My god, the right-wing trolls are out in force today!
There are plenty of good arguments on both sides here without going into rabid partisan paranoid bigotry.
Remember, the ACLU even defended those right-wing, gay-hating Westboro Baptist Church people. So no, they are not part of some mythical 'leftist' plot.
And culture is busy widening the definition of marriage, as it has previously widened it to include people of different colour, and narrowed it (in the further past) to not include multiple wives or underage children.
But that can be flipped over onto heteros doing stuff in public like existing in public, getting married, holding hands, etc.
Again, changing what you wrote to say "blacks are ok but they shouldn't flaunt it, they should keep it to themselves" has already been decided by society to be unjustly bigoted. Why should any class of people 'have' to keep 'things' to themselves. What about all those people 'offended' by mixed marriages, or 'Moooslems' or even women not in the kitchen?
You make an awful lot of statements of belief with no proof, and you also broad-brush people, assuming that everyone here for gay rights automatically wants to kill 'babies'. This coming from someone whose same demographic could be equally broad-brushed as being happy to murder adults (either by death sentence or by war-mongering).
There is no de facto need for morals to come from any god. They can come about from instincts (children are important) or reason/common sense (if I don't hit people they won't hit me). Different morals happen at different times, in different cultures - there are no 'absolute' morals, and many claimed gods, all with their own moral 'codes'.
So those of us who don't wish to adhere to your god's random and arbitrary codes feel perfectly happy making up our own, and it's not hard to work out that slavery is inconsistent with the belief in the right to life an liberty that anyone should have. You don't need an absent deity to 'force' morals on people - people can agree that they all think that murder and stealing are bad (individually and for society), and as a society forbid them.
Besides, I seem to remember a few bits in the bible that either condoned abortion or treated newborns as not 'human' until a month or two old. And let's not go into the divinely sponsored or caused infanticides that happened en masse... So even your claimed deity can't keep his story (and hence morals) straight. I'm assuming you don't eat bacon or shellfish, and don't cut your beard?
The problem comes when everyone says "I don't serve blacks, go find someone else". Rights are always a byplay - my right to swing my fist any way I like is always impeded by your nose's right to stay unhurt.
So, someone can just ignore your local speeding laws because they 'impinge on their right to drive how (fast) they like'? Better hope they're not driving in your neighbourhood!
You can be for the Second Amendment, but not agree with the prevailing interpretation. There's very few countries I know of who would treat anyone old enough to hold a gun as 'well-regulated militia'. Even Switzerland and Israel have some criteria on who can be militia and have guns.
If you actually had to join the National Guard or some similar body, that would be one thing, but allowing four-year-olds to own and use guns, when they can't drive a car for 12 years, or marry for 14?
That would still be discrimination if it can be shown to be against a certain type of person (and not because, say, that particular individual annoyed you).
In the web-coding example above, at least you can prove that there is a 'cost' to providing support for a particularl(ly bad) browser.
Maybe there's a valid, logical reason that slavery has been recognised as being between a master and his slave for thousands of years ...or everyone else had it wrong because, y'know, you know better.
Feel free to come up with those 'valid, logical reasons' that don't actually exclude many existing hetero marriages. And "I think it's icky" or "it's tradition" are not logical or valid reasons. Traditions change with time and culture, and what you think is icky is purely subjective.
Letting same-sex couples marry will no more 'destroy' 'traditional' marriage any more than mixed-race or mixed-age marriages do. Go pick a fight with divorce and adultery, they are a far more existential threat to 'traditional' marriage!
Yes. The issue is, does the KKK member act 'normally', or are they breaking some law, such as actively abusing the business owner. Then you get them for that. But business of any kind is not a licence to discriminate, or you'll simply find businesses using the flimsiest excuses to discriminate (oh, it's against my 1st amendment religious rights to serve Irish catholics/sons of Ham/mooooslem 'pagans'...)
You want to make a business serving the public, you have to follow public rules. In a case like this of work for hire, the photographer should go with it.
What happens when someone doesn't want to cover a mixed-race wedding, or a bar mitzvah, or even something like someone getting remarried (adultery to some Christians)?
Nice DARVO. Attack the bullied ones, then claim it's in offence to 'bullies'. If you are truly against bullies, then you shouldn't be picking on the 'gay people threats' only, but sticking up for anyone bullied.
Speaking of which, I haven't seen any "threats that gay people made on this list to the general population" in this conversation...
"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display ..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Well, apparently Pravda has become the 'go-to' trustable foreign news organ for neocons, so long as it is criticising Obama and his government. You know, the same neocons that scream that he is a 'Nazi socialist communist atheist muslim'.
I'm surprised the sheer mass of cognitive dissonance in having rabid anti-commies using Pravda as 'gospel truth' hasn't collapsed the US into a black hole.
Pixar always were Disney - it's only since they became more independent that they got more sequal-oriented. I suppose it's hard to create totally new, wonderful worlds every couple of years.
The French actually declared war on Hitler in September 1939 along with Great Britain precisely to live up to its treaty commitments, and because it was the 'right' thing to do. This is the nation that had had a substantial part of WW1 fought on its territory and had fought the Germans for four times as long as the US did during that conflict.
Ok, so they overestimated their defences and didn't understand mobile tank warfare (no-one really did outside the German High Command), but they continued to fight the Germans as best they could after their invasion in mid-1940. A full year and a half before the Americans bothered their asses to join a war they'd only joined because the Japanese and Germans declared war on them!
This is the same fighting French who gave us the words 'Maquis' and 'The Resistance'.
Coming from a country that cries when its furthest extremities are hit (i.e. Hawaii), and doesn't have to guard its national borders against anything more than Mexicans, Canucks and Siberians, you sure can be quick to dish out abuse to countries with long, actually difficult-to-defend borders.
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: ACLU
There are plenty of good arguments on both sides here without going into rabid partisan paranoid bigotry.
Remember, the ACLU even defended those right-wing, gay-hating Westboro Baptist Church people. So no, they are not part of some mythical 'leftist' plot.
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Love is not Marriage
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: My Freedom to do and belive what i want.
Again, changing what you wrote to say "blacks are ok but they shouldn't flaunt it, they should keep it to themselves" has already been decided by society to be unjustly bigoted. Why should any class of people 'have' to keep 'things' to themselves. What about all those people 'offended' by mixed marriages, or 'Moooslems' or even women not in the kitchen?
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Open question to the non-religious here
There is no de facto need for morals to come from any god. They can come about from instincts (children are important) or reason/common sense (if I don't hit people they won't hit me). Different morals happen at different times, in different cultures - there are no 'absolute' morals, and many claimed gods, all with their own moral 'codes'.
So those of us who don't wish to adhere to your god's random and arbitrary codes feel perfectly happy making up our own, and it's not hard to work out that slavery is inconsistent with the belief in the right to life an liberty that anyone should have. You don't need an absent deity to 'force' morals on people - people can agree that they all think that murder and stealing are bad (individually and for society), and as a society forbid them.
Besides, I seem to remember a few bits in the bible that either condoned abortion or treated newborns as not 'human' until a month or two old. And let's not go into the divinely sponsored or caused infanticides that happened en masse...
So even your claimed deity can't keep his story (and hence morals) straight. I'm assuming you don't eat bacon or shellfish, and don't cut your beard?
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Dec 17th, 2013 @ 3:53pm
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re:
So, someone can just ignore your local speeding laws because they 'impinge on their right to drive how (fast) they like'? Better hope they're not driving in your neighbourhood!
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: well...
If you actually had to join the National Guard or some similar body, that would be one thing, but allowing four-year-olds to own and use guns, when they can't drive a car for 12 years, or marry for 14?
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Point of view
In the web-coding example above, at least you can prove that there is a 'cost' to providing support for a particularl(ly bad) browser.
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Re: Re: It is complicated...
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Re: Re: Re: It is complicated...
On the post: UK Government Is Working In A Snowden-Free Bubble
Re:
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Feel free to come up with those 'valid, logical reasons' that don't actually exclude many existing hetero marriages. And "I think it's icky" or "it's tradition" are not logical or valid reasons. Traditions change with time and culture, and what you think is icky is purely subjective.
Letting same-sex couples marry will no more 'destroy' 'traditional' marriage any more than mixed-race or mixed-age marriages do. Go pick a fight with divorce and adultery, they are a far more existential threat to 'traditional' marriage!
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Re:
You want to make a business serving the public, you have to follow public rules. In a case like this of work for hire, the photographer should go with it.
What happens when someone doesn't want to cover a mixed-race wedding, or a bar mitzvah, or even something like someone getting remarried (adultery to some Christians)?
On the post: Unfortunate: ACLU On The Wrong Side Of A Free Speech Case
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Speaking of which, I haven't seen any "threats that gay people made on this list to the general population" in this conversation...
On the post: Copyright Strikes Again: No Online Access To UK Internet Archive
Re:
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display ..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a flashlight."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
On the post: Wall Street Journal Calls Snowden A Sociopath; Argues For Even Less NSA Oversight
Re:
I'm surprised the sheer mass of cognitive dissonance in having rabid anti-commies using Pravda as 'gospel truth' hasn't collapsed the US into a black hole.
On the post: It's Not Such A Wonderful Public Domain, As Paramount Plans To Block 'It's A Wonderful Life' Sequel
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The Duel of the Fates in Episode 1.
Natalie Portman :)
The rest could probably be junked.
On the post: It's Not Such A Wonderful Public Domain, As Paramount Plans To Block 'It's A Wonderful Life' Sequel
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: French Stock Market Regulator Hits US Blogger With $10K Fine For Publishing Opinion On French Bank's Leverage Ratio
Re:
The French actually declared war on Hitler in September 1939 along with Great Britain precisely to live up to its treaty commitments, and because it was the 'right' thing to do. This is the nation that had had a substantial part of WW1 fought on its territory and had fought the Germans for four times as long as the US did during that conflict.
Ok, so they overestimated their defences and didn't understand mobile tank warfare (no-one really did outside the German High Command), but they continued to fight the Germans as best they could after their invasion in mid-1940. A full year and a half before the Americans bothered their asses to join a war they'd only joined because the Japanese and Germans declared war on them!
This is the same fighting French who gave us the words 'Maquis' and 'The Resistance'.
Coming from a country that cries when its furthest extremities are hit (i.e. Hawaii), and doesn't have to guard its national borders against anything more than Mexicans, Canucks and Siberians, you sure can be quick to dish out abuse to countries with long, actually difficult-to-defend borders.
On the post: Court Tosses Out Bogus Patent Used Against FindTheBest
Re: Re: Re: Good news, everyone.
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