A solution for the homosexual hating florists

Think about what you post. This is not about current law, its about property rights and their impact on society.

Advertising is speech. A car dealer can say "My car is the best, you should buy it", and he has not done any harm to anyone. If you go to him, blindly accept his claim, buy his car, and find out he lied, that's really your fault (but if he puts it in a purchase contract, that's contract law and binding). If you do blindly accept his claim and find out it was a lie, you can make the situation known to everyone, his sales will suffer, he will either correct the problem (and your car) or go out of business, and other dealers will get the message as well.

And why is that the case? Usually because of some other law, lately its due to accommodation laws, which push a social agenda such as an atheist says she is offended by the sight of a cross or Bible and uses the govt to oppress someone else's property rights.

And blue laws used to be essentially national, but have been repealed almost everywhere.

But again, you miss the point. Do you want someone telling you that you must close your business on Sunday, or Saturday, or during Ramadan, because they believe people should not work on their Holy Day? Do you want the govt having that power?

 

No wonder KFC is soooooo greasy.
Yuck.....
I prefer grilled chicken.

 

Livers are about the only part of a chicken I like and KFC takes forever to make them even when they have them, so I generally go elsewhere

 

see post 76

This is a long running topic because of the abusive laws imposing upon property rights, not because people are abusing their personal property.

Your entire claim is based upon the assumption that there are no private property rights, that property is owned by the community and every person has a claim on every other person. That's not middle ground. If I decide I will make my skills available for hire but only to people who own dogs, then its none of your business or the governments business. It does not affect your property or life, you are not harmed, I am not damaging your property or preventing you from exercising your rights. And if the government forces me to work against my will, that's the definition of slavery.

 

Warning long winded post. You don't understand me. I can still argue the subject, but the argument alone usually provides very little enjoyment for me without some potential for reward , which is inevitably lacking if those I am engaging, are pig-headed and stubborn on even the smallest of issues. If they are 'give no ground' type of posters,I tend to lose interest. I may well be misjudging you, but that was the impression I was beginning to get in this thread.

To the broader point. The way these statutes are worded, they usually simply prohibit discrimination in public accommodation, housing, employment based on sexual orientation, race, religion, etc, but they do not provide a lot of specific parameters beyond which the statute has no reach.

The argument that I understood you to be making is that if the bakery is willing to provide a service to a gay couple ( sell them a cupcake or a birthday cake) that means they probably aren't discriminating against a gay couple based on their orientation when they refuse to produce a wedding cake with Aaron and Steve as the two grooms. Its not the 'gay' alone that bothers them, it is a ceremony involving two gay people which is a step removed, from orientation itself, in a different locale, and potentially not involving the actual customers who are ordering the product. A single 70 year old woman ( mother of one groom) may be the physical customer and be refused this service based on the obvious nature of the wedding. is there still discrimination based on sexual orientation? Does the statute reach that far, and ought it reach that far?

While I doubt that the legislative intent was for the language to have that reach ( most of these did not contemplate off premise same sex weddings at all), I don't see a constraint in what I have read either. It is discrimination based on sexual orientation, 'once removed' or not.

Now to the 'ought'. I tend to support the basic premise behind these 'public accomodations' civil rights statutes a la 1964. I recall you as in fundamental disagreement on this. I am comfortable with government regulating business activity and telling a restaurant that it must serve black patrons equally, and it may not discriminate by putting them in a separate room or handing them a different menu, or charging them a different price. It may not visit its animus on a customer based on specific criteria listed as protected classes in a statute. I am rarely persuaded by the constitutional libertarian arguments against regulating private businesses anyway.

When looking at this 'longer reach' that we are talking about here, I see more good than bad being done, and I don't think you can refuse to sell that cake or those flowers and not be discriminating based on sexual orientation. I don't see the downside, and I am not seeing a 'slippery slope' I am scared of. The legislative constraint is in the selection of the protected classes, and in any amendments the legislature sees fit to adopt. Your Jewish baker is safe because Neo- Nazis will not become a protected class as long as political affiliation and identity are not protected classes. Your remedy to potential abuse if you find it, sits in the legislature and you are at most two years from reform language to address a problem either from the courts or an administrative agency gone 'rogue'.

remember all this stuff impacting businesses is via statutes, as opposed to constitutional law dealing with 'suspect' classes and due process violations. Those words can be changed. I am really not seeing the practical problem that you have with this beyond the fundamental libertarian one. That is my 'ought' speech.

 

So anybody that doesn't absolutely agree with you is pig headed? I think your impression on me at least is more of an emotional response than anything else.

I'm sorry your argument was not convincing, perhaps you should give ground if you want that.

Sigh...

Perhaps this is the point of your frustration. I'm not talking about what the laws are, I'm asking if the laws are right.

Apparently it does reach that far, my argument is that it shouldn't.

So that goes into the nature of business. Am I as a business owner the actual owner of my assets or is the government? If the government can regulate who gets to have my goods or time and I do not, than am I really the owner?

Why? Who is the government to annoint the chosen classes? We can't say it's on the basis of discrimination, I am willing to bet neo nazis are far more oppressed than gay people. If you punch a homosexual and call him a *** it's a hate crime, if you punch a neo Nazi everybody cheers. So they are more oppressed. So why does one class get special recognition?

Well, perhaps you can see the problem, you may not care about it, but the problem is, who owns your time and property of you're in a business? Does that differ if I'm selling say a car or private repairs without a license or business name? If so why? Is ownership changed by the acquisition of a license?

 

Why do you alter my posts. That's against the guidelines.

 

Sure, but that abuse hasn’t exclusively come from governments. Private companies, institutions and even individuals can do so to and it is perfectly possible for them to gain sufficient power and influence to have just as much impact as governments, often with fewer checks and balances (especially in a context of government being explicitly limited). I just think you need to look at the wider picture rather than making this exclusively anti-government.

I’m not saying there are no private property rights, only that they can’t be unconditional as you’re implying.

Your decision has the potential to harm people in that those without dogs won’t have access to the services you’re offering and it’s perfectly possible that they’re only available from you at a particular time and place. This leads on to the question of who determines what causes harm (or potential harm) and what happens if they do. If you’re truly asserting that there should be no middle ground, how could my property rights be denied even if I might be hurting someone?

The “unless you’re harming someone” is a shift towards the middle ground and anti-discrimination laws are the same kind of thing. In general terms businesses do have the right to refuse service but it has been determined (generally by democratically elected governments) that refusal on the basis of these stated grounds is potentially harmful. You’re not actually disagreeing with the principle, only where the line is drawn.

 

Government is the ultimate authority and force - it can openly take your property, imprison you, even kill you, with impunity. Private companies cannot do those with impunity - unless they collude with the government and either own or have the protection of the abusive govt.

I am not exclusively anti-government - no entity should be able to infringe on a persons private property. The government is often the focus because those who want to infringe on property rights see the best means to do so is to co-opt the government.

What you are claiming is that denial of service is a violation of property rights - it is not. My skills and my time are my property, not yours, not the governments. Because a person needs or desires my skills does not give them the power to enslave me.

Think of a situation in which my neighbor needs to go to a meeting. My neighbors car won't start, he comes to me and says "I desperately need to get to my job, if I don't get there I will be fired, my meeting is more important than yours, give me your car, its my only option".

Can he take my car against my will? Should I be forced to give him my car? Should he be able to go to the govt and have a regulation passed that allows him to take my car in similar circumstances? I say no to all 3. Its the same with skills (a private business).

 

Wow. You have to be deliberately ignoring nearly all of human and U.S. history to make such a claim. Astonishing.

 

I get the principle, I even agree to an extent but I'm trying to get you to explain what you expect the consequences of this principle should and could be, taken to the extreme you're promoting. It's all very good saying "no entity should be able to..." but how would you make that happen?

No, I'm claiming denial of service has potential to cause harm. You can't say the right to private property is unconditional when at the same time you say it's conditional on not doing harm.

He shouldn't just take your car. He can, especially if he is faster, stronger or has a bigger gun than you. That's why the government has a role in preventing him from doing so, even if it impacts how he chooses to use his property (or things he claims as his property).

How about if you're the one who needs to get somewhere and your neighbour has parks his car on the street blocking your driveway? Since his car is his property, do you think nobody should be permitted to force him to move it or move it against his will?

 

As I have stated numerous times, I am fine with the removal of ALL public accommodation miles, but as long as it stands for one group it should be applied for all groups. When Christians start being terminated for failing to follow dress procedure (no jewelry, including crosses) or proselytizing the mantra of "we only want to discriminate against the gayz" will ring loud and clear, even for the ones currently denying that is what is going on.

 

This is not about human history, just the USA. And slavery was not universally accepted within the USA, and it was ended by opposition from the people of the USA not by the govt.

The same for Jim Crow, which was govt instituted racism. Not all white Southerners supported Jim Crow, but those who opposed it faced harassment and violence. And how was Jim Crow removed? By the people, not by the govt. The govt had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table.

People know right from wrong, that's why govt is critical to the creation and establishment of racism.

 

Accommodation laws are unconstitutional. The attitude should be to remove them, not to enforce them.

 

Except for when they accommodate a religious belief of course.

 

I agree, violation of Amendment XII. No one is seriously advocating for their removal however, they just want them not to apply to groups they don't belong to. Christians are the biggest hypocrites here, they are pushing something not only unconstitutional but in violation of the very tenants of their faith.

Religion has turned into nothing more than a political weapon, a perversion of its teachings. Until it is dismantled at its corrupt core no one will know peace or equality.

 

You are indulging in pure fantasy.

Nothing in any society is universally accepted. You can always find some people who rejected or fought against a given status quo.

But to pretend Americans don't have a long history of racism -- individual, collective, all of it -- is to be in the deepest sort of denial of history.

As well, pretending "government" and "the people" are separate animals in a representative democracy is nonsense. The government is us. We are the government.

But even if you insist on separating them, your claim is complete nonsense.

Jim Crow laws were passed by government -- but government did not invent the attitudes behind it. The government was merely doing the bidding of the voters that elected it, reflecting the attitudes and desires of those voters. To claim there would be no racism without government is, again, the worst sort of tripe and the deepest sort of denial.

There were no Jim Crow laws authorizing the lynching of blacks, and yet that happened at a very high rate in the South. That was INDIVIDUALS committing those acts, not the government.

Jim Crow laws were not "removed by the people". They were killed in part by Supreme Court rulings, but in extremely large part by Lyndon Johnson and the United States Congress, when they passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. GOVERNMENT did that.

And let's not forget that there was years of resistance at various levels of society even after Jim Crow was forced out. Cities and counties introduced "at-large" council seats largely to try to dilute minority votes. Blacks were (and are) discriminated against in housing and employment even without Jim Crow. Blacks were (and are) disproportionately targeted by law enforcement. The list goes on. And on. And on.

 

Learn to read. Have I ever posted that accommodation laws should be enacted to protect religion? No. Accommodation laws are unconstitutional.

 

Please elaborate on the part in red.

 

Well, you better go tell the Supreme Court and the legislative branch, they seem to think they are.

 

The funny part about it, is they place their religon on the butcher block of politics and them cry out "attack" when it starts getting chopped up.

 

For many years, they also thought slavery was legal, and Jim Crow. And today they think its legal for the govt using eminent domain to take private property and give it to another private person for private use (Kelo v City of New London). And Citizens United. And a host of other extremely controversial "laws".

 

Something being controversial doesn't mean it's unconstitutional.

Also keep in mind the court while Scalia served was conservative majority and the court currently it's conservative majority.

 

The supreme court has not been "conservative majority" in a very long time. Kennedy - who is not a conservative but a wishy washy moderate - has been the deciding vote for a many years. If Gorsuch is equal to Scalia, then the status quo is retained. The court needs 2 more Scalia type justices to bring it back to reality and honesty.