should businesses be allowed to discriminate against gay people?

Posted by Rozar 10 years, 5 months ago to Economics
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Saw this and it made me think of Maph. Maybe this will change your understanding, maybe not.



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  • Posted by $ AJAshinoff 10 years, 5 months ago
    As a former business owner, for the last 15 years, I resent that the government has ANY say in who I can and cannot hire. Further, I can refuse service to anyone I choose based on my own judgment. Whether homosexuality is or isn't moral or even natural is irrelevant, the fact is homosexuals exist. They need no more rights than any man or woman on Earth and should be given NO special consideration with regard to law, employment, or service rendered. If the business owner choose not to provide service then take your business elsewhere. This entire matter is to set the stage for lawsuits setting the stage for future civil rights violations which will strong-arm people into compliance with political correctness.
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  • Posted by John_Emerson 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I sort of bristle at calling it a defect. Homosexuality is within the normal range of human behavior. I don't wish to "bully" anyone - you're welcome to be as irrational as you wish, up to the point where it leads you to take actions which I deem to be to my detriment. You don't want to bake a cake for my gay wedding, you don't have to and the government shouldn't require you to. I don't have to buy a cake or any other baked goods from you, and the government shouldn't be involved. And I don't think the government should be involved in marriage: when you think about it, marriage is primarily a religious institution - government involvement, especially in saying which marriages are to be recognized and providing benefits (at taxpayer expense) for those marriages, violates the first amendment to the Constitution.
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  • Posted by Macro 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Again, I don't think heterophobia is a thing... I mean, gay people in general do not have a problem with being around straight people. Why should we?

    I've also never seen a considerable amount of straight kids resorting to suicide just because some gay bullies decided to turn their lives into a nightmare.

    Actually, I've never seen that happen, ever.

    The gay couple forces the baker to serve them, so they're being heterophobic?
    The black couple forces the baker to serve them, so they're being racist?

    I'm sorry, I don't really see it, Hira.

    To me, the gay couple really didn't have anything against straight people. They just did not respect the baker's right of following his religion's precepts.
    And the black couple, I'd say they also didn't have anything against white people. They just did not respect the baker's right of being racist if he wanted.

    No, I've never seen a considerable amount of gay people engaging in straight-bashing. =/

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  • Posted by plusaf 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    :)... well, there was this one party at my house after my first wife and I separated...
    :)
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  • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You have kind of got a point there. Voltaire’s mistress, Emilie du Chalet claim to fame was translating Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica into french. She was a brilliant mathematician, but had she been a man, we wouldn’t care if she understood someone else’s work and translated it.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    No...I meant that the gays have all come out....so the closets are empty-ish. I was trying to make a funny. I'm still not sure I understand your point though.
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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    1. sexually attractive woman
    a lesbian would find many females sexually attractive
    a lesbian fox would find many vixens sexually attractive
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  • Posted by khalling 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    here's my good friend Henry Adams on women in college in 1885:
    Henry Adams, writing about women’s intellectual ambitions for higher education, commented on “...the pathetic impossibility of improving those poor little, hard, thin, wiry, one-stringed instruments which they call their minds.”he complained bitterly in a letter of protest to the American Historical Association when he found a woman historian listed in the program of a AHA meeting.
    There was a genuine fear that a good education would make a women unfit for marriage and motherhood. And in fact, 50-60% of the first generation of college women did not marry or significantly delayed marriage."
    .7% of American woman in 1870 and 7% by 1920. first US college to allow women 1833 Oberlin. 1st state to allow women patent rights was New York in 1845 only if they were married. Many states did not STILL allow women to own property. There was definitely a social stigma on women going to college. heard the term bluestocking? went there
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  • Posted by j_IR1776wg 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    So you agree that repealing the 16th Amendment and cutting the corporate tax rate to zero would go a long way to restoring America to its former economic greatness?
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  • Posted by AmericanGreatness 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's categorically false. It's one of the fundamental tenants of property rights and freedom/liberty. A business should NEVER be compelled to do business with an individual or organization against its will.

    What right do you, or anyone else, have to compel me to sell my goods and services against my will? The flip-side is that I'm sacrificing revenue from you and all in your sphere of influence with my decision. But, if I accept that possible outcome, it's my choice.

    That's why the free-market is the best solution to discrimination of any variety. It discourages discrimination, because doing so can limit one's customer base and subsequent profits.

    If a government can force you to work for someone, what can't they make you do. Reverse the discussion... if you were gay and married to your same sex partner, how would you feel about the government forcing you to work for a company whose entire business model was built on the public relations effort to end gay marriage and outlaw homosexuality altogether? Force is force, and it's antithetical to freedom and liberty.
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  • Posted by $ Mimi 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I’m not arguing either side on this debate, but I think there is a difference between regulating safety concerns and regulating how people ‘feel’. What causes potential harm to an individual emotionally is too open to interpretation, and if there was any way to actually record scientifically the level of pain felt, I think we would find the store owners would have suffered just as much pain as the customer.
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  • Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    There's actually a simple solution to that problem: simply say that a business may discriminate against other business or organizations, but not against individual people. Problem solved.
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  • -1
    Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Property rights do not include the right to discriminate, at least not in commercial property. In your home, sure, you can discriminate all you like. But in business, there are certain regulations that must be followed.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    How is there little potential risk?
    Seems to me the risk of someone not skilled (aka, professional) in food preparation is far more likely to poison someone than a professional in a restaurant.
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  • Posted by Hiraghm 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    You're presuming "either-or" where none exists...

    "the black couple would LIKEWISE be the ones "

    Yes. Jamming your values down someone else's throat is bigotry. When the bigotry involves race, it's trigonom... I mean it's generally called racism.
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  • Posted by $ Maphesdus 10 years, 5 months ago in reply to this comment.
    So if a black couple went to a bakery owned by a member of the KKK, and he refused to sell them a cake, and they sued him for it, the black couple would be the ones engaging in a racist act? Come on now...
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  • Posted by MattFranke 10 years, 5 months ago
    Well, interesting isn't it? What happened to every business having a sign that said, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." A business owner and his agents have the utmost say on where their services are rendered, regardless of the cost. If they make a business choice one way or the other, it is their right to make it and their lot to deal with the ramifications of that decision. The free market will choose in the end whether it was a wise business decision or not. But even if this baker lost his business and home and car and had his life ruined by this decision; if he believes it to be the right one, nobody or nothing can ever take that away from him; and the more that is physically taken, will only reaffirm the rightness of it to him, all others be damned. If he has regrets, it is his to bear alone.
    That aside, I think that there is a whole lot of unnecessary discourse about the whole gay marriage thing. I'm sure I'll catch crap from both sides, but I guess I'll wade in.
    I think that both sides make the same dangerous mistake in their goals. One side seeks the sanction of government on their social contract between two people. The other side seeks to use government to interfere with the social contracts of others. Both sides argument perpetuates the same deprived philosophy; that the sanction of government is necessary for a contract to be valid. Simply two sides of the same coin, bigger government. I do not believe that the government has any business in anybody's marriage, or in their bedroom. Any argument to the contrary, in my mind, seems to be usually based on religious dogma or 'tolerance'; both of which seem to prevent man from making its own opinion on the matter. This is achieved with a tactful bit of force through moral or social conformity, feeding off our 'need' to fit in with the rest of whatever pack we happen to surround ourselves with.
    I think that the union between my wife and I is between us only; and if we knew then what we know now, we would not have gotten a marriage permit. (I know they call it a 'certificate', but I see it now for what it is; a tax, paying for the kings permission so to speak; and forming a new contract between the couple being married and the state. Obviously, now the state has a vested interest in the outcome of the marriage: money, property, children).
    Also, I don't think that marriage should be a reason for a tax break. I think that we should all be taxed at the same rate, married or single, equally according to the Constitution, and at a rate a hell of a lot less than it is.
    In the end, for me it is not an endorsement of homosexuality, it isn't. I don't generally see it as a healthy lifestyle, and there is plenty of evidence for that. It comes down to ones ability to make their own decisions, and deal with the consequences. They can deal with theirs as I will deal with my own. But I have no interest in controlling what others do. Why?? Because, I don't want to be controlled by anybody but myself. Because, I don't want to hear crap from anybody about the way I live my life. So both sides may do as you please, and think as you want; just don't expect anything from me one way or the other. I happen to be less than enthused at any excessive public display of affection, whoever it may be. Get a friggin' room. Anyone who seeks to use government force to push yourselves or your beliefs on others, can go pound sand; 'cuz frankly, I just don't give a $#i+
    That's all I got to say 'bout it.
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