Poll of the Day > Jeff Sessions says with the BLESSING of Trump that CHRISTIANS can REFUSE Gays!!!

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's only sensation if it's not Christian beliefs
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EvilMegas posted...

GreenGoblinOck posted...

Zangulus posted...

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Zangulus posted...

What a load of horse shit. Nowhere does it say christians will be sent to hell for baking a cake.

2 Thessalonians 3:10-15

If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed.

Bible says don't associate with sinners.

Ezekiel 33:7-9

if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.

It also recommends you call out people's sin to get in to Heaven.

They already avoid an easy path to heaven to be considerate, don't be upset they don't outright enable you to sin.

d by the way the fake Christians live these days, as already pointed out by mixing fabrics, and with women who are unclean, every single one of them is a sinner. Yet they dont do a damned thing about that.

Its all a load of shit used as a smoke screen. All forgiving god that damns people for baking a cake (for someone magically sinning more than all of their other customers.).

So do these bakeries do a thorough soul check background before baking every single cake?

Huh. Totally makes sense to me.

That was all done away with when Jesus died on the cross. Read the book of Acts if you can't take my word for it.

So he died so we can mix fabiric, but not so we can love who we want?

Romans 1 says it's wrong to be gay. If you don't like it, that's your problem with God.
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Yo me this is the same thing as going to a Jewish caterer and asking them to cater different variations of food against their religion like pork. Then when you are refuses you try to sue them for discrimination.
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If they're private companies, they absolutely should be able to.

And frankly, if the ownership of say, Wal-Mart, decides they don't want to serve a certain people and want to enforce that across their company, they should be able to do that as well.

Companies should be allowed to lose money in any way they see fit.
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Krow_Incarnate posted...

If they're private companies, they absolutely should be able to.

And frankly, if the ownership of say, Wal-Mart, decides they don't want to serve a certain people and want to enforce that across their company, they should be able to do that as well.

Companies should be allowed to lose money in any way they see fit.

Also this, if you think a company has a shifty practice don't go there. Eventually only a few people will go and they will lose business.
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yutterh posted...

Yo me this is the same thing as going to a Jewish caterer and asking them to cater different variations of food against their religion like pork. Then when you are refuses you try to sue them for discrimination.

Being denied a service the provider doesn't offer in the first place to anybody at all isn't discrimination.
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Pretty sure that wasnt god who said that, since it contacdicts the whole "made in gods image" thing.
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Zeus posted...

Because apparently only that town exists and giant walls separate it from all other towns, thus preventing travel. Having a bakery that won't meet your needs is no different from having a bad bakery, since it both cases you'd simply go to one in another town

And expecting certain people to go to another town while others don't have to is creating a disadvantaged class by discriminating against them. That's okay if "certain people" is "people that don't like this guy's cake," because that's a personal preference that's directly relevant to the business that's being done, but when it's on the basis of something irrelevant like sexual preference or skin colour, you've got a problem.

Zeus posted...

And what happens if you can't find a service in your town in the first place? You'd still need to travel.

And if the nearest bakery is run by homophobic douchemonkeys? Gay people would have to travel further, thereby creating a disadvantaged class. Oh hey it's my point again. Imagine that.

Zeus posted...

More importantly, the vast majority of headline-grabbing cases HAVE been ones in areas with multiple bakeries, etc, where the couple could have reasonably picked somewhere else but they wanted to stick it to the business owner.

Which is largely about setting a precedent. They have other options, which means they have less to lose if their efforts to stop this sort of behaviour fail, but that doesn't make they shouldn't be trying to stop this sort of behaviour. It just means they don't personally benefit as much as somebody without other options would.

Zeus posted...

However, most major chains don't have "business owners," they have boards of directors, stock, etc, where you don't have one person making those kinds of decisions.

Irrelevant. That's still a group of people responsible for running the business and dictating policy decisions. The more people you involve, the less likely it is that personal vendettas and prejudices and the like will impact how the business is run, but it's still far from an impossibility, and what you are arguing in favour of is allowing them to do whatever they want. If the board of directors and shareholders all hate gay people, and the rest of the relevant community is either similarly homophobic or apathetic to homophobia, you're going to end up with a major chain that doesn't serve gay people. That's very much something to push against.

Zeus posted...

Otherwise, you're attempting to distort the nature of hospitals, utilities, etc, which ARE effectively government-run, given that they receive heavy funding from and/or tightly restrained by the government. Claiming that a public utility is a private company, like a Wal-mart or your local baker, is a wholly disingenuous argument.

And how would you describe your decision to focus on the nuances of hospitals and public utilities instead of addressing the other privately-run essential services I brought up?

Zeus posted...

Likewise, the fix for a business refusing to provide a service is very easy: Go somewhere else.

Provided there is somewhere else to go which, if this problem is allowed to become widespread enough, there won't be. I'm inclined to say fixing that problem is the preferable option to allowing it to spread unchecked.

Zeus posted...

Or you can stop being a dick by forcing them at gunpoint to violate their religious beliefs over what's actually a trivial matter for you.

No. Homophobia is not a trivial matter. Hatred is not a trivial matter. Discriminating against people for doing nothing practically wrong is not a trivial matter. Anyone who wants to believe that gay people (or black people, or white people, or straight people, or Jewish people, or Muslims, or Christians, or women, or men, or any other group that's defined by anything other than relevant personal action) should be deprived of the services offered to every other person is going to have to defend that decision on a practical basis.

Religious beliefs are not above the scrutiny to which every other belief is held. If a belief can't be defended beyond a blind "God said so!", then it absolutely should be dismantled with logical and pragmatic thinking, and people should be prevented from using that belief to cause harm until they can be made to see reason.

_AdjI_ posted...

Anyone who wants to believe that Christians should be deprived of the services offered to every other person is going to have to defend that decision on a practical basis.

Christians shouldn't be deprived of their right to choose what their business can and can't do.

_AdjI_ posted...

If a belief can't be defended beyond a blind "God said so!", then it absolutely should be dismantled with logical and pragmatic thinking, and people should be prevented from using that belief to cause harm until they can be made to see reason.

I dislike religion as much as you but it's already been decided that it's inhumane to force people to change their beliefs against their will, so until you can convince the US to go on an Athiestic Crusade, you can't use that as an argument against religious freedom.
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Romans 1 is a clear reference to Genesis 1:20.
So if Jesus died so we wouldnt need to follow Jewish laws, why should we follow a reference to those laws while skipping the other laws?
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_AdjI_ posted...

expecting certain people to go to another town while others don't have to is creating a disadvantaged class by discriminating against them.

Is it discrimination for me to have to travel further to buy things I can afford? According to you, Jaguar is creating a disadvantaged Jaguarless class, discriminating against me because I can't give them tree fiddy for an F-Type.

We are all disadvantaged by our circumstances, it's not necessarily fair but it's not unreasonable either.
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I haven't read the discussion. But

Why would you want a Christian baker that doesn't respect your lifestyle to make your cake in the first place? If they don't want to do it, why would you want to pay them for it? Or even sue them into complicity?

The gay cake issue is like a debate about who gets to play the victim card. "He won't make my cake." vs "He's making me make a cake!"

vs "so what you always make cakes" vs "yeah but not for you..."

so... just go somewhere else instead of raising a shitstorm? They dont even want the extra business
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RIP_Supa posted...

Why would you want a Christian baker that doesn't respect your lifestyle to make your cake in the first place?

Because it's free money.

RIP_Supa posted...

If they don't want to do it, why would you want to pay them for it?

They don't intend to pay.

RIP_Supa posted...

Or even sue them into complicity?

Free wedding cake.
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RIP_Supa posted...

I haven't read the discussion. But

Why would you want a Christian baker that doesn't respect your lifestyle to make your cake in the first place? If they don't want to do it, why would you want to pay them for it? Or even sue them into complicity?

The gay cake issue is like a debate about who gets to play the victim card. "He won't make my cake." vs "He's making me make a cake!"

vs "so what you always make cakes" vs "yeah but not for you..."

so... just go somewhere else instead of raising a shitstorm? They dont even want the extra business

We live in a corrupt society where anyone can sue anyone for any reason. A woman can chainsmoke and drink lots of alcoholic beverages during her pregnancy against her doctor's advice. Then when her baby dies from her doing that, she sues her doctor and wins a bunch of money she doesn't deserve. And it wasn't over a cake. It was the gay couple wanting them to cater their gay wedding and the Christian couple not wanting to cater for a gay wedding. If someone who owns their own business doesn't aporove of gay weddings, they shouldn't have to.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Christians shouldn't be deprived of their right to choose what their business can and can't do.

Sure they should. Otherwise, organizations of Christian assassins would be legal. Laws dictate what people can't do to other people; owning a business or being part of a religion doesn't absolve anyone from following them.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

I dislike religion as much as you

I am religious. Surprise!

Kyuubi4269 posted...

it's already been decided that it's inhumane to force people to change their beliefs against their will,

Forcing them to change their beliefs? That is indeed not okay. Intervening to prevent their beliefs from having a harmful effect on society? That's literally what law enforcement is. Someone who believes your TV should be his is legally prohibited from stealing it, and will be prevented from or punished for doing so as much as the law is able to stop him. Somebody who believes your car would look better with a rainbow unicorn painted on it is legally prohibited from vandalizing it, and will be prevented from or punished for doing so. And somebody who believes gay people shouldn't have cake is legally prohibited from denying them service for that belief.

It's all quite consistent, despite your efforts to portray this as some inalienable principle that must not be violated.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Is it discrimination for me to have to travel further to buy things I can afford?

Post #44, quote #3 + paragraph 4. This has already been covered.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

We are all disadvantaged by our circumstances, it's not necessarily fair but it's not unreasonable either.

It is unreasonable, however, to introduce new disadvantages. Some are inevitable, but that inevitability does not in any way justify making new ones where there don't have to be anyone, and anyone who does try to introduce new ones should be frowned upon.

RIP_Supa posted...

Why would you want a Christian baker that doesn't respect your lifestyle to make your cake in the first place?

Presumably because they make good cake. But apparently it's weird that I don't particularly consider factors that aren't relevant to conducting business when conducting business.
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Zangulus posted...

This is a flawed statement. Simply because one refuses service to someone does not automatically mean someone else will.

In the vast majority of cases, it does. And it certainly will when you have a substantial unmet need because businesses will exist to meet that need.

Zangulus posted...

Small towns entrenched in racism and religious beliefs?

I somewhat suspect you've never actually been to a small town and just hate rural folk.

Zangulus posted...

Its not that easy to just pickup and move to a new city that may or may not have someone to welcome you.

And yet somehow people constantly do it year after year. Otherwise, I'm really not sure what you expect. Do you think that every person should be treated as a foreign dignitary and put up in the best housing for free and, if they can't get that, they shouldn't bother?

Zangulus posted...

This is a flawed argument and the very reason behind consumer protections.

Not really a consumer protection issue. That's more of an issue with the quality of the products or service being sold rather than a denial of providing anything, which is actually a different set of laws entirely. More importantly, pretty much every business has some right to refuse service. So really the question is why should this take precedence?
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adjl posted...

Sure they should. Otherwise, organizations of Christian assassins would be legal. Laws dictate what people can't do to other people; owning a business or being part of a religion doesn't absolve anyone from following them.

And here Melon criticizes me for ridiculous fallacies...

The two scenarios are entirely different because the basic service is already illegal. It's a pretty huge leap from limiting a legally provided service.

adjl posted...

I am religious. Surprise!

However, I seriously doubt that.
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_AdjI_ posted...

And expecting certain people to go to another town while others don't have to is creating a disadvantaged class by discriminating against them. That's okay if "certain people" is "people that don't like this guy's cake," because that's a personal preference that's directly relevant to the business that's being done, but when it's on the basis of something irrelevant like sexual preference or skin colour, you've got a problem.

And expecting anybody to buy that is creating a bullshit argument. At any rate, your argument overlooks that you're creating an OPPRESSED class by forcing people to act contrary to their deeply held religious beliefs over a trivial matter. In this case, either get your cake somewhere else or bake your own fucking cake.

_AdjI_ posted...

And if the nearest bakery is run by homophobic douchemonkeys? Gay people would have to travel further, thereby creating a disadvantaged class. Oh hey it's my point again. Imagine that.

Then they travel further. So what? Do you expect everything to be handed to you at your door? People have to travel and move for all sorts of reasons already. Maybe you can also force businesses, schools, etc, to move to different regions to accommodate handfuls of people who refuse to move.

_AdjI_ posted...

Which is largely about setting a precedent. They have other options, which means they have less to lose if their efforts to stop this sort of behaviour fail, but that doesn't make they shouldn't be trying to stop this sort of behaviour. It just means they don't personally benefit as much as somebody without other options would.

Which is a silly excuse. If we applied that same standard to anything else, we'd slide down a never-ending slippery slope.

_AdjI_ posted...

Irrelevant. That's still a group of people responsible for running the business and dictating policy decisions. The more people you involve, the less likely it is that personal vendettas and prejudices and the like will impact how the business is run, but it's still far from an impossibility, and what you are arguing in favour of is allowing them to do whatever they want. If the board of directors and shareholders all hate gay people, and the rest of the relevant community is either similarly homophobic or apathetic to homophobia, you're going to end up with a major chain that doesn't serve gay people. That's very much something to push against.

You claim it's irrelevant but the reality is that your fantasy scenario has never once come close to playing out like that. Doubly so because it wouldn't just require that the board feel one way but that a substantial number of shareholders agree to turn down profits in favor of principle. How often have you known shareholders to forsake profit for principle?

And, even then, gays and minorities make up a substantial enough amount of the population that other service providers would appear to pick up the money.

_AdjI_ posted...

And how would you describe your decision to focus on the nuances of hospitals and public utilities instead of addressing the other privately-run essential services I brought up?

Out of the rest of your list, the only possible concern is real estate but even that's a farce given how many realtors and landowners are looking to rent/sell. More importantly, one of the biggest discriminatory practices at the town level is perfectly legal -- using zoning to limit the development of apartments, condos, etc, which is widely alleged as a tactic to restrict minority access to communities.
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_AdjI_ posted...

Provided there is somewhere else to go which, if this problem is allowed to become widespread enough, there won't be. I'm inclined to say fixing that problem is the preferable option to allowing it to spread unchecked.

Again, if a business doesn't exist now, it often will later. There will always be people looking to cash in on money or doing something for ideological reasons.

_AdjI_ posted...

Zeus posted...

Or you can stop being a dick by forcing them at gunpoint to violate their religious beliefs over what's actually a trivial matter for you.

No. Homophobia is not a trivial matter. Hatred is not a trivial matter. Discriminating against people for doing nothing practically wrong is not a trivial matter. Anyone who wants to believe that gay people (or black people, or white people, or straight people, or Jewish people, or Muslims, or Christians, or women, or men, or any other group that's defined by anything other than relevant personal action) should be deprived of the services offered to every other person is going to have to defend that decision on a practical basis.

Religious beliefs are not above the scrutiny to which every other belief is held. If a belief can't be defended beyond a blind "God said so!", then it absolutely should be dismantled with logical and pragmatic thinking, and people should be prevented from using that belief to cause harm until they can be made to see reason.

No, a cake IS a trivial matter for the person requesting it. It's a less trivial matter for the person forced at gunpoint to make it. You're complaining about the service-provider being a jerk or asshole, but you completely overlook that forcing somebody to violate their beliefs -- which is often done with glee, out of some conviction of moral superiority like you've chosen to exercise -- is the ultimate dick move.

When two people disagree, precedence should NOT automatically be given to the non-religious side because not only are you enforcing your own bigotry, you're doing so via an apartheid by having the minority oppress the majority.
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Jesus walked with, befriended and ate with sinners.
Why would he have anything against baking a cake for them as well?
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Foppe posted...

Jesus walked with, befriended and ate with sinners.
Why would he have anything against baking a cake for them as well?

Jesus was friends with a whore, he didn't become her pimp or send guys her way. That's the difference.
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Zeus posted...

The two scenarios are entirely different because the basic service is already illegal. It's a pretty huge leap from limiting a legally provided service.

And yet the logic is identical. Killing people is illegal. Discriminating against people on the basis of certain protected classes is illegal. They're very different degrees of illegal, obviously, but the bottom line is that claiming religious reasons for doing something illegal doesn't make it any more legal.

Zeus posted...

However, I seriously doubt that.

Now who's being bigoted? I am a practicing Presbyterian. There's a good chance I go to church more often than these poor pious bakers do, whatever you'd like to assume about me.

Zeus posted...

At any rate, your argument overlooks that you're creating an OPPRESSED class by forcing people to act contrary to their deeply held religious beliefs over a trivial matter.

Discrimination is not a trivial matter, and not being allowed to deprive somebody of food because they like it in the butt is not being oppressed. Calm down.

Zeus posted...

Then they travel further. So what? Do you expect everything to be handed to you at your door? People have to travel and move for all sorts of reasons already. Maybe you can also force businesses, schools, etc, to move to different regions to accommodate handfuls of people who refuse to move.

Again, there's a major, major distinction between disadvantages that exist out of necessity and disadvantages that exist because somebody's being a prick. Not every community will have enough people to make it practical to have every service provided within that community. That's simply the practical reality of the matter, and that means people will sometimes have to travel to reach the nearest provider of that service. There's no necessity involved in denying people services because they're gay. A Christian is completely capable of making them that cake, or selling them groceries, or renting that apartment. They just choose not to.

Zeus posted...

You claim it's irrelevant but the reality is that your fantasy scenario has never once come close to playing out like that.

I find it pretty hilarious that you said this immediately after using a textbook slippery slope argument, as though a slippery slope can't also be applied here. No, there's no precedent for a major multinational corporation putting principle ahead of profit. Yet. If discrimination becomes normalized enough (as it will if not fought against), and the discriminated class is small enough (unlikely with gays, but you could certainly see it with trans people and some ethnic minorities), you're absolutely going to see this sort of thing happening with larger companies, because the impact to profit will be small enough to justify the principled action.

Incidentally, slippery slope arguments have no inherent logical validity, so you might want to flesh out yours if you want it to not be completely worthless. Just FYI.

Zeus posted...

Out of the rest of your list, the only possible concern is real estate

Really? Do tell why groceries aren't a concern. Or is it my turn to suspect that you've never actually seen a small town and don't have any grasp of what their grocery stores are like?

Zeus posted...

When two people disagree, precedence should NOT automatically be given to the non-religious side

Preference is not automatically being given to the non-religious side. It's automatically being given to the side that isn't hurting others, which I'd say is pretty reasonable.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Foppe posted...

Jesus walked with, befriended and ate with sinners.
Why would he have anything against baking a cake for them as well?

Jesus was friends with a whore, he didn't become her pimp or send guys her way. That's the difference.

How is baking a cake to a gay wedding the same as pimping?
The bakery is not a secret gay love hotel, right?
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Foppe posted...

How is baking a cake to a gay wedding the same as pimping?
The bakery is not a secret gay love hotel, right?

The argument is, and always has been, that they don't want to provide a cake as it helps have a ceremony that they believe God doesn't want to occur. Baking the wedding cake is helping them sin, baking a cake to have over lunch is not.
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Do you need a wedding cake to get married?
No?
How is that helping them to sin?
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Foppe posted...

Do you need a wedding cake to get married?
No?
How is that helping them to sin?

Kinda do.

While it isn't a requirement to get married, they want one to do it and helping them get what they want helps them progress planning and get married sooner. It's also pretty bad to celebrate a sin and they don't want in on that either.
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But a priest, you know that guy that spread Gods words, is the guy that wed them, and nowhere during the ceremony does he require a cake.
The priest helps them to sin, not the bakery.
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Foppe posted...

But a priest, you know that guy that spread Gods words, is the guy that wed them, and nowhere during the ceremony does he require a cake.
The priest helps them to sin, not the bakery.

It's not an either/or.
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How does a cake make people sin?
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Foppe posted...

How does a cake make people sin?

It helps.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

Foppe posted...

Do you need a wedding cake to get married?
No?
How is that helping them to sin?

Kinda do.

While it isn't a requirement to get married, they want one to do it and helping them get what they want helps them progress planning and get married sooner. It's also pretty bad to celebrate a sin and they don't want in on that either.

It's the notion that denying them a cake is somehow going to stop them from getting married, which is somehow going to stop them from being gay. It's pretty much the last protest these people can make against homosexuality, and it's hopelessly impotent and petty.

Kyuubi4269 posted...

Foppe posted...

How does a cake make people sin?

It helps.

Cake just helps people eat cake. The cake actually has absolutely nothing to do with the wedding itself. Just the party afterward.
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