Below is my Sunday column in the Washington Post on Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
The column below raises the question of line drawing and states that I would prefer an absolute rule requiring all services. However, I could not support such a rule if we are going to strip protection from “wrong” views while allowing others to refuse on the ground that other symbols or language are clearly offensive. One variation on the “No Cake For You” approach below was suggested by a colleague who said that we could allow bakers and others to refuse any offensive language — religious or non-religious — unless the government could show that the baker would have sold the cake but for the status of the prospective buyer (e.g., gay or straight, Jewish or not, etc.). Thus, as long as the basis of the refusal was the actual language or symbols, it would be protected as an expressive act.
As I say in the column, I continue to struggle with drawing this line. None of the options are particularly satisfying. However, I do think that we have to have a real dialogue on this issue free of low-grade efforts to those on the other side as bigoted for wanting to discuss the range of free speech conflicts. The point is that, when dealing with the question of the right to refuse to create offensive symbols or language, one must address the fact that there are a wide array of such conflicts that can arise among different religious, cultural, or political groups. One does not have to agree with their speech to raise the question of their right to engage in such speech. Indeed, the first amendment is designed to protect unpopular speech. We do not need it to protect popular speech. Some may ultimately decided that no business can refuse any message under the “Let Them Eat Cake” approach despite rulings like Hobby Lobby and Citizens United. However, the first step is to have the debate, preferably free of personal attacks or attempts to silence those who would raise the speech of other unpopular or offensive groups.
Here is the column:
Within minutes of the signing of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a chorus of condemnation arose across the country that threw Indiana Governor Mike Pence and his colleagues back on their heels. The response was understandable, though somewhat belated. After all, both Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama supported similar language that is found not only in federal law but the laws of 19 other states. While broader than most of these laws, the premise of the Indiana law was the same: citizens could raise religious beliefs as a defense to governmental obligations or prohibitions.
For those of us who have been warning for years about the collision of anti-discrimination laws and religious beliefs, the current controversy was a welcomed opportunity to have this long-avoided debate. Yet, we are still not having that debate. Instead, there is a collective agreement that discrimination is wrong without addressing the difficult questions of where to draw the line between the ban on discrimination and the right to free speech and free exercise. That includes the question of why only religious speech should be protected in such conflicts, as noted in the column. Yet, there is a reluctance of acknowledge good faith concerns among religious people in fear of being viewed as bigoted.
There has been a great deal of heated rhetoric in this discussion that avoids many of the more difficult questions. For example there is the common criticism that these bakers cannot assert their religious beliefs when it is really their business that is being required to take certain actions. However, last year, the Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. expressly found that such businesses do have religious rights (as they do speech rights, as recognized in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). In 2014, the Court ruled that “no conceivable definition of the term includes natural persons and nonprofit corporations, but not for-profit corporations.” Likewise, despite arguments that the federal RFRA is narrower because it references only conflicts with the government (and not other private parties in the Indiana law), some courts have ruled that it can be used in civil litigation.
As expected, the response of some commentators was to condemn even raising these question of free speech by saying that it saying that it equates gay couples to the KKK or Nazi sympathizers. Even when admitting that they do not have an answer for the free speech question, the attack is on the raising of such questions. There are legitimate concerns over allowing businesses to refuse to prepare products deemed offensive due to symbols or language, but we cannot really address these issues if people are denounced for just raising the conflicts and discussing conflicts. It results in a circular position that we can discuss the question of the protection of offensive speech but not if the question is offensive to discuss. This is an unfortunate trend where difficult questions are avoided by attacking those raising them as presumptive racists or homophobes etc for even raising different types of speech or views. It is a rather odd position to be placed in given my writings for decades supporting gay rights and same sex marriage. More importantly, when discussing the limits of free speech, one necessarily discusses the broad spectrum of free speech examples, including offensive speech. There is not an effort to equate gay marriage symbols or language with anti-Semitimic symbols or language. Obviously, as a supporter of same-sex marriage, I reject that notion. However, the point is that some people hold opposing views from my own. Some of those views I find deeply offensive. If we want to discuss the growing limitations on speech, we need to explore the spectrum of different forms of speech. That is what CNN did in the interview when raising the “KKK cake.” CNN was not saying that such a view is equally valid on the merits. It is ridiculous to say that, by discussing what different people consider offensive, we are saying that all of those views are valid or correct. It is not enough to say that such people are simply wrong or there is clearly a difference in the “real” offensiveness of the messages. Indeed, in some ways, such critics are answering the question by saying that some views are simply not viable because they are wrong. That is saying that society will draw the line on what speech can be the basis for refusing services and what cannot be such a basis.
After all the heated rhetoric over Indiana’s controversial religious freedom law, this rights debate could ultimately come down to a cake war. Just as diners were at the epicenter of the fight over racial desegregation, bakeries have become a flashpoint today.
Conservatives in Indiana and elsewhere have objected to bakers (and florists and photographers) being “forced by the government to participate in a homosexual wedding.” While those conservatives have been rightly ridiculed for failing to explain how the Indiana law as originally formulated would not license bigotry, critics can be equally chastised for failing to explain where to draw the line between religious freedom and discrimination. Asked on CNN this week whether a Jewish baker should have to make a cake for a KKK couple, Sarah Warbelow, legal director of the Human Rights Campaign, insisted that “there’s a huge difference between having to write something objectionable on a cake and being asked to provide a cake for a same sex couple.”
Of course, for some religious bakers, a cake with language or an image celebrating same-sex marriage is objectionable. In other words, critics may be trying to have their cake and eat it, too.
Consider two cases that both happen to involve bakeries in or near Denver, Colo. In July 2012, David Mullins and Charlie Craig visited Masterpiece Cakeshop to order a wedding cake. Owner Jack Phillips said that, due to his Christian beliefs, he could not provide a cake for the celebration of a same-sex marriage. Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission ultimately ruled that the bakery broke the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
Now, the flip side. In March 2014, Christian customer Bill Jack asked Azucar Bakery to prepare two cakes in the shape of Bibles — with an X over the image of two men holding hands. Owner Marjorie Silva said she would make the cakes but refused to include what she found to be an offensive message. Jack filed a religious discrimination claim that’s now pending with the state’s civil rights division.
Two sets of cakes. Two different sentiments viewed as offensive. Can we compel the baker in one case and permit the other to refuse? And should the right to refuse be limited to religious objections? There are an array of messages that offend non-religious persons or violate non-religious values. Glibly saying that you cannot discriminate ignores legitimate questions of forced speech and forced participation.
I’ve struggled with the tension between anti-discrimination laws and free speech/free exercise for years, and I see three basic approaches to resolving it:
Let them eat cake. As one option, we could maintain a strict neutrality rule that requires businesses to serve all customers, even when they find customers or their requests (whether involving cakes or flowers or photographs) to be offensive. If you choose to go into a particular business, you lose the ability to withhold services based on the content of messages or the specific attributes of an event. That would mean a bakery couldn’t refuse to inscribe an anti-gay message on a cake — or a birthday message to someone named Adolf Hitler Campbell (which a New Jersey ShopRite said no to a few years ago). Under this approach, a cake would be viewed as a form of speech of the customer, not the baker.
No cake for you. The second possibility is an absolute discretionary rule that allows businesses to decline services or products when they substantially burden religious values. This could lead to a significant rollback of this country’s progress since desegregation. Even the sponsors of the Indiana law have indicated that they do not want such a broad rule.
Speech-free cake. A third option would be to allow a limited exception for expressive services or products. Under this approach, a bakery could not refuse to sell basic cakes to anyone but it could refuse to customize cakes with objectionable symbols or words. A florist could not refuse to supply standard flower arrangements from a pre-set menu but could object to designing and styling, say, the venue of a same-sex event. Likewise, photographers — whose work is inherently expressive, as they select particular moments to capture, frame compositions and create a product tailored to specific clients — could claim an expressive exception in declining to work at events they find offensive.
Frankly, none of these options is entirely satisfying, and all three would lead to tough cases on the margins. For instance, the uniformity and clarity of the “let them eat cake” approach is appealing. Yet it’s hard to imagine compelling Jewish bakers to make Nazi cakes or African American bakers to make KKK cakes. On the other hand, if we allow for expressive exceptions, we’ll have to determine whether or not a funeral director, say, is engaged in an expressive act.
If we are unwilling to impose an absolute rule of service regardless of content, then we need to be honest about our reservations and look more closely at how to allow people to opt out of certain expressive services. If people can decline offensive services, we need to focus our attention on defining those services that are inherently expressive and those that are not. We need to discuss not the central issue of discrimination but those cases on the margins that deal with legitimate speech. As Benjamin Franklin noted, “a great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.
Happy Pappies, could you clarify? You possessed cognitive capacity to store corporate records comprehensively and your wage was $11.50 per hour? Perhaps the “Bend over you’ll like it” component was part of your overall compensation package.
You do seem to have the capacity to understand my position. Just like Obama is ineligible for the office because his is clearly, per the Constitution, Washington/Jay letter and the definition in the legal text of the era, the Law of Nations,” not a “natural born citizen” but simply a “citizen,” and just as Obamacare is clearly in violation of the commerce clause of the Constitution and was presented by Congress as NOT AT TAX, the “Fair Housing Act” and “Civil Rights Act” are unconstitutional, understanding that constitutional rights to private property are nullified by these Acts, these Acts violate previous rights of all citizens, and these Acts unconstitutionally establish bias, by granting separate and superior rights to particular subgroups of citizens. It is not the authority of the judicial branch to “legislate from the bench” through corrupt decisions arrived at by ignoring the American thesis and the Preamble, Constitution and Bill of Rights.
You purport not to understand the Founders when they limited government in the Preamble. If the American thesis was “do anything you want, whenever you want,” the Founders needn’t have written anything other than some basic rules of parliamentary procedure. Question: if citizens had the right to private property and they had deed and receipts for property, did Lincoln have the right to seize said private property through emancipation, not eminent domain? If Obamacare clearly states that exchanges must be state not federal, why does it continue to have force and why haven’t ethical elected officials and the SCOTUS read the clearly written words and declared Obamacare null and void? If history accepts that Kennedy stole the election from Nixon, why hasn’t an ethical, transparent and honest government declared the Kennedy presidency void, vacated and rescinded, including all of his executive actions and legislation – just as the NCAA rescinds titles held by violating athletes, coaches and programs?
In what dimension of reality is the imposition of bias by affirmative action laws constitutional? In the land of “equality” and “fairness,” bias is imposed by the government? That’s dictatorship not freedom. Maybe you’re right. Maybe you can’t understand.
You certainly can perceive truth and fact from lies and deceit, right?
Is it in any way possible that under the American thesis and the reality of America at the time of ratification of the Constitution, that private property owners would be ordered how to dispose of their private property? Sounds like the monarchy and the King – ever hear of the American Revolution? What do you imagine the Founders meant by “pursuit of happiness,” “private property,” “privacy” and the “blessings of liberty?” Did they mean people would be the dynamics of the nation or government would? Did they mean issues like slavery and healthcare would be resolved by free citizens and the market forces of the private sector or that zealots and tyrants like Lincoln would dictate to the people?
It is called dictatorship, Happy Pappy. That’s American reality.
This latest is the dictatorship of the homosexual special interest group over the normal majority.
The inmates have taken over the asylum.
***
Regarding the fact that China is now the restricted-vote representative republic with severely limited government as established by the America Founders, even as America imposes all the Marxist principles of the Communist Manifesto, a story broke today about China mercifully releasing a group of radicals from the special interest group for “women’s rights.” Apparently, the model of the American republic established by the Founders is in full force with majority rule and rejection of all minority “special interest group” antagonism. China simply limits government per the Preamble, to Justice, Tranquility, Common Defence and Promote General Welfare, while the “blessings of liberty” are freedom and free enterprise without interference by government other than vigorous facilitation (promote general welfare) of corporate operations to innovate and create wealth as a “free enterprise” (what Marx called “capitalist” as a pejorative) juggernaut which is gobbling up the world like Pac Man (PetroChina just passed Exxon as the world’s biggest oil company) and America focuses on inanities such as homosexual wedding cakes and “women’s rights,” the perpetrators of which would be thrown in prison in China.
To review, China has no IRS and no tax, no corporate tax or any other tax except “consumption tax.” China has no welfare, affirmative action, food stamps, medicaid or social services, while people from one-child families pay for their own school and healthcare. There are no “women’s votes” or “minority votes” or “illegal alien votes,” or one-man, one-vote democrats voting themselves largess (i.e. “free stuff”) or disrupting the “tranquility” with radical protests about homosexual marriage/wedding cakes or “women’s rights.” The Chinese don’t have time for that idiocy. The Chinese have work to do. The Chinese are free and have free enterprise to do. And they’re doing it.
Looks like the Chinese read the American Preamble, huh?
***
Maybe you’re right. Maybe you don’t understand all of this.
Thomas
I know all about the 7 Sisters of China passing up the old 7 Sisters of Saudi Arabia and BP and Canada and so on and Standard Oil and Halliburton and what used to be Enron here and was nothing but a house of cards.
How do I know this? It was in my head with McDonell Douglass, General Dynamics and oh oh oh, yes, I just said, Halliburton.
My Salary Package was commensurate with my tenure which was in the late 1980s when Enron was Houston Natural Gas and became Enron and I helped orchestrate that. I was done in the early 1990s as I was in an abusive relationship in more ways than one and I retired early – I worked for Computer Sales International in the Home Office in St Louis Mo. Women were not paid well unless they gave over to be part of the entertainment committee and I was not in to all of that. Now, I was able to put in quite a bit of overtime so, I usually made around 35 grand a year which was not bad for not having a degree.
As far as not knowing what I am talking about, I am afraid it is patently obvious that it is you who is on the lunatic fringe here on the blog dear.
There is nothing I have not seen in the upper room so to speak and I am sure you wish that you have seen it. lol.
The Chinese certalinly would like you to believe they have freedom over there while their people are still starving to death and their cities are empty except for places like Hong Kong and Beijing.
But you go ahead and believe their photo shops and cut and pastes.
You are the one who is twisting reality like a shape shifter. very good. I am impressed as in not. I am not even going to try to wrap my mind around the warped woof of your words wisdom.
😉
First Amendment Freedom of Speech Religion to pursue life liberty and happiness
Ninth Amendment cannot enumerate the powers. That is the Paradox – You see with that Civil rights amendment in there you can’t Balkanize Religions meaning you can’t refuse to serve some one and keep them from their pursuit of happiness because it is the same thing as race. This is race color or creed. So what is wrong that you are unable to comprehend the letter of the law?
I am not going to do cut and paste here to make my point as I am fully aware I am correct on the law in this case.
Well, now that Hillary Clinton declared her candidacy, perhaps Squeeky will be busy working for her campaign. Maybe she will have to work with gay people, oh horrors!
Squeeky,
What religious undertones are there in a wedding between two Atheists?
Oh, how about Mormons of yonder with five wives?
Or how about a Suix getting married to a Croix?
Max-1 – The Sioux are very touchy about the misuse of their name. I would email JT and ask him to correct your spelling. 😉
@Ken Rogers
You only find the article “thoughtful” because it agrees with your position. This is a flagrant case of confirmation bias on your part. You do not address the SCOTUS statement, “no conceivable definition of the term includes natural persons and nonprofit corporations, but not for-profit corporations.’ ”
Except to repeat that it will open the floodgates of litigation. Well, what does NOT passing stronger RFRA’s do??? The same thing. And if we do pass civil rights protections for the gender-screwed-up folks, just like with the history of real civil rights racial laws, every time some sodomite gets fired, there will be charges of discrimination.
And you still avoid discussing the significant religious overtones of wedding celebrations. And, you anti-choice folks still refuse to explain how where one puts one weenie trumps what another person believes as his religious obligations.
In other words, you are tired of repeating yourself without adding anything new to the discussion, sooo you go to an outside source to repeat yourself for you! Clever!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Paul C. Schulte
Max-1 – on your things Jesus never said meme…
= = =
You have a problem with it because… it challenges conventional thoughts?
Like this one: Jesus is a Jew.
Max-1 – Jesus was a good Jewish boy with a good Jewish mother. I always passed that on to my students. And for many years Christianity was considered one of many sects of Judaism.
@ JT
“For example there is the common criticism that these bakers cannot assert their religious beliefs when it is really their business that is being required to take certain actions. However, last year, the Supreme Court in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. expressly found that such businesses do have religious rights (as they do speech rights, as recognized in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission). In 2014, the Court ruled that ‘no conceivable definition of the term includes natural persons and nonprofit corporations, but not for-profit corporations.’ ”
~ ~ ~
Here’s a thoughtful response to the Hobby Lobby decision and Indiana’s RFRA:
“The public wrath directed at God-fearing Republican politicians in Indiana and Arkansas is pounding on the wrong Christians. The real culprits are the five Bible-thumping conservatives on the Supreme Court. They inspired this controversy with their inflammatory decision last year in the Hobby Lobby case.
“The Supreme justices ruled then that corporate owners possess religious convictions entitled to First Amendment protection against intrusions by the federal government. That case was about birth control and Obamacare’s mandated healthcare coverage. But the Court’s half-baked logic excited the imagination of right-wing activists and lawyers.
“If employers can reject the birth-control pills for their employees by citing their religious objections to contraception, do employers also have a right to refuse serving gay couples because they abhor same-sex marriages? Conservatives set out to initiate state laws and law suits designed to provoke more constitutional conflicts between church and state—cases that can wind up before the Supreme Court and will be decided by the same right-wing majority that issued the Hobby Lobby ruling.
“However, one citizen’s religious convictions may look like old-fashioned bigotry to other citizens who suffer the consequences. Alex Luchenitser of Americans United for Separation of Church and State wonders if the Supreme Court has opened the door to ‘a new era of inequality.’
“ ‘Hobby Lobby,’ he wrote in the Harvard Law and Policy Review, ‘is a sweeping decision that threatens to turn the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) into a law that, instead of protecting religious freedom, allows religious believers to force their faith on others in a variety of ways.’ (Emphasis added)
“Before the recent uproar occurred, Luchenitser had predicted it. Hobby Lobby ‘may trigger a drastic uptick in claims for religious exemptions,’ he said, though plaintiffs in the most publicized cases (like the photographer who refused to do wedding pictures for a gay couple) have so far lost in court.
“The Hobby Lobby decision ‘may particularly impact LGBT cases,’ he explained. Because there is no federal law prohibiting discrimination against LGBT citizens, so most of the new cases will originate at the state level under state laws. Complaints that gain traction can eventually wind up in federal courts.
President Obama, for example, issued an executive order telling federal contractors they must not discriminate against gays and lesbians. ‘It will not be surprising if religiously affiliated federal contractors rely on Hobby Lobby to argue for an exemption to the prohibition against anti-LGBT discrimination,’ Luchenitser wrote.
“This result is very different from what Senators Orrin Hatch of Utah and Teddy Kennedy of Massachusetts had in mind back in 1993 when they co-sponsored the original RFRA. Both senators emphasized that the original legislation was a bipartisan attempt to avoid petty church-state conflicts and defuse nettlesome issues that might mean a lot to various faith groups but have only trivial effect on government’s objectives.
“Should horse-drawn Amish buggies be compelled to carry state-required warning of a slow-moving vehicle? Does a municipal law banning consumption of alcohol apply to serving wine at communion services? Did a public school ban on wearing headgear in class prohibit Jewish yarmulkes?
” The Roberts Court blew away the original law’s careful restraints. The justices reinterpreted the RFRA and granted First Amendment rights to the private religious views of some company owners. Some of the new laws enacted by state legislatures like Indiana’s attempt to expand things further. When Governor Mike Pence insisted Indiana’s law did not explicitly authorize discrimination against gays, he was technically correct. What he didn’t say is that the law is deliberately designed to encourage true believers to litigate and it strengthens their legal foundation for winning. (Emphasis added)
“There will be more lawsuits, because the justices created their own ambiguities in Hobby Lobby that can provide the fodder for more Supreme Court decisions. The Court, for instance, did not ask the employees at Hobby Lobby how they felt about their boss’s declaration of conscience. Would they be fired if they express dissent? Does the First Amendment protect their conscience and free speech?
“Nor did the Supreme Court make clear whether these new religious rights apply only to closely held corporations controlled by families or also for very large companies theoretically ‘owned’ by millions of shareholders and institutional investors including union pension funds. How would any prudent investor find out what his company’s religious values?
“The Hobby Lobby case opens important implications for corporate governance that I suspect most companies would dread. Walmart is a leading example of potential contradictions—the largest retailer in the nation with 2.2 million employees and controlled by a family of four billionaires with a total net worth around $156 billion.
“Walmart swiftly announced its opposition to Arkansas’s ‘religious freedom’ legislation and this ‘good guy’ declaration was joined by many other influential corporate names. The media described their decision as ‘good for business,’ and perhaps it was. But I have a hunch something more was involved. Savvy corporates may also see a dangerous potential for them in mixing law and religious values in an unstable brew.
“If the corporation has the right to protect itself from government by hiding behind its supposed religious values, does the public have a right to know what those values are?
“The lawyer for Americans United for Separation of Church and State drew a strong conclusion: ‘Religions should not become a trump card that allows one who professes it to hire or serve whomever they want. Hobby Lobby represents a step in the direction of such a retrograde society, atomized and divided by corporate theocracy.’ ” (Emphasis added)
http://www.thenation.com/article/203521/theocracy-versus-democracy
Hasn’t really been this way since we started trying to be “Christians”? I keep hearing people saying that we need to get back to our basic values.
Matthew 10
The Sword of the Gospel
34″Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35″For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW;…
has anyone here actually done this or do you have your support system still?”
This is allegorical – or is it – can you walk away from your props and have Jesus alone and can you love him with all of your heart and is it enough?
Luke 14 For those who think being a Christian is a bowl of Cherries
with sugar on top and cool whip
25Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
@happypappies
Thank you!!! I try to be a sunbeam for Jesus like in that old timey church song, of which this is a really good grown up version: 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=og59KBIu6D0
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Squeeky
That was nice. People don’t understand you are to incorporate Jesus and be Jesus and that is how he works on this earth. It’s miraculous and of course we all question the Bible. lol
Paul C.
It is just a truism. 😉
= = =
Kind of like the things Jesus never said… 😉
Max-1 – on your things Jesus never said meme, there is no way you know any of that. What we have is what is reported he said many years after he said it. We are dependent on how reliable those narrators are. And we do know that a couple of Gospels are in conflict. One has been shortened to deal only with his ministry. However, the Sermon on the Mount is probably a collection sayings from Jesus given over time. That is why it never plays well when they try to act it in a movie or TV drama.
Paul C.
Please elaborate where Jesus said to hate…
Max-1 – my original comment was at 11:41 pm and had nothing to do with Jesus. He is not mentioned in my post.
Never Answers a Question
I don’t know that I have gotten to 5000 but that was an ad hominem attack.
Paul C Schulte
My friends at Computer Sales International used to say to me when I carried all the Information around in my head and my brain got picked all day for $11.50 an hour “Bend over you’ll like it”
I pass that on to you, “Bend over, You’ll like it.”
Ignorant peasants never will give you the benefit of the doubt, they just get kicked upstairs because they have empty heads.
Remember Atlas Shrugged? It was kind of a true story in a way.
lol
Wade
Did not! Did too! Did what??? 😉
Paul C. Schulte
Max-1 – I think it is possible to love the cake but hate the baker.
= = =
Paul C
That’s not what I said. Your twisting their ideology “love the sinner and hate the sin” to fit me and my argument. You see Paul, when the baker is wrapped up in judging others and deciding who to serve based on that judgment of others all while claiming to be “Christian” I’m going to speak up in defense of Christianity. And in this case, as the object of their animus, I’m also speaking out for myself or others who are like me or who are targeted by said animus. I never once said I hate… I’m questioning their hate. I also have to question your need to still find a plausible argument that sticks as a quasi-defense. You see Paul, it’s difficult to say you “understand” me or other LGBT people or say you have LGBT friends when you’re constantly pushing us into that “Christian” bonefire of damnation and judgment. Either that OR … This really peeks your contrarian nature, a lot!
Max-1 – it has nothing to do with Christianity. Personally, I could care less if I understand you. It is just a truism. 😉
Mike Appleton,
In 1789, what criteria was applied to the vote? Was there FREEDOM in America sufficient for the legal ownership of slaves? Were there criteria to be met for immigration? Was there redistribution of wealth including welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, social services, etc.? Were there “civil rights” “laws?” Was there homosexual marriage? Did government exist to address every personal need and desire of each individual? Something changed? What do you think that change was?
It’s strange that the Founders never used the phrase “utopian anarchy” while they clearly used the terms Justice, Tranquility, Common Defence, Promote General Welfare as a description of limited government, leaving the “blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” as freedom and free enterprise without interference by government.
Limiting government and giving the societal dynamics to the private sector for resolution was the intent. The private sector has the power to accept or ostracize, buy or boycott. Free people shape society through commerce. Dictatorships command. It is preposterous that unconstitutional laws have been written to confiscate or control private property through the imposition of rent control and “anti-discrimination” rental and sales. Those laws should have been denied by the SCOTUS – as Lincoln should have been. That was social engineering, not freedom of individuals and free enterprise. Collectivists and bleeding-heart liberals decided that dictatorship was much more compassionate than American freedom as established by the Founders.
I mentioned China as an example of ideological evolution. China is communist, even as it has evolved into a capitalist juggernaut, an example of which is PetroChina passing Exxon as the world’s largest oil company. China is an ideological hybrid which has evolved according to the direction of the Central Committee. Like America in 1789, extremely strict criteria are applied to the vote, no one but the Central Committee may vote, China has no welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, social services or otherwise welfare state. In their one-child society, people pay for their school and healthcare with the small family the “safety net.” China is now what America was then. With the limited government, there are no taxes other than for “consumption” and the infrastructure, or general welfare (i.e. roads, utilities) and “common defence” are being aggressively pursued. The Chinese communists have discovered the genius and enormous benefit of innovation and wealth creation in the design of the American Founding Fathers and have insinuated government facilitation into corporate activities.
I want to thank you. This has been a huge revelation. Evolution and hybridization appear to be axiomatic and infinitely predominate. China is the country that the American Founders established, with limited government, freedom and free enterprise facilitated, not inhibited and extorted by the government, while America has devolved into the “utopian anarchy” of parasites under self-destructive “one-man, one-vote” “democracy.” Can you imagine “emergency homosexual wedding cake” controversies, “special interest groups” or the absurdities of the likes of the Right Reverend Al Sharpton transpiring in China. It was Tytler who said:
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the people discover they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy–to be followed by a dictatorship.”
― Alexander Fraser Tytler
America was established as a restricted-vote republic which communist China is now. Ben Franklin admonished, “…a republic, if you can keep it.” This was at a time when there were many criteria applied to the vote, thus, a restricted-vote republic, not a one-man, one-vote democracy. This is one of many aspects of the evolution of the America that was established the Preamble. As Ben Bernanke said, “the Constitution has evolved.” The innumerable judges who believe they had the latitude and authority to “legislate from the bench” through “settled law” and “case law” insidiously “evolved” the Constitution. $18 trillion in redistribution debt in the American welfare state of “utopian anarchy” or inexorable corporate China gobbling up the world like Pac Man, which would you rather be?
The corruption of America includes the “vote” of the “democracy” which does not occur in China.
“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.”
― Joseph Stalin
Kennedy stole the election from Nixon who won, as a good example. There NEVER would have been the liberal Kennedy attack on freedom and burgeoning of the welfare state, including “welfare-voter immigration,” or the “Camelot” hype and charade but for corrupt one-man, one-vote “democracy.”
As this thread began with an effort to achieve American acquiescence and subservience to radical homosexuality, homosexual and women’s rights” very well may be the final, appropriate symbols of the American demise. I don’t see these endeavors making much headway in China, which vigorously ignores the “compassion thing.” It is too busy aggressively creating wealth and global hegemony.
I will take solace in the fact that American governance as established by the American Founding Fathers will live on, if only in China.
Good night, America.
Thank you.
Respectfully submitted,
Commenter
Never Answers a Question
That was an ad hominem attack.
Never Answers a Question
I work on the principle of reciprocity
Never Answers a Question
I work on the principle of reciprocity.