We must have grown up in different eras. When I was growing up, all I heard was how gay people just want to be treated like everyone else…how just being allowed to exist isn’t the same thing as equality.
I don’t see how wanting to be served by a business is inconsistent with this. But of course, if your mentality is still stuck in the 1950s–when just being allowed to exist was a major accomplishment for a significant portion of Americans–it’s understandable that you’d be confused by changing attitudes.
Conservatives always seem to have a problem with changing attitudes for some reason.
Be it a Corporation, or a Mom & Pop, if you are open to the “Public” you should serve anyone who comes through your door. Disruptive and violent behavior is a good reason to refuse service or kick someone out of an establishment. If a “Good Christian” wants to refuse to serve people based on their religious beliefs, they don’t need to be in a public facing service.
Same for a pharmacist. If the Law allows a night after pill, and a Doctor prescribes it for someone. That is the price of owning and running a business. You serve Everyone .
If you don’t want to cater to gay weddings, then you don’t want to cater at all. If I saw a company catering a gay wedding I wouldn’t think they approve of the wedding simply because they aren’t there to approve, or disapprove, they are there to serve the guests.
jtgain, here’s what you wrote, with “black” replacing “gay people”:
The OP is right. Growing up, the argument was that blacks were not forcing anything on anyone; they just wanted the right to live their lives as they pleased and to be left alone. Now that they have that, they are going for the jugular, and by doing so are alienating people who supported their plight by actually, really and truly, forcing their relationships on people.
Now if you can’t see a parallel, well, you aren’t looking.
Exactly. The gay marriage issue is almost an exact parallel of the interracial marriage issue. The arguments are nearly identical. And, ultimately, the arguments come down to bigotry of the nastiest possible stripe.
Why does a religion based on love, redemption, sacrifice, and service need to find people to shun?
So creating laws to protect civil rights is somehow “destroying businesses”, and people should just go elsewhere if they feel that business is discriminating against them. BUT…if they do that, they’re hypocrites, because THEY’RE discriminating against that business too? Or something.
Did you complain back? “That’s PROOF that you had sex!”
I don’t have to overhear this kind of nonsense very often. I have family members who are gay, so family members don’t make these comments. And I live in Massachusetts, where nobody seems to care who’s having sex with whom. (It was so refreshing to move here after living in the south.)
I can’t imagine having to put up with crap for my entire life. I’m sorry.
It’s the exact same struggle. Blacks had it worse, of course, but it’s still discrimination. Tell me, why do you think you personal opinion (that homosexuality is wrong) should dictate what two consenting adults do that causes no harm to anyone?
Ohhhhhh, I get it. You don’t have a problem with homosexuality. You have a problem with homosexuals equating their struggle as somewhat akin to the black struggle for equal rights in the US. Got it…:eek:
The fight for civil rights is different from the current debate on businesses catering gay events. Civil rights was a battle against prejudice.
There are many people with very strong religious beliefs that are being forced to participate in something they feel is morally wrong. People of religious faith deserve equal protection under the law. They are citizens of this country too.
Serving the public in a restaurant is different from catering. Catering is a much more personal service. They are an integral part of the event. There’s travel involved, setting up the equipment and tables, wait staff etc. Then clean up afterward.
It seems like there should be a middle ground here. That, yes people can live their lives however they want. Regardless of sexuality. But don’t force that lifestyle on anyone else. The owners of businesses shouldn’t be forced to compromise their religious beliefs. Religious belief and values are different from prejudice. Not liking someone’s lifestyle is not an excuse for rejecting their business.
People in the pre-civil rights era had strongly held beliefs, too. Many believed that God has created distinct races for a purpose, and that meant that God wanted the different races to live separately. They believed that interracial marriage went against God’s will that there be different races, and that God looks benevolently on those who maintain the racial purity that he created. In this mindset, interracial marriage was considered and affront to God. And they, too, had Bible passages to back it up.
The slightly-more-progressive believed that segregation was a regional social custom that did not lead to any real harm. They believed that it would take time to change attitudes, and that it was important not to push social change too quickly on a resistant older generation. They believed that something like equality was most likely to emerge from working within the existing framework and not pushing people too hard.
And we had the same arguments back then. Bob Jones University was denied tax except status because they prohibited interracial dating, making them an ineligible “racist organization.” They, too argued religious freedom based on a “sincerely held belief”. And everyone was up in arms about how this was critical to religious freedom in our country.
It’s the same damn thing. Literally exactly the same. Oddly, Christianity managed to get over the “race mixing offends God” thing pretty darn quickly, and they will get over this in the same way. This isn’t going to be nearly as traumatic as they think.
Well, I remember when cops used to go to the parking lots of gay bars, write down the license plates of people in those bars, and contact the employers and families of those bar patrons to make sure they knew thos people were GAY FORNICATOR DRINKERS!
And then the gay person risked losing their job (and being unable to get another one, because there were no laws against an employer saying “Oh, Bob? He’s gay, and you know how they are, we don’t believe in that here!”), having their family members find out, and having friends find out. Gay people lost a LOT. That’s one reason that so many left their hometowns and moved to cities.
This was as recent as the 1980s, so it’s not exactly ancient history.
And this happened to friends and family, people I care deeply for. I don’t intend to stand by and let someone’s religion (which we cannot really prove the validity of) trump the right for a person to live with dignity in**** this **life.