?
Unless I’m being wooshed, I have no clue how that was the conclusion anyone could get from my post…
Very well. I misunderstood what you were saying and I apologize.
I never said that pornographers or swingers were treated as a protected class anywhere. Instead I specifically said that it could happen in the future. Therefore the fact that it’s not happening in the present has no relevance to what I said.
Fifty years ago the very idea that the government should punish a private individual because he refused to participate in a gay wedding would have seemed absurd to everybody; I’m not aware of a single person who advocate for such government intrusion back then. Nowadays we see folks like you treating such an intrusion on freedom as if it’s everyday business. So it’s perfectly reasonable to speculate that government laws which seem ridiculous now may be advanced quite seriously 50 years from now, is it not?
Of course it’s relevant that you couldn’t come up with an argument against what’s actually happening, and instead argued against an absurd hypothetical. What could be more relevant than noting the fact that you weren’t even advancing an argument about the case under discussion?
Actually the government in the United States can serve either of those roles. Most people would agree at this point that the government (at federal and state levels) is not terribly responsive to what the people want. Job approval ratings for Congress were around 15% the last time I checked.
How do I know that there won’t someday be enough people who want to make porn producers a protected class? How do I know there won’t someday be enough people who want to multiply the number of protected classes beyond the wildest imaginings? (And after Citizens United, how do I know that porn producers won’t just use their money to bypass the democratic process and get the laws they want?-)
It that unlikely event takes place, then that will be the will of the people. You don’t get to run the country exactly the way you want to ,you know.
Do you really fear this eventuality? Seriously? Or is your slippery slope analogy just for the sake of debate?
My argument against the prosecution of Elane Photography is this. I believe that freedom is good in itself, therefore I believe that Elane Photography should have the freedom to do business with whom they choose. You’ve already made clear that your response to this is to put the word freedom in scare quotes and treat it as a disreputable concept. Since I support individual freedom and you don’t, it’s hardly surprising that we come down on opposite sides of the argument concerning whether or not Elane Photography should be free to make its own business decisions.
Just working with ITR champion’s quote that “After all, IvoryTowerDenizen has made clear that he’d be fine with professional photographers being compelled to work on a porno shoot.”
Sorry if I made it look like you actually agreed with that premise…
In other words, you would like the entire civil rights movement rolled back to a time when service could be denied to blacks, gays, and anyone else that a bigoted cretin chooses.
Happily, you are in a tiny minority, and society is not likely to go backwards 50 years + just to please your abstract idea of “freedom”. (put in quotes, because your concept of freedom is a minority view).
Evidently not. You believe that the freedom of LGBT people to engage in the same sorts of commerce that everyone else does is irrelevant (or, more likely, you’re actively opposed to it), and that the invidious motives of people who want to discriminate against LGBT people are sufficient reason to deny us freedom.
Given how nonsensical this argument is, I guess I can understand why you led with the ridiculous hypothetical. This is even less convincing than your “slippery slope until grandmas are forced to film pornography” argument.
Fair enough… all of a sudden I had felt like the poster child for making pornographers a protected class! 