Bakers Who Were Fined $135,000 for Gay Wedding Cake Refusal Deliver a Major Surprise

[mkpunk]

Originally Posted by Marc Paolella

If morality had not advanced, no one would have cared to even think of proposing a law. Oppressors actually improve on their own, because Man inherently wants to be good. And that is because being good leads to more successful and productive lives. It's an evolution, and it can be too slow, but it is what is responsible for change.

White people dominated the country and could have kept slavery and segregation as official policy forever if that is what they wanted. But that is NOT what they wanted. Over time, white people realized that discrimination was wrong and designed laws to codify the change in philosophy. But the change in philosophy and value preceded the laws. As they always do. The laws were designed to accelerate the process, but the process came from free will and free people.

The best way for civil rights to advance is through Reason and freedom and persuasion, not tyranny and compulsion.

Same with gay marriage. If 98% of the American people, who are straight, wanted to hold gays down, it would be the simplest thing in the world. Ask Africa and the Middle East. In Africa, if you are gay, you die, and are sometimes even mutilated for good measure:

Africa

Will there be a change in philosophy for murdering gays in Africa? Not as long as there is no freedom. It is freedom that introduces the possibility of change. And so, the 2% in America can marry because the 98% changed their thinking. The laws were an afterthought, as were any and all civil rights acts.

Freedom is what catalyzes change. So let's have more of it.

Morality is a lens only as good as the person looking through it. Christian bakers for instance see homosexuality as a sin and some look at even being a part of a wedding as being part of it. Others want the freedom to kick-out non-believers and other sinners from their establishment, even when being peaceful just because of differences in beliefs. Southern business owners thought it was moral to discriminate against blacks whether it was segregating them or outright refusing business from them well into the 1960's. Despite protests and pressure, it did take the Civil Rights Act to correct that. Reason didn't work with them and we still saw backlash from people included elected officials like Governor Wallace of Alabama who wanted Alabama public universities to remain segregated years after the ruling from Brown V. Board ended segregation in schools. He also ran for president in 1968 on the same belief.

I can't speak for the other nations of the world, I don't know the ins and outs of their political systems, it's a bit apples and oranges though because you are comparing one nation to another. Sure there are vast civil rights violations in some, just like South Africa, but it is a different set of circumstances and a different set of outcomes.