The only question is how deliberate the act was, because we have different punishments based on how much responsibility can be reasonably assigned. But murder isn't right or wrong based on why someone was killed. To make a valid comparison you'd have to find laws that said murder was only wrong if you did it because you didn't like the person's race (religion, gender, etc... ), but otherwise was fine.
My analogy is perfectly fine.
As our standard is the regulation of action. Once you move from thinking to doing, you've crossed a threshold. You can think without doing and you don't meet the same threshold. The State doesn't regulate thought. The state regulates action. And has every right to do so.
Your 'thought control' nonsense only works if we equate thought with action. Which doesn't work. As you can think without acting with no consequence or legal intervention. Its only when you move past thought to include action that you fall under the regulation of the law.
I don't see how you can steer around the central point here. These kinds of laws put government in charge of deciding which opinions are valid and which aren't. When they agree with you, I guess it can seem like an ok policy, but what if things change? What if someone with different values than you is in charge of deciding which opinions are valid?
The law doesn't regulate opinion. It regulates actions. You can hold whatever opinions you like. But when you act on those opinions, your actions are subject to regulation. You are again equating thought with action. And they aren't the same thing. The entire premise of your argument is simple nonsense.
Our ability to express our values through "the company we keep" is a key component of social morality.
Not in the context of public business. In private life you have every right to express your values in that manner. Public business is a public act and an act of commerce. When engaged in commerce you are subject to regulation by the State governments. You can be held to minimum standards of conduct in business.
It's what allows us to function as a society without laws policing our every action.
Ivory tower bullshit. In the real world, we don't base our ability to police ourselves on denying gay people cake. Denying goods and services to black people does not 'allow us to function as a society'. Its entirely possible to work as a society and set minimum standards of conduct in business. As every society does.
We work and deal with the people who share our values, we avoid those who oppose them. That's a fundamental human right.
Denying black people goods and services is not a 'fundamental human right'. Refusing to employ women is not a 'fundamental human right'. Insisting black folks get to the back of the bus is not a 'fundamental human right.
Again, commerce is a public act. And the state has every authority to regulate public actions. Private associations are most definitely yours alone to define. You can wave your dick at a mirror to your heart's content in private. But wave it at traffic on a street corner and you're going to run into trouble.
Public, by definition, involves more than just you. And as such effects more than just you.
Commerce is the way goods and sevices are distributed in our society. This is how we get our food, our clothing, our shelter. And denial of goods and services can have a dramatic impact on other people. And we've seen it play out as a method of abuse and control and exploitation. Those States with PA laws decided that in such public acts that there should be minimum standards of conduct to prevent those predictable outcomes or to enforce the conception of justice held by its people.
And establishing standard of public conduct is not only within the authority of society, its exists in every society. You're insisting that society can enforce NO standards of public conduct. And you're simply wrong.
Stripping it from people simply because they are "engaged in commerce" is merely an inroad made possible by the commerce clause.
We're speaking of State PA laws. The commerce clause has nothing to do with it as it defines federal power. And you know this. The authority of the State to regulate intrastate commerce is a power retained by the State.
There's nothing inherently different about commerce than any other human interaction, and if we allow this kind of policy in the name of business regulation, we're going to get it other arenas as well.
We already regulate action in other arenas. And we always have. This mythical society where there is no regulation of actions in public, where there is no enforcement of any standards of public conduct does not exist nor has ever existed.
And we've seen the product of permitting the kind of rampant discrimination against blacks, jews, women, gays, etc in our society. Our society finds the outcome of such acts to be unacceptable. And has regulated accordingly. These are choices that society has the authority to make.
You ignore the outcome of the policies you propose, ignore the history of discrimination that is the product of them, ignore the vast and systematic impact on the lives of individuals, and instead imagine an ivory tower society in which society does not nor cannot regulate public behavior nor enforce any standards of public conduct.
The negative outcomes of your policies is real. While your mythic society of no regulation is imaginary.
