bripat9643
Diamond Member
- Apr 1, 2011
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I wasn't clear in my reference to equal protection. It was in reference to carving out special legal status for religious people in order to deny services to gays and thus violate the basic principle that government morally must treat all individuals equally under the law.There is certainly a distinction between having biased and taking actions based on those biases. You may consider blacks as inferior, gays as an abomination, Jews as the murders of Christ, Latinos as lazy but that is entirely different than denying service, jobs, and equal protection under the law based on those biases. If you are incapable of seeing this, then there is no need for further discussion.The laws are not about suppressing bias but rather suppressing specific actions that may result from those biases that hurt others. You can hate gays, blacks, Mexicans, Jews but when those biased turn into jobs discrimination, denial or services, and unequal protection under the law then that is creepy shit.Exactly. These laws have nothing to do with equal rights and everything to do with targeting specific biases for suppression. That's creepy shit in my book, and will be used against us.
There is no meaningful distinction between the two. The question you have to answer is why you believe anyone is entitled to force me to serve them.
Equal protection under the law isn't the same thing as trying to ensure that everyone treats everyone else equally. It's vital that government treat everyone equally, because it has the power to use force against us if we don't abide. But businesses and other citizens have no such power. We can always walk away when we disagree.
A little background here. Some businesses have refused to service gays as it was against their religious beliefs to do so even though there were either local or state laws that required it. In Indiana, the legislature passed legislation which was later repealed that allowed a businesses to discriminate against gays for religious reasons. This legislation was a bit nuts because the existing Indiana anti-gay discrimination laws provided little protection for gays.
The question of weather a business has the right to discriminated against legally protected groups has been answered many times by the courts. Businesses do not have the right to deny services to anyone, regardless of what the sign says. The civil rights law make it illegal throughout the country to deny service to protected groups in the law. State laws in 20 states and various local laws make it illegal to deny service to other groups, primarily gays.
You may not think it's right but it is the law.
What you mean is that the courts choose to ignore the Constitution. Spouting the court's opinion doesn't impress me one bit. The justices on the court are bootlicking hacks who were put there to advance a political agenda. If their decisions coincide with what the Constitution actually says, it's purely accidental.