Mississippi’s Anti-LGBT Law Is the Most Dangerous One Yet

OB1Shinobi wrote: is this the law that says that preachers cannot be forced to perform marriages for same sex couples?

This is not about that, so I'll just stop you there. Clergy can already abstain from officiating same-sex marriages in just about every state I can think of, including my own, and in real backwards-sounding states like Alabama and Mississippi. This is also true of relatively liberal churches like the Episcopal Church, which added same sex marriage to its marriage canons last year, but in which a priest is perfectly free to refuse to officiate a marriage service, for any reason.

This is about businesses being able to deny service to LGBT people with impunity, in the same way they denied services to people of colour in the mid-20th century. This is about being able to put up a sign saying "no gays allowed" in your business's window and not getting in trouble with the law.

im not sure this is going to have the effect they are looking for

i mean, yes there will be instances where businesses get to discriminate

and i do worry for those in small or midsized towns where there arent any more than one or two groceries or hardware stores ect especially when it comes to bank loans or insurance coverage, things that people really need justto make their lives and their ambitions work

but i think this is a great opportunity for gay and gay friendly entrepreneurs to start building and making themselves known

generally i think that the more vocal bigotry becomes, the more it is exposed as rubbish, and this is going to force public dialogue to whole new level in the coming years

when i searched "public opinion on lgbt rights" the best looking result i go was this http://www.pollingreport.com/civil.htm

i am confident that this issue is as clear and inevitable as marijuana legalization - there is am obviously right answer here, much as certain people dont want to acknowledge it, and it is only a matter of time and open public discourse to bring us to that inevitable outcome

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also there was this http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/carrie-wofford/2014/03/26/how-did-public-opinion-on-gay-marriage-shift-so-quickly which is older and mostly anecdotal

Honestly, what can you expect?

As much as I love the south, the region is called Conservative and the "Bible Belt" for a reason. Frankly, I don't understand all of the factors as far as the transgendered community is concerned. But I would be a hipocrite if I sat there and said that they should be denied basic human rights.

If good ol' boy "Christians" are moving to opress another portion of our society, I wouldn't be surprised. Their track records suck. And if they had the same means, motive, and opportunity, they have proven to be no greater than any other extremist group (that includes Al-Qaeda). Hence why the national Constitution states in the establishment clause "government should make no law respecting or restricting any religion or free exercise thereof" because our forefathers saw fit to counter religious extremism at the fiber of pur country's being.

I think LGBT rights should be a non-issue. There's many more pressing issues that wear bombs and murder innocents across the ocean. We don't have time to dwell on whether all Americans should be created equal. Of course they should. It's not a question.

E-3_4L_Teeter wrote: I think LGBT rights should be a non-issue. There's many more pressing issues that wear bombs and murder innocents across the ocean. We don't have time to dwell on whether all Americans should be created equal. Of course they should. It's not a question.

If only it were that simple. You would think with all the crap going on elsewhere, with all the fights we've already fought, with all the advancements that our society has made that the concept of treating other people like people wouldn't be tough, but for some dumb reason it's hard for some people.

It is a stupid fight to be having, not because it's not worth fighting, but because it's a fight that we shouldn't have to be having. Really? You want to treat someone like crap who's only "problem" is being in love with someone that you don't like? What sense does that make? About as much sense as not liking someone because they're naturally darker skinned than you.

To be honest, I don't have as much of a problem with private businesses getting to say no to people. I hope that any business that turns people away for dumb reasons like that goes out of business immediately and the owner is unable to find work after, but let them be bigots and move on with your life. As a private business they can turn people away for whatever reason. It's when the government starts being a bigot that is a problem to me (which includes making laws that allow people to be bigots). If a minister doesn't want to perform a same-sex marriage because it's against his religion that's not a big deal, go get a friend ordained for free online (that's what I'm doing). But the county clerks office should not be able to turn down your marriage application based on that person's religion.

My father can tell people that he doesn't like to not come back to his martial arts school because it is his private business, something which he's only ever done once and with good reason. While I, as a notary public, can't say no to notarizing an application for non-medical exception to vaccinating a child just because I think anti-vaxxers are wrong. I am performing a public service as an extension of the government, not as me as a person.

Those are just my personal opinions.

I think a business should be free to deny service to whoever they want, for whatever reason, and that the people should be informed of that business's decision and decide whether or not to engage in business with them based on their policies.

this will give billy jack a new reason to go berserk

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gCSF42Q74n8

Manu wrote:

Br. John wrote:

ren wrote: What's to prevent people from entering a marriage-like legally binding contract?

You could not grant many spousal benefits and privileges by a contract such as those granted by federal and or state law in The US at least. Otherwise a contract could cover many things but not all of them and not some very important ones.

Besides the legal benefits of marriage, there is a very strong implication of LGBT being second class citizens, similar to when Black people were "separate but equal".

LGBT people are no more or less liable in a legally binding contract as anyone else.

And "separate but equal" sounds better than "together but unequal", which is the situation we are currently in.

I think a business should be free to deny service to whoever they want, for whatever reason, and that the people should be informed of that business's decision and decide whether or not to engage in business with them based on their policies.

I agree. the same goes for individuals. It's their lives, let them live them the way they like. With the "gay" example, forcing people to think homosexuality is acceptable is no different from forcing them to think it isn't acceptable: In neither situation are they free to make their own choices.

TheDude wrote: I think a business should be free to deny service to whoever they want, for whatever reason, and that the people should be informed of that business's decision and decide whether or not to engage in business with them based on their policies.

Sometimes political correctness is taken to an absurd. For example, a person who walks into a coffee shop and starts to shout and mistreat the employees is asked to leave because he is being an ass. But it so happens that said person is gay, or black, or muslim, or disabled, or any other trait that could be classed into a minority, and thus he cries out "DISCRIMINATION!" and sues the coffee shop and gets his 15 minutes on the news. And no one ever discriminated him for being a minority, but for his behavior.

However, allowing private business to deny service based on personal belief is a very slippery slope. Perhaps nowadays it seems like there would be no problem, because one business discriminating against a minority would be met with the powerful backlash of the entire world wide web. But things weren't always like that, and if not one, but most, businesses decided to discriminate, the discrimatee would have no where to turn to, and a majority of society shunning a minority would only enforce the idea of segregation in further generations.

With the "gay" example, forcing people to think homosexuality is acceptable is no different from forcing them to think it isn't acceptable: In neither situation are they free to make their own choices.

Asking people not to treat you poorly for being different is not the same as forcing them to accept it is ok. Gay people aren't saying "be gay like me!", what they are saying is "treat me as person, my sexual orientation is my own business, not yours". Imagine if for some reason, the majority of the world decided that Jedi are lunatics, and decided not to do business with them. Even if you try to go somewhere else, they are closing doors in your face as well. How would you feel?

RE-POST

Yabuturtle wrote: Really the whole supreme court allowing gay marriage was unconstitutional. Because the federal government has no say when it comes to marriage. That's why we have states that decide this.

Not to say a state can pass any bill they want. Obviously they couldn't allow slavery, because slavery was abolished and is federal, as in all states have to abide by it. But whenever it is not within the federal government's power, it's up to the states.

Otherwise, why even have states to begin with, if you're going to make something legal everywhere or illegal everywhere. If you didn't like the state laws you could move.

What's your view on Loving v. Virginia ?

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), is a landmark civil rights decision of the United States Supreme Court, which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. In 1967, 16 states, all southern States, had such laws.

The case was brought by Mildred Loving, a black woman, and Richard Loving, a white man, who had been sentenced to a year in prison in Virginia for marrying each other. Their marriage violated the state's anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which prohibited marriage between people classified as "white" and people classified as "colored". The Supreme Court's unanimous decision determined that this prohibition was unconstitutional, reversing Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

Manu wrote:

TheDude wrote: I think a business should be free to deny service to whoever they want, for whatever reason, and that the people should be informed of that business's decision and decide whether or not to engage in business with them based on their policies.

However, allowing private business to deny service based on personal belief is a very slippery slope. Perhaps nowadays it seems like there would be no problem, because one business discriminating against a minority would be met with the powerful backlash of the entire world wide web. But things weren't always like that, and if not one, but most, businesses decided to discriminate, the discrimatee would have no where to turn to, and a majority of society shunning a minority would only enforce the idea of segregation in further generations.

I'm for it, the more discrimination, the better chances of those that aren't discriminatory to evolve their business lol