Christian florist v. homosexual couple in WA

So your not capable of figuring out that if the power company decided to cut off your power that you could suffer physical or financial harm ?

 

Bakers and florists OWN their business! Utilities run by private companies are state owned assets in private hands. The companies RUN them, but they do not OWN them. The government owns them by default and then privatises them with obvious conditions. If a utility company started to discriminate then they would loose their contract and it would be returned to state management before possibly being re-contracted to a new company. Its a ridiculous argument and is easily debunked. And its an argument which I thought someone of your intellect would be well above.

 

You have not debunked anything. If discrimination is OK - its OK - regardless of whether it is the Gov't or a private company doing it. You don't get to decide who does and not get to discriminate .. and there are many utilities that are not "state owned assets".

Regardless - If all the gas stations decided not to sell to black farmers - they would be hurt financially. It doesn't take much intellect to figure out how people would be harmed financially by discrimination.

 

What a ridiculous thing to say. Governments must serve EVERYONE!

Such as what?

If gas stations decided not to sell what?

 

Gov'ts do not have to serve everyone. If discrimination is OK - its OK. Some power companies are not owned by the Gov't.

If gas stations in a local area decided not to sell gasoline ... duh.

 

If discrimination is okay according to who?

I'm not talking about the companies. You said, "there are many utilities that are not state owned assets." So what assets aren't state owned?

I do draw a line at essential services. Services which keep the country moving. Services which the government would run if the private sector never took it on. So for example, gas stations would be in government hands. Bakeries and florists would sure as hell not be in government hands given that government would have no interest in such services being made available to the population.

 

I totally missed it. I probably would've noticed if you used a question mark! Answer below.

Well I would use the word "authoritarian." And I'm not limiting it to just businesses interacting with gays. This authoritarianism was justified in the bad old days of anti-black discrimination pre-Civil Rights Act, for the sake of social cohesion, although I will say that the social action against offending businesses was starting to work and would likely have achieved the same outcome, though probably not in the same time frame. If the Civil Rights Act was abolished tomorrow, widespread racial discrimination would NOT break out! Any business that engaged in it, would be DESTROYED!

As in what? Refuse to marry them?

I'm saying that there is no EVIDENCE that people want to refuse to serve these groups.
You said that "some people absolutely want to deny service to black people. And Christians. And Hispanics. And Asians." Well what is your evidence for this?

Then why should businesses have to pay for something that they cannot afford?

 

In various state laws around the world, yes, which is totally irrelevant. However, according to Bible believing
Christianity and any other faiths that I'm aware of, marriage is between a man and a woman. Plain and simple.

 

The Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin. I also compels us to rebuke sinners.

 

Passion for the same sex is a sin.

 

Are you saying that Christians should not eat pork?

 

What part of the 1st Amendment don't you understand. Religious practices are a protected class.

 

What the hell do you think that has to do with same sex marriage?

 

Religious practices are a protected class in the Constitution. Discrimination laws don't apply......"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

 

If it were up to you, you wouldn't simply scrap these laws? "Whether they outweigh the gay couples right to her services." What right is there to someone's services?

 

So then presumably you don't think that what the florist (she by the way) did was illegal?

 

"Like a change" and "changed" are the same? Surely you can't be serious.

 

In response to that poster, you only focused on the "facebook can refuse" part. You said, "if you believe that Facebook can discriminate based upon race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc., you'll have to provide a link to such guidelines." What guidelines? There is no law stopping Facebook from kicking someone off for any of those reasons! They are not included in Public Accomodation laws!

 

What does that have to do with whether or not you're on the left?

 

I see that you have been unable to explain how you know this. Looks like you just made it up.

 

... as is eating pork or shellfish, but marriages are contracts usually performed standing up, and the cake is traditionally featured in ensuing festivities with no prurient aspect.

Whether there is any laying involved in no way relies on such a contract or a cake.

 

The bible condemns eating pork and shellfish as well.

Leviticus admonishes, "Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable," but there are Christian denominations that celebrate and recognize weddings without discriminating as to gender, and have no taboos regarding pork or shellfish consumption either.

Marriage is a legal contract. Neither acts of homosexuality nor heterosexuality are in any way dependent upon such a contract.

 

That might be for the best. But I don't live in Washington, and that is more important than it may appear.

I haven't heard why WA saw fit to enact the law in the first place. Certainly I haven't heard any justification in this thread. "Discrimination " is not bad in and of itself, unless it is invidious. Some discrimination is good, even necessary. (Vision tests and psychiatric evals for anyone involved in air transportation, for example.)

We conservatives have to be gracious and recognize that a majority of the people in WA want this law, and so I can't "simply scrap" anything they decide to enact. I don't even live there. After all, I wouldn't tolerate calls from the denizens of WA to "simply scrap" the law in Texas, which protects against discrimination based upon race, color, gender, national origin, religion, age, and disability, but not sexual orientation.

To your broader point, "Conservatism is never more admirable than when it accepts changes that it disapproves, with good grace, for the sake of a general conciliation."

~Russell Kirk

This does not if course negate the right to invoke the higher principle of constitutional right, of course.

,

 

It is useful to distinguish matrimony from marriage.

 

By the way, hens "lay" eggs. You "lie" in the bed.

Unless you're really really honest, in which case you don't lie anywhere.