Gay Marriage, Forced on Everyone???

Absolutely.

But you may have noticed that that wasn't Ten's position. His position is that those who take a stand for any moral value ahead of making money (and, when questioned, he explicitly included working with the KKK, or with Fred Phelps & Co) are, and I quote, "'moral' uppity cunts."

He was not judging bigots, but those who have moral values that cause them to place refusing business to bigots or anyone else with whom they disagree ahead of making money.

No, not "exactly." You yourself just pointed out that his position was not "I won't serve gays" but "I won't facilitate gay unions being recognized as marriages." For the similarity to be "exact" it would be someone who refuses to bake a cake celebrating divorce. And I bet a lot of Christian bakers would.

I agree with that argument to the extent, that conservatives love to spin the whole yarn of everything is fucking business.

Business, business, business.

They use it to excuse sweatshops, outsourcing, tobacco companies, everything.

.....and then...some want to turn right around, and be "moral", with their holy-roller crap.

Nnnoooo, don't fuckin' work that way.

I've said it before, capitalism and Christianity don't mix.

America has relentlessly and feverishly tried to be both, and that's why it's schizophrenic, and doomed to hypocrisy.

This is how you end up with Chick-fil-et, and Dubyah Bush.

240 years of cognitive dissonance.

Jesus wouldn't have been a robber-baron, he just wouldn't.
He sure as fuck wouldn't have franchised.
Sorry, folks.
You're living a lie.

Sane, Normal, Human Beings.

Not abominations of nature.

Everything is natural.

Nature isn't just grass, kittens, and rainbows, its everything that exists in the fucking universe.

To abominate nature, you'd need like, fuckin' zombies, and goblins, and Tooth Fairies.
Shit like that.

So...what you're saying, is Nova has supernatural powers.

Well, that's kind of a dumb insult.
But, then, you're Megatron.

I don't see how two people of the opposite sex getting married where one or both parties is a divorcee isn't a perfect analogy.

well, i would quibble whether the baker was thinking that his objection was to "celebrating" as opposed to "participating in"

i.e. participating in a second marriage for a divorcee, which is against the religion of some (Catholics, notably)

But, even to use your term - if one disbelieves in the morality of remarriage for a divorcee, and one is asked to bake a cake for such a wedding, then is that person not in exactly the same position as the baker in the OP? Whether the issue is "celebrating" or "participating"?

Sane, normal human beings disagree on EVERY MAJOR (and minor) doctrine in EVERY holy book ever revered.

Please clarify which disagreements are legitimate and which are not.

(she says suspecting only those which support your views will be deemed legit)


Laying aside the view of every single LGBT person on earth (an illegitimate premise on it's face but let's roll with it)-

"sane, normal" heterosexuals hold a variety of positions on whether or not the bible (or any other book) specifically condemns homosexual orientation, and that's to say nothing of the sane normal people who think all those-books are not authoritative at all.

What makes you an authority on which interpretation is valid? or this baker? or anyone else?

Yep. But that isn't what was said. It may be what you understood by it, but what was said was "refusing to serve them," not "refusing to bake a wedding cake for them."

There is a huge difference between "I won't ever sell anything to divorced people" and "I won't bake a cake for a divorced person getting remarried, because I don't want to be part of a process of which I disapprove."

I think you are missing the point that FrijalMolo was making. You are correct in saying that there is a difference between the two types of serving, the point is that there is inconsistency where people use religious beliefs to justify their own bigotry, applying the standards inconsistently in all cases.

A knee-jerk talking point that is poorly thought out? From Volpone? You don't say!

Aside from Volpy's obvious personal interest in this story, this is one of those shitty lines nobody should ever walk. There are two completely valid opinions on it: why should the state tell a business owner who he can do business with? People should vote with their wallets! The other being: This has no place at all in 2013. What's next, blacks?

The latter sentence is key. Where does it begin, where does it end? What happens if there's a monopoly which refuses service to a certain group of people? Or corporations? Libertarians would love to privatize all roads. What's keeping the owners from prohibiting a competitor to use them? Ah, laws and regulations, just to type in one example of probably thousands.

Face it: a modern society cannot work without rules/regulations. It's not possible to simply give a country into the hands of the market - that's people - and see what happens. I'm not the biggest fan of regulation but there has to be some to prevent us waking up in Mad Max world. Equality, for example.

And its within those regulations where you have private entities using the law to crush competiton. I have lass problem with mythical private Roads than I do with the actual use of the law by cab companies to prohibit competiton from uber drivers, or brick and mortar restaurants getting laws passed banning food trucks. This stuff happens, all the time.

Right, there are plenty of examples of regulation favoring one over another, and yet Aurora's point remains valid. So we need to find the balance point. We are not in the right place with cabs, no question about it, but I wouldn't favor complete deregulation on that, either, because there will always be an information imbalance between operator and customer.

http://daily.sightline.org/projects/making-sustainability-legal-series/

I love this blog series. Libertarians and Enviros have much more common ground than is thought.

Yes. It's just a very easily understandable example why completely unregulated markets just don't work. Things would be easier if they would. Lobbying is a different beast.

Which comes first, the regulation, or the lobbying to make the regulation work to your advantage?

OK. Interesting (and not unimaginable) hypothetical: Suppose our baker had found out his customers were heterosexual and previously divorced and had refused to make them a cake?

Should the state compel him to make a cake against his wishes? If not, what is different in the case?

So it's all right to use coercion to force someone to engage in an act of labor against their will.

Marvelous.

That's an awfully steep pile of "if's" that one must pile up in order to come down on the side of the box-lickers. IF someone else were being discriminated against. IF there was a monopoly....

Here's the thing. The guy ISN'T discriminating against blacks. Hell, he isn't even discriminating against homosexuals. He said he'd sell them things. He just wouldn't make a same-sex wedding cake because he believes a marriage is between a man and a woman.

And let's face it: He isn't alone on this view. Countless states have, because of voter initiatives, said they think marriage is between a man and a woman. There's even a federal law on the books. Hell, gay marriage isn't even legal IN Oregon. So it ISN'T like he's saying he hates blacks. Or even homosexuals.

And let's face it, there ISN'T a monopoly on wedding cakes. A quick Google search for "portland oregon wedding cake" gets me 168,000 hits. Switching to a map view provides about two dozen hits--with half of them significant enough to be highlighted in the sidebar.

So in reality, these two bitter bulldykes could've just walked out, said "what a douche," slagged the guy to their friends and on social media, and found a different baker in a heartbeat. No need to involve the police or anything. But, like gay "marriage", this wasn't about what they say it is about, it is about forcing their will on others and punishing anyone who doesn't approve of them.

Yeah, fuck those lunch counter sittin' Negroes.

Maybe the two "bitter bulldykes," as you call them, are tired of people like you saying shit like that and said "fuck it, I could walk away and easily get another cake, but I'm done with this bullshit. I'm gonna make this asshole's life a bit harder, because he chose to be a prick." More power to them. Does their case have merit? Maybe not, but it focuses a sharp laser beam on the issue and on the baker in question. How better to let the market decide than to make sure the market knows all about it.

Yep, let's use guilt tripping to justify compulsory labor. There's a recipe for pleasantness.

Comparing slavery, the legal owning of another human, with a baker not interested in making a cake for a female couple is idiocy.

I'm comparing using the law to force someone to do a job he doesn't want to do to... using the law to force someone to do a job he doesn't want to do. That's not idiocy, that's shining plain light on a matter. Don't like the way the math adds up? Tough shit.

Except of course that the baker could have just, you know, made the cake. Which is his chosen job, after all. But yeah, just like slavery.

I've never bought this "moral conviction", line of bullshit when it comes to discrimination.

Let's just play with it, when does it ever come into play?
For gay.

Because gay, you can SEE.

You can see the same sex couple.

These people only have "moral convictions", about what they can lay eyes on.

They don't know how many straights that walk in are into being peed on, or pooped on, or beat their kids, or fuck animals, or blam off some knuckle-children to snuff films.

They don't know who snorts blow during a coffee break.
They don't know who killed a kid texting and driving, and thought they ran over a tree limb.

You can't see any of that.
Flies right past 'em.
And, they're probably glad of it, they'd have NO fucking business if they had the telepathy to see all that shit inside of people.

But the gay?
That, they can see.
And THEN, that's where they take their mighty heroic stance.
( <-sarcastic)

And then, this is the "moral conviction", we're supposed to kowtow to?
Be impressed by?
Cry over?
Yeah, no thanks.

So you're saying they shoukd deny service to everyone because of their FAITH (belief in something they can't see) that everyone sucks?

I'm confused. I thought you demanded empirical evidence.

Come on, man.

Who's talking about slavery? Discrimination is discrimination is discrimination, regardless if it's skin color or sexual orientation. Maybe homeboy should move his cake shop to Saudi Arabia, he wouldn't have that problem.

Yeah, I know.