thread can only go well

i want to see what the average universalist family looks like and how much of thots all their daughters are

Not sure what I think of the second question, "Do you favor or oppose allowing a small business owner in your state to refuse to provide products or services to gay or lesbian people, if doing so violates their religious beliefs?"

We had a highly public case of that here a couple years ago, where a jewelry store owner was against gay marriage due to religious reasons as well, and a lesbian couple claimed they were discriminated against. Many people agreed that yes, you have a right to refuse service if it is your small business and that is against your beliefs (it's your business after all, your rules), but then customers also have a right to NOT SHOP at your store because they see you as close-minded, bigoted, etc.

I think of Canada and the US as mostly free countries in many ways, but I'd be curious to compare laws/rulings/precedents around a situation like this, if they exist.

I think an appropriate way to handle the question of allowing businesses to refuse to serve people is: if the business provides a non-essential service (so no fire departments, ambulance services, doctor's offices, hospitals etc) and receives no federal funding, discrimination is legally allowed, but then they don't get to be upset when people protest and pressure a business financially into rescinding their decision or getting shut down.

Very well put

I'm curious though how respondents in this survey approached the question.. it'd be easy to say "I am against that" as a knee-jerk reaction, I think. Don't want to seem like you're in favor of people hating gays.

is it really fair to pressure them to shut down their stores because they refused service to one customer?

I think he means pressure them by not buying their shit, which seems fair to me.
Pressuring other people into not buying their shit is on the other hand is pretty lame.

Discrimination is also "pretty lame"

As a mormon, we have pretty strict ideas on marriage, so I find it interesting that there's still a large percentage of people that support gay marriage.

In regards to business, I don't think it's right for someone to refuse commercial services on religious grounds, but marriage is a gray area because it's both civil and religious for some.

Some people genuinely believe that they are following a higher law than the state's, which is the law of their religion. Maybe they're afraid to violate those laws for fear of retribution in the afterlife.

https://youtu.be/hiVQ8vrGA_8?t=1m59s

religious freedom is the biggest bullshit clause of all time, if you get to cover your discrimination by saying "well it's my religion" then anyone should be able to discriminate against anyone. religion is simply a bunch of opinions and should not be given more importance than any other bundle of opinions.
people literally used religion to say that the civil rights act shouldn't be passed because it violated religious freedomback in the 60s and it's the exact same thing today

http://www.teamfortress.tv/forum/310/world-events

So, the government should determine the state religion? Take a look at nations run that way. Where are they on the spectrum of civil/human rights? I'm not talking about nations which have a national church, but those which have legal systems and systems of government based around religion. Edit: Also, how about those founded upon atheism (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, etc.)?

...yes. And then the rest of the free society may act accordingly. If I don't allow blacks in my restaurant, then several things happen. I lose the business of blacks. I lose the business of a lot of their friends. I gain the reputation of a jackass (rightfully so in this example). I thus give other businesses a competitive edge over me and lower my profits. My employees may not be compensated as well, they may leave, etc. Free markets put substantial prices on bigotry.

Right, because one's belief or disbelief in matters involving the supernatural are totally unimportant to each person and are no more important than, say, one's preference for certain sports teams or colors. Just opinions. Some may not believe in a divine being or beings, an afterlife or lives, but to imply that these are not great and weighty matters in the minds and souls of others is silly.

Just because someone uses a concept to argue against something you approve does not make that concept wrong/bad/invalid. This is the same logical fallacy one finds in these memes comparing Trump to Hitler. "Did this or that in the name of 'law and order'." Guess what? Law and order are good; they are the precise reason we have government. Some people who preach law and order are good, others not. Some have good intentions, some do not. However, they all recognize that the concept of law and order (like religious freedom) is good, that the majority of people recognize it as such, and thus they gain support by claiming, truthfully or otherwise, to uphold or pursue it.

I disagree with practically all that you say here. However, I am glad that you have the freedom to speak your mind on any issue; that this country is one "conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

i phrased that poorly. religious freedom is good but i think it's been expanded too greatly.

yeah that's why southern businesses didn't ever dare to ban black people from using their stores, oh wait
there was that bakery that literally released the private info of a gay couple to the public (resulting in death threats and harassment) and they got more business instead of being "screwed by the free market"

why? why is it silly? if one person proclaims he has heard the voice of jesus he is mocked, if ten thousand proclaim it, it's a religion. just because there are more people doing something doesn't make it less silly.

...no, no it isn't. it's an almost exact parallel to the civil rights situation.
http://www.usatoday.com/videos/news/faith&reason/2012/10/23/1652193/

i dont even know why you care about religious freedom being involved with this, a store owner should be able to decide who s/he serves regardless of whether the cause is pure racism, religion, or something else

Let me respond with a more powerful example. Can you conceive a region more charged with racial prejudice in American history than the South after the Civil War? Can you imagine a greater opportunity for systemic denial of employment based upon race? The freed slaves were largely illiterate and did not have modern means of travel to leave. Agreements were made to not employ blacks; sharecroppers cheated them on contracts. Yet, year after year, more blacks were employed in the South and at less and less unfair rates. It was simply too great of a disadvantage to not hire the cheap labor of the blacks, and even without education, the blacks gradually shifted to sharecroppers/bosses who paid more honestly. Even in the face of concerted collusion, the economic standings of the blacks increased inexorably. Sure, they still had a long way to go in the face of prejudice, but the power of the market is very clearly illustrated.
Does a free market fix everything? No, but it unleashes the greatest human energies to the highest degree of good.

My point is that these things are of deep importance to people. Consider that a great many ancestors of Americans emigrated here to find a place where they could practice their religions.

You already said religious freedom is good, so you've essentially validated my point. Just because Hitler was evil does not mean law and order are bad. I'd love to know how someone is supposed to campaign with a message of lawlessness and chaos. Likewise, opponents of what you believe in will invoke good things (religious freedom) to make their argument. The question is, "how good/sound is the argument?"

you're joking right? have you actually studied how blacks in the south post-civil war were treated? does the term KKK ring a bell? black codes? plessy v ferguson?????

religion may be important to some people, doesn't mean it should matter that much to others

did you watch the video i posted? preachers in the 50s and 60s argued that racial integration was against the Bible and having to treat black people as equals (oh the horror!) would damn them to hell and destroy society bla bla bla

I don't think u even understood what Hal was saying in his post

Either that or you believe that blacks are still treated just as poorly in the south as they were immediately following emancipation which is a fucking X D

I meant the social and economic pressure that comes from interested groups. We vote with our dollars and to think otherwise is really naive. Almost all the time we vote on stuff like healthy vs unhealthy food, fashion styles, brand popularity etc. But occasionally we get the opportunity to vote on the moral righteousness of a business that makes no apologies for its views.

FWIW, I am a flaming homosexual but I love me some Chick Fil A and did not join in on the protesting. However, that sort of mass virtue signaling is a really good way of getting people to fall into the ongoing social changes (hopefully for the better). If we make it clear that businesses that wont serve a gay couple aren't going to be getting very much business, that sort of behaviour will decline because businesses are businesses and they need to make money.

So is it fair that a store in northern Indiana had to shut down after refusing service to a gay couple? Yes. That is how we as a society signal our virtues to those who do not follow along with the contemporary zeitgeist.

rocketslay, I do not believe I can reason with you. I am glad that your stance is not actually "religious freedom is bullshit." It seems to me that we will not be able to reconcile our views.

No, I have not watched the video. I am a schoolteacher typing while my students are tested and in-between grading assignments. I am not about to play a video, the contents of which I do not know. I will watch it after work. Perhaps I should have said that earlier. In any case, fallacious arguments made in the name of religious liberty do not invalidate legitimate arguments made in the name of religious liberty.

I think the most incredible part is that some owners actually openly discriminate against people. You would think that in these times, nobody would be stupid enough to do that.

People bend over backwards for their clientele all the time to avoid negative word of mouth. To do something that would so obviously generate a bad reputation just seems astounding?

move to saudi arabia or some other country without religious freedom then you might see the benefits of religious freedom

and drshadowpuppet addressed this if you are discriminating against people wrongfully for example you just refuse to serve gays at all in your grocery store vs I don't want to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple. There's a clear difference and if you think what someone is doing is wrong and people agree with you the free market will take care of it and put them out of business

you can never have too much freedom
http://www.vitamin-ha.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Bald-Eagle-Memes10-1.jpg

The Sound of Freedom

https://cnho.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/gay_mujahid.jpg

I guess everyone here is not only homophobic but Islamophobic as well
maybe you need jesus

The free market had 100 years to "solve" racial segregation in the south and failed. The idea markets punish bigotry is clearly wrong.

Reading this thread would lead you to believe it was the markets and not legislation that ended segregation on the basis of skin color.

So I think people should take a step back and address whether they think the civil rights laws passed in the 60's were a mistake. Similarly, to what degree is there a difference between segregation based on sexual orientation versus skin color.

So much gay shit on tftv these days...

I find it rather weird that events regarding gay people get more traction and attention than much more important world events. The gay community is being portrayed as a much bigger group than it actually is smh

he is right we are all very small and can be trapped inside of old pickle jars or shoeboxes if we get loose in your house