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Indiana's Pence to sign bill allowing businesses to reject gay customers

Of course I do, Henrin. As a disabled person, I know how vital it is that such protections exist. It's not lost on me that it has only been 25 years for people like me, both seen and unseen disabilities, who have been protected.

A society has many components, but a substantial portion of our society revolves around private enterprises open to public commerce. A libertarian sees an individual transaction located in a single store, which happens to be denied on the part of a person exercising their "right" to determine who shall get his/her labor. However, that denied citizen sees this as a series of individual transactions which culminate in a large portion of their lives. Denied in a business which provides birthday cards, denied in a business which provides coffee, denied from a business which provides the groceries, denied...denied...denied. His rejection is multiplied time and time again, and his fellow citizens know his denial and the reasons with which it happens. This in turn affects how the citizens not denied view him, reinforcing the already negative views which had been pushed onto his person.

The libertarian presumes that men are rational creatures, willing to use cost/benefit analysis. This cost/benefit analysis incentivizes business to cater to the needs of substantial markets, thus, obviously the minority's interests will be secured. But men are not rational creatures. They hold their prejudices and ensure they stick. If one is a member of a group which is largely despised, they will not be treated well in a system in which a de jure non-aggression principle is adhered to.

Through this lever is the flood to which the individual becomes the scurge of his society rather than a valued member of it.

To the man who is part of a non-offending group, he has freedom and liberty. He can reasonably do as he so chooses and by some manner of virtue of his own gifts, have the opportunity to live a decently healthy and happy life. The person who is part of an offending group, on the other hand, can not claim the same.

Libertarianism is the comfort food for the solipsistic unoffending bourgeois democrat.
 
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Helix said:
the state sanctioning kicking gay people out of a restaurant solely because they are gay is a mockery of humanity.
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not to mention if i were in such a state i would never pay taxes to enable my own oppression!

i would find any way around it possible, sales tax, income, you name it
 
matchlight said:
Beats hell out of me. Anyone who respects the rule of law and the Constitution of the U.S. is part of the "states' rights" crowd. The Tenth Amendment is not just decoration, but an important part of the Constitution. And anyone who does not know what the term "federalism" means might want to learn about it. It is one of several bulwarks against abuse of power designed into the structure of the Constitution. The Supreme Court commented on this in New York v. United States, a Tenth Amendment decision from 1990.

Your remark about the rights of counties and cities is at least good for a laugh. States are sovereigns (there's that Tenth Amendment again, which collectivists hate so much) and as such have inherent power to make laws and policies. The Court has referred to this as the "police (as in "policy," not the cops) power." Counties and cities are creatures of their states, and as such they have no inherent powers at all. They have only those powers the states saw fit to give them through enabling laws. States in some cases have given them quite a lot of autonomy, but the state can also take it away.
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The fed can take away state "autonomy" just as easily - see: civil war

States have no rights and deserve even less. Indiana is a prime example of why
 
chromium said:
not to mention if i were in such a state i would never pay taxes to enable my own oppression!

i would find any way around it possible, sales tax, income, you name it
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What oppression?
 
...anyone else have something to add?
 
Henrin said:
So was anyone harmed by being denied service? If not, what is the grounds for government action?

The point of my earlier post was that when someone says no the answer is no and you're supposed to walk away. People don't like to just deal with such realities though so they ignore consent and they use force to get their way. All I hear is screw relying on consent to trade with others because we have force and we aren't scared to use it. You're NOT harmed because of the reason someone refuses to trade with you, so why should the reason matter? It shouldn't logically speaking, but no we can't have people not agreeing with us, so **** them they will obey our opinions. It emotional idiotic nonsense.
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yeah, like no one is harmed by getting kicked out of a restaurant because they are homosexual or black. :roll:
 
Helix said:
yeah, like no one is harmed by getting kicked out of a restaurant because they are homosexual or black. :roll:
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What harm came to them by being kicked out of a restaurant?
 
Henrin said:
What harm came to them by being kicked out of a restaurant?
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look, everyone. this is why almost no one is a libertarian.
 
I find it interesting that Indiana did not learn from Utah. Unlike Utah, Indiana very deliberately chose to exclude the LGBT community from working on this bill. Unlike Utah, Indiana did not include housing and employment protections for LGBT alongside seeking to ensure protections of religious liberties. Unlike Utah, Indiana could not respect the intelligence of the electorate who knew this bill was motivated by the likelihood of a SCOTUS decision to cement same-sex marriage in all 50 states and instead claimed it had nothing to do with the LGBT community. Unlike Utah, Indiana did not listen to the business community who stated firmly that such laws, if not advanced with protections for minorities, are simply state sanctioned licenses to discriminate that undermine the ability of all businesses to ensure freedom from discrimination for their own workers and customers.

What an odd world we live in when the Mormons now make the better calls on gay rights and religious freedom than the Hoosiers.
 
Henrin said:
Why won't you just tell me what harm was inflicted on them?
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um, getting kicked out of a restaurant just for being homosexual? the right flips its **** every year just because the cashier says happy holidays. imagine if they escorted your whole family out instead. as a gay libertarian, though, i'm sure you would take pride that this store exercised its rights. perhaps someday a restaurant will materialize out of thin air to serve gay libertarians in your state, and until then, you'll just eat sand and applaud all of those restaurants kicking out gay libertarians. what harm was done? please. what harm was done to black people who weren't allowed to sit at the ****ing lunch counter in the early sixties? FFS.
 
Helix said:
um, getting kicked out of a restaurant just for being homosexual? the right flips its **** every year just because the cashier says happy holidays. imagine if they escorted your whole family out instead. as a gay libertarian, though, i'm sure you would take pride that this store exercised its rights. perhaps someday a restaurant will materialize out of thin air to serve gay libertarians in your state, and until then, you'll just eat sand and applaud all of those restaurants kicking out gay libertarians. what harm was done? please. what harm was done to black people who weren't allowed to sit at the ****ing lunch counter in the early sixties? FFS.
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Nothing you said is a harm. Blacks weren't harmed by not being allowed to sit at the counters and gays aren't harmed by being denied service. You can't argue that being denied service causes a persons condition to get worse because all it is doing is not helping to change something already in motion.
 
Henrin said:
Nothing you said is a harm. Blacks weren't harmed by not being allowed to sit at the counters and gays aren't harmed by being denied service. You can't argue that being denied service causes a persons condition to get worse because all it is doing is not helping to change something already in motion.
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and you actually believe that.
 
CriticalThought said:
I find it interesting that Indiana did not learn from Utah. Unlike Utah, Indiana very deliberately chose to exclude the LGBT community from working on this bill. Unlike Utah, Indiana did not include housing and employment protections for LGBT alongside seeking to ensure protections of religious liberties. Unlike Utah, Indiana could not respect the intelligence of the electorate who knew this bill was motivated by the likelihood of a SCOTUS decision to cement same-sex marriage in all 50 states and instead claimed it had nothing to do with the LGBT community. Unlike Utah, Indiana did not listen to the business community who stated firmly that such laws, if not advanced with protections for minorities, are simply state sanctioned licenses to discriminate that undermine the ability of all businesses to ensure freedom from discrimination for their own workers and customers.

What an odd world we live in when the Mormons now make the better calls on gay rights and religious freedom than the Hoosiers.
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It's not odd at all. If you've been to the midwest, you know it's littered with shanty towns of westboro caliber fanaticism

Christian fanatics are no better than the mormon variety
 
Helix said:
look, everyone. this is why almost no one is a libertarian.
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yeah libertarian lean on this board at least is more impotent and contradictory than any politician i've come across

"i support liberty, except for minorities i don't like. Then we must oppress them for no purpose whatsoever!"

what a useless worldview
 
AliHajiSheik said:
Clearly you embrace the idea of fighting fire with fire, or is that out of context?

Even when you defend yourself, you are bigoted: "In Hancock County there is a town of 21,000 but also the one square mile trailer trash (99% white) collective of "Wilkinson" (pop 449). So your data is heavily skewed" (bolding by me).

Using Google Maps, this doesn't look like a shanty to me, it looks like a quiet small town. Here is a house on the main street: Google Maps view of Wilkinson IN

I don't have a problem with your position, I have a serious problem with your methods.
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I will refer to bigots in any way i please, usually in the way that will piss them off the most.

So case in point, if you don't like it, good!
 
Helix said:
um, getting kicked out of a restaurant just for being homosexual? the right flips its **** every year just because the cashier says happy holidays. imagine if they escorted your whole family out instead. as a gay libertarian, though, i'm sure you would take pride that this store exercised its rights. perhaps someday a restaurant will materialize out of thin air to serve gay libertarians in your state, and until then, you'll just eat sand and applaud all of those restaurants kicking out gay libertarians. what harm was done? please. what harm was done to black people who weren't allowed to sit at the ****ing lunch counter in the early sixties? FFS.
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I've been asked to leave just for being legaly armed and that's a spicificaly protected right while sexuality is not, so why should gays have special privileges?
 
JasperL said:
Again, the problem is some supporters who are vocal and powerful opponents of SSM were cheering the passage of this bill and those like it in other states, and their rhetoric was focused on how it would protect people from teh gays. They specifically say the law would allow some businesses to discriminate against (deny services to) homosexuals getting married - specifically mentioned were photographers, florists and bakers. That's what the supporters have claimed. If businesses can deny services to gay weddings, what else is permitted under this law? Can restaurants refuse their services, hotels, can a lessor deny apartments to gay couples? Can a business deny spousal benefits to a legally married but same sex couple?

I've read a legal analysis signed by 16 scholars who say the bill will do no such thing - that anti-discrimination laws will withstand RFRA challenges - and they support the legislation.

Another analysis by 30 legal scholars opposes the bill for a variety of reasons, among them that concludes that the law will likely at least provide what businesses believe is a license to discriminate, and that a flood of litigation is likely.

I don't know the answer, but if we believe some proponents that the bill is an important way to "protect" some people and businesses from "supporters of homosexual marriage" it is a license for discrimination in some circumstances that aren't well defined or understood. Pence and others defending it say it will do no such thing. So at the signing ceremony you've got people who are making conflicting claims both cheering the same law. Maybe the anti-SSM folks are just playing to the base and that part of it is all politics and baseless rhetoric, but then you can't blame those on the other side for taking those claims at face value and responding to them. And it seems wise to be concerned when groups working hard to oppose SSM are behind these efforts and are clapping as the bill is signed into law.
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I can certainly blame "those on the other side" for trying to make something out of nothing. RFRA is not a license to discriminate.
 
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