Yes, your argument was circular. Something was “immoral” because it “endorsed immortality” and “immorality” of the “discrimination” at issue here.
That’s circular reasoning.
Now, the ignorance is your resorting to ad hominems, which possibly reflects that you lack anything substantive as a rebuttal or argument/
You're basically saying I can't answer your question with the truth.
If a person endorses immorality they are immoral.
To be immoral is to endorse immorality.
This is not circular.
I am not defining immorality.
I am saying why the law is immoral.
It endorses ignorant prejudice like the ignorant prejudice opposed to gay marriage.
It gives the rights of the bigot greater power than an innocent consumer who has the right to not be discriminated against.
James Madison is playing this stupid game. He's trying to pretend that there is no thing in reality that we can point to and say "this is what wrong and right actually look like."
There are some very basic things society is built on. You could call them "social contracts" but it's really more basic than that. Simply put, I can't be good at everything humans have to do, and if I want to get a lot done, I'm going to do the same thing repeatedly; that leaves me without time to do a variety of things, and as a result, we each do one thing we'll, and then trade the products.
That is the basic machine of economics, and I find it unfortunate that I have to explain to James that this is built so heavily into what we are that some rules have arisen around the activity: since one person cannot have all necessary skills, access to all skills of the whole community must be guaranteed, lest people revoke their support and contribution of the work and we all end up having to do work the individual way again, which sucks.
We have rules though that dictate an all or nothing access: don't hurt other people or take shit that "belongs" to them. If you do, we have to put you somewhere or do something to you to prevent it from happening again.
Again, these are really basic concepts. I'm surprised James does not know them. But at any rate, the failure of ethics happens here in that a person has been rejected from economic activity on the basis of who they are. They wish to do a normal human thing (celebrate something absolutely benign) with their normal allotment of access to the normal range of resources (a cake from the local cake store). They have this right for the same reason that the cake shop owner ought not need to know how to make an oven to own an oven.
That is a remarkable pseudo historical explanation of the history of public accommodation law, at least in the U.S. None of which, by the way, informs me as to which “rules” are immoral and why, which outcomes or behaviors are immoral and why, no information as to the source for this morality. Are there no other ways one can conceive of to defend public accommodation laws without resorting to the mere declaring something is immoral? Isn’t it facile to declare, without more, something is immoral?
And it’s so depressingly “unfortunate” that “I have to explain” this to you. Doing so has perilously left me close to a permanent state of being despondent. After all, I’m discussing and touching upon “really basic concepts,” so easy that a caveman can do it.
Your interesting view of “really basic concepts” blissfully ignores that “some of the very basic things” the U.S is built upon is the first amendment free speech clause. A component of free speech is the right not to speak, a right not to be compelled by the government to speak. The free speech clause is applicable to businesses, such as Mr. Phillips’ bakery. Hence, he/his business cannot be compelled by the government to speak by, say, making and running advertisement for his competitors, or a message in favor of tax increases for all bakeries, or a BLM message in his window.
Now, if this cake symbolically and expressively has a message, and if Phillips is engaged in speech when making the symbol expressing a message and to be used to express a message, then Phillips has a free speech right not to be compelled to make this cake under these specific circumstances. Of course, the idea Phillips, when creating the symbol expressing a message, is for Phillips to be engaged in speech is not new.
In Kentucky, the owners of Hands On Originals, a business that prints, inter alia, T-shirts, refused to print T-shirts for the Gay & Lesbian Services Organization with the logo of the Lexington Pride Festival, a gay pride event. The owners didn’t care about the sexual orientation of the customers, but they didn’t want to be a part of promoting the event’s message. The Gay & Lesbian Services Organization filed a complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission, alleging this refusal violated the Organization’s rights to be free from sexual orientation discrimination in a place of public accommodations.
The HRC ruled against Hands On, but a trial court reversed, concluding free speech includes the right that Hands On cannot be compelled to print message Hands On doesn’t want to print. The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed on appeal.
In Hurley, the Supreme Court observed the state, seeking to force the organizers of the parade to include a gay pride group in a parade, was applying its antidiscrimination law “in a peculiar way,” to mandate the inclusion of a message, a message the parade organizers didn’t want included and didn’t want to speak expressively. The Court determined the parade organizers did have an expressive message, hence the free speech clause applied to the parade organizers. The Court held the application of antidiscrimination law to compel inclusion of a expressive message violated the First Amendment free speech rights of the organizers. The organizers had a free speech right not to include a specific expressive message, in legal vernacular, not to be compelled to speak expressively by inclusion of a expressive message they did not want.
Now, I have no idea if any of that is “immoral,” and neither your or Unter have said or presented anything to support the notion any of it or some of it is immoral. I’m sure I could find no shortage of people who would say the above is moral, that it is morally sound not to be compelled to speak by the government and this includes businesses where they are being asked to speak.
Regardless, Phillips may have a free speech right not to speak, if this is speech.
He's trying to pretend that there is no thing in reality that we can point to and say "this is what wrong and right actually look like."
This isn’t what I said. You devoted a lot of ink addressing a comment I never made.
