Cakegate to be decided by supremes

Are you omniscient? I don't see why anyone should take your words for it that other people's experiences are "imaginary and based on conspiracy theories." This is apparently nothing more than being dismissive in an effort to shut people up, to keep the discussion of those real world experiences from gaining any traction and possibly getting people to rethink their assumptions or prejudices.

Were you there when a friend of mine was beaten up by someone yelling anti-gay epithets, and had to have all his teeth-capped as a result? Were you there when another friend of mine was targeted by gay bashers, beaten and left for dead in a gravel pit, suffering brain damage that robbed him of his memories, and left him partially blind? Were you there when another acquaintance of mine was murdered in broad daylight while walking in his neighborhood, by someone who had been threatening him for weeks, but who to this day has never faced justice? Were you there when my coworker called me the six-letter f-word while attacking me with a pitchfork, while a supervisor stood nearby, watched, and did absolutely nothing about it? Were you there when someone hurled a full can of beer at me as I stood outside a gay bar, coming close enough for me to 'feel the breeze' as it barely missed my head before smashing on the wall just behind me, as they yelled anti-gay epithets from the convertible they were riding in? Were you there when a job interviewer made a point of telling me they don't hire 'homosexuals'?

No, you were not. You can pretend all you like that these experiences are "imaginary and based on conspiracy theories", but they aren't. You can be as dismissive as you like, but it won't change a thing about what I and others know to be true.

 

Soooooo what business ever refused you service?............ I don't believe you. Think you just made it up.

 

The transparent strategy here is to make this personal. You baited me by saying you suspected I'd never been refused service by a business; a claim you know I haven't actually made. So I stated the more general truth that the actual experiences of gay people > the suspicions of a person who chooses willful blindness to them, thereby pushing your bait aside to instead address the general theory behind several people's responses here, yours included: that outright denial somehow changes the facts. It does not.

But as expected, you're continuing to pursue this strategy, acting like you're going to impeach me, apparently believing you can hoodwink observers by demanding an answer to something irrelevant. Whether or not I personally have ever been refused service by a business isn't the point, and it's not information you're entitled to know, either way.

If I haven't been refused service and say so, what have you gained? Absolutely nothing. You can't say I lied about it, since I never made the claim in the first place. 'Proving' that one gay person never experienced a particular type of discrimination that they never claimed to have personally experienced in the first place, doesn't somehow magically discredit the legitimate experiences of those that have. Like I said, the pointless suspicions of a person who chooses willful blindness are not greater than the actual experiences of gay people, collectively.

Conversely, if I were to comply with your demand, and tell you what business refused me service, I also know what I should expect from you: More disbelief, demands for 'proof', and an attempt to justify, rationalize, and otherwise excuse the offenders' actions. None of which would negate my experience of being refused service by a business, nor the actual experiences of other gay people who have faced such forms of undue discrimination.

Not my first rodeo, you see. You're just trying to distract us from the real issue.

Short answer: I'm not going to tell you one way or the other, because it's not relevant, I know what you're up to, and if others hadn't spotted this already for themselves, well now they're better informed.

No, you were the one who made it up, trying to pretend I said something I didn't. I'm quite aware that you never believe anything I say anyway, so I've long ago ceased caring about trying to convince you.

What I did say was this:

It's a true statement, whether or not a gay person has previous experience with being refused service. We know other gay people have been, we have have had experiences with other types of discrimination, and thus we don't have the luxury of expecting that we'll be dealt with fairly. It's not that I seek out opportunities to be discriminated against; quite the opposite - I actively try to avoid it, and it's frankly exhausting at times. It makes me give up on even trying to do certain things: Take the planning of a wedding reception, then raise that by the chance of being discriminated against by a factor of 'gay' = Nope. I don't need the grief.

Why you chose to read that as a claim that I've been refused service, and that you're entitled to know "what business" was involved, is on you. I'm not saying I have been or haven't been, and I'm not going to accommodate your demands for answers that aren't relevant and that you don't deserve to know in the first place.

You're the one making stuff up. The protections you claim exist in "most states" don't do squat for me, living in a state that doesn't have any. As for "more protections than those who don't fall into one of the favored identity groups", submit the evidence to back up this claim.

 

but they could have been beaten for other reasons
They probably started the fight by demanding special treatment (special cake) that in turn lead to unwanted altercation.
We know that gays want special rights and special treatment, so there is a reason to believe that they underestimated their opponents.
Lot of people get killed for anything, e.g. just because they don't smile or smile too much. When people want to attack someone they pick anything, including sexual orientation.

 

Well...the story we come to know about that might have been imagined in heads for the sake of activism.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...s-most-famous-gay-hate-murder-matthew-shepard

 

So we're supposed to believe that all of the people I mentioned (myself included) were attacked, discriminated against, etc. because we demanded "special cake" and smiled/didn't smile at underestimated opponents who just wanted to attack someone and picked us because of our sexual orientation?

Like I said in another post, the real experiences of gay people aren't magically erased by people whose entire argument boils down to outright denial of the facts.

 

YOU are the one who said

Now we all know that even though you've never been denied service, you live everyday of your life with the belief that you will be denied service. I'd suggest counseling.

 

I'm sorry about your friend, but it sounds like the aggressors there had a personal problem.

You can't fix hate with legislation (assault is already a crime, and a hate crime depending on motivation, as though that has any deterrent effect), or with Court decisions. If you could, there'd have been no more rapes, murders or theft since ... when ..
. Moses?

 

You only imagine that you know what is or isn't true about my life experiences. Quite clearly you'll believe whatever you want, no matter what I say, so your assumptions come as no surprise to me.

I do not live everyday of my life with the belief that I will be denied service. I do, however, live with the knowledge that anti-gay discrimination is a reality and I stand a good chance of being its target. No amount of counseling will change that, and it's not like I'm going to take personal advice from an anonymous anti-gay adversary anyway.

 

And they make it our problem.

You can't make people not be attracted to the same sex with legislation either. Apparently some people think the solution is to use legislation, violence, and any other tool at their disposal to punish us, instead.

Acknowledged. I'm on record here as not being any great fan of hate crime legislation. It's a bad solution to a worse problem.

 

Yes, we should. Gays wants special rights, something that have no right for, they are under great suspicion.

 

You have it backwards. Gays want equality. Christians want special rights to do onto others that which is unlawful to have done to them.

 

Nonsense. If that were the case, bakers would be prohibited from refusing service to anyone and not just the favored classifications of people.

Christians want the special rights to freedom of religion because its an explicitly stated constitutional right and don't believe it should be over ruled by some city or state law granting special rights to homosexuals

 

Will you acknowledge that overt, violent manifestations of this bias is less and less common?

Will you also acknowledge that 5000 years of common understanding that marriage means: one man and one woman, makes it a little hard for some to accept homosexual marriage with any real enthusiasm?

 

Not so much. An organization that has been compiling information on anti-LGBT violence for twenty years reports that 2016 was our deadliest year on record, with a 17% increase in anti-LGBT homicides, not counting the PULSE massacre. ETA: I've no reason to think that 2017 was better - not when a recent survey reports that acceptance of LGBT peoples has also decreased. The two things go hand-in-hand.

And that's after you consider that a lot of anti-LGBT violence still goes unreported, because of our negative history with law enforcement and the criminal justice system. I've never reported any of the incidents I've personally experienced to police, because I figure they won't do anything about it anyway, and chances are I'll just be creating more trouble for myself. I simply don't trust them or the system (and full disclosure - I have family members working in law enforcement. Still doesn't mean I will ever go to the police for anything unless I'm absolutely desperate.)

Of course the forthcoming argument will be that the organization compiling those statistics is biased in favor of LGBT peoples. We view the reporting of other organizations with skepticism though, because we frankly don't have any reason to expect them to report on our experiences honestly. Again, an issue of trust, and we're a long way from anyone earning ours.

I don't require anyone's "enthusiasm". The oversimplifications notwithstanding, of course I acknowledge the long history of marriage as primarily heterosexual. But that acknowledgment in no way burdens me with an obligation to accommodate their wishes to prevent me marrying, discriminate against me, or disrespect me. The reality that they're able to impose limitations on my ability to live free anyway doesn't change how I feel about it.

 

Addendum to my prior reply. We were told there would be a backlash and a 'price' to pay for same-sex marriage. We're now seeing the manifestation of those threats.

 

Special rights are not constitutional
Homosexuality is strictly private business .
Government has nothing to do with it.

 

Where I come down on gay marriage is, the state a should be free to legalize it or not. That's a moot point now, of course, but at the time the controversy was raging, I came to agree with one of my liberal children that so long as matrimony could remain as defined by my church (Roman Catholic), then what individuals demanded and obtained in the civil world was fine by me. After all, if I couldn't protest two women living in the same house, why complain about what the government called their relationship? Married? Civil union? Free association? Who cares?

The other thing that really got me was recognizing that if one of my own kids were gay and asked me to support her and her partner in a committed relationship and attend and participate in the ceremony, and call it "marriage," there was no way in heck I would say no, awkward as my mixed feelings would have made it.



Also you have some war vets who are gay, and in my book they can have whatever they want in terms of status.

 

They can't get equality because gay sex is a private business, while relationship between man and woman is not, it requires regulation from the government.

 

Exactly what regulation applies to hetro sex and not homo?

 

they want equal rights, something we should all expect when we go to a bakery to by food

 

I do not accept hetero sex marriage with any real enthusiasm unless it's a friend or family member... but I respect the fact that they are legally married, same as a lgbt couple that is married

 

bakers are not allowed to discriminate based on race, gender or religion, discriminating based on the gender of the couple is not allowed

 

the regulation is a marriage between man and woman
government apply full responsibility for man and woman in case if they have children.
it is not happening with gay couples.

 

Yea I understand, they want equal right with a group of people that they are not equal to.
That is an exact definition of special rights.