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Unlike some,I actually think rights do not change depending upon who is the 'victim'.
It's not my right and no northerner or westerner would be right treating you that way. I'd be reading them the EXACT same riot act no matter my 'yankee' origins. I'm an American, PERIOD.
I've said it many times. If its a privately owned business, then they should be able to do on their property, what they want. If I don't want to serve someone, I shouldn't be forced to. If I don't want to build ramps for the handicapped, then that should be my right.
If its a public facility, or the only place in town to buy groceries, then that would be an exception. You can't expect someone to drive 30 miles just to get food, because the local grocery store won't serve them. But I'd expect that this would be a problem that is few and far between.
I also support privately owned businesses to allow smoking on their property. If its legal, then I should be allow to do it on my property.
The door swings both ways. If you don't like a restaurants policy, don't eat there.
You are WAY too sensible and a believer in private property rights...someone will be along shortly to take you to the reeducation camp.
Disapproving of gays is the same as disapproving of those who disapprove of gays, both sides are intolerant of the other. Both sides dislike the other because they don't feel the same way on the subject of gay acceptance. Neither party is right and neither party is wrong, both are exercising their rights to feel and act how they wish within the limits of the law. Form any opinion how you want about one party or the other, but know that there is no right or wrong answer on this subject.
No one is obliged to be tolerant of hatred. If we're all going to be in the business of being fair and impartial with one another, the moment you convince yourself to hate a group of people based on irrelevant subjective criteria you just deleted the very operating system you stand upon.
You can't negotiate with a terrorist because they don't mean to get along. In any way you engage or adopt terrorist mentalities, even subtly as passive aggressive behavior, it puts this nation in decline. Passive aggressive behavior is the 'gateway drug' to overt aggression. You talk yourself into hatred. In legal terms it's called premeditation.
It's not my right and no northerner or westerner would be right treating you that way. I'd be reading them the EXACT same riot act no matter my 'yankee' origins. I'm an American, PERIOD.
No. Just like they shouldn't be (and aren't) allowed to refuse service to blacks, whites, men, women, Christians, Jews, Americans of Dutch decent, etc.
Boundary issues get confused too often with you folks. Once you step foot off your property, deferring to the laws of the land is not optional. Walk through open society having cherry picked the constitution to save only X is a long line of landmines to dodge. Knock yourself out but you're still going to jail and America's constitution stands regardless of whatever other country you wish it were in your head.
This private business is in public domain interfacing with the public. It's a whole other set of rules than your living room or your 40 acres out back.
But it is on core principles defining our nation. There is no thought police, think whatever you like, believe whatever looks right to you and reject for YOURSELF whatever looks wrong to you. Live it out on your own dime is the American way. Don't have sex with gays. Don't go to gay bars, don't go to their parades, don't whatever. There is no human being on the planet I will ever meet that I can say I agree 100% with at all times. That doesn't give me the right to be abusive to any of you until you get my dander up abusing others. Depending on how unreasonable you make yourself I'll call the law, and how lame is it when adults allow their own BS to get so beyond their control that we have to call authority? Really now, look at yourselves!
I've got to say, though, that when one of my fellow citizens is going on and on about alien reptile elites taking over the planet I have options. I can voice my reasons for disagreement, change the subject or politely excuse myself from that conversation. People are more than a single idea and so I can spend my time looking for whatever else there is to appreciate about them or simply move on. I'm not really in the business of telling anyone how to be, with the exception of standard civility AKA common decency when you're getting in my face with hatred. The behavior of heteros in this thread and on the streets steps outside the bounds of common decency. I'm hetero, I'm Christian, and I'm telling you brothers and sisters, you're way out of line from everything you claim to be.
Your characterizations betray you. The gay 'agenda' for that day was buying cupcakes to serve a gathering. Nothing sinister as you imply. A rainbow is not sinister. The symbol for which it stands is not sinister. There was nothing about this groups representative behavior in the store registered as complaint. No sugar cookie ordered would have been an issue because these individuals would be clueless that their customers were in fact gay. They don't mind taking the money of gays so long as gays conceal their identity, but when they refuse service on this basis of a symbol it's an unofficially posted rule in their store 'no gays allowed'. AND I'll add that the representative of the group might not have actually been gay, but a hetero who supports gay rights running an errand. This old lady would be mighty offended by their behavior despite not being gay myself. I'm also offended by ethnic slurs and by people who reference genitalia in whatever their disagreements. They have no respect for themselves or the rights of others, so why should anyone respect them or their rights if they're going to print themselves a license to abuse?
So really now, why are you and these others animating yourself this far out of your way to be offensive? Your opinion of anyone is irrelevant in business. That's the discipline of business. Your opinion of anyone is irrelevant in free society. That's the discipline of free society. The right to free speech is abused too often by characters like Coulter, Stern, Rev Wright etc and enough with the trashy undisciplined speech. You have the right to speak, but not the right to abuse my ears. You also have the right to remain silent, but if that silence is all about cowardice, about groupthink lockstep ideology trumping America in your minds, you aren't worthy of the nation you reside.
No one asked for your approval to breathe. I wouldn't dare put that upon you or anyone because, in OUR American tradition, we respect the rights of others knowing that our failure to do so threatens our own rights. Some of my countrymen have gotten very far removed from that basis of our existence believing themselves to be the only ones with rights, to hell with everyone else. Every moment you live that out as individuals you erode your communities, the constitution and our union. You're traitors to the very nation you claim to love and convinced you're defending. America is not by definition an exclusive country club for your pet group. Get over yourselves.
Force feeding? If you were ever delivered that force feeding in reality you'll regret the day you cried wolf one too many times. These wild accusations are unproven and insulting to the intelligence of rational people. It's like listening to a woman making false accusations of rape to mete out retaliation for whatever perceived wrong is in her mind. It's despicable. It's morally repugnant behavior I'm witnessing not in the gay community, but in hetero's believing themselves righteous to be abusive. Act like this in my town and as juror I'll convict you. My allegiance is to America, not to a political ideology or a gender or a lifestyle choice or anything else I am or every will be because being American comes first in secular interface with the rest of you. Those are the rules from day one only people were slow to realize these clear boundaries drawn in interpersonal relationships.
The argument will continue infinitely because you refuse to acknowledge material facts. Fact: the 'social engineering' people characterize as a sinister plot of gays is already something you've imposed on others with your refusal to simply leave gays alone. Tell me how fair would you think it would be if gays decided the institution of marriage for heteros and heteros only should be abolished? If the shoe were on the other foot and you have a different answer, you've allowed your prejudices to put you outside compliance with our constitution.
Just because people got in habits of slavery didn't make slavery right. That was social engineering at the expense of blacks to favor whites. It was wrong and we were out of compliance with what we claimed we were as a nation. White people had to argue how out of compliance white people were. Rights for women was an acknowledgment by men that they were out of compliance with their own rules and so men are in large measure the champions not only of democracy, but also in securing rights for women. Now it's my turn to pay it forward standing side by side these men & women of all colors and creeds rooted in truth. How Mormons, women, blacks, or religious could allow themselves to believe they've got their's to hell with everyone else is a clear sign to me they have no comprehension of their own rights or their own responsibilities as citizens.
If we have inadvertently socially engineered a civilization that's entitled z group of people to abuse b group of people based on irrelevant personal criteria, it's wrong. It doesn't matter who the players are- plug in a white guy getting abused by a black guy it's all the same crapioca. It's the BEHAVIOR that's wrong, not a negation of a given groups right to exist. The exception being when the core identity of said group is all about dominating others with intent to oppress or defining themselves in terms of what they hate in others. I have given all of you ample time to state your cases for decades, and the common thread no matter how pretty you paint with words, the thing animating this (irrational) hatred in heteros towards gays is at it's core the desire to annihilate them from the planet.
I'm born and raised in Christianity and nothing anyone can say or do can remove it from the marrow of my bones. It doesn't matter if you weren't because much of our culture is predicated on Judeo-Christian philosophy/ beliefs. Much of our culture is also predicated on nasty habits that have nothing to do with the Bible. You don't have to be a declared Christian to examine how you've adopted many of the practices unconsciously. The accusations of 'indoctrination' coming from those who are indoctrinated in their own brand is high comedy to objective 3rd parties.
Business is business. It's not personal. They were not harassing other customers or stealing or any legitimate reason you could name for asking someone to leave based on personal conduct. Indulging personal preferences that have nothing to do with the basis of your business is antithetical to business. It's a lack of professionalism. So really who forced what down whose throat? If I were to twist feminist arguments to some whackaloon extreme in my head, issue myself a tin star enforcement agent and impose my 'right' to refuse service to all males (not human beings, not individuals, but the amorphous blob "male") for 'personal reasons', I'd be guilty of the very thing feminists accuse. In other words I wouldn't have a leg to stand on. In other words I'd be completely FOS, deeply disturbed individual in need of therapy. Nothing I would be doing actually represents womankind, it would represent my own sickness. It's the exact same BS when men misrepresent manhood as being a bully/tyrant in their various relationships with others. They give manhood a bad name. I would be giving womanhood a bad name in my disrespect of male right to exist.
Indeed why would you? Why do they not have equal power and right to exist? Why do you use extreme radical language to characterize them? What makes it acceptable in your mind that you get a vote over anything they do in their own lives on their own dime? It's grossly inappropriate that any of us get a vote over another's very right to exist. That's unamerican. That's Arabic denial of Jews right to exist. That's Palestinian refusal to concede the right of Jews to exist. That's Jews denial of Palestinians right to exist. The entire middle east is a cesspool of hatred as a result. Is that how y'all want to live? Go move there if you can't handle your civic duty to uphold rights equally!
We're supposed to be better than that so walk your talk people. You have nothing to be proud of when you're acting like an animal by treating human beings like animals. Tyranny of the majority is something our founders warned against and you ignore the warning because you've got yours, to hell with anyone else. Remember that when a posse of like minded individuals comes to your town USA and drags you to a tree and not one soul speaks up or lifts a finger to call the law. They're not dragging me to a tree, I fall within the popular majority on an issue, so why should I care? If you're going to embrace the attitude, divorced from civic duty, that 'I've got mine to hell with everyone else', you'll be next on the list. When good men do nothing is a profound shame. That's not what America was built upon.
All of this because of my belief that this bakery had the right to refuse to make agenda laden sweets?
I don't know where I ever expressed such displeasure of gays that you felt the need to go on a 13 paragraph rant.
This is tolerance in the eyes of gay rights activists? "Accept everything we stand for, regardless of your beliefs, or we will launch into overly verbose tirades?"
Yikes. I don't feel any don't feel any different about anything I said. My opinion stands.
If someone thinks it's okay to turn down a customer just because they're gay, on moral grounds, then that is sending a pretty strong anti-gay message, if you ask me. If I walked into someone's store and they refused my order because of gay symbology, I definitely wouldn't feel like they "loved the gays." Accept? No, but tolerate? Why is that so much to ask? Refusing an order cause it represents homosexuality isn't even being tolerant. It's discriminating. Wouldn't you feel hurt if someone turned you away for no other reason than the fact that you are Christian, or a Republican, or because you were married and had kids? I find it hard to believe anyone would feel welcome in a place where they're denied service just because of who they are.
Who 'hates' gays?
See THat is one the myriad of problems the 'caring,tolerant types' have...they feel that if someone disagrees with something,it means they hate it.
I have my doubts as to whether most of the caring tolerant types even know what the definition of tolerance IS...
How am I supposed to feel when I get turned down for service? Complimented?
Would you feel accepted, or even tolerated, if you were denied service based on your race or religion or ethnicity? How is that being tolerant? It's not letting other people live, it's interfering. That's not tolerance.
When you turn someone away at the door, that's the message you're sending. That you hate them so much you can't even tolerate them. So don't be surprised when people take it that way.
How am I supposed to feel when I get turned down for service? Complimented?
Would you feel accepted, or even tolerated, if you were denied service based on your race or religion or ethnicity? How is that being tolerant? It's not letting other people live, it's interfering. That's not tolerance.
When you turn someone away at the door, that's the message you're sending. That you hate them so much you can't even tolerate them. So don't be surprised when people take it that way.
How can this be hard to understand?
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