Reason’s Nick Gillespie reminds us of the pivotal value of unfettered free speech, including speech that offends sensibilities and hurts feelings. He cites Jonathan Rauch on why this has been so vital for gay people and the advancement of gay social acceptance and legal equality, noting:
Rauch tells the story of Franklin Kameny, a government astronomer who lost his job for being gay. How Kameny won it back is an epic story of slow-moving but ultimately triumphant justice. More important, Kameny and others like him never supported laws that would limit speech. Instead, writes Rauch, “They had arguments, and they had the right to make them.”
Gillespie’s post also quotes Rauch, author of the seminal work Kindly Inquisitors: The New Attacks on Free Thought, who writes:
In any case, we can be quite certain that hate-speech laws did not change America’s attitude toward its gay and lesbian minority, because there were no hate-speech laws. Today, firm majorities accept the morality of homosexuality, know and esteem gay people, and endorse gay unions and families.
For more, a link in Gillespie’s post takes you to an excerpt from Rauch’s forward to Kindly Inquisitors, in which he wrote:
Gay people have lived in a world where we were forced, day in and day out, to betray our consciences and shut our mouths in the name of public morality. Not so long ago, everybody thought we were wrong. Now our duty is to protect others’ freedom to be wrong, the better to ensure society’s odds of being right.
But as Gillespie notes, threats to free speech “are more likely in America to come from people you know and respect,” by way of efforts to prevent exposure to what, in another context, George Will referred to as restrictions perpetrated “in the name of a new entitlement, not to have your intellectual serenity disturbed, your emotional equilibrium upset, or your feelings hurt.”
More. It’s behind the WSJ’s firewall, but google “The Scandal of Free Speech” site:wsj.com to read Bret Stephens’ column on politically correct suppression of speech. Excerpt:
Last May, sex-advice columnist Dan Savage gave a talk at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics in which he used a term so infamous that it caused members of the audience to walk out “in a state of distress.” Later, a petition was put forward to demand that the institute apologize “for failing to stop” Mr. Savage from using the term, and to “assert a commitment to preventing the use of slurs and hate speech in the future.”…
The word is “tranny,” meaning a transgender, or transsexual, or transvestite person. So hideously offensive is this word nowadays that, when I arrived at an Institute of Politics event a few weeks later, a group called Queers United in Power—or QUIP, minus the humor—held a protest outside and handed out fliers denouncing (without spelling out) the use of the “T word.” I had to ask around to find out just what the word was; I got the answer in a whisper. …
I was reminded of this small episode following last week’s massacre of journalists in France, after which it has become fashionable to “be” Charlie Hebdo. Sorry, but QUIP is not Charlie Hebdo: QUIP is al Qaeda with a different list of moral objections and a milder set of criminal penalties. Otherwise, like al Qaeda, it’s the same unattractive mix of quavering personal sensitivity and totalitarian demands for ideological conformity.
Furthermore. “Knowledge starts as offendedness”: Jonathan Rauch on free speech and the speech code mentality (video clip).
Still more. The mirror image of arbitrarily declaring what can be said (and except on public university campuses, this typically involves thuggery but not state power) is to force people to engage in expressive activity in support of ideas they don’t, you know, support (which does involve state prosecution and criminal punishment of those who refuse to comply). Which then leads to competing grievance claims.
Final Word on this tangent. The Wall Street Journal‘s James Taranto takes on the New York Times’ Frank Bruni in Call the Cake Police! (It, too, is behind the paper’s firewall, so google “Call the Cake Police” site:wsj.com:
Without harboring animus toward gays or sharing the eccentric baker’s social and religious views, one may reasonably ask: If a baker is uncomfortable baking a cake for you, why call the cake police? Why not just find another baker who’s happy to have your business? …
Bruni’s purpose here is not to vindicate his personal dignity as a gay man. Rather, it is—and he makes this explicit by the end of the column—to reject the principle of religious freedom almost totally. … To do that, he reduces the religious-liberty claim to a nullity, too weak to withstand even the most ludicrous counterclaim he can think of. If he’s right, our Muslim baker [in a hypothetical , requested to bake a cake with an image of Muhammad] is out of luck. (At least he won’t have to worry about the New York Times’s printing a picture of the offending cake.)
I also liked Taranto’s description of the kind of slippery slope arguments that “starts with something seemingly benign and leads by steps, usually of declining plausibility, to 1930s Germany or 1950s Mississippi.” LGBT activists that mock arguments that predict marriage equality must inevitably lead to a right to marry your dog are cheerleaders for arguments that allowing traditionalist religious believers not to bake same-sex wedding cakes (note: they are willing to make any other kind of cake for gay customers) will lead promptly to sexual-orientation segregation.
Ok, one last addition: Reason’s Scott Shackford also parses Bruni’s illogic.
86 Comments for “A Fundamental Right to Offend”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
We are not in any immediate danger of losing freedom of speech. As Rauch correctly points out, “In the United States, hate-speech laws as such are unconstitutional.” That is as it should be, in my opinion.
But the key is government sanction, not private sanction. I don’t share Rauch’s view that private employers and private institutions — businesses and colleges/universities — should not limit/curtail speech disruptive to the core purposes of the business or institution.
It does not seem to me to be a curtailment of the freedom of speech, but a limitation on the forum. I don’t see any reason why a business or college/university cannot demand that speech within the contexts of the work/study environment stay within certain boundaries of respect and decency. What is acceptable speech in the marketplace of ideas might not be acceptable speech in a particular forum.
posted by James in Chicago on
Well said, though I’d say that we face no such danger at all. As any semi-conscious and objective gay person knows, hate speech directed our way is alive and flourishing and, as anyone with even a casual acquaintance with the history of American jurisprudence recognizes, is not threatened in the least. It needs no defense from us, when it’s already vigorously defended, as it should be, by our judiciary. This is an obvious right-wing canard. What the right, the Christian right in particular, actually seeks is the prerogative to harass us wherever we conduct our lives, in schools, in the workplace, and in the offices of government, with the goal that being openly and honestly gay once again becomes such an emotional and psychological source of misery that we retreat into the invisibility of the closet, the invisibility without which anti-gay hatred cannot flourish.
Odd, isn’t it, how the right-wing defends the right of commercial enterprises, which could hardly begin to exist without the taxes paid by all citizens regardless of sexual/romantic orientation, to discriminate against us, but screams ‘oppression!’, when such a business, or an office of tax-supported government, has policies that limit hostile speech in order to promote general concord.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The “obvious right-wing canard” falls apart when those pushing the canard (for example, “More important, Kameny and others like him never supported laws that would limit speech.”) are asked, simply and directly, “What laws are you talking about?”
At that point the advocates of the canard either come up empty or start talking about another country.
posted by Houndentenor on
There are no hate speech laws in the US. You can get into trouble for advocating violence, libel or slander but otherwise pretty much anything goes. What the right (and sometimes the left as well) complains about is when their speech is criticized or condemned, as if freedom from criticism is some sort of constitutional right. It’s not. Charlie Hebdo often published crude and even vulgar images and texts. Often the satire was biting, even uncomfortably so. One I just saw today (from a cover, no less) was from a few years back depicting a priest in the confessional talking to a bishop who says (roughly translated): “You should have just gone into cinema like Roman Polanski.” Is it any wonder why Bill Donohue and others are not fans of this publication?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Two quick legal notes:
(1) The Supreme Court issued a number of orders this afternoon, but did not grant cert in any cases, including the 6th Circuit cases and the direct appeal from Louisiana. Nothing is surprising about the Court’s failure to grant cert in today’s orders; it would have been unusual for the Court to do. The Court is expected to issue a long list of orders on Monday morning, granting cert in some cases and denying cert in others. If the Court does not take action on the marriage equality cases in the Monday orders — either grant or deny cert — the cases will likely be reschedule for consideration the following Friday.
(2) The Fifth Circuit heard oral arguments in the Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas cases this morning, one at a time, over a three-plus hour period. I just finished listening to the tapes of the arguments. Judge Higginbotham, who is expected to be the deciding vote on the three-judge panel, closely questioned the states’ lawyers, and the questions he asked were not, to say the least, supportive of marriage discrimination. Based on what I heard from the arguments, I believe (as do most experts following the cases) that a 2-1 decision in favor of marriage equality is more likely than not, with Judge Higginbotham, the senior judge on the panel, writing the decision.
posted by Throbert McGee on
I’m not sure about Rauch’s claim here:
There’s a difference between saying, on the one hand, “homosexuality is not intrinsically immoral” and saying, on the other hand, “homosexuality can have positive moral value.”
By way of analogy, a great many religious Americans nowadays would say “masturbation is medically harmless, of course, and it’s not a serious enough sin to send you to Hell, but it’s still a sin, insofar as it ‘falls short’ of God’s Plan for Humanity.” After all, while it’s true that the Bible nowhere condemns masturbation, it’s also true that the Bible never positively endorses masturbation in the way that it endorses procreative sex.
And I suspect that many Americans would look at homosexuality the same way — perhaps it’s “often harmless,” and perhaps it’s not VERY sinful, but that doesn’t mean it possesses “positive spiritual and moral potential.” Certainly, some theologians DO argue that homosexual relationships can have “spiritually uplifting, positive value,” but many others still deny this.
posted by Lori Heine on
I think it’s probably more likely that a majority thinks it’s none of their damned business. Which, of course, it is not.
If we want serenity and peace of mind, obsessing over whether other people think we’re sinners for simply being who we are is probably not the recipe. The notion that we have a right not to be offended is based on that obsession.
posted by Houndentenor on
Somehow we got tripped up in this “approval” nonsense. Mostly it’s a fiction of the religious right that we want people to “accept” homosexuality. I realize there are gay people who care about such things. I don’t. It is really none of my business what others think of me. It is my business how they treat me, especially if they interfere with my rights under the constitution. But other than that, I rarely ask because I honestly don’t care. Over 20 years ago now I laughed in the face, before witnesses I might add, of a young Southern Baptist woman who told me she didn’t approve of my lifestyle. I laughed because I had not asked for her approval and didn’t know why she had volunteered an opinion that was of no consequence. Approval is not the issue. It never was. It’s nice and I realize that when it involves ones families it can be very hurtful to be shunned or treated as lesser than others, but from strangers? To quote RuPaul: “If you aren’t paying my bills, I don’t have to pay you no mind.”
posted by James in Chicago on
Are you serious? Tripped up? Far from getting “tripped up”, our attempts to improve other people’s opinion of us as gay men and women are necessarily the very basis of our struggle to be judged in this society as individuals, to overcome anti-gay prejudice and bigotry with all the suffering that that occasions. Beyond the borders of libertarian fantasy land the opinions of our neighbors and fellow citizens are absolutely critical in this regard. Do you honestly believe that how we’re depicted by the media and the entertainment industry, what’s said about us by politicians, by judges in our courts, and authorities of all kinds, including the medical and psychiatric professions, doesn’t ultimately depend on how we are viewed by the general public? Thank God that serious gay activists these past decades would have been more inclined to engage that Baptist woman in conversation and to argue with her about her moral opinion of us, which depends on the nonsense that innate same-sex orientation is fundamentally unreal, than to imagine that she and her opinion do not matter. But I get it. Gays who ultimately align themselves with the Republican party, who are consequently politically in bed with the Christian theocratic element in this country, with those who dream of returning us gays to our former pariah status in this society, are under real psychological pressure to dismiss politically realistic gay Americans as so many insecure and overly sensitive types, who supposedly won’t be satisfied till everyone has purchased their very own rainbow flag.
posted by Lori Heine on
“Beyond the borders of libertarian fantasy land the opinions of our neighbors and fellow citizens are absolutely critical in this regard.”
James in Chicago, here’s a friendly little suggestion. If you hope to look intelligent, either get off your ass and learn something about libertarians, or have the decency to shut the hell up about them.
You’re making yourself look like an ignorant fool.
Libertarians regard personal connections not as those least important, but among the most. If you ever bothered to read anything about them, you would know that.
Put on your “progressive” costume, go out in the backyard and play. The grownups are bored with you.
posted by Houndentenor on
That Baptist lady and I had talked every day for a month at that point. She wasn’t a stranger. And she’s the one who brought up the disapproval comment. I’m happy to engage someone who wants to have a conversation but her worldview was “the Bible says it’s wrong” and there’s not really much point arguing with that. I had already shown her that I was a good person and a respectful colleague. I didn’t shun her after that or mistreat her in any way. What I was not going to do is let her continue to believe that her personal opinion of me mattered. No, it’s not essential that we get everyone to like us. Yes, that’s a good thing and obviously media depictions and more significantly (at least in my opinion) actually knowing someone who is gay has helped tremendously. But the important thing is that we are treated fairly under the law. There are a lot of things that I think should be legal that I don’t particularly approve of. There is a difference and the idea that we have to outlaw everything we think is “wrong” is at the core of the objections to gay rights. It’s okay to think I’m “sinning”. What do I care? It’s another to think it’s okay to fire me for being gay, which is still legal in the majority of states. Those are two separate things. Being liked is nice, but being respected is more important and being included in “we the people” is essential.
posted by Wilberforce on
There is a very simple argument for that lady. It’s that she’s cherry picking and ignoring the central message of scripture. It’s not only simple, if done right, it’s devastating.
A short story. Years ago I was driving in the country with a homophobic cousin and her friend, a preacher’s wife. She disapproved of homos and justified herself by saying ‘it’s biblical.’ I only said, ‘a lot of things are biblical.’ Both ladies knew immediately that they’d loose the argument and quickly changed the subject.
That’s the kind of response we need when people voice their hatred. We should argue back.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
1. I think that an important distinction could be made with regards to maintaining some sense of social civility/decorum versus government censorship.
Example; A public college or university (I would ideally say private as well, but realize that is a different ballgame) should certain encourage robust (even controversial) debate among its students. However, it should also ensure that the agreements/disagreements occur with a minimum level of civility/decorum. Students need to be able to feel safe and undergraduate (certainly graduate) level students should be expected to know (after being properly taught) what is and isn’t a legit exchange or ideas or debate.
2. Restrictions — by the Government — on speech generally have to involve libel, slander, fighting words, obscenity or top secret content. However, certain time, manner and place restrictions are not — generally — seen as actual restrictions on First Amendment rights.
3. I do believe that their are folks on the political right and the political left who tend to believe that “freedom of speech” should include some sort of shield against social and intellectual criticism.
When a member of the Dixie Chicks band said some controversial things (back in the Bush W White House), I don’t that the government itself tried to censors her speech. However, people did certainly disagree with her comments and it did certainly hurt the band’s bottom line.
More recently is the issue of comments made by say, Mel Gibson (anti-Semitism) or the star of the Duck Dynasty TV (all sorts of things he said about race relations and homosexuality). Series. People certainly disagreed with the comments that these people made and their was some talk (if not actual cost) regarding the bottom line. However, I don’t think that the government itself violated these people’s First Amendment rights.
posted by Jorge on
I think people fall so much in love with the idea freedom of speech that they make more of it than the First Amendment guarantees.
I think this is a good thing, and a very big part of why the United States and its forebearers are successful and strong.
When you have an increasing popular support for laws restricting hate speech, that will mean nothing for the law, and everything for society. Mr. Miller links to a statement by George Will pointing out that what Sony did was self-censorship, yet the President of the United States was very sad over it. In France some people are saying “I’m not Charlie Hebdo.” The law does not control in either case. You can talk of the difference between freedom of speech and using personal and social discretion, but when cultural forces act to change the meaning of discretion, it is important for us to use discretion to take notice and act so that things go in the right direction socially.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
As we look forward to a possible cert grant this morning, I want to point out an article in the LA Times discussing the seminal Supreme Court decision on gay rights — ONE vs. Olesen — a case involving government suppression of the freedom of speech.
And interesting side note: The photograph accompanying the article shows two covers from ONE. The August 1953 cover features “Homosexual Marriage”. Even then, when we were being hunted down by the government, marriage equality was an issue in the community, apparently.
I think that this might be appropriate for all of us to ponder — both those of us who are “progressives” and tend to argue that marriage equality arose as an issue in the 1970’s, when “progressives” started to raise marriage as an issue, and those of us who are “conservatives” and tend to argue that marriage equality arose as an issue when “conservatives” started to push the issue in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
The issue was alive and kicking, apparently, long before the community divided up into opposing camps, “progressive” versus “homocon”, and predated us all.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Just to keep everyone up to date, the Supreme Court’s order list this morning denied cert in the Louisiana direct appeal, leaving that matter for the 5th Circuit to decide, and relisted the four 6th Circuit cases for reconsideration this Friday, January 16th.
posted by Lori Heine on
“That’s the kind of response we need when people voice their hatred. We should argue back.”
Which is exactly what LGBT Christians are doing. To surprisingly good results.
If our secular LGBT cohorts would get the guns of government out of these people’s faces, we could continue this highly-effective strategy.
Yes, I know it doesn’t succeed in magically disappearing every last homophobe. But it’s worked alarmingly well with real Christians. There will always be people who are stupid, delusional or simply fraudulent. Some are merely ignorant. The LGBT statist Left can’t simply scream and shove such people into enlightenment.
Below this window, as I type this, is an ad promising “LOVING, BIBLICAL ANSWERS ON HOMOSEXUALITY.” The book is titled “Compassion Without Compromise.”
No, I’m certainly not advising anybody to waste their money buying it. But as obtuse and desperate as efforts like these are, they would have been impossible ten (maybe even five) years ago. They represent a step forward in the evolution of people who have been doggedly determined not to evolve.
Now they’ve got a “compassionate” solution! This is funny, but it’s how childish, self-absorbed people save face. I view it basically the same way I do three-year-olds, covering their eyes with their hands so people won’t see them.
Put down the guns, “progressives.” Grab the popcorn instead. The show is going to be priceless.
posted by Jim Michaud on
Hey Lori, speaking of delusional, check this guy out: http://www.towleroad.com/2015/01/anti-gay-activist-calls-on-republican-governors-to-deploy-national-guard-to-stop-same-sex-marriages.html
Holy batshit crazy, Batman! This dude’s nuttier than a Payday candy bar.
posted by Lori Heine on
Wooooo, I can hear those loose propellers squeaking. Yes, this guy’s Inner Child probably belongs in one of those horror movies about devil children.
Some of the show will be frightening. Different people are going to behave in very different ways. Those who have a functioning conscience might need to babble on about “compassionate compromise” for a few years. And those who are nothing more than nasty, ill-tempered brats will call for the cops, or the military, to save civilization by somehow stopping us.
Bad religion attracts the mentally ill. Always has, and unfortunately probably always will.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I’m glad to hear that LGBT Christians are getting good results proselytizing among Christians.
However, a thought: The talk about “secular LGBT cohorts” deploying “the guns of government” sounds a lot like the overheated rhetoric of the Tony Perkins and other denizens of the anti-gay conservative Christian movement use to inflame fear among Christians. Are you sure that you want to be using this kind of inflammatory rhetoric describing gays and lesbians if your goal is to convince other Christians that gays and lesbians aren’t planning to crush Christianity?
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, are YOU sure you want to play right into their hands by making it appear that people like Tony Perkins are right?
Manipulators like Perkins do the same thing that they’ve always done. They don’t merely crank out one whopping lie after another. They shrewdly weave in an admixture of truth. That’s how they get people to believe them.
There are some LGBT people who hate Christianity. I wish there weren’t, but there certainly are. And they do want to hit Christians, again and again and again. From time to time, they even go after LGBT Christians, as I have found out firsthand.
But we’re the only people who can convince those who are capable of being convinced. We’re under no illusion that we can convince everybody.
I say, just wind ’em up and let ’em go. Let them display, before the world, just how nutty they really are. To do that, we need to stand back and give them room. Those who want to use the law to force them to back down are not doing that.
They never wanted their “religious freedom” bills to pass. At least the smarter ones didn’t. They are overjoyed that most of them failed. And in the states where they passed, they’re already crying and griping because things are–quite predictably–not working out the way they told the public they would.
Those laws are stupid. Now they’ve got to cover their butts and–again–blame us. It’s much easier (and more politically useful) for them in the states where such measures failed to pass.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Tom, are YOU sure you want to play right into their hands by making it appear that people like Tony Perkins are right?
How, precisely, am I playing into anyone’s hands? I’ve been making reasoned, rational and documented (as needed) responses to the proposed “religious freedom” laws.
posted by Lori Heine on
You are playing into their hands by doing what they want.
They’re clearly not capable of giving reasoned, rational responses to adults. They aren’t emotionally mature enough to function as adults. They respond with more screaming, because that’s all they know how to do.
If their laws pass, then they must own them, wear them, deal with their results. The few who genuinely think such laws are good ideas quickly find out otherwise.
It’s better for us if a few of them pass. Then we see that this is not enough for the uglies who really pushed for them. Then they complain because competing merchants post signs saying “We Serve Everyone,” and push for laws that prosecute inclusive churches for even blessing same-sex couples.
Which, of course, is exactly what they’ve done in states where such laws have passed.
I know it’s hard in some places. You and Houndentenor are essentially locked in nurseries full of crying toddlers. No matter what tasty rubber binky gets shoved into their mouths, it’s never enough. The tears on their faces run into the snot and the drool, and they look and sound terrible.
Just give them enough room to throw their tantrums. Those won’t last. And they’ll be their undoing.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
You are playing into their hands by doing what they want.
I guess that’s too bad, Lori. I think that the so-called “religious freedom” proposals are bad law, for the reasons I’ve stated over and over again. I believe it, I’ve said it, and I intend to continue to say it.
I am not going to get into a game of fake-out with conservative Christians, standing down on what I believe is right in order to try to outsmart them at their own game.
If you want to do that, fine. But I won’t.
We won the majority of Americans over to supporting what was unthinkable for Americans even a decade or two ago — open service in the military and marriage equality — by making reasoned, rational arguments in the face of irrationality. We will accomplish that result with respect to the so-called “religious freedom” laws, too, if we stay the course.
You say that “They’re clearly not capable of giving reasoned, rational responses to adults. They aren’t emotionally mature enough to function as adults. They respond with more screaming, because that’s all they know how to do.”
That may be true, or it may not. I’ve seen conservative Christians have both responses.
But even if it is true, conservative Christians are not our audience — the American public as a whole is our audience.
And the American public as a whole can and do respond to reasoned argument. We’ve seen that again, and again, and again, over the course of many decades of our struggle for equality.
It is not going to change now. Americans believe in equal treatment, in fair play and in decency toward one another. That’s the constant.
posted by Houndentenor on
One can hardly blame people for hating their abusers. It’s the Stockholm syndrome of those who identify with them that I don’t understand. (I’m not talking about the liberal Christians who have no problem with us, but the ones who still identify with their anti=gay and misogynistic churches. I just don’t get that and never will.) Sadly that rage can be blind, especially online where you are stuck as the stand-in for every person who treated them like crap.
posted by Lori Heine on
Then use reasoned argument, Tom, instead of force. Either behave as if you trust in it, or stop blustering. Because if you continue to push for laws forcing anti-gay Christians to bake cakes and take wedding photos, that’s all you’re doing.
You’re telling me you’re using reasoned argument and persuasion–as you’re shoving them. That’s a mixed message, to me and to them.
Drop the gun. It works wonders.
posted by Mike in Houston on
I supposed we should get rid of stop signs at intersections and switch to politely worded suggestion signs.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Then use reasoned argument, Tom, instead of force. Either behave as if you trust in it, or stop blustering. Because if you continue to push for laws forcing anti-gay Christians to bake cakes and take wedding photos, that’s all you’re doing.
Lori, this is nonsense. Complete nonsense.
The public accommodations laws exist, and have for a long time. The earliest public accommodation law to include sexual orientation was Wisconsin’s, signed into law by a Republican governor in 1982. The most recent inclusion of sexual orientation into public accommodations laws was 2009, if I recall correctly, although I think that two are three states have expanded public accommodations laws to include sexual since that time.
It is not a question of whether anyone should “continue to push for laws forcing anti-gay Christians to bake cakes and take wedding photos”. What is at issue is whether it is good public policy to carve out an exception permitting religious adherents — almost all conservative Christians — to discriminate against gays and lesbians, and gays and lesbians alone, on the grounds of “sincerely held religious belief”, while ignoring the constitutional issues that laws should be religion-neutral, issue-neutral and class-neutral.
You apparently consider my constitutional and public policy opposition to the so-called “religious freedom” laws being proposed — the laws creating a carve-out for anti-gay discrimination — to be “blustering”. I would point you to my comments in the “Payback Time, Again” thread, including this comment, and ask you to look at the questions I’ve actually been raising. I don’t think that your characterization is sustainable in light of the facts.
posted by Lori Heine on
It is “nonsense” to tell you to trust in your own argument? It’s “nonsense” to suggest that if you want to use persuasion, you can’t simultaneously coerce?
Condescension doesn’t pull you out of that predicament, Tom. It’s a defensive response that convinces no one but the already-convinced.
If your argument is “sustainable in light of the facts,” then by all means keep on making it. As for the public accommodations laws already on the books, I find it very unconvincing for you to claim that we need more of them.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
It is “nonsense” to tell you to trust in your own argument? It’s “nonsense” to suggest that if you want to use persuasion, you can’t simultaneously coerce?
My argument is simple: The American people, if given the facts about these laws and reasoned arguments against them, will reject the laws. We can trust them to make the right decision in the long run.
I make that observation in a context, the context of existing laws, including public accommodation laws. Laws coerce compliance, as you often point out. I cannot change that fact, or change the fact that we are discussing “religious freedom” in the context of a body of existing laws. That seems to bother you, but I can’t change facts.
If your argument is “sustainable in light of the facts,” then by all means keep on making it.
I plan to. In my opinion, the proposed laws are (for the reasons I’ve been stating for months) bad laws, for the most part, and we should not enact them. I also plan to continue to argue that our society would benefit from a serious and thoughtful discussion of freedom of conscience exemptions, including but not limited to religious conscience exemptions, that encompassed law in general.
I find it very unconvincing for you to claim that we need more of them.
Would you like to document this by pointing to something I’ve actually said at any point?
posted by Lori Heine on
I can point to your oft-restated opinion that public accommodations laws should be expanded. This does not jibe with your assertion that religious freedom laws are unnecessary.
If anti-gay Christians can present your irrationally expansive public accommodations as aggressive incursions on their religious liberty, and get enough of the public to agree with them, then they will be in an excellent position to push those laws through. Drop the gun, and perhaps you’ll look more reasonable to all those people you hope to convince.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I can point to your oft-restated opinion that public accommodations laws should be expanded. This does not jibe with your assertion that religious freedom laws are unnecessary.
Okay, point me. Give me the quote.
posted by JohnInCA on
If I can cut in for a moment…
“It’s “nonsense” to suggest that if you want to use persuasion, you can’t simultaneously coerce?”
Yep.
Well, as *you* use “coercion” anyway. Taxes, fines, penalties and so-on are a pretty time-honored way in America to subtly social engineer things. The government coerces me to support churches by making them tax exempt and giving them free money. It coerces me to support war by taxing me and spending it at the pentagon. It coerces me to have health insurance and car insurance. It coerces me to support local buisnesses. And if I had a kid, it would coerce me to get a car seat.
That’s not because the people pushing for those various things didn’t have faith and belief in the strength of their arguments. There are a lot of good reasons to wear a seat belt, someone shouldn’t need to be coerced into doing so. But face it: some people are idiots and are going to act against their own best interest.
So: coercion. Well, coercion as you define it, anyway.
And quite frankly… I think the track record for coercion used alongside of persuassion is actually pretty good. Not too many people are upset about seat belts, bicycle helmets or car insurance these days.
So yep! Nonsense.
posted by Houndentenor on
I’ll repeat my position again. I don’t want a homophobe taking my picture and I don’t want to eat anything baked by an anti-gay bigot. I have no interest in forcing people to take my money. I work too hard for it to hand it off to people who hate me. That just makes no sense to me. I’d rather not have a wedding cake that deal with the local bigot baker. I do understand the point of public accommodation laws because without them much of the south would still have whites only restaurants and I say that as someone from and still in that culture. It’s absurd to think that people blinded by such bigotry are just going to come around due to logic and reason. As others have often said to me when I am tempted to argue with idiots: “You can’t reason someone out of a belief they didn’t reason themselves into.”
posted by Lori Heine on
We’re not, at this point or on this issue, dealing with lunch counters in the deep South in 1955. We are dealing with small, independent contractors all over the nation, in 2015.
Who cares whether people blinded by bigotry ever change, or if they don’t? If they fail to, it’s their loss; they’ll eventually go out of business.
And if the place where you live is so horrible that you believe it may take decades for attitudes to change there, why are you staying?
posted by Lori Heine on
I’ve never seen a clearer example of the statist system, and its fraudulence, than this issue has shown.
By marching off to cultural war behind the banner of expanded public accommodations laws–entirely gratuitous as they are at this point–good little leftists are in fact aiding and abetting the cause of social conservatism.
Both sides need violence. Each continually have its undies in a wad about some outrage that requires (demands!!!) it to go to war against the other by using government force in some way.
Which of course provides the “justification” for the opposite side’s use of force. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Flash bulletin: most people in this country are simply sick and tired of all the outrage. They want all the crying and griping to stop. By that, I mean, to just shut the hell up.
Now it’s manspreading. Then it’ll be what–breathing too loudly?
S.T.F.U. All of you, on both sides. And expect no more of my money, or of my votes.
I’m beginning to hope that America is tiring of this fraud. It’s a game a hell of a lot more tiresome than anything the NFL has ever foisted on us.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Public accommodation laws are unnecessary because discrimination doesn’t happen… and if it does, it’s just small, independent contractors (except when it’s not – see Exxon-Mobil)… Adam Smith’s dead hand will take care of everything – eventually… so just take it.
If all else fails, and you don’t like being discriminated against — move!
Sorry, Lori — but glibertarian fantasies have little place outside college dorm rooms and Risk game boards.
posted by Kosh III on
Lester Maddox was a small independent business; should he have continued to use violence against customers he didn’t like because he wasn’t big?
Is Hobby Lobby a smal business?
We’ve seen laissez-faire before, it won’t work.
Equal treatment must be for all and by all. It’s not “statist” whatever that is, it’s equality.
posted by Houndentenor on
I am currently looking for jobs. I am stuck here for the time being for reasons that are none of your business. Not everyone is free to relocate to another part of the country on a whim. To pretend that they are is not based in reality. There are a lot of gay people who have family or professional commitments that make it difficult or irresponsible to move to a more liberal part of the country. No one should lose rights because they step over a state line or city limit.
Also, the same arguments are still made by Rand Paul and others about the lunch counters. We would still have segregation if the federal government hadn’t passed laws and enforced them at gunpoint. I realize you find that offensive but I find that less offensive than “separate but equal”.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
A quick legal note: A federal court in South Dakota struck down that state’s ban on marriage equality this afternoon. The ruling is stayed until appeals are completed. The issue will now go to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
QUIP is al Qaeda with a different list of moral objections and a milder set of criminal penalties. Otherwise, like al Qaeda, it’s the same unattractive mix of quavering personal sensitivity and totalitarian demands for ideological conformity.
Oh, for G-d’s sake. First gays and lesbians are liken to Nazis, planning to ship Christians off in boxcars. Then they’re likened to Robspierre, planning to get our our guillotines and lop off heads. Now gays and lesbians are likened to el Quaeda. Am I the only one who wonders whether homocons, in their seemingly endless quest to get conservative Christians to embrace them, spend their nights sitting around trying to top each other by coming up with the most offensive possible analogy?
posted by Francis on
At least nobody’s done the Spanish Inquisition yet.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The homocon’s hyperbole does have a Monte Pythonish quality to it, to be sure, bordering on self-satire.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
. Lori;
1. I think that what the other Tom and I are trying to address is that (a) You cannot pass a law that says that one faith or sect can choose to ignore a law that it doesn’t like, but other faiths and or sects have to follow all the laws. (b) most of the “religious liberty” laws are written as to apply apply to conservative Christians who dislike gay people. Not to liberal Christians or to gay people who might want to discriminate against conservative Christians….Yet,what about the numerous other faiths and religions and denominations and the like who have their own laws that they want to avoid following?
2. If you have write a religious exemption onto the P.A. law (which I do not feel is such a bad idea or even a terrible new one), you have to address the fact that the government cannot play favorites with religious or sectarian groups and it cannot suddenly say that bias against gay people is somehow more worthy of religious freedom exemption then bias against straight people or some other class of people…….
posted by Mike in Houston on
Lori has oft stated that most every exercise of governmental authority is essentially “violence” if it requires someone to behave in a way that they weren’t already going to do, so I don’t think even this clarification is going to make much of a difference.
One of the underpinning realities of public accommodation laws is that behavior influences attitude to a higher degree than the other way around.
Behavior change is only possible when there is a countervailing force to incentivise that change. Those forces can be economic (see Birmingham bus boycott), legal (see HERO or James Byrd / Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention or Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay), social opprobrium (see “My Husband is not gay”), etc.
posted by Houndentenor on
There are two disturbing trends in the new state laws for “religious freedom”:
1) They seem primarily designed to allow one particular group (conservative Christians) the right to discriminate against another particular group (gays). We’ve already established in multiple court cases that this is unconstitutional. (Romer v Evans, among others) None of these laws are going to hold up in court.
2) The more disturbing aspect of these laws is that anyone would be able to refuse to do any job based on their own interpretation of any religious tradition they choose to adopt. Yes, sometimes there is the inclusion of the word “sincere” as if someone else can reasonably ascertain the sincerity of another’s beliefs. The most obvious and dangerous effect is the potential refusal of medical services and prescription drugs because the medical professional or pharmacist disapproves based on their own religious feelings. It’s one thing not to be able to get a cake for your wedding. It’s quite another to have to drive 100 miles out of your way to fill a prescription or shop around for hospitals while you are already ill to find one that doesn’t have a religious objection. What a mess this is going to be. And the greatest “harm” ironically is that it is turning off young people from the church, and not just the socially conservative ones but all of them.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The currently proposed laws, for the most part, are blatant as hell. Take Virginia’s proposal, for example. Plain as a goat’s ass. Shit, they didn’t even try to dress it up — plain, simple, raw, naked anti-gay discrimination.
I can’t wait to watch Stephen defend this bill against the iron-fisted intolerance and police state tactics of jackbooted Robspierre-ish progressive LGBTs. Oh, wait a minute. I think I just did it for him.
posted by Houndentenor on
About the addendum:
Protesting other’s speech is also a valid form of speech. People have a right to protest. Actually the right to protest what others say and do is the reason we have free speech in the first place. If you are a person in a position of power annoyed that people dare take you to task for what you say and do, then you are the reason we have the First Amendment. It is not a violation of your rights for people to criticize you or protest you. That IS their right. Yes, some people are annoying with their nit-picking, and some seem to be annoyed just to be annoyed, but that’s as true of the right as it is of the left. They still have that right.
posted by Lori Heine on
As the only reason to use government to implement one’s wishes is that it has a monopoly on legalized force, then yes–if you are saying government action is needed to achieve your objective, then you most certainly are saying that you need to use force . That’s not merely “glibertarian.” It’s basic logic.
Beyond the juvenile compulsion to form funny words, in a lame attempt to put down ideas too grownup for you to address intelligently, I wonder what else you’ve got. I suppose I’ll be waiting a long time.
My point to Houndentenor is not that he should necessarily move. It’s just as well your reasons for not moving are not my business, because I don’t give a damn. I wasn’t inquiring.
But this country has held together as long as it has, without being torn apart by its diverse population, largely because it is a huge nation (compared to the lands from which most of us came). We can spread out, move to areas where others are agreeable to us, and avoid those that aren’t. Federally-enacted laws, forcing one-size-fits-all on everybody in the country, threaten to undo that.
No harm in having a healthy understanding of that fact, if you must continue to live in an area in which you’re surrounded by people you can’t stand.
It is not the government’s role to determine whose reasons for discriminating are valid and which ones are not. If government assumes that role, then we have already lost religious freedom, and all freedom of conscience, in this country.
By all means, there is a useful and constructive role, in the crafting of freedom-of-conscience laws, for the stipulations people like Tom would like to see. The reasons those are not being addressed in the process are, I will repeat, that the religious right doesn’t sincerely want these bills to pass. It is grandstanding, and playing to its base.
Perhaps a new wave of more mature and since bills may be crafted in their wake. Those who, like Tom S., have good suggestions to make about how to make them fairer and more reasonable will prove very valuable at that stage. I don’t think we’re there yet. I think the circus is going to go on for a while, and that the tantrums will likely keep going until everybody else tells these fools to shut up.
Unfortunately, that may take a while.
posted by Mike in Houston on
It’s all well and good to lecture people about ‘tantrums’ from a safe geographic, philosophic or rhetorical distance… It’s still unserious.
Not as bad as the poo flingers from Gay Patriot, but still without any constructive substance…
posted by Lori Heine on
And it’s “unserious,” exactly why?
Goodness me, now Mike in Houston has put me in my place about what is or is not serious. On a libertarian blog, that he chooses to troll.
My argument is “without any constructive substance.” Because I don’t advocate the sort of political violence demanded by Mike’s bosses. Who are, make no mistake about it, funded just as handsomely by big corporations and the rich as are any of those on the political right.
That is tantamount to plugging one’s fingers in one’s ears and shouting “la, la, la.” It is all bluff and bluster. It is, in short, without any constructive substance.
Suggesting that some of those here have good arguments, and that they should trust making them as often as necessary to get them across instead of neutralizing their effectiveness by resorting to force, is going to be adversely judged by those whose bosses profit from force. No mystery as to why that’s the case.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Repetition of the same nonsense does not elevate or make your point or make it anymore effective. And dismissal of the real, individual harm that your glibertarian arguments against discrimination have doesn’t lessen their harm.
So, yes, I call the same BS on you that I do on Stephen.
posted by Lori Heine on
If what I’ve said is “nonsense,” then say why. All you’re doing is calling me names. You’re responding to me like an overgrown third-grader.
Your rhetoric is fraudulent. You want to use force, instead of persuasion, against those advocating religious freedom laws. But then again, those who would use force would not hesitate to use fraud.
Pretty gutless of you to call BS without demonstrating why you think something is BS. I’ll bet you’re paid to troll here.
posted by Francis on
By Lori’s logic, we can prevent bank robbery just by nailing tracts on the evils of theft to the door of every building(!) Doubtless, she considers the mere existence of a police force to be tyranny.
posted by JohnInCA on
Naw, per Libertarian ideology, enforcing property rights are one of the few legit uses of government force.
That said, there’s nothing inherently contrary to using both “government coercion” *and* persuasive arguments to engineer change. In fact, it’s *because* of that combination that Libertarians can now stand back and say “well, we don’t actually *need* the Civil Rights Act anymore”.
Not surprisingly, multi-pronged approaches to complex problems are more effective then putting all your metaphorical eggs in one rhetorical basket.
posted by Lori Heine on
So, Francis, in other words, you don’t even believe enough in the argument against discrimination to trust that anyone else will be convinced by it. Typical cowardly statist attitude.
Sixty percent of the public may fall consistently somewhere between the hardcore right and left, and be best reachable by persuasion. Polls indicate that they are beginning to be swayed by the anti-gay right’s claim that we’re attacking their religious freedom. But we shouldn’t think we can convince them they’re wrong. We’ve got to prove that they’re right.
Hmmm. And Mike in Houston calls BS to the very possibility that we might have a stronger argument than the homophobes. Interesting.
Of course what you’re really saying is that anti-gay Christians are exactly like bank robbers. What an interesting comic book world you must live in. It’s totally removed from reality, but it makes you feel so good.
Cheaper than heroin, I guess.
posted by JohnInCA on
You keep repeating this idea that enforcing non-discrimination laws means you lack confidence in your arguments. It’s weird and wrong.
Using a combination of persuasive messaging and “government coercion” to effect long-term change is a pretty time honored strategy for social engineering. It’s been effective in everything from lunch counters, seat belts, gender discrimination in employment, heck, even *slavery*.
It’s not “nonsense” to pursue multiple paths to a goal. It’s not nonsense to recognize that regardless of merit, not all people can be persuaded. It’s not nonsense to acknowledge that the world isn’t a high school debate club where words alone can win the day. The world is more complicated then that. There’s too many people to reach to reach them all by the same road.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
JohninCA to Lori: You keep repeating this idea that enforcing non-discrimination laws means you lack confidence in your arguments. It’s weird and wrong.
It is also off point.
posted by Francis on
For the record, fräulein Heine, I have expressed misgivings about the Mozilla affair a while back (before I really got started here), hardly the attitude you’ve come to expect from the PC brigade of progressives you so ignorantly lump me with. Sully had the right of it on that particular issue. As to the rest of your statements, I really have to side with Tom S and the others. By all means continue calling me and everyone else you disagree with “statist” (or authoritarian, if I’m reading your subtext correctly) if it bolsters your smug sense of the moral high ground. Call me when you’ve snapped out of your Fountainhead samba.
posted by Lori Heine on
“Naw, per Libertarian ideology, enforcing property rights are one of the few legit uses of government force.”
John in CA, are you unaware that we live in an age when information is obtainable with a few clicks of a mouse? I know you “progressives” live in a pretty little snow globe, that the sky is a wonderful color and that your leaders are so nice–so helpful–that they tell you what to think. But don’t you ever wonder if it might be nicer to think for yourself?
Libertarians understand that property rights primarily guarantee that the poor are able to have things. That this is their primary value. The rich will always be able to grab what they want and hold onto it, no matter what the law says. The poor need laws to safeguard that they, too, may own things and make use of them to better their lives.
Sorry, but the comic book is wrong.
And all the absurd and hysterical comparisons aside, why is violence so important to you people? You are so much like the very social conservatives you detest–you’re twins under the skin. Yet you’re blind to the likeness, and have no sense of humor about it when it’s shown to you.
Tom S. now declares that he’s not in favor of expanded public accommodations laws! That’s a surprise. I doubt it’s what he meant, but as the point has come to be “mob the libertarian,” I suppose any stick will do.
Not all people can be persuaded? Well, duh! But many more probably can than have been, and right on cue the statist left is determined to make sure that they won’t be.
As you people have made clear you don’t believe that human beings own themselves, the abolition of slavery is an especially odd achievement for you to take credit for. You seem determined to make slaves of everyone in this country.
And the first line of John’s latest comment is truly amusing. Now I don’t believe in enforcing non-discrimination laws! This latest Lord of the Flies swarm began because I said that the non-discrimination laws the religious right wanted to pass probably would end up helping us and hurting them, and therefore should probably, on reflection, have been allowed to pass.
By what extreme contortion of logic can that possibly be construed to mean that I don’t believe in enforcing non-discrimination laws.
At this point, you people are simply babbling your heads off. You’ve become so accustomed to getting jerked around, told what to think about every subject under the sun, goaded into perpetual outrage, encouraged to keep your undies in a wad all day every day, that it’s getting to you. But it’s amusing. Keep lobbing those softballs, and I’ll keep belting them out of the park.
posted by Doug on
As my daddy used to tell me ‘it better to know a few things than so many that are not so’.
posted by Lori Heine on
Pray tell us why, o lover of the Kool Aid.
Which of them are “not so?” You’ve been indoctrinated so well. I’m sure you can do it.
posted by Francis on
Why, oh why, do people who leap to conclusions without evidence always think they are justified in calling their opponents “kool-aid” drinkers?
posted by Doug on
You just proved my point. I rest my case because you have labeled me and yet you know absolutely nothing about me.
posted by Lori Heine on
I know enough about you to know that every comment you make is boilerplate “progressive” cant. That’s quite enough to know that you’ve imbibed deeply of the Kool Aid.
That is not, Francis, leaping to conclusions without evidence. I’ve been reading this blog for a long time. Doug is one of the most predictably fanatical boilerplate-spewers I’ve ever encountered. And I’ve seen a hell of a lot of them.
posted by JohnInCA on
I just love how you quote me saying that Libertarians are okay with property rights and then say I’m so wrong and prove it by… saying that Libertarians are okay with property rights.
Really reinforces that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
As for why violence is “so important to [me]”, it’s because I have different priorities then you. Truth is, I’m a pretty “the end justifies the means” sort of guy. So if you define “violence” as “the state will fine you for not buckling your seatbelt”, then fuck yeah, violence all the way! Rah rah rah!
Futher…
“As you people have made clear you don’t believe that human beings own themselves, the abolition of slavery is an especially odd achievement for you to take credit for.”
Why is it odd to take credit for? In case you forgot, slavery in America wasn’t ended because someone had a stern talking to. It ended because of *actual* violence. Not taxation, not fines, not even a boycott. Bloody battlefields, hundreds of thousands of dead. *THAT* is violence. And it ended slavery in America. So please. Tell me more how violence solves nothing.
“And the first line of John’s latest comment is truly amusing. Now I don’t believe in enforcing non-discrimination laws! This latest Lord of the Flies swarm began because I said that the non-discrimination laws the religious right wanted to pass probably would end up helping us and hurting them, and therefore should probably, on reflection, have been allowed to pass.
By what extreme contortion of logic can that possibly be construed to mean that I don’t believe in enforcing non-discrimination laws.”
What.
That… is a very… *liberal*… interprettation of what I said. You have been going on in this thread and endless length on how using “violence” and “coercion” (aka, non-discrimiantion laws in relation to public accomodations) shows a lack of faith. Further, I don’t consider the various “license-to-discriminate” laws to be “non-discrimination laws”. So any train of thought that starts with that erroneous step A is already off the rails.
So yeah. There is no “contortion of logic” that makes that make sense. Because I didn’t say it.
posted by Lori Heine on
Wipe the spittle off your chin. Stop bawling. Breathe.
You are a savage. So of course you believe that violence settles things. You’ve got to reach all the way back to the Civil War to find it.
It’s too intellectually deep for you to understand the concept of self-ownership and the part that idea played in converting White Americans to the abolitionist cause. But the violence–oh, yeah! You’re right on it!
If only getting people to buckle their seatbelts were on your agenda. You are a little thug. But you’re also a coward, so you only groove on violence when other people are putting themselves in harm’s way to inflict it.
posted by JohnInCA on
Naw, I like the spittle on my chin. Looks really manly in my beard along with the blood. Especially when I go “ugh” and beat my chest.
But hey, if you’re done addressing my content and just going for ad hominem, whatever.
BTW… still waiting for why I’m wrong on Libertarians respect for property rights. Or any explanation on your weird rant about non-discrimination rights. The 9th-paragraph in your first response to me. That one still doesn’t make sense.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
John (CA)
Libertarianism started out (ironically enough) as a very socialist-left-wing movement (with some theoretical anarchy tossed in for good measure).
These type of libertarians do exist, but about the only living person who seems to advocate their beliefs would be Norm Chomsky.
Modern — since the Cold War — libertarianism is almost totally dominated by fans of Ayn Rand, interest groups such as Cato, Humane Institute and the like and members of the Libertarian Party…..and Republicans that want to smoke pot.
Property rights are absolute (i.e. the government should not meddle or regulate or tax) within the mindset of these particular (right) libertarians.
Within their theoretical framework a business owner or a land owner is (essential) a soveriegn nation. They may try to sell it as “Well, their are better ways to fight prejudice” or “if you really believed in ‘x’, then you wouldn’t need the government to promote it”, but they believe that a person that owns property or a business should be free to do what he wants with it (no taxation as well) unless it involves actual (narrowly defined) murder, assault, theft, fraud….although some of these libertarians also want to privatize the police and fire depts…..
posted by JohnInCA on
Am I talking French? German? Japanesse?
When I say “enforcing property rights are one of the few legit uses of government force” just what are people hearing? How are you getting that I *don’t understand* that Libertarians are pro-property rights? Am I slipping in some anti-Libertarian dog-whistle?
I mean Lori going off the rails… I’m used to that. I’ve said before “Libertarians that think X are hypocrites” and she’s angrily insisted “I don’t think X and I’m not hypocritical!”, so I’m used to her creative reading.
But you too? Am I accidentally leaving out important grammatical articles or something?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Tom S. now declares that he’s not in favor of expanded public accommodations laws! That’s a surprise. I doubt it’s what he meant, but as the point has come to be “mob the libertarian,” I suppose any stick will do.
No, Lori, this is yet another example of you leaping to a conclusion without evidence on which to base the conclusion. As was the case earlier, when you leaped to the conclusion that I supported expansion of public accommodations laws, I’d ask you to point to the statement that led you to this conclusion. I don’t think that you will have any more success finding a basis for your current leap to an unwarranted conclusion — and all you have to do is look through a single thread to find the evidence — than you did in finding a basis for your earlier statement.
So let’s look at both conclusions — the conclusion that I support expansion of public accommodations laws and the conclusion that I do not — and look at what I’ve actually said (and not said) with respect to public accommodations laws.
I’ve been as clear as I know how to be about the application of “equal means equal” to public accommodations laws. I’ve been clear, I hope, that I think that the so-called “religious freedom” laws proposed to date are more harmful and not, and unacceptable. I’ve argued that the narrow-scope versions of the laws sanction selective discrimination against gays and lesbians, are wrongheaded, and are not likely to pass constitutional scrutiny. I’ve argued that the broad-scope versions of the laws do nothing more than codify existing court decisions concerning religious accommodation, and are unnecessary for that reason. I’ve argued that the laws are a political sop to conservative Christians, the product of political expediency rather than the product of an attempt to promote the common good.
I’ve argued that exemptions to public accommodations laws should meet three tests — religion-neutral, issue-neutral and class-neutral. I’ve argued in favor of broad-scope laws expanding freedom of conscience beyond the scope of existing court decisions. I’ve argued in favor of “de minimus” exemptions to public accommodations laws, permitting businesses under a defined size to refuse service to anyone for any reason, so long as the business gives notice, in advance, to the persons the business will not serve. I’ve made other arguments with respect to the so-called “religious freedom” laws being concocted around the country. And I’ve argued, I hope with some force, that freedom of conscience is important, and that I think our country would benefit from a meaningful discussion about the interplay of personal conscience exemptions and laws of general application. In short, I have had a lot to say on those issues.
I have not, however, stated my views on public accommodations laws in general, other than to note that reasonable people can differ about the need for and wisdom of public accommodation laws.
I haven’t stated my views because my views on public accommodations laws in general are irrelevant to the discussion of the so-called “religious freedom” laws, as are yours. Arging back and forth about the wisdom of public accommodations laws, in and of themselves, is a sidetrack, a diversion, that does not inform the discussion about the role of personal conscience, and the appropriate level of accommodation of personal conscience.
And, in addition to diverting the discussion away from the topic, it is useless. Almost all states have public accommodations laws. About half of the states cover sexual orientation in those laws. The question of so-called “religious freedom” under public accommodations laws is relevant only in that context. Like the laws or not, think that the laws are wise or unwise, the laws exist, have a long history, and aren’t going away.
I could, I suppose, go into my views about the wisdom and efficacy of public accommodations laws in general, and in the particular with respect to each class protected. It would be a long, long, comment if I did so. But to what end? It would not address the issues involved in the discussion over so-called “religious freedom” exemptions.
posted by Lori Heine on
Your views on public accommodation involve coercing people, with the threat of violence, fine or imprisonment, to serve those they don’t want to serve. Which means, of course, that when the far Right seizes power, it can force LGBT businesspeople to serve bigots.
Had the situation been permitted to play out as it should have, anti-gay Christians would have rendered themselves virtually unemployable. No company (probably not even one owned by a Right-Wing businessperson) is going to want to hire people who’ll play pick-and-choose about when they’ll do their job and when they won’t. They would have been forced into a closet of their own fashioning just to make a living.
They were asking for just enough rope to hang themselves. There’s a violent analogy, so everyone who comments here should understand it. We should have let them have it. The violence they would have done would have been primarily to themselves.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Your views on public accommodation involve coercing people, with the threat of violence, fine or imprisonment, to serve those they don’t want to serve.
I would remind you, once again, that you have no idea what my views on public accommodation laws are, other than that they exist and define the legal landscape in which we are discussing so-called “religious freedom” exemptions.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Lori;
the other Tom has said — quite a few times and at great/descriptive length — that religious based exemptions to public accommodation laws are not automatically a bad thing…..I have said something similar as well.
Now maybe you disagree with the exemptions being offered by Tom or me, but to suggest otherwise is just plain boulder dash and poppycock.
Remember that the government cannot put much of a limiting definition on what constitutes a religious belief. So you need to have clear guidelines and rules about what constitutes a valid exemption to a rule, or else anyone can decide not to follow any rule that they may dislike. That is not representative democracy…but anarchy.
Your views on public accommodation involve coercing people, with the threat of violence, fine or imprisonment, to serve those they don’t want to serve. Which means, of course, that when the far Right seizes power, it can force LGBT businesspeople to serve bigots.
posted by Lori Heine on
So TJ III, you’re simply taking a paragraph quoting me and doing what–an “I’m-rubber-you’re-glue?”
As I emphatically do NOT believe that any violence should be used to coerce anybody into serving anybody else, kindly explain that. That’s insane.
It really is one of the looniest things I’ve ever heard anybody say in a commentary thread. Maybe the voices in your head told you I would support such measures. Or maybe you got it from “Norm” Chomsky!
posted by Lori Heine on
Reading your comment over and over again, TJIII, gives me a headache.
It’s difficult to figure out exactly what the hell you’re saying. You’re trying to prove me wrong about something (who really knows what?), but you’re tying yourself up in a pretzel in the process.
You statists are the people who believe “there oughtta be a law” about everything. I would prefer that neither “religious freedom” laws giving any special exemptions nor expanded public accommodations laws be passed.
You people get yourselves wrapped up in this sort of crap precisely because you’ve got to have one law, and then another to answer that one, followed by one more, and on and on, tit for tat, into infinity.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Had the situation been permitted to play out as it should have, anti-gay Christians would have rendered themselves virtually unemployable. No company (probably not even one owned by a Right-Wing businessperson) is going to want to hire people who’ll play pick-and-choose about when they’ll do their job and when they won’t. They would have been forced into a closet of their own fashioning just to make a living.
Why in hell wouldn’t anyone want Christians — or anyone else — forced into a closet or rendered unemployable? Good G-d, we’ve been there and had that done to us … and I can’t even conceive of wanting to do that to anyone else.
Our goal should be to encourage Christians engaged in a trade or business serving the public to serve all the public on an equal footing, just as non-Christians engaged in a trade or business serving the public are expected to do and manage to do.
Is there room for exceptions to public accommodations laws? Or course. But the exceptions should be designed in a way that is religion-neutral, issue-neutral and class-neutral. The obvious, and simplest, way to achieve this goal is to do what we have done with respect to employment non-discrimination laws — establish a threshold below which businesses are not required to comply with the laws.
De minimus exceptions seem to work with respect to employment law. I have a friend, a conservative Christian, who is strongly convicted that married women should not work outside the home. Consistent with that belief, he will not hire married women. So long as he keeps his business below the threshold, no harm, no foul as far as the law is concerned.
I see no reason that a “de minimus” exception wouldn’t work just as well with respect to public accommodations, with the caveat that a public notice requirement would seem to be to be in order.
A significant component to the harm done by refusal to serve on an equal footing, it seems to me, is done because the refusal comes as a hurtful surprise. I recognize that this is an emotional harm, rather than a physical or financial harm, but it is a harm none-the-less. A simple notice in a storefront window would solve this in most cases.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
BTW, “Why in hell wouldn’t anyone want Christians …” should read “Why in hell would anyone want Christians …”
posted by Lori Heine on
Tom, my argument has nothing whatsoever to do with wanting conservative Christians to be unemployable. It has to do with presenting them with a reasonable, non-screaming, non-hysterical argument with why they probably shouldn’t keep up their full-court press for religious freedom AS DEFINED-BY THEM-AS THE “RIGHT” TO DISCRIMINATE.
Try to think about something besides looking for a way to trip me up. I am assuming that at least a few of them are rational enough to be reasoned with.
I assume you were attempting to make it sound as if I wanted Christians to be discriminated against, so you could grandstand about how I was the real meanie because I desired such a thing. Sorry. I was indeed trying to be rational.
I graduated from a Southern Baptist university, and still have several close friends from my time there. It was a very positive experience, and I have no lingering resentments that would make me want to see all my friends, and their kids, unable to obtain employment.
You’ve done that sort of thing before. It looks silly. If all you want to do is play a childish game of “gotcha,” then stop trying to present yourself as a serious thinker.
It is precisely because I do understand how many conservatives think, and actually know quite a number of them, that I know there are still a lot of non-evil-cartoon-character individuals who are still amenable to reason.
Instead of using the hammer on everybody, concerning every issue, every single damn time, I believe a different approach would work better.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The mirror image of arbitrarily declaring what can be said (and except on public university campuses, this typically involves thuggery but not state power) …
You are assuming, I think incorrectly, that decisions by businesses and/or colleges and universities to limit/curtail speech disruptive to the core purposes of the business or institution is arbitrary. In the businesses and institutions I’ve been involved with (an international law firm, several Fortune 100 companies, and two law schools where I taught as an adjunct), policies mandating that partner/employee/professor/student speech stay within certain boundaries of respect and decency have been, for the most part, the result of careful consideration, rather than arbitrary.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
As a complete aside, in no way germane to anything, I thought that this article about Justin Bieber’s encounter with the Log Cabin Republicans was hilarious. Only in la=la=land.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Wow….the “meeting” seems rather unimportant — even by the low standard of the info-tainment media.
The Log Cabin Republicans didnt actually get to meet the celebrity (or take a picture with him), Instead…they simply ate in the same building (although not on the same floor).
I cannot say that much about Justin interests me, but it is nice to know that the Log Cabin Republicans are….enjoying the flashback to the Reagan era over some fine dining…..I guess.
posted by Jorge on
With regard to “Still more”
I wonder what the ideological makeup is of these diversity/civil rights commissions in governments and universities and such? I thoroughly enjoyed the trouncing that attorney gave in his filing.
I thought that this article about Justin Bieber’s encounter with the Log Cabin Republicans was hilarious. Only in la=la=land.
“But look at that boy! He’s even prettier!” I am almost mad with jealousy. Almost.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
If you think you are jealous now, just wait:
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
1. Unless Stephen is prepared to welcome back the folks who he banned from the Independent Gay Forum — back in its message board days –, I am not really sure that I can take his comments about “unrestricted” freedom of speech/the right to offend all too seriously.
2. Libertarians who subscribe to Ayn Randism or generally follow the talking points of the Libertarian Party (or similar groups) DO take the position that ALL regulations (even civil right laws) that tell a private business owner what to do, are unconstitutional, immoral and ought to be done away with. The Libertarian Party platform was pretty open on this point, up until 2000 when the platform was revised. A friends of mine did show me a “Libertarians for Gay and Lesbian Concerns” brochure he was given at a gay pride festival (early 1990s) and it is explicit about opposing private sector civil rights laws.
3. Now this particular brand of libertarianism has a lot of money and publicity surrounding it, but their is actually a left-libertarian brand (more along the lines of Norm Chomsky) that would take a different approach (but is rarely ever in a position to define the philosophy or influence policy)
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Also…..
I notice that few of the conservatives (the type who are always the quickest to rally against political incorrect and people picking on poor Christian folk) are much less concerned about “unfettered” freedom of speech in……
The right of qualified citizens to vote or run for public office. Then…suddenly…..we are told that elections are not really about expressive rights…..except when they involve a corporation.