Scott Lively #fundie #homophobia

Scott Lively #fundie #homophobia joemygod.blogspot.com

The City of Springfield Missouri has announced it’s intention to "consider"an ordinance to give homosexuals extraordinary new powers to silence and punish Christian landlords and businesses through civil rights lawsuits. Framed as an “anti-discrimination” measure it is in reality a “Gay Fascism” Bill that will make disapproval of homosexuality illegal in the City of Springfield and grant gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders (GLBTs) legal standing to sue their opponents, primarily Christians. Starting in the 1980s in cities like San Francisco, homosexuals have forced many U.S. cities and numerous states to adopt similar “Gay Fascism” laws with disastrous effects on Christian landlords and businesses. Empowered by recent successes, they are now pushing into conservative cities.

60 comments

old comment by Psycho Tits

Westboro Baptist Chuch's various court victories, including against Albert Snyder when the two parties argued before the SCOTUS, are proof in themselves that Scott Lively's "gay fascism" exists nowhere but in his demented brain. In other words, free speech is still protected.

On the related topics of rental and hiring discrimination, even the best laws against these evils make malice no easier to prove in court. In other words, almost no one can win a discrimination suit unless he has documents, witnesses, and amazing luck - and even then, the wronged party could still lose.

Extraordinary new powers? What a crock of shit. Since when does the right to be heard in court constitute an "extraordinary power"?

old comment by

"to give homosexuals extraordinary new powers"

Holy shit! Are we superheroes now?? Oh sorry, supervillians I guess.

"that will make disapproval of homosexuality illegal in the City of Springfield"

How can you possibly make "disapproval of homosexuality" illegal? You can disapprove all you want inside your head, no one can stop you or make it illegal to have that opinion. But when your bigoted opinion hurts real people in the real world, denying them rights, that's when it's a problem. A landlord shouldn't be allowed to kick me out because I'm gay. Making that kind of discrimination illegal IS equal rights, not fascism.

"and grant gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders (GLBTs) legal standing to sue their opponents"

So even if a homophobic landlord discriminates against me in the city of Springfield, Missouri, I still have to go through the legal system, sue him, and then win the court case before anything will happen to him. Wow, these "extraordinary new powers of fascism" suck. It's almost like they're indisguistishable from equal rights laws that work within the established legal process and aren't fascism at all. Hmmmmm.....

old comment by Axel

A problem I have is that, while this guy is a bigoted fuckhead, his argument is a serious and important one. Do we have the right to deny people service based on our opinions? If, after all, it is our property and work that goes into providing the service, don't we have a right to deny it on the grounds of what we feel is immoral?

If you owned, say, a restaurant, and a group of Neo-Nazis or Klansmen wanted to use it to host a social function, you'd naturally want to tell them to fuck right the hell off and you'd feel in the right for doing so, but you're discriminating against them for their beliefs. Is it any different from, say, denying a Jew from being in a restaurant because you don't like their beliefs? Or a Muslim? Or a Christian?

It's a very important question: Do we have the right, when we open a business without any public funds, to pick and choose to whom we provide service?

old comment by J. James

The City of Springfield Missouri has announced it’s intention to "consider"an ordinance to give [Negroes] extraordinary new powers to silence and punish [white] landlords and businesses through civil rights lawsuits. Framed as an “anti-discrimination” measure it is in reality a “[Black Power]” Bill that will make disapproval of [integration] illegal in the City of Springfield and grant [negroes], [spics], [chinks] and [micronesians] legal standing to sue their opponents, primarily [upstanding white folk]. Starting in the 1980s in cities like San Francisco, [Negroes] have forced many U.S. cities and numerous states to adopt similar “[Black Power]” laws with disastrous effects on [white] landlords and businesses. Empowered by recent successes, they are now pushing into conservative cities.

See how you sound to reasonable people? The similarities are fucking uncanny.

old comment by Filin De Blanc

"If you owned, say, a restaurant, and a group of Neo-Nazis or Klansmen wanted to use it to host a social function, you'd naturally want to tell them to fuck right the hell off and you'd feel in the right for doing so, but you're discriminating against them for their beliefs. Is it any different from, say, denying a Jew from being in a restaurant because you don't like their beliefs? Or a Muslim? Or a Christian?"

There's a big difference between "you cannot host your social function here" and "you cannot eat here at all". Chances are there are already people eating at the restaurant who hold repugnant beliefs, but if they're allowed to start mouthing off about these beliefs to the extent that it disrupts the other customers, then that's an acceptable reason to kick them out.

old comment by John

Framed as an “anti-discrimination” measure it is in reality a “Gay Fascism” Bill that will make disapproval of homosexuality illegal in the City of Springfield

The bill doesn't make disapproval of homosexuality illegal. Fred Phelps can still walk around with "God Hates Fags" signs all he wants. Disapproval of homosexuality is protected by the First Amendment. Refusing to rent housing to a whole class of people or serve them in stores because you disapprove of them is not. That's why we don't have Jim Crow laws anymore.

You're basically saying that a bill that forbids discrimination against gays isn't really an anti-discrimination bill. Are you inventing your own version of English?

old comment by shykid

@ Axel:

I left the IRC because I had lost my patience with you and your obtuseness, and I was about to get nasty, so I decided to take the high ground and leave even if it implied defeat, but now that I have cooled off a bit, I will try to explain this to you as clearly as I can:

I have the right to be treated the same as others and to receive the services as others if they are offering them to the public. Nobody should be forced to do business with me, but if they are offering their services to the public, they are should not allowed to pick and choose whom they wish to serve based on arbitrary criteria, which means as long as they are doing business, they are obligated to do so with everyone who is willing to pay. Being allowed to pick and choose whom you serve based on irrelevant things about them enables the systematic oppression of a group of people. We already established that, and I honestly figured that would be enough for you to piece the rest together on your own, but apparently not.

That is not an appeal to consequences, because of the simple fact that it is ethically wrong for others to be oppressed or marginalized, which you have pointed out. (This notion is based upon the "golden rule" that underlies every ethical or moral framework, i.e. treat others as you wish to be treated, without which right and wrong would not even exist.) If it is wrong for something to occur, then it is wrong for others to knowingly act in a manner which enables it. For example, if murdering people is wrong, then others aiding, abetting, or turning a blind eye to it is wrong. Similarly, if oppressing or marginalizing a group of people is wrong, then it is also wrong to knowingly do things which allow that to occurlike refusing to do business with them even if they have the same money as everyone else. If everyone acted in that manner toward LGBT people (or any particular group of people), then they would die of starvation or exposure to the elements unless they took to a life of crime to sustain themselves, since they would have no way of lawfully obtaining food, housing, or even employment to afford those things.

It is an appeal to consequences to point out the fact that means people cannot pick and choose whom they employ or with whom they do business simply because they don't personally like something about them, and it is a pretty blatant appeal to consequences at that. Your personal freedom stops where the rights of others begins, and others have a right to be treated fairly and equally just as they have a right to life (although I already pointed out how such discriminatory behavior could theoretically interfere with their right to life, at least indirectly). Furthermore, nobody is forced to do business with minorities in the first place, because they are not forced to do business at all. If it bothers someone that much, then they can simply close shop. That is acceptable because it is not an act of discrimination: even if they closed shop because they didn't like serving minorities, then they are not doing business with anyone, thereby acting in a nondiscriminatory manner. One can't "discriminate" against everyone, because that is, by definition, not discriminating.

old comment by Wehpudicabok

I really wish more intelligent Christians would speak up for gays.

Well, no. Let me rephrase that. Plenty of Christians are already doing the right thing. I just wish they would make it clear that they are still Christians while they support gays. I am sick to death of people like Scott Lively claiming that the sides of this war are Christians and gays. They aren't. They are rationalists and fundamentalists. Any rational person would see that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality and no reason for the government to restrict the rights of sexual minorities. People need to understand that they don't have to choose between their religion and the well-being of others. They just have to not be complete assholes.

old comment by Axel

@Film_de_Blanc:

One would assume that this law applies equally to social functions at restaurants as it does to dining there normally. Also, if someone is asking to host a function, the assumption is that they're already asking for some sort of special privilege to display themselves.

The point is, you would be (legally) just as wrong to disallow them to host their function as, say, you would be for allowing any other group with a belief system to do so. They'd be able to take you to court, the same as anyone else, and they'd have the basis to do so.

Still, admittedly, this goes beyond the question of what a person has a right to do with their time and property and into a whole other world entirely.

@shykid:

"I have the right to be treated the same as others and to receive the services as others if they are offering them to the public."

That's the issue that's up for contention here. Do you have that right? Private individuals or groups thereof offering services (who don't take government grants or hand-outs) are not obligated to you in the same way, say, a government service is. Morally, certainly, they have a duty to respect you as a human being, but do they have a legal duty to do so?

You say your defense that allowing this would lead to terrible consequences isn't an appeal to consequences, which is really rather... Odd. An appeal to consequences is saying that the consequences of something are bad, therefore it must not be true. In this case, "The right of an individual to maintain their own conscience and decide what to do with their own effort would allow discrimination to run rampant, therefore they don't have it" is most definitely an appeal to consequences.

-Follow-up coming-

old comment by Axel

-Part 2-

However, this is where we get to a sticky point: There's no particular basis, beyond a legal one, that an individual actually has these rights. Like all ethics, it's make-believe in our heads based on premises we find emotionally appealing. As such, unless you accept the idea that individuals have a right to do with their property and time what they like unless it interferes with the rights of others (and, as noted in our previous discussion, I'd consider a right something someone can't take away from you, rather than something someone owes you), there is a divide between us that cannot be passed over.

I consider the idea of telling people what they can and cannot do with themselves and their property in a way that doesn't actively harm someone (no more harm than charging for things does in the first place, since that, too, is a form of discrimination that we already allow) to be troublesome at best.

Hence, while I find Scott Lively to be reprehensible as a person, the question underlying his statements is one we still have to wrestle with.

Scott Lively #fundie #homophobia joemygod.blogspot.com

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