Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Weekend Contributor
Mark Fiore said he was thankful that Governor Jan Brewer vetoed Arizona’s “religious freedom” bill last week. If the bill became law, Fiore said, it “would’ve given people carte blanche to discriminate against gay people (and others, for that matter).” Fiore also said what he found most baffling about the whole thing was the existence of a state legislature that would pass such a bill.
Yes it is, BUT perhaps he could include in his advertising that because he is a homophobe he couldn’t guarantee that his work would be good and may possibly even be shoddy, because of his level of disgust and loathing. That should make most any gay couple avoid him like the plague. To allow him to outrightly deny service to gay couples would be discriminatory.
“This was an effort by Arizona to protect people whose work is expressive in nature. This Arizona bill will have been superfluous anyway, one the SCOTUS reverses Elane Photography v. Willock next term.”
Lots of luck! Elane Photography is/was in the marketplace. The 14th Amendment is the deciding factor. Read it.
Mr. Petaccio, Socialism does more to destroy a person’s ambition and gives government more power and people less power. Capitalism is not ideal, but it’s better than socialism ever will be. Socialist countries suffer under dictatorship and most people in those countries complain that no matter how much they make the government takes most of it and they continue to live meagerly, compared to the average person in the U.S.
Shaun, You will quickly see common sense is lost on an ideologue. And remember, there are folks, irrespective of politics, who think everyone should like and accept them. They are often the most intolerant of others. PC drives anger underground where it festers and is manifested in clandestine ways. The person who doesn’t want to shoot a gay wedding, but is required to be law, does a shit job, or says a virus ate all the photos. I sure the hell wouldn’t want a caterer who hated Italians forced to cater or shoot my wedding. I would want them free to say, “We don’t like Eye-talians!” Then I could tell them to got shit in their hat and find a business that does.
annieofwi, is it a violation of a gay person’s rights for a religious-zealot homophobe wedding photographer to refuse to take pictures of gay weddings?
Before you answer, consider the alternative. The alternative is for the religious-zealot homophobe wacko to be forced by law to keep their views private and grudgingly accept the job, against his will. Do you think that’s what the gay couple wants? Because of the law, the gay couple has now unknowingly hired someone for their special day who will most likely do a bad job on purpose. He’ll cause damage to them which is irreversible because of his ignorance, and to add insult to injury, he’s making a profit off of them too! But, legally and technically, no discrimination exists because he accepted the job.
How is the gay couple better off? How are any of us better off?
Whose Marriage Is It?
Funny but irrelevant. Especially the part about interracial marriage since those bans only existed in 1967 in a few states. The majority of states had no such limitations, and the Loving decision ONLY applied to straight marriage since gay marriage had not even been THOUGHT of much less legal anywhere. IN fact one can with more legal reasoning apply the term marriage to plural marriage than gay marriage. The Congress of our ancestors saw the current problems with allowing plural marriage in Utah. So they simply told Utah that they would NEVER be admitted to the union as a state until they banned plural marriages. Not too long after that the President of the Mormons had a revelation that God and Joseph Smith had told him polygamy was now bad. They were admitted into the union after that.
If I may quote the late Robert A. Heinlein:
A comment I posted yesterday on another thread.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/and-you-thought-uganda-was-bad-map-shows-where-in-the-world-it-is-worst-to-be-gay-9152558.html
I wouldn’t want to be gay in these countries.
From the article.
“Society should be alarmed when governments legalize human rights violations.”
Arizona comes to mind. How close did we get to the first step in legally violating American citizens human rights because of their sexual orientation?
Shaun, absolutely. The more these states and religious right political groups, try to enact these laws that marginalize voters, try to interfere in women’s reproduction rights, criminalize immigrants, and discriminate against homosexuals the more they show their hand, we then know what cards they are holding and how this country would look if they were to have free run. So far we still have enough Americans who reject their agenda (an example of a destructive agenda for Spinelli), thank goodness. If this country became a Christian Nation, it would have to shred the Constitution and Amendments and it would be time to make an exit to a civilized nation. I could actually see armed conflict at that point, which sounds so much like a right winger that I hesitate to even say it.
I was reading about the rapes and forced pregnancies of lesbians, as some sort of “reparative therapy” in African countries, occurring not only in Muslim countries either.
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/fee/Apr98.pdf
“In a free society, there should be support for
peopte•s right to choose. The true test of one’s
commitment to freedom of choice does not
come when one allows others to choose in
ways deemed right. The true test comes when
one permits others to choose in ways he finds
objectionable.”
I know. Which is why I agree with what Shaun said.
people, in a free society, should be allowed to discriminate however they wish. The proper response to discrimination you oppose is to not patronize that establishment or not befriend those with whom you disagree.
I would not shop at a store which had a sign that said gays are not welcome.
Leave the state out of it either way.
Shaun, You are a wise, free thinker.
neildavis, Laws can change people’s behavior, but not their hearts. Laws can harden hearts, though.
Shaun has nailed it. Unfortunately, too many people want to force others to do business with and associate with particular classes or categories of society.
I actually thought the law did everyone a favor, but that requires a little explanation.
As it stands, many people are discriminated against, but it’s done in stealth, under the radar, through lousy service and horrible business practices. It goes on everywhere, but nobody can call it what it is (racism, anti-semitism, etc), because it’s currently being done under the radar, in full compliance with anti-discrimination laws. The business owner is technically and legally complying with the law, so boycotts and marginalization seem to be unwarranted.
I say, let these idiots wear their ignorance on their sleeve. Don’t let them hide behind the law and commit discrimination like they do now. Rather than force these knuckle-draggers to do business with people they irrationally hate, and get their rocks off by discriminating under the radar, let them come out and say who they really are, so the rest of us can more easily identify them, and then marginalize and boycott their businesses.
I guarantee, everyone who has posted to this website is currently helping some homo-phobic, racist, anti-Semite get rich and make profits from you. Why? Because you have no idea that’s how they are. If you knew that’s how they are, would you let them profit from you any further? What would you do if you knew someone like that was operating in your town? What would your friends and family do?
I’d rather flush out the knuckle-draggers, let them own the financial consequences of their promulgated ignorance. The ones who “see the errors of their ways” will change their business practices voluntarily, maybe even become a better human being as a result. The ones who don’t, will see their business fail, and everything else that comes with it.
I would rather see inclusiveness be based on a purely voluntary,rational foundation, instead of the blunt force of law. But as long as the laws are there, such a scenario will never happen. You simply can’t legislate morality.
We have the comfort of knowing that the day is drawing near when all of this wasted time fussing over all Americans right to live their life the way they choose will be a thing of the past, at least for LGBTs anyway.
A Mark Fiore video from 2010:
Un-Gay
Elaine,
I seem to recall reading somewhere that the NFL was going to remove Arizona from the states where the Super Bowl could be played, if this bill had been signed into law.
Funny how risking losing large sums of tourist dollars can overcome objections for all kinds of reasons, including religion and political ideology.
Newly Uncovered Documents Expose ALEC’s Anti-Gay Past
— by Calvin Sloan, People For The American Way
12/4/13
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/12/12329/newly-uncovered-documents-expose-alec%E2%80%99s-anti-gay-past
Excerpt:
Throughout the 1980s, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — now infamous for its work on behalf of “stand your ground” laws and restrictions on voting rights — was instrumental in pushing anti-gay policies throughout the country, according to documents recently uncovered by People For the American Way and the Center For Media and Democracy.
A 1985 policy memo entitled “Homosexuals: Just Another Minority Group” [PDF] sums up ALEC’s anti-gay policy positions and the false claims and outrageous stereotypes on which they were based. ALEC disseminated the memo to its public sector members, arguing that the “homosexual movement has had an impact too great and far reaching for Americans to ignore.”
Through the policy memo and its monthly newsletters, ALEC tracked local, state and federal legislation and provided its members with “research” to help them prevent advances in gay rights. However ALEC of course did not view these rights as rights; instead, ALEC asserted that the gay community was organizing “to achieve the privileges it thinks it deserves.”
So what “privileges” exactly were gay people demanding that infuriated ALEC so much? To name a few, the “privilege” to not be physically assaulted for being gay; the “privilege” of not being incarcerated for being gay; the “privilege” of not being barred from employment opportunities, housing and public accommodations for being gay; the “privilege” to dress as they liked; or the “privilege” of not being compiled into state directories to be blacklisted and discriminated against.
In order to counter the gay rights movement, ALEC argued in “Homosexuals: Just Another Minority Group,” one had to understand first that gay people were corrupted beings, since “the homosexual makes the conscious choice to pursue members of his or her own sex.” The answer therefore did not lie with treating gay people fairly, but instead with providing them psychotherapy or by having them join the Christian faith. “The evidence is too great to deny it,” the memo stated.