Fake Gay Marriage Website and SCOTUS Ruling

[Toni]

I know it's neither here nor there... But don't you find a bit of irony in the fact that it's two women and a gay man - all elements of those "protected classes" arguing that people should not be compelled to express views that are in opposition to their beliefs... while all of us are being told what we ought to believe by a group that is almost exclusively heterosexual white men?

How do you know other people's sexual orientation? On-line gaydar?

If you have the fields under a person's name turned on (I think they're still switchable in this version of the software) TomC's orientation is obvious.

There is more than one non-heterosexual person on this site and I believe more than one posting in this thread. Sometimes posters reveal their gender and/or sexual orientation and even marital status, kids, pets, etc. Some of us ‘know’ each other from years of posting…

Note that it says "two women and a gay man"--that does not address anyone else participating in the thread. The rest of it is "almost"--that doesn't mean they're 100% white, 100% heterosexual or 100% men.

Well, in her ad hominem defence of homphobia, she leaves out Bomb and you, and at least 3 of the posters disagreeing with Toni, Emily, Bomb, Tom--at least 3 of us are either not white or not heterosexual, and that is more than "almost exclusively" Exclusively means 100% and almost exclusively means very close to 100%.
Meanwhile most of the women Supremes and all of the racialized women Supremes are abandoned by Emily Lake, Toni (and you and others) in favour of all the male Supremes, a fact that adds extra irony to Lake's post, and your defense of it.

FWIW, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around it as well.

 

[ZiprHead]

I'm wondering about Hobby Lobby.

 

[Gospel]

The case of Kennedy v. Bremerton School District represents an instance of a citizen versus government dispute. Given that the First Amendment primarily serves to protect citizens from government interference, this case aligns logically with that constitutional provision. However, it's important to note that the First Amendment does not extend to provide protections for citizens against other citizens.

Kindly spare me the need to rephrase the same point in countless variations.

Upheld to protect them from the government.

Ok let me clarify, all of the cases mentioned in your link involves a Citizens Vs Government dispute. Do you get it now?

... Its purpose was to end discrimination in public accommodation. ... Somebody else's mouth is not a place of public accommodation, and I don't see any evidence that the Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act intended to make it one.

The First Amendment stands as a safeguard for the citizens, not against each other, but against potential governmental overreach. It ensures that our freedom of expression remains unfettered by the government, even when such expression might be perceived as offensive or inflammatory.

Contrastingly, the Civil Rights Act operates as a bulwark against discrimination in a wide array of social and economic realms. Conceived with the aspiration to eradicate bias-based conduct, it expressly forbids discrimination rooted in race, religion, sexual orientation, or national origin. The notion that some individuals perceive themselves as unprotected is indeed puzzling. Regardless of one's origin—even if hypothetically hailing from the farthest reaches of the cosmos, whimsically referred to as 'planet numskull'—every individual is shielded from discrimination predicated on race, religion, sexual orientation, or national origin.

TLDR :

1st Amendment protects the people from the government
Civil Rights act was crafted with the aim of eliminating prejudiced practices

Hey Florida Man, you appear to be giving free rein to your inner Texas Man.

A lifetime ago, in a state far, far away, when the Constitution still stood as a safeguard for the citizens so Roe v Wade was still the law of the land, this made a bunch of Republican state legislators sad. They felt really strongly that women should not get abortions, and that fellow citizens should not help women get abortions, and that Republican state legislators were entitled to stop them, because all of your uteri belong to us now or some equivalently dumb-ass mansplainy reason, so they really, really wanted a way around that pesky Constitution thing. Well, long story short, they invented one. They passed a law authorizing citizens to sue one another for getting or aiding and abetting abortions. That way, according to some clever, clever Texas Man, the government would not be involved. The Constitution only prohibits government from stopping abortions. If private citizens want to stop abortions, that's none of the Constitution's beeswax. Thus spake Texas Man.

So, Florida Man, do you agree with Texas Man's reasoning? When Texas ex-husband John Doe files a lawsuit with a Texas court and serves a court writ on former-friend Jenny Roe, for driving ex-wife Jane Doe to an abortion clinic in Indiana where she terminated his god-given embryo, said court writ ordering Jenny to pay John $10,000 or else present herself in a Texas courtroom and explain why she shouldn't have to pay John to a Texas judge, wherein said courtroom if she fails to persuade said Texas judge then he will order her assets to be seized and turned over to John by a Texas Sheriff's Deputy, do you agree with Texas Man that the government of Texas is not involved?

What Texas was doing to pregnant women and their supporters before Roe was overturned was government action from top to bottom. The theory that it was just private citizen on private citizen was a legal fiction. Likewise, when a would-be customer sics the Colorado Civil Rights Division on a business-owner and gets them to pull her license, which is to say, gets them to threaten her with prosecution for selling her services, or he sics a Colorado court on her and gets a judgment against her, which is to say, gets them to confiscate her property, that is government action from top to bottom.

Are there any other Constitutional rights besides free speech you think the government should be able to contract around by using private citizens as make-believe intermediaries in government courts? In a criminal prosecution, when a defendant exercises her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, do you think the judge should award the alleged crime victim $10,000 when he sues the defendant for refusing to incriminate herself, and we should all make believe that the $10,000 was seized by the victim and not by the judge?

After rummaging through your argument's delightful satire, it seems you're essentially questioning the constitutional validity of enforcing public policy, for example on reproductive rights and free speech, through private citizens. In my opinion that would make an almost perfect dictionary definition describing the relationship between the US Government & the US Constitution. Upholding constitutional rights is the government's primary responsibility. The government is a tool the people use for upholding the constitution.

The issue lies in how some 'we the people' are brandishing illusory wands, attempting to 'Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo' the First Amendment into a tool of discord against each other, specifically targeting protected classes in this instance. A protected class as defined in the Civil Rights Act. Recently enacted legislation for which the government demonstrated a compelling interest in doing so.

 

[Gospel]

Well, long story short, they invented one. They passed a law authorizing citizens to sue one another for getting or aiding and abetting abortions. That way, according to some clever, clever Texas Man, the government would not be involved. The Constitution only prohibits government from stopping abortions. If private citizens want to stop abortions, that's none of the Constitution's beeswax. Thus spake Texas Man.

I'll need time to reply to this and some other points you've made. However out the gate I want to say this is a perfect example of "Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo".

 

[Bomb#20]

Are there any other Constitutional rights besides free speech you think the government should be able to contract around by using private citizens as make-believe intermediaries in government courts? ...

Do bear in mind that the Colorado case was based on a fraudulent claim of injury to a business owner that she was being compelled to sell her services to a same-sex couple seeking her advertised support for designing a wedding website. Technically, the Supreme Court was not supposed to take a case in which no actual injury occurred, because there was no actual party seeking her business's services. The Constitution requires there to be actual injuries, not just imaginary or hypothetical ones.

Hey man, it's understandable that you want to drag the discussion back to your actual thread topic, but let it go -- that ship has sailed. I think we can all agree that the SCOTUS shouldn't have issued that ruling, because nobody was actually trying to make 303 do anything, so the SCOTUS was either manipulated or complicit in a fraud; but there just aren't 640 posts' worth of things to say on that topic. Most of the thread participants are a lot more interested in the substantive underlying dispute than in the procedural improprieties that brought this specific case to the SCOTUS. Sooner or later a well-formed case is going to arise where an agency of the government actually tries to punish somebody for refusing to write the code to implement a website promoting or celebrating a cause she disagrees with, and then some court is going to countermand that agency; so we're all arguing in advance over whether it should. Point being, the fact that the SCOTUS technically exceeded its authority a couple weeks ago doesn't make the previous poster's particular argument that I was refuting any more correct.

 

[Bomb#20]

... But its purpose was not to take away the keys to a bigot's mouth and hand them over to whom the government liked better. Somebody else's mouth is not a place of public accommodation, and I don't see any evidence that the Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act intended to make it one.

...
TLDR :

1st Amendment protects the people from the government
Civil Rights act was crafted with the aim of eliminating prejudiced practices

There exists no inherent contradiction here; rather, it's an issue of misinterpretation. Some individuals seek to camouflage their discriminatory practices under the guise of exercising their First Amendment rights, despite the fact that these rights do not confer immunity from the actions of other citizens.

You are correct: The Civil Rights Act was crafted with the aim of eliminating prejudiced practices.

No, that's incorrect. The Civil Rights Act was crafted with the aim of eliminating a narrowly defined subset of prejudiced practices, while leaving the people free to practice all the prejudice they please outside of that defined subset.

If you want to ban Christians from coming into your house, the Civil Rights Act does not aim to eliminate your practice. If you want to have sex with straight men but not with lesbian women, the Civil Rights Act does not aim to eliminate your practice. If you want to buy your groceries from a black grocer and refuse to patronize the grocery store a mile closer to your home because the grocer is Korean, the Civil Rights Act does not aim to eliminate your practice. If you want to quit your job because you'd feel more comfortable with a female boss, the Civil Rights Act does not aim to eliminate your practice. The Act doesn't aim to eliminate any of these prejudiced practices, because these are not defined as public accommodation for purposes of the Act, so they are not members of the narrowly defined subset of prejudiced practices the Act was crafted with the aim of eliminating.

"There exists no inherent contradiction here; rather, it's an issue of misinterpretation." Some individuals seek to violate other people's First Amendment rights, relying on the excuse that exercise of those rights is a prejudiced practice and on the groundless claim that the Civil Rights Act was crafted with the aim of eliminating prejudiced practices, despite the fact that it manifestly did not have that aim and despite the fact that the particular prejudiced practice at issue is not a member of the narrowly defined subset of prejudiced practices the Act was crafted with the aim of eliminating. The Civil Rights Act did not define First-Amendment-protected speech as a place of public accommodation.

Had it done so, there would have been an inherent contradiction here -- i.e., the Act would have been unconstitutional. Statutes do not overrule Constitutional Amendments. If Congress had intended to order a private citizen to compose and write out a long piece of text in support of a marriage she disapproved of and punish her if she refused, they would have needed to enact a new Constitutional Amendment and convince 38 states to ratify it.

 

[Bomb#20]

...
Moreover, there's nothing in your argument explaining why it ought to apply to whatever activities the U.S. government currently defines as businesses but not to others. It simply takes for granted that suppressing bigotry is more important than respecting people's constitutional rights "If you want to run a business", even though the constitution doesn't say its guarantees vanish in a puff of businesshood. When you say "They are right to do so, and the constitution in no way prevents them from doing so.", without offering some sort of justification for the defining line between business and non-business being drawn where it is, your claim amounts to "The government is right to make up a label, attach it to whom it pleases, and disregard the constitutional rights of those so labeled." ...

this isn't about suppressing bigotry, so your argument doesn't quite fit--the issue is about forestalling bigotry from harming Americans' unalienable right to "the pursuit of happiness".

Have it your way -- the previous poster's argument simply takes for granted that forestalling bigotry from harming Americans' unalienable right to "the pursuit of happiness" is more important than respecting people's constitutional rights "If you want to run a business". It's not granted. He and you of course can't be expected to be intimately familiar with the American legal system, but in fact there is no unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness in American law. That saying comes from the Declaration of Independence; it was enacted by the Continental Congress, a body subordinate to the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Continental Congress was exceeding its authority, just like all the States that passed articles of secession 85 years later. American laws aren't based on the Declaration of Independence but on the Constitution. The DoI has no legal status here -- it was a propaganda piece.

And it is about, you are right, what is and isn't a business in America. I think, but this may be naive, that businesses are pretty clearly defined at the moment, and I don't think in a political system where both major parties are in the pay of corporations, that "business" definitions by the American govt are up for serious change, though with your activist supreme Court, you never know.

No, it isn't about what is and isn't a business in America. It's about what is and isn't Constitutional Law. The opponents of the decision wish it was about what is and isn't a business; they have been trying to make it be about what is and isn't a business; but wishing doesn't make things so and the SC was having none of it. The SC appears to have taken judicial notice of the fact that the Constitution doesn't say First Amendment guarantees vanish in a puff of businesshood.

 

[Gospel]

A lifetime ago, in a state far, far away, when the Constitution still stood as a safeguard for the citizens so Roe v Wade was still the law of the land, this made a bunch of Republican state legislators sad. They felt really strongly that women should not get abortions, and that fellow citizens should not help women get abortions, and that Republican state legislators were entitled to stop them, because all of your uteri belong to us now or some equivalently dumb-ass mansplainy reason, so they really, really wanted a way around that pesky Constitution thing. Well, long story short, they invented one. They passed a law authorizing citizens to sue one another for getting or aiding and abetting abortions. That way, according to some clever, clever Texas Man, the government would not be involved. The Constitution only prohibits government from stopping abortions. If private citizens want to stop abortions, that's none of the Constitution's beeswax. Thus spake Texas Man.

Senate Bill 8 (SB 8) exemplifies an successful maneuver by conservative factions to bypass constitutional safeguards in an effort to limit access to abortions. The impact it imparts on Texas residents mirrors the hypothetical repercussions that the feigned injury of this topic would unleash nationwide if not duly nullified. I have more faith in divine providence than I do in the court's ability to overrule this.

So, Florida Man, do you agree with Texas Man's reasoning? When Texas ex-husband John Doe files a lawsuit with a Texas court and serves a court writ on former-friend Jenny Roe, for driving ex-wife Jane Doe to an abortion clinic in Indiana where she terminated his god-given embryo, said court writ ordering Jenny to pay John $10,000 or else present herself in a Texas courtroom and explain why she shouldn't have to pay John to a Texas judge, wherein said courtroom if she fails to persuade said Texas judge then he will order her assets to be seized and turned over to John by a Texas Sheriff's Deputy, do you agree with Texas Man that the government of Texas is not involved?

Your query appears somewhat unrelated to our current discussion. However, addressing your question, the government functions as an intermediary, serving to bridge the people with the U.S. Constitution. Its involvement is indeed essential and expected.

What Texas was doing to pregnant women and their supporters before Roe was overturned was government action from top to bottom. The theory that it was just private citizen on private citizen was a legal fiction. Likewise, when a would-be customer sics the Colorado Civil Rights Division on a business-owner and gets them to pull her license, which is to say, gets them to threaten her with prosecution for selling her services, or he sics a Colorado court on her and gets a judgment against her, which is to say, gets them to confiscate her property, that is government action from top to bottom.

Your point doesn't seem immediately relevant to the subject of protected classes under the Civil Rights Act facing service denial, which other groups haven't encountered. It seems your analogy hasn't sufficiently addressed that disparity.

Are there any other Constitutional rights besides free speech you think the government should be able to contract around by using private citizens as make-believe intermediaries in government courts? In a criminal prosecution, when a defendant exercises her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, do you think the judge should award the alleged crime victim $10,000 when he sues the defendant for refusing to incriminate herself, and we should all make believe that the $10,000 was seized by the victim and not by the judge?

The intent behind your questions remains unclear to me. However, I'll attempt to provide a statement that I hope is pertinent, and I apologize in advance if I'm off target. Essentially, the U.S. Constitution exists to safeguard citizens' rights, not to sanction their infringement.

 

[Bomb#20]

it seems to me patently ridiculous to propose that burning a flag counts as speech but writing fifty pages of original html does not.

... people with privileged status, wealth, and power have always struggled against the restrictions that the freedoms of other people have put on their own freedom to do whatever they please.

... If you ever find yourself in a position to demand that others express your opinions instead of their own, and get your demand met, you may rest assured that you are the one with the privilege, status and power.

I didn't know that people set up businesses and charged customers fees for burning flags. . . well, I guess I'm not too old to learn new things.

Let's hope you aren't. Why are you implying that my argument implies they do? Do you think the Constitution contains a secret protocol saying all your rights go "ptoing" if you have a paying customer?

Your post seems strangely both disgruntled and assured.

The assuredness comes of having better arguments than the people trying to gut the First Amendment have. The disgruntlement, sorry -- I get fed up when people stand on a corpse and whinge about how their slain enemy has all the power.

 

[Bomb#20]

If the director were fired would that violate their first Amendment rights? Apparently so.

Where the heck are you getting that? If the producer doesn't like all those directorial decisions she can fire the director. Producers fire directors all the time. The one who's paying the director's salary can stop, the same as the actors can stop acting if they don't want "to go with it".

Likewise, nothing in the website ruling says anybody has to employ Lorie Smith. Reacting to her refusal to do same-sex weddings by firing her ass has not been held to violate her First Amendment rights. The Colorado government is not her employer.

Actors may be contractually obligated to go with it--compelled speech, compelled creativity--or face legally enforced retribution from the entity with whom they have a contract. Should those contracts be void?

What "legally enforced retribution" are you talking about? You know courts in Common-Law countries aren't in the business of chaining up civil lawsuit defendants and having them flogged until they fulfill their contracts, don't you? If you aren't familiar with the term "specific performance", look it up. When an actor doesn't fulfill his contract, he gets to not fulfill it, and the producer gets to not pay him. Likewise, if Ms. Smith doesn't create what the nonexistent gay couple fictionally wants her to create, the nonexistent gay couple doesn't have to pay her. And if the Colorado government thinks that's insufficient retribution, no one here will sniff when the Colorado government declines to hire her to design its website.

 

[Shadowy Man]

Let's hope you aren't. Why are you implying that my argument implies they do? Do you think the Constitution contains a secret protocol saying all your rights go "ptoing" if you have a paying customer?

I’m curious about which religions have running a business and serving customers as tenets in their holy books. I don’t see how it’s an infringement on the exercise of religion if it’s not a religious activity.

 

[bilby]

I’m curious about which religions have running a business and serving customers as tenets in their holy books.

The Yen Buddhists?

 

[Bomb#20]

I didn't know that people set up businesses and charged customers fees for burning flags. . .

... Why are you implying that my argument implies they do? Do you think the Constitution contains a secret protocol saying all your rights go "ptoing" if you have a paying customer?

I’m curious about which religions have running a business and serving customers as tenets in their holy books. I don’t see how it’s an infringement on the exercise of religion if it’s not a religious activity.

Well, in the first place, I was making a free speech argument, not a freedom of religion argument. Do you think the Constitution contains a secret protocol saying all your rights go "ptoing" if your religion doesn't require you to exercise them?

And in the second place, are you proposing that a requirement on someone to disobey her religion should automatically pass constitutional scrutiny as long as undergoing the punishment you mete out for noncompliance doesn't violate her religion? If a government enacts a law that all must say Muhammad is the Prophet of God five times a day, or else pay the jizya tax on non-Muslims, are you curious about which religions have not paying the jizya as tenets in their holy books? Do you see how that law is infringement on the exercise of religion even though Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism don't forbid their believers to pay to be allowed to not perform Muslim religious obligations?

 

[Shadowy Man]

If the government has certain Regulations pertaining to businesses of public accommodation then if you find they conflict with your religious attitudes you don’t have to start a business. Just make websites or cakes for your friends. The government isnt forcing you. Running the business itself is not a religious practice. There are also many government regulations over free speech too.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Shall we not be allowed to offer IVF services because gay couples can't use them?

Umm, if IVF means the same thing I'm thinking, they've already been using it. Where have you been?

A surrogate can use IVF at the behest of a gay, but a gay can't use it.

Shall we not be allowed to offer laser tattoo removal because black people can't use it?

Black people can get laser tattoo removal.

Laser tattoo removal is based on the tattoo being darker than the skin.

Shall we not be allowed to offer childcare because the childless can't use it?

Childless people have used childcare services.

Only at the behest of others.

Shall Ringbolt Hot Springs be removed because it's completely inaccessible to anyone in a wheelchair and many other people with mobility issues?

While no official records indicate that a person with disabilities has visited Ringbolt Hot Springs, there's certainly no barrier preventing them from doing so. Nestled in a secluded area, the springs can be reached via a well-tended trail, designed to accommodate individuals with disabilities. Moreover, ample accessible parking options are conveniently located close to the trailhead. Maybe they just don't want to go? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You know what there also is no record of? Documented laws or regulations restricting disabled individuals with disabilities from visiting due to religious beliefs.


Thank you for attempting to leverage protected classes to set an unfortunately misguided trap.

This one you're obviously just making up.

The easiest access to Ringbolt is from downstream--and requires climbing a ladder that's something like 20' tall. The last time I was there water was pouring across part of the ladder, but the ladder has been replaced since and I don't know what it looks like now. From the upstream side you're faced with a small cliff which must be scaled. It's short enough and easy enough not to be a substantial obstacle to anyone fully able bodied, but if you have any physical impairments think carefully before tackling it. The upstream side also requires traversing several small dry falls, even less of an obstacle than the cliff but definitely hands-on.

Not to mention that it's a natural thermal spring and thus carries the standard warning of not letting water get up your nose. If you can't protect your face completely you should not enter the water. (The chance of a problem is low, but if you should draw the short straw you're looking at a lethality that makes Ebola look good.)

From either side is worse, it is clearly at least class 5. (The sort of stuff that if you don't have a death wish you're using ropes.)

I am not aware of any vehicle whatsoever that can reach the hot spring. A helicopter could hover and lower someone down, perhaps there is a place it could put down and let someone rappel down but that's it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Michigan Salon Owner Refuses to Serve LGBTQ+ Community Because of ‘Pedophiles’

She says because she believes that the “+” indicates “pedophiles,” she’s refusing to serve the “TQ+” community.

www.advocate.com

Some members of the LGBTQ+ community have been banned from a hair salon in Michigan in a breathtaking display of ignorance and bigotry.

The owner of Studio 8 Hair Lab, Christine Geiger, said in a Facebook post that she is exercising her right to free speech by refusing specific customers her services. She also compared gender-diverse people to animals, the Kansas City Star reports.

“If a human identifies as anything other than a man/woman, please seek services at a local pet groomer,” urged the hair salon owner. “You are not welcome at this salon. Period.”

The salon’s Facebook page was later deleted, and its Instagram profile was set to private. A description of the business on Instagram says it is “A private CONSERVATIVE business that does not cater to woke ideologies.”

A few days earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that a web designer was protected under the First Amendment from building a website for same-sex marriages if she refused to do so based on her beliefs.

“We are not bound to any oaths as realtors are regarding discrimination,” Geiger’s post on the salon’s page noted.

And the market is dealing with it fine: Dumped by a supplier.

Hair Care Company Jack Winn Pro Pulls Support of Transphobic Michigan Salon

The company said it was shocked to discover the salon owner’s comments and immediately initiated an investigation.

www.advocate.com

Can't you discern the gravity of this situation? Are you of the opinion that this issue won't ripple out into other sectors? Do you genuinely believe it won't escalate to a point where it inflicts damage on every American eventually? This pattern reminds me of how trends typically emerge. While some trends fizzle out and vanish, many others persist and escalate to a national scale. Take Hip Hop as an example. There was a time in your life when it was active and you never herd of it. However, once it began to gain traction and enjoyed commercial success, its spread was nothing short of exponential. I foresee a similar trajectory for this issue. It begins modestly, but then proliferates to such an extent that it becomes impossible to go a single day without encountering it.

Discrimination has no place in the marketplace. While a few misguided individuals may desire it, they can certainly manage without it, as has been demonstrated for quite some time now.

The point is that while there might be a few morons out there the public reaction will keep it from being a serious issue.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I've seen enough wedding websites to know that it is NOT cut and paste. It's curating photographs. It's selecting font. It's selecting poetry or music (original or otherwise), it's guiding the customers to make tasteful selections that go with their entire theme. There's a LOT to it, if it's done well.

If it were that easy, people would just use an online template and create their own. Some people do and do it well! Others? Not.

What does "curating" photographs mean?

Selecting which photos (or portions of photos) to use for a specific use.

Note: wedding planners, and I suspect people who design wedding websites for couples very often work with a specific photographer or set of photographers and when possible, recommend a specific photographer to work with a specific kind of couple: Someone who likes working with animals for the couple whose dog will be ringbearer, for example. There will also be discussions of what kind of 'feel' they want to convey, and select photos, clothing, hair, location, etc. for that purpose.

*A friend is a wedding planner. That's how I know some of this stuff.

So, a pretentious word for selecting.

"Curating" covers a lot more than just selecting.

Think of museum curator.

I did, and indeed I have known museum curators: and the term was borrowed from them to give a pretentious patina of professional elevation to activities in positions which require no specialized scholarship.

It doesn't require specialized scholarship, but it's a lot more than merely selecting.

You can be basically certain that any professional level photograph these days has had some editing done.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If a government enacts a law that all must say Muhammad is the Prophet of God five times a day, or else pay the jizya tax on non-Muslims, are you curious about which religions have not paying the jizya as tenets in their holy books? Do you see how that law is infringement on the exercise of religion even though Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism don't forbid their believers to pay to be allowed to not perform Muslim religious obligations?

How is this even remotely a good comparison to the matter at hand? The government is saying you can’t discriminate who your customers are based on protected classes if you run a business of public accommodation.

If she makes websites as a hobby the government isn’t forcing her to make gay wedding websites or pay a tax

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And of course, your response is "Well, they just have to go somewhere else, no biggie." That's you LITERALLY ENDORSING SEPARATE BUT EQUAL.

Separate but equal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The reality is the photographer who tried it would find their business seriously hurt.

See post 449 below where C/J/fish is overtly called a bigot by another poster.

Disagree--I do not see that post as calling him a bigot, but rather saying he's hypersensitive to supposed bigotry.

Do reread this exchange carefully:

Those are some real nice people there. Real champions of freedom and liberty.

But somehow, I'm the bigot. Amazing.

"So, you're still peddling your trademark ad hominem arguments and guilt-by-association character assassination. What a surprise.

You're showing it was interpreted as a claim of bigotry. That doesn't make it actually a claim of bigotry.

Voldemort ("He who must not be named") was against Stalin. So if you and Toni were in an argument about Stalin's virtues, no doubt you'd tell her "Here's more info about Voldemort whom you side with, Toni:" and then go on at length about what a piece of human sludge Voldemort was, and finish up with a rhetorical fluorish, "That's some real nice person there. Real champion of freedom and liberty. But somehow, I'm the bigot. Amazing.".

Yes, you'd be the bigot. The fact that Voldemort was a bigot and was against Stalin is not evidence that Stalin was a good guy; it is not evidence that Stalin wasn't a bigot too; it is not evidence that being anti-Stalin is bigoted; and it is not evidence that Toni "sides with" Voldemort. But the fact that you would go there -- that you would insinuate Toni is a bigot because Voldemort happens to agree with her about Stalin -- would be evidence that you're the bigot."

I'm not addressing whether anyone is actually bigoted or not. I'm saying the words in question are not a claim that somebody is bigoted. The problem with things like bigotry and discrimination is that if you look hard enough you'll "find" them whether they exist or not. I read this as an assertion that he's looking too hard.

 

[Shadowy Man]

A better comparison may be that a Christian church can refuse to say prayers from other religions. But that is a legitimate religious exercise unlike running a business.