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Old 04-03-2015, 01:52 PM
 
Location: Home is Where You Park It
23,856 posts, read 13,683,412 times
Reputation: 15481

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Quote:
Originally Posted by pknopp View Post

Right. Is the government the proper entity to decide who will be protected and who isn't? Isn't that discrimination in itself?
Do you think that it is our government's job to make sure that all its citizens can exercise their constitutional right to reasonable access to the public marketplace? I do.

I've said this before - I was 10 years old when I saw Bull Connor's fire hoses and dogs in action. I've never forgotten it, and it wasn't even that long ago. It is very clear to me that we cannot depend on amorphous good will to ensure that all citizens are treated equally (by which I mean there is no such thing as a second-class citizen.) Some clear statement has to be made, and yes, I think this issue is important enough to require backup from the government.

It is, after all, our elected representatives who determine protected classes. It's not as if some musty functionary sitting in some dreary office somewhere, decided to pull a new protected class out of the air.
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Old 04-03-2015, 01:52 PM
 
11,412 posts, read 7,765,812 times
Reputation: 21922
Quote:
Originally Posted by pknopp View Post
"Protected class". They are not protecting the rights of all citizens. Besides, there is no right to never be offended.
Say what? Please tell me what protections other classes of people have that you do not enjoy. Can you vote? Get married? Drive a car? Buy a cake in any bakery you choose? Say dumb ass stuff on City Data?

It's a shame we have to have protected class laws. If people would just treat others as they should it would be unnecessary, but sadly we are dealing with a lot of racists, ageists, misogynists, religious fruitcakes, skin heads, KKK fools and homophobes in this country and without the threat of legal repercussions some of them would run amok.
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Old 04-03-2015, 01:55 PM
 
79,908 posts, read 44,056,160 times
Reputation: 17204
Quote:
Originally Posted by DC at the Ridge View Post
I think you want to make this about the proper role of the government.
Well, yeah, that is what I said wasn't it?

Quote:
But the government in this case is responding to what various factions of society want. Government is just the tool. Society is determining what the balance should be here. That's why people are arguing, debating, discussing. That's why legislatures are passing laws and revising them and reversing themselves.

As a society, we are constantly evolving. It's a sign of a healthy society. A stagnant society is not healthy. And this issue involves deep-seated ideas and values. We are at a point of profound change. It's incredibly exciting.
A country shouldn't rely on the government for change.
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Old 04-03-2015, 01:55 PM
 
42,732 posts, read 29,808,044 times
Reputation: 14345
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoCalbound12 View Post
I hate that is has become a "religious freedom" discussion because this isn't a religious issue. This is a property rights issue and about freedom for everybody. I believe that as a baker or pizza maker you have the right to refuse service to ANYBODY for ANY reason, religious or not, on your property. There is no such thing as "religious freedom" there is freedom and it should be exercised and enjoyed by everybody. There are no "black rights" or "gay rights" or "female rights" there are individual rights and they apply equally to everybody.
The right to refuse service is abused when it becomes systematic discrimination. People can and have suffered due to the "right to refuse service". If a pharmacist refuses to sell heart medication to Jews because he doesn't like them, and he's the only pharmacist in town, and someone dies because they couldn't get their heart medication prescription filled, is that okay by you?
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Old 04-03-2015, 01:57 PM
 
42,732 posts, read 29,808,044 times
Reputation: 14345
Quote:
Originally Posted by pknopp View Post
Well, yeah, that is what I said wasn't it?



A country shouldn't rely on the government for change.
We aren't. The country is changing, and government is reflecting that change, in this case-that turmoil.
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Old 04-03-2015, 01:57 PM
 
79,908 posts, read 44,056,160 times
Reputation: 17204
Quote:
Originally Posted by DC at the Ridge View Post
The only reason we have "protected" classes is because we have a history of discriminating against those classes of people, of not protecting their rights. It's not that we don't protect the rights of all citizens, it's that we haven't, in the past, and the groups that have suffered are recognized, formally, legally, so that they don't suffer future discrimination.
Affirmative action picks and chooses who will be protected and who won't. We do not protect the rights of all when we do things like this. There is no right to never be offended, so rights is the wrong word.
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Old 04-03-2015, 01:58 PM
 
42,732 posts, read 29,808,044 times
Reputation: 14345
Quote:
Originally Posted by pknopp View Post
Affirmative action picks and chooses who will be protected and who won't. We do not protect the rights of all when we do things like this. There is no right to never be offended, so rights is the wrong word.
Affirmative action is a whole different bucket of pickles. It was about redressing old injustices. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
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Old 04-03-2015, 01:59 PM
 
79,908 posts, read 44,056,160 times
Reputation: 17204
Quote:
Originally Posted by jacqueg View Post
Do you think that it is our government's job to make sure that all its citizens can exercise their constitutional right to reasonable access to the public marketplace? I do.
There is no such thing.

Quote:
I've said this before - I was 10 years old when I saw Bull Connor's fire hoses and dogs in action. I've never forgotten it, and it wasn't even that long ago. It is very clear to me that we cannot depend on amorphous good will to ensure that all citizens are treated equally (by which I mean there is no such thing as a second-class citizen.) Some clear statement has to be made, and yes, I think this issue is important enough to require backup from the government.
You are only a second class citizen if you choose to be.

Quote:
It is, after all, our elected representatives who determine protected classes. It's not as if some musty functionary sitting in some dreary office somewhere, decided to pull a new protected class out of the air.
And that is the question. Is the government the proper instrument for deciding what is moral here?
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Old 04-03-2015, 02:00 PM
 
Location: Las Vegas
5,864 posts, read 4,966,952 times
Reputation: 4207
Quote:
Originally Posted by DC at the Ridge View Post
To which I would point out that it's the religious people who are trying to get the government to pass laws to protect them as they police the public's morality by punishing people who don't share their values. That's what refusing service is, a form of punishment, a sort of shunning. Morality policing in a nutshell.
No it is not, this is all so wrong I don't know where to begin.

First off, going to a pizza parlor or a bakery is a voluntary act. You are of your own free will going to there, no one is making you. By doing so you are stepping on to someone else's property, namely the owner's. The owner has the RIGHT to run his business how he/she sees fit and to refuse his service and his property to anyone he chooses because that property is HIS, not YOURS. There is no force involved there, every action was voluntary. That is not "morality policing" but it is discrimination. I hate to break it to you, but discrimination is part of life. By marrying my wife I discriminated against billions of other women, by drinking Coke instead of Pepsi I'm discriminating. By being friends with one person instead of another, that is discrimination. Every time you make a choice you have discriminated!

Now if you respond to the refusal of service by getting your friend and rolling back up on the pizza shop with guns and forcing him to bake a pie that would be an act of aggression and force. It would be both immoral and illegal. Now if your friend happened to be the local PD and they carry badges, suddenly this becomes legal and everyone is like "oh yeah good thing that happened." That doesn't make any sense. The owner at that point no longer owns his/her property in any meaningful way, the "public" does.

A law allowing business owners to exercise rights they should have had all along is not "morality policing." Morality policing is the use of FORCE to make people comply with a standard of morality. If the law said that owners HAD to refuse service to homosexuals that would be morality policing and it is no different than a law that says that an owner CANNOT refuse service to anybody. Both are versions of morality policing and both are uses of force. Just because you happen to agree with the current version of statist morality policing doesn't make it right, it just makes you a hypocrite.
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Old 04-03-2015, 02:02 PM
 
79,908 posts, read 44,056,160 times
Reputation: 17204
Quote:
Originally Posted by UNC4Me View Post
Say what? Please tell me what protections other classes of people have that you do not enjoy. Can you vote? Get married? Drive a car? Buy a cake in any bakery you choose? Say dumb ass stuff on City Data?
If some classes are protected while others are not that is discriminatory.

Quote:
It's a shame we have to have protected class laws. If people would just treat others as they should it would be unnecessary, but sadly we are dealing with a lot of racists, ageists, misogynists, religious fruitcakes, skin heads, KKK fools and homophobes in this country and without the threat of legal repercussions some of them would run amok.
There is no one answer as to how others should treat others.
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