When the couple “found out what he really believed about same-sex marriage,” Dreher writes, they “balked, and demanded their money back — and the mob threatened the business if they didn’t yield.” Which is ultimately to say that White and Renouf sought to break their contract — not, you will note, because he was rude or because he failed to deliver on his promises, but because they made a window into his soul and they did not like what they saw — and then, when he objected, to subject him to bullying and to threats until he caved. Is that “tolerance”?1. It's not breaking a contract to ask to be released from a deal. The very fact that Cooke added "sought" shows that "breaking" (like "breaching") is the wrong word. Parties to a contract can reach a new agreement, ending the deal. That doesn't break the contract. It rescinds the contract by mutual agreement.
2. Cooke leaves readers to think that the jeweler merely held an opinion — in his mind, in his soul — and people peered into that secret, personal space and took umbrage. But — click on the link in Cooke's article and get to the news story — the jeweler posted a sign in his store: "The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let's keep marriage between a man and a woman." This sign was posted after they made the deal to buy the rings, and at that point they felt bad about having their rings — the rings that are highly symbolic to them — coming from that place. The jeweler displayed a message of disrespect to them and they objected.
3. What if a black person made a restaurant reservation and showed up to find racist posters on the wall but the maitre d' was perfectly polite and ready to seat him? Wouldn't you support the customer's request to be released from the reservation without having his card charged? If the restaurant had a policy of charging customers who don't follow through on reservations, that policy was clearly explained at the time of phone call making the reservation, and the restaurant insisted on charging, what would you think if the customer went on Facebook and told his story and got a lot of negative PR for the restaurant, hurting its business?
4. Businesses may choose (or be required) to provide service without discrimination against gay people, but that doesn't create a reciprocal obligation in consumers, requiring them not to take gay-friendliness into account at all. There's nothing hypocritical about expecting businesses not to discriminate against you and still, when choosing which business to patronize, selecting the one that you think really respects you and other people you care about.
5. "Toleration" is a good standard, but it's not the best. (You may remember that James Madison, participating in the drafting of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, changed the word "toleration" — written by George Mason — to "free exercise.") You wouldn't go to a party where the invitation said your presence would be tolerated. You'd feel bad about needing to accept a job offer that said you would be tolerated as an employee. If you have a choice of businesses to patronize, you might say: I don't give a damn what they really think of me as long as they're polite — I'll pick the one with the best product. Fine. That's you. But somebody else might say: As long as the products are pretty similar, I'm going to patronize the business that shares my politics (or my religion or my culture).
6. A jeweler who puts up signs expressing various religious messages is seeking the advantages to be gained by customers choosing businesses according to the politics/religion of the proprietor. He's stimulating the marketplace with the expression of opinion, getting some customers and losing others. Let's not pretend he's a humble little shopkeeper getting bullied by mean people who won't let him harbor thoughts deemed impure. When you speak, you might cause others not to like you and to want to avoid your business. That's part of free speech!
Posts
355 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 355 of 355"He took their money, knowing he disapproved of what they were doing ..."
I thought, a la the wedding cake case, he didn't have a choice.
Although: "hiding their disapproval"
Where in the story does it say that? Maybe the jeweler was just being polite. Talk about making unjustified assumptions about facts and motives!
Here's the one time I front-paged Fen. He'd said (about a ssm opinion that came out in 2014): "Who cares? I'm so tired of hearing about gay marriage."
And I said: "When you thought you could defeat it, you were only too happy to talk about it all the time. Defeated, you're "so tired of hearing about" it. Another way of putting it is just to admit that you're really sad about losing. If you'd won, you wouldn't stop talking. You're promoting no more talking about this because it's all you've got. That's how it looks to me anyway. But you're certainly entitled to be tired. Your position is old and wearisome, and your expression about it has been mightily tiresome, which is to say, I'm tired of hearing about how tired you are. And I won't be silenced. Same-sex marriage is still not established across the country (and in the world), so those who support it have good reason to keep talking. The argument for shutting up is a con.
Later I added: "Fen returns to the comments to say that he is not an opponent of same-sex marriage. What I said (above) — hedged by "That's how it looks to me anyway" — assumed a mindset of those who profess to be "tired" of posts about same-sex marriage. I seem to get these comments every time I post on the subject. I don't understand why people who are tired of posts about this subject don't simply skip them. Why don't they go on to something that they are interested in? Why drag down the thread by announcing that you aren't interested in it? Why do you think that's interesting? So the "you" in my little rant is everyone who comes by to say they are tired of hearing about the subject. I guess I have to concede that some people who feel compelled to announce their tiredness actually wish for the success of the marriage equality movement. Fen offers no explanation for his behavior, dragging down the thread when he isn't a same-sex marriage opponent, and he proceeds to make many hostile remarks which I won't front page. What's that all about? I'll decline to speculate."
That's what he's still whining about for some crazy reason!
"Althouse" not "Although"
"Where in the story does it say that? Maybe the jeweler was just being polite. Talk about making unjustified assumptions about facts and motives!"
He put up a sign expressing the disapproval!
I happen to agree with RandB on this. Putting the sign up in 2015 in a country where across all Provinces same sex marriage is legal is stupid. Keep that opinion to yourself in the commercial arena.
That does not excuse the childish behavior of the ring buyers. It is just such shrillness on parade that helps to solidify cliched stereotypes.
So much logic chopping.
It's interesting to see how conservatives are accommodating to gay rights.
With civil rights, most Republicans were on board. This was in the days before the Republican Party decided to re-brand itself as a conservative party.
So a backlash movement was made possible in the form of a Southern Strategy - one that could take advantage of regional/sectional differences in views of whether Civil Rights was a bridge to far to cross. They used the familiar canard of "states' rights", in the same guise in which it was misused in the Civil War, for this purpose. Resonance with that across the South was predictable.
But gays are not blacks. Gays exist in most people's families. There is no regional divide or way to enforce intra-familial segregation for generations that politicians can take advantage of, in order to re-purpose and repackage into the kind of resentment and regional pride that drove the Southern Strategy. I guess that's why they say, "All politics is local".
So anti-gay rights is sort of a lost cause, politically. Almost all politicians realize this.
I find the tactic of compartmentalization interesting. I think we all agree the couple had every right to ask for their money back. The owner had every right to refuse. And he did. If that was the end of the story no harm, no foul.
But then the disgruntled couple enraged the SJW mob who used threats and intimidation way beyond, "I'll never shop here again". And I doubt if the refund is the end of that story.
By drawing the line where you do, dear Ann, you avoid serious discussion on the part of the story that concerns the bulk of the commenters. But, hey, your ball, your rules.
I wouldn't want the bad feelings all over my wedding ring either. If they end up being legally bound, I would melt the old rings down in some kind of symbolic act and get another set.
To say that he "hid his disapproval" assumes that he was obligated to tell the couple that he is opposed to gay marriage before agreeing to make the rings. In other words, the jeweler is responsible for anticipating the couple's feelings.
One could just as well say that the couple was obligated to warn the jeweler that they didn't want to do business with someone who opposes gay marriage before asking him to make the rings.
The eggshell skull rule gone mad.
The bigotry of the equivalence movement, evidenced by its myopic/special interests, needs to be addressed. The better policy for non-progressive trans behaviors (e.g. homosexual), as well as universal human rights (e.g. right to life), is principled tolerance, not selective exclusion, established by the popular but unprincipled pro-choice doctrine.
Damisk said:
Gays are less than 5% of the population. When people turn on them over this, I hope they realize where they went wrong.
Absolutely and perfectly on point especially after Ann speaking favorably of majoritarian opinion. They exist on sufferance of public opinion. If they abuse that sufferance, it can change almost overnight.
Nothing, other than their better nature, prevents a majority of citizens from passing an Amendment outlawing homosexual activity and sending all homosexuals will be sent to live in a camp in the wide Montana wilderness.
Still like that majoratarianism, Ann? Would you be willing to live with those results?
Or are you like those "This is what democracy looks like" folks that were out in front of the capital a few years ago. That it is only valid when it produces results you like?
"Never count on your fellow man's better nature. He may not have one." - Lazarous Long
John Henry
Never left, Meade. Just infrequently comment. The archives prove you to be a liar. This was posted, and you two are engaging, because comment numbers are WAY DOWN. You 2 are horribly transparent. Hopefully not going to turn into a Bloody Memorial Day. LOL.
Ann, I admire your thinking and communicative ability as well as your patience. I am impressed!
The bulk of your commenters on this thread are boringly rude, dim (maybe barely-glowing), [lacking in basic reading comprehension], attacking rather than articulating. They say essentially nothing. They are upset that society is not the way they want it to be. They are upset because they can’t stop the evolution of humanity. They are feeling emotion and expressing pretty much nothing.
Things have changed. Gay marriage has been legal in Canada for at least a decade! Ireland just voted with over 60% of the vote to legalize same-sex marriage. It is probable that the US Supreme Court will legalize it here in the States next month. This is a human rights issue. If people want to oppose gay marriage and gay’s human rights they need to be smart enough to know that there will be consequences. Businesses need to be willing to take the business hit! They need to be willing to let their business fail. That’s how the market works. The so-called religious liberty exercise in Indiana clearly demonstrated that Pence and the GOP legislators were NOT willing to take the business hit. And yeah, if you put up your sign AFTER getting a lesbian couple’s business they may just ask for a refund and tell their circle of friends all about it. Hello, catch a clue.
If you don’t want to serve gays – put up a sign saying so – and realize you are telling a lot of potential customers that you don’t want their business. (You may have a loyal following of those who agree with you, though. And perhaps you can survive for five or ten years. Good for you.)
As Dylan said:
“You don’t need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.”
Having a thread moderated is gutless. It's like only allowing approved criticism. And fen nailed it w/ his comment about this place being classless.
You can be VERY critical of Jonathan Turley on his blog. He's not a coward like Annie.
He didn't hide his disapproval by putting up a sign. He did it (if at all) during the initial encounter.
Your remark makes sense only if the couple was entitled to a trigger warning. Why isn't the jeweler entitled to one?
"She and her fiancée, Pam Renouf, don’t mind doing business with people whose beliefs are different from their own, she said, but it’s disrespectful to display the message in a business.
Jardon said the women were very nice to work with, and he believes the media attention surrounding the issue is getting some things confused.
“They’ve never been disrespectful in any way, or rude or hateful towards us, and we’ve done exactly the same. We’ve never, ever disrespected them in any way in that sense, directly. I think there seems to be a confusion,” he said.
He said he was worried giving a refund, or taking the posters down, would send a message that it’s possible to bully people in Canada for expressing their beliefs. But Monday afternoon he sent an email to The Telegram saying they have decided to give the refund after all."
Umm...
I'm not seeing any explanation of HOW this became a media story...who decided to make this bigger than the people directly involved.
Ann said:
"No one has explainec why there was anything wrong with asking to be let out a a deal to buy a custom-made ring!"
200+ Notes and a large number of them have noted the extortionate nature of "asking" as you so disingenuously put it under threat of reprisals.
Don't tell me you missed all of them, did you?
Had the lesbians gone in, asked for their money back and out of the contract, been refused and done nothing, I don't think anyone would have disagreed.
Certainly not me!
It is the extortion that gets people like me het up. They posted the story and picture on Facebook etc knowing full well that the jeweler would get harassed and threatened with violence for gay hatred.
Ahhh..., free speech you say. And you are unlikely to find anyone more absolutist than me on free speech.
But whoever it was that said "Nice nipples you've got, Prof Althouse. Be a shame if something happened to them. Don't you think this kid deserves an A?" is only exercising her right to free speech too. Right? Or did I miss something?
The cure for free speech is more speech and we need to stand up to the gay mafia in cases like this. But who is going to stand up for the jeweler. How do we even if willing?
CFA can do it because they are big enough to say FUCK OFF!!!
Perhaps we need an organization to band the jewelers and bakers and pizza parlors, and Mozilla presidents et al together to say FUCK OFF! to the gay mafia.
We are not at that point yet but it may come. If it does, it will no doubt be an over reaction and will probably not be pretty.
John Henry
In consideration of a point slightly to the side of the main one here - how many Muslim jewelers would reject the work out of hand? I wouldn't be surprised to fine one, or a baker or taxi driver or whatever else, near at hand who would either throw the lesbians out or, at the least, refuse the job. You can watch them behaving just this way on YouTube. Never are these fellows attacked. I wonder why?
I think Ann is consistent in the main:
Cakes (other than plain sheet cakes) and rings are personal expressions of the creator. The creator has a right to refuse to create as a first amendment right. From an IANAL point of view, the creation of something artistic for a wedding seems to be participation in a wedding qualitatively different from, say, delivering a case of soda to the back door.
On the other hand, a wedding ring has symbolic value for the purchaser. It's reasonable to expect that a purchaser of a wedding ring is thinking of the purchase a more than just a simple purchase of, say, a case of soda, and doesn't want to be reminded of the seller's disapproval on his or her wedding day.
In other words, both the purchase and the sale of some artistic symbolic item should have fewer restrictions on the right of either participant to annul the contract than something pedestrian. Again, IANAL, this is just my feelings about courtesy and how to live together.
This is all separate from the threat-aspect here, which I find horrendous.
"He chose not to do that". Yes, after contemplating the enormous shit storm that the vicious left would bring down on his head if he didn't, he "voluntarily" surrendered his rights without compensation.
When the mugger threatened him with a gun, he "voluntarily" chose to give up his wallet.
"HIDING their disapproval..." ?!?
The jeweler took the money, not imposing his disapproval on the purchasers' access to his services. He never imposed his viewpoint on the commercial event.
That's more than you can say nowadays for a lot of big lawfirms.
The prestigious Michigan lawfirm Varnum Riddering allowed its young appellate superstar, John Bursch (the immediate past state Solicitor General) to argue Michigan's position in DeBoer v Snyder (one of the four conjoined Supreme Court SSM cases). But the firm declined to participate as counsel of record.
This is a newly-common problem in Same Sex Marriage cases. Law firms that have no trouble representing Gitmo detainees, death row prisoners, etc., will not allow their partners and associates to represent states defending traditional marriage laws.
As noted by right-wing mouthpiece Adam Liptak, in that tea-party rag, The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/12/us/the-case-against-gay-marriage-top-law-firms-wont-touch-it.html?_r=0
Intriguing thread.
I think it's interesting that Althouse says the sign denigrated homosexuals (when it just gives the common definition of marriage), but doesn't seem to think it's denigration of a religion to be angry about doing business with someone publicly expressing that religion in peace.
There's a ton of bias in seeing offense in the former and not in the latter, when it's only the latter that is an active intolerance.
The jeweler was being a jerk. Suppose a lawyer writes a will for Christian clients and then before they come back for their finished work posts a sign saying "Religion is the root of all evil." The jeweler wanted to deliver a poke in the eye. And maybe brag to others about it.
Most shopkeepers are pretty accommodating about returns.
Most wedding rings are bought for two straight people. Focus on the facts of this case.
He took their money, knowing he disapproved of what they were doing
He was trying to be tolerant. I am sure in the back of his mind was what has happened to victims of the gay brownshirts in the past. or do you deny that if he had refused to design and make the rings the lesbians would have attacked him for that?
He put up a sign expressing the disapproval!
Let us not assassinate these lesbians jeweler; you've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?
None of you will be here when this all ends. Everything we fought for will be lost, everything we've loved will be broken. The victors will be as cursed as the defeated. The world will grow old, and men will wander about, lost in the ruins, and go mad. Tradition, restraint, virtue, they all go. I'm not mourning for myself, but for the people who will come after me, they will live without hope. And all they will have will be guilt, revenge, and terror. And the world will be full of fanatics and trivial fools.
"Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross."
-- Flannery O’Conner, The Habit of Being: The Letters of Flannery O’Connor
As usual, Althouse loses all semblance of reason when it comes to her homosexual offspring.
"Ugly."
Rhythm and Balls said...
In what way have gays used tactics that can be in any way described as "Nazi" like?
The term "Gaystapo" is an apt one if historically over the top. The real comparison is to "Brownshirts" but nobody want to make that analogy in this context. The comparison resonates because there is a group of people out there actively boycotting businesses and trying to shut them down. Those bigots and bullies are not striving with the full force and measure of the law behind them (yet), but the idea is to stop them before it gets to that.
"Also, where was the disrespect in the sign? Did it denigrate homosexuals?"
Yes.
The sign said, apparently:
"The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let's keep marriage between a man and a woman."
How is that 'denigrating' homosexuals?
ME: "Also, where was the disrespect in the sign? Did it denigrate homosexuals?"
ANN: "Yes."
-----------------------------
Well, good, I guess. Now we know you are an intolerant extremist on this issue and can act accordingly.
Also - prove it. Show how it is "disrespectful" to believe in the sanctity of marriage and that marriage is between a man and a woman...a position that historically was the consensus until 5 minutes ago.
Take abortion, for instance. I am pro-life. I think pro-choice is immoral. Expressing a pro-choice view, say, a bumper sticker that says "My Body, My Choice" is not being disrespectful to me. It isn't being disrespectful to anyone. Full stop.
-----------------------------
ME: "There was nothing disrespectful about the sign. Certainly the two lesbians disagreed with the sentiment, and they are free to have what ever emotional reaction they like to people who espouse that view. They can hate people who hold that view. Fine."
ANN: "They didn't want their wedding rings to be a reminder of that negative experience. No one wants bad emotion tied up with the symbolism of their rings."
-------------
You are making this up. I'm sure it is possible that the above was a motivation and even that it was the motivation. But you don't know it. And it is quite likely, in fact, given what they did, that instead it was motivated out of animus towards those who disagree with same-sex marriage. I guess I shouldn't expect you to realize this, since you are similarly intolerant.
-----------------------------
ME: "But that doesn't make what the jeweler did disrespectful. He posted a sign in his own shop. That sign expressed a view that didn't "disrespect" anyone, whatever your views are on same-sex marriage."
ANN: "He took their money, knowing he disapproved of what they were doing and he subsequently displayed a sign expressing his disapproval."
-----------------------------
Strange, Ann, how you're willing to best possible sheen on what the two women did, while stripping the humanity out of what the jeweler said and did. Also, you're stealing bases. While you don't technically say anything false there, you are stringing it together to encourage people to connect the dots - in other words, to try and turn the jeweler's placement of the sign on his wall into a direct response to the two women. Those are facts not in evidence. Furthermore, such an implication is directly contradicted by what the jeweler actually said. So you're willing to impute the best possible motivation for the two women while engaging in rhetorical slight-of-hand to suggest the jeweler had a sinister motive in erecting the sign in the first place. Bad form.
And I will wait patiently for you to explain how the sign was disrespectful. D.GOOCH
Althouse is unwittingly pointing the way forward.
She is openly stating that no matter how vile, how destructive, how threatening, social media attacks by gays are just fine, even if they destroy your business.
I am gay, but I am totally on the other side on this issue.
Ann has pointed the way, people. This is a cultural war. If the militant gays are allowed to use social media to destroy and shame, that's where the battle is. It's time to use it both ways.
Ann, as the culture war continues to expand, remember your role in fanning the flames.
The touchstone of the SSM debate has been "civil union" all along.
Civil union has been around a long time, and has been offered as a solution to homosexual couples who desire the legal advantages of marriage.
Some said OK, but a vocal minority said "NO!". It must be called marriage.
That was the point thirty years ago, and that is the point now. It is not marriage, which most of us now understand as a devotion between two people for a life of commitment, that they seek. It's an acceptance of same-sex marriage by people who don't approve of SSM.
They want to shove it down your throat, figuratively.
The commitment doesn't matter; the love doesn't matter; the children don't matter. Your thoughts on the subject are what matters.
The Party didn't execute Winston Smith until *after* he came to love Big Brother.
Here's hoping all gay businesses post they are gay owned and operated. Big sign! Shout it from the roof tops! Sky write it!
And don't forget to mention if you are a charter member of the gay mafia.
I want to spend my money wisely.
Gooch wrote:
ANN: "They didn't want their wedding rings to be a reminder of that negative experience. No one wants bad emotion tied up with the symbolism of their rings."
-------------
You are making this up. I'm sure it is possible that the above was a motivation and even that it was the motivation. But you don't know it"
<
The couple themselves have claimed that was the motivation. Of course, they could have just appreciated the irony. I know..that's just crazy talk these days...
"The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let's keep marriage between a man and a woman."
How is that 'denigrating' homosexuals?
The same way it would denigrate blacks to say:
"The sanctity of property rights is under attack. Let's confine ownership to the white man and not concern ourselves with the negro who has been sold to him."
Unless you can articulate an actual reason for your wish to deprive others of rights you take for granted, then you are tacitly denigrating them. Being nice about it is not the same thing as respecting their needs as a human being.
The fact that so many conservatives don't understand this explains a lot.
Paco Wové: The sign said, apparently:
"The sanctity of marriage is under attack. Let's keep marriage between a man and a woman."
How is that 'denigrating' homosexuals?
Althouse's assertion that the sign is "disrespectful" is bizarre only if you're assuming the tolerant, civilized man's definition of "respect". Once you realize that she's using the concept of respect and disrespect in the sense that thugs and mafiosi understand them, it all makes perfect sense.
The term "Gaystapo" is an apt one if historically over the top.
Lol. Contradict yourself, much?
The real comparison is to "Brownshirts" but nobody want to make that analogy in this context.
Oh, right. Because "Brownshirts" were legally and not coercively expressing normal market behavior.
The comparison resonates because there is a group of people out there actively boycotting businesses and trying to shut them down.
It "resonates" with people who are too lazy and hysterical to actually think through their issues. And yes, I said "their" issues deliberately instead of "the" issues. People don't do business with those whose business practices they disagree with all the time - preferring to transact instead with those whose practices they agree with it. As Ann said, it's completely normal, regular market behavior.
You only see it as different because you have a special interest in worrying about the "consequences" of homosexuals being treated normally.
Those bigots and bullies are not striving with the full force and measure of the law behind them (yet), but the idea is to stop them before it gets to that.
This is just blather too ridiculous to even interpret in a psychologically normal way, let alone respond to.
Good luck in attending to wherever your persecution complex is leading you.
R&B: but you're misconstruing or ignoring the meaning of the word sanctity!
R&B,
Rightly or wrongly, religion and reproduction are pretty central to the origins of "traditional" marriage. A bit different from race and property rights.
It looks like Gooch and others are also pushing this line about how it's supposedly not disrespectful to go around telling people about how you want to deprive them of their rights.
What's astounding is how profound a disability is at work here, in the way of not trying the shoe on the other foot.
How many conservatives here would feel respected if they were told that rights others take for granted were to be deprived of them?
No gun rights for conservatives. No speech rights for conservatives. And if they want to get their marriages recognized, forget it.
Feel respected much with that?
Well, okay then.
Remember, it's nothing personal or intentionally disrespectful. Just a strongly held belief. That I happen to hold. About you.
Stop complaining about it. And stop exercising your right to tell people about it and to have nothing to do with me or my business because of it. Even if they agree with you.
I have the right to social immunity of any consequences for my offensive ideas - simply because I declare that they are held earnestly, and in no way intended to cause offense.
So there.
R&B: but you're misconstruing or ignoring the meaning of the word sanctity!
Well, seeing as how you're crying to the State to get involved in protecting said "sanctity", or at least promoting extra-constitutional protections for your love of it, you're going to have to get an official State definition of it.
So, which sect is to be chosen as the State's official guarantor of things sanctified? The Methodists? The Baptists? The Universalists? The Catholics? The Muslims? The Jews? The Rastafarians?
Oh, I see. You believe it's to be understood that The Evangelicals (with possible Catholic support) get to decide these things for all of us.
Guess what? It doesn't work that way.
To understand how to live in a free society, it's essential to jettison the theocratic impulses and assumptions. There are no two ways about it.
I never thought of former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as any sort of spineless bureaucrat, but Kevin Williamson seems to think so, in this National Review Online post:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/418785/gates-gays-and-boy-scouts-kevin-d-williamson
What is important, and where I very strongly agree with Kevin Williamson (and apropos to this thread) is that Williamson makes forcefully the point that Robert Gates is saying that he believes that the Boy Scouts are in a position where their principled moral code is legally unsustainable. Basically because gay-rights lawfare will bankrupt or otherwise ruin the organization. It may in fact be an accurate and practical appraisal by Mr. Gates. But it is also a craven position; "We're doing this because we are afraid of the litigators."
"The sanctity of property rights is under attack. Let's confine ownership to the white man and not concern ourselves with the negro who has been sold to him."
This is utter nonsense. Marriage confers ADDITIONAL PRIVILEGES AND BENEFITS.
Marriage is not some fundamental right that everyone has with anyone else they choose. It confers special benefits because it used to be seen as a special benefit to society to create stable family units to raise children.
But Marriage has been perverted into 'everyone has a right to tax breaks and benefits if they choose to live with someone else!'
The meaning has been lost.
If equality or rather equivalence is the goal, then why selectively exclude other dysfunctional trans orientations and behaviors? Either pro-choicers are naive, ignorant, or opportunistic. Their principle of selectivity and the practice of its adherents (e.g. premeditated abortion) implies they have an ulterior motive.
rhhardin: The shortest sense-linked path through the thesaurus from tolerance to intolerance is
tolerance
kindness
favor
bias
intolerance
(if done right, any 3 in a row have the same sense, though not any 4)
Just wanted to give a thumbs-up to this clever comment.
"my blog seems to be read almost only by people who disagree with me. My husband tells me there is a silent majority of people who do agree with me."
Ann, I generally agree with you and I agree with you on this point in particular. As part of a law and ethics course, I lecture two class periods (about 3 hours) of contract law basics for sophomore business students at a community college. I am a business person, not an attorney. According to my pitiful understanding of contract law, you are 100% correct on both the law and the market forces at work here.
And BTW, I like your blog precisely because your observations are so coldly logical and impartial. I'm guessing you were good at set theory in school, too, correct?
This is utter nonsense. Marriage confers ADDITIONAL PRIVILEGES AND BENEFITS.
La la la. So did abolition.
Parsing the semantics of "rights" vs. "privileges" and "benefits" is too absurd to address seriously. If something is never denied, except in the rarest of rational circumstances, it's obvious that if you want the right to discriminate you're going to have to provide a good reason for it.
And talk about "ADDITIONAL BENEFITS AND PRIVILEGES". I never heard about a "right" to not be boycotted. I never heard about a fundamental, essential "right" for people to be prevented from shunning you on account of the offensiveness of your "strongly held belief".
How oblivious are you people? You argue against your very own stances in your very defenses of them.
Absurd. Start thinking things through for a change. Time's a wasting.
I still would like to know how news organizations got involved. Just randomly watching the couple's Facebook?
"Also, where was the disrespect in the sign? Did it denigrate homosexuals?"
ALTHOUSE:"Yes"
Bullshit.
Absolute, tepid, rancid, head-up-your-ass bullshit.
I've written more than once that as soon as she turns to the topic of same-sex marriage, Althouse sheds about 30 IQ points as if by magic.
Turns out I underestimated that figure substantially.
It's apparently double that number. Althouse invariably descends to abject, drooling, thumb sucking stupidity when the topic turns to SSM.
And she is willing to throw any principle of law, fair dealing or intellectual honesty into the bonfire in sacrifice to the gay penis.
It's absolutely revolting.
I haven't visited in awhile, but I'm glad I came today. It's always fun to see the threads in which Althouse draws out the chumps. Good times!
No one sees it as a "benefit or privilege" to be able to choose whom they marry. They see it as a right. The exceptions are rational, obvious and rare (non-consenting [by definition] minors and close relatives). And it is closely linked to love. That is why Orwell wrote about it 1984. Telling someone whom they can and cannot love is totalitarian mind control. Telling them that they cannot consecrate that love is not as bad, but it's definitely falling less and less so under the guise of the "rights" we'd like the government to have. To tell us whom we can and cannot love and therefore consecrate with into a recognized act of marriage is a right fewer and fewer people are willing to give the government.
But obviously I can see why the weak, the weak-minded, and people with weak arguments, would need to run to Mr. Big Government for such protection.
Even though it revolves around what you once saw as your "right" to control others.
Live and let live. And take responsibility for the social consequences of your bigotries. Whether you came to have them voluntarily or were told to have them at an early age by someone else.
ndspinelli said...
"You can be VERY critical of Jonathan Turley on his blog."
Yes, we've heard all about your special bloggy affection for Turley, Nick. The blog affection that dare not speak it's name.
As you said, the jeweler didn't refuse service. Moose said it very well in the first comment on this thread.
I think the services that are at all in the "speech" category (like cake decorating and photography) should not be compelled. But I think anti-discrimination laws for restaurants and shops are fine.
You were absolutely, utterly silent when they came for the decorators and photographers, hypocrite.
You were perfectly content throwing Memories Pizza to the wolves over a hypothetical gotcha question from a reporter, even lacking an actual case.
You were perfectly willing to throw Sweet Cakes by Melissa to the pack of hyenas when it counted. And now you try and strike the moderate tone?
Hell, you sat in your professor chair encouraged Christian (and Muslim) shop owners to speak up so they could be more easily engaged and their source of family wealth and retirement security bankrupted by your brownshirt friends.
Fen and Thomas have you pegged on this. You are no defender of liberty. When it counts, you are a coward and hypocrite - even merely rhetorically, and even from your tenured and richly pensioned ivory tower.
Ann Althouse said...
"Where in the story does it say that? Maybe the jeweler was just being polite. Talk about making unjustified assumptions about facts and motives!"
He put up a sign expressing the disapproval!
Yet, he was tolerant, and provided the wedding rings anyway. I thought that was the point. That to refuse service was a violation of civil rights. And now you're saying that simple tolerance isn't enough, the jeweler can't disapprove while providing the service demanded?
It's never been about equality of services etc etc etc. It's about forcing people to conform.
Gay marriage doesn't bother me; tyranny does. Amazing to see the actions of these petit tyrants once they find their comfort zone.
I'm done now with the issue and its supporters. When -- not if -- the backlash occurs, I'll be laughing as some of these folk are shoved back into the closet at the point of a bayonet. Tough shit. You want to be tough, then I eagerly await to see how tough you really are. Not at all is my guess.
Every time I visit Turley's blog, old Nicky Spinelli is making a fool out of himself. He's always good for a good hearty belly laugh. Too bad he's the clown being laughed at.
Boycotting the Althouse Amazon link is always an option if haven't aleatory done so.
"When the gay lynch mob finally turns to actual lynchings..."
There won't be lynchings. But a store destroyed, looted, and burned down? Hmm. Something tells me that's not beyond the scruples of people who can be generally categorized as coming from the left.
And when that happens, good liberals will say, "I don't support that at all. I only supported every single step leading up to it."
The liberal paradigm of marriage bears an uncanny resemblance to incorporation. All the way to classifying Posterity (i.e. children) as capital investments that can be expensed and depreciated, replaced with other commodities of like-kind, and liquidated (i.e. aborted) when they are deemed to be unwanted or underperforming.
TCom:
Civil unions or corporations for all (i.e. inclusive). Marriage to promote or normalize relationships with a plan for Posterity. That is, marriage is unsuitable or counterfactual for all relationships, and many casual heterosexual relationships, whether they have a sexual or platonic orientation.
That said, the degradation of marriage as a civil and social institution did not begin with the progress or demands for coupled trans marriages. While there may be historical alliances to promote a dysfunctional outcome, the immediate cause is dysfunction heterosexuals. Notably women who debased human life (science, morality, etc.) to establish a false gender equivalence and the men who love them.
Pro-choice or selective exclusion has really been a bad policy for human and civil rights that has a predisposition to create moral and evolutionary hazards.
Or, a surge in Amazon support from the "silent majority" would be interesting too.
RecChief:
It has been about normalization or promotion of equivalence a la feminists' demand for the creation of gender equivalence through the State-establishment of elective abortion or sacrificial rites. This is why they are intolerant of principled tolerance, and instead knowingly demand selective exclusion.
What's noteworthy is that in both cases it has been a pro-choice doctrine that has rationalized selective exclusion. This leads to the conclusion that trans equivalence is a conspiracy of like-minded individuals (e.g. "Church" or organized moral consensus). However, the obvious relationship is that pro-abortionists (e.g. abortion industry) are using trans equivalence to mask the collateral damage caused by their practices a la social complex, welfare industry, immigration policy, etc.
"What if a black person made a restaurant reservation and showed up to find racist posters on the wall but the maitre d' was perfectly polite and ready to seat him? Wouldn't you support the customer's request to be released from the reservation without having his card charged?"
Noting these were custom rings I find a flaw in your analogy. The service was completed and custom rings are much tougher to resell.: What if the black couple had a wonderful meal with fine service. Then as they prepared to pay they noted a poster that said "Cops lives matter". They are offended. Should they expect to not pay? If the owner refuses and he is confronted by threats is that OK?
High dungeon run amok.
chickelit:
Why a boycott? Let the people review the evidence and testimony, then the market decide how or if she should be compensated.
Professor Althouse, for all her real and perceived biases, and perhaps prejudice, has graciously provided a platform for moderated, but open, conversation of frivolous and debate of hotly contested issues. What may seem self-evident to some, even many, may not be to others, including to Professor Althouse. Still, her expert opinion is appreciated, and she is entitled to a personal opinion, including its advocacy.
Hi there,
First time poster!
I take your points about the respective rights and obligations here (including the right to re-negotiate), but you're not addressing something that matters here: when the couple went public with their objections, and later (presumably) learned that the jeweler was the target of bullying and threats (as reported here: http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2015-05-18/article-4150483/Jeweller-says-he-has-been-bullied,-threatened/1), it would have been helpful if they had made a public statement telling their allies to back off.
Do I know for a fact that they knew about the threats? Of course not. It's hard to believe that they didn't, though. It's equally hard to believe that they don't know now, after receiving their money back. If you accept the return of a deposit on a custom item - where the time spent making the item is lost and the item may not be subject to resale, precisely because it was a custom design - and you do so after the vendor was threatened, you are knowingly profiting from extortion. Moreover, you are also accepting the proposition that both of you may express your views, but it was appropriate to profit from extortionate forces who bullied your opponent into subsidizing the cost of your belief.
The latter point is why I tend to think that the bakers, florists, etc., have to serve the same-sex weddings: in rural spaces, especially, where there might be one florist, etc., in town, and the next town is 30 miles away, these services are not easily fungible. A gay couple who has to expend greater costs to get service by going to the next town or the town after that is being forced to subsidize the cost of someone else's faith/right of expression. Our freedoms occasionally come with a price, but why should we be obliged to pay for someone else's beliefs? That is part of the story here; that is part of what the lesbian couple is forcing the jeweler to do. Not only is it a nasty power play, it's a way to (temporarily) lose a hardcore ally, like me.
Althouse: Get the facts straight. Or is this a pure hypo about something that never happened?
You were perfectly content to sit on the sidelines and remain silent while the baying hyenas went after Memories Pizza over a totally hypothetical question. Why are you so concerned over hypotheticals now?
Two Ann Althouse quotes from this thread:
(1) "You are full of shit on this, Ann...."
I choose not to read the rest of a comment that begins like that. You showed disrespect and I choose not subject myself to that.
See how that works?
(2) LOL. You're complaining about someone doing the very thing that you yourself are doing in your complaint. What a bullshitter!
--------------
I'll confess I don't see how that works.
Absolutely do NOT boycott the Althouse Amazon portal. She is providing a platform for us neanderthals. She could have blocked the lot of us. Support the portal.
We just need to convince her the error of her progressive ways on this topic.
Remember when socons gave themselves little titles like "Moral Majority"? That was cute. They seemed so confident then. Now, well...
Pamelaa=Inga, Annie, Allie Oop and MANY aliases. She used 17 aliases in one evening @ Turleys. She is now a pariah on that blog as well. That's 4 blogs that I know of that she is hated.
I love it when Althouse post these things and you old, fat, unattractive, sexless conservatives respond.
Your real problem is no one is going to have sex with you because you are extremely old, wrickled, unattractive and gross.
It must be extremely depressing to know no one would touch you with a ten foot poll.
And the new generation has already spoken on this topic-even countering their conservative, republican parents.
It's fucking over and you so lost.
I am sorry you can not get an erection....not.
Someone check Titus' ID.
Chick, who is "straight" likes to post obsessively on anything gay related....just saying.
I swung by to see how it was going. Ann, I don't think you are converting anybody.
By the way have any of you seen "charles" cook's face?
It looks like an asshole.
And his hair is a complete train wreck.
Not relevant T.
Just to make sure I've got this right.
If you're against gay sex marriage, you must not discriminate against them via your business. This means if you make wedding rings, you must make one for a gay couple having a gay sex wedding, even if you don't want to.
However, because of your views on gay sex marriage, after you've provided the service you are forced to provide, they can demand a refund or have your business shut down because of those views.
Do I have that right?
A good lawyer's stock-in-trade is the ability to construct a persuasive argument using reason and rhetoric. A law professor, not so much.
Nice to see Titus advancing such a powerful and germane argument. About what I'd expect from someone who self-identifies as an 'elite'! Hahaha!! Watch out for the pointy end, boy.
Militant gays who seek to run people out of business are some of the most worthless people on earth. They deserve all the hell the catch, here or hereafter. Despicable.
As a moderate, I find it difficult to understand why this topic gets people so excited. I suspect it is the same reason they put so many gays in sitcoms. Straight people just can't get enough of the gays.
Bluenote: " The latter point is why I tend to think that the bakers, florists, etc., have to serve the same-sex weddings: in rural spaces, especially, where there might be one florist, etc., in town, and the next town is 30 miles away, these services are not easily fungible. A gay couple who has to expend greater costs to get service by going to the next town or the town after that is being forced to subsidize the cost of someone else's faith/right of expression. Our freedoms occasionally come with a price, but why should we be obliged to pay for someone else's beliefs?
So you support individual liberty as long as nobody is too inconvenienced?
That's a very pretty moderate pose you're adopting.
Stupid and bankrupt, but pretty.
I'm sure you're a hit at moderate cocktail parties where nobody thinks too much. Try stroking your chin in "thought."
"Here's hoping all gay businesses post they are gay owned and operated. Big sign! Shout it from the roof tops! Sky write it!"
Bullseye. Even in very liberal localities few gay-owned businesses could do this and survive. Not for fear of pickets and social media attacks, rather because those who actively disapprove of their orientation (which even in very liberal areas would probably be at least 30% of the population) would simply not patronize the business. No drama, no hysterics, just no profit margin. Ironically, most gay businesses will probably remain closeted.
I'll confess I don't see how that works
You put the shit at the end. Then it's too late -- you've stepped in it already.
HTH.
From the Daily Mail:
"The eleventh hour cancellation of Bristol Palin's Memorial Day Weekend wedding left mom Sarah with little alternative but to go ahead with the already planned reception. Bristol made a very public showing of her non-attendance by posting a series of photos of her enjoying a 'weekend getaway' back in Alaska with her best friend, who is an exotic model."
Of course she is.
Althouse That's what he's still whining about for some crazy reason!
Because it points to your hypocrisy in this thread.
You should review the comments again. Even people who dislike me thought you had gone overboard.
And still no apology for misrepresenting me. No class.
ARMpit quoted and embellished: Bristol made a very public showing of her non-attendance by posting a series of photos of her enjoying a 'weekend getaway' back in Alaska with her best friend, who is an exotic model.
Of course she is.
Althouse is an "exotic blogger" in case you hadn't heard. Bob Wright said so, but I can insinuate that too because she adored Sullivan's treatment of Palin and the Palin family.
"I find it difficult to understand why this topic gets people so excited."
It does make for distraction from the real shit that media would rather forget..if they know to begin with.
But hey..thanks for the Palin update. I didn't know any of them were gay. Oh...wait..are you a reporter?
Titus said...
Chick, who is "straight" likes to post obsessively on anything gay related....just saying.
Titus, who is "gay," likes to post about his extramartial sexploits on other blogs, in posts devoted to men who gave their lives for their country. I'd give a link, but my co-bloggers already deleted his screed. I do have a copy in my gmail, in case anybody needs proof.
n.n said...
chickelit:
Why a boycott? Let the people review the evidence and testimony, then the market decide how or if she should be compensated.
Why not? It's exactly the sort of "market force" signal she endorses in these cases.
You did notice that I also endorsed a surge in donations from her fellow travellers. I do believe in democracy.
The first comment (and many others) does a terrific job boiling this down. They coerced with public pressure.
And the pressure is directed to scare people into not posting signs expressing peaceful religious views that are not popular with certain people.
Is that legal?
It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer -
(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;
It would be dishonest to say this wasn't religious discrimination.
Back in the day, gay marriage was said to be none of the social right's business. After all, they are just trying to be happy, so mind your own business. I bought into that and support marriage rights for gays. I do not appreciate the shift now to saying that posting your religious views on the wall is some kind of major action that opens you up to second class citizen status.
"they took the money, hiding their disapproval, and shortly after put up A SIGN expressing that disapproval"
Althouse, you were very strict about what is a contract and what is a breach when it helped your case, but can you apply that strictness evenly? Nowhere in the contract did he say he wouldn't hold certain religious views or never express them. In fact, by implication the contract has to adhere to federal law that permits him to practice his religion. So the man did not breach his contract, and in fact performed it. If the couple wanted terms like that, they should negotiate them before the agreement. Albeit it would be unlawful.
I tend to support gay marriage and gay rights, but they do conflict with religious freedom and rights if they go as far as 'I have a right to not have bad offended memories of the guy who made my stuff'.
The truth is that gay couples interact with Christians who don't agree with their lifestyle, and their tolerance helps 'the cause' of gay rights by showing that a gay lifestyle is not a threat to a Christian's lifestyle.
@Jason
That was a rude, ad hominem, thin critique. Are you only so brave when you have the protection of a computer screen to shield your identity? If you behave like that in public, you surely have no friends.
Not that you deserve the respect that comes with a serious response, but I'll give you one anyway. Individual liberty can pose inconveniences, but generally, when others have to PAY for the liberties enjoyed by other people, the costs are not localized; they are spread across an entire community. One person, or one group, is not asked to shoulder the entire burden. By way of example, we accommodate the religious liberty of parents who send their children to sectarian schools by allowing their children to ride buses that are funded by taxes paid by the entire community. Similarly, in the regulatory takings context, if a complaining party has been singled out by a zoning regulation to bear a disproportionately high share of the cost of producing a public good that will benefit the entire community, just compensation may be owed. Individuals, or small groups, are generally not supposed to pay the costs associated with the liberty claims asserted by larger groups.
Selective child. Selective orientation. Selective behavior. Selective dignity. Selective law. Selective science. The unprincipled progress of pro-choice doctrine in an amoral, opportunistic cult.
In light of progressive liberalism's degenerative ideology, and its pro-choice doctrine's failure to respect individual dignity and intrinsic value, it should be interesting to observe how unplanned Posterity and replacements will tolerate and resolve the consequences of irreconcilable and diametrically conflicted positions.
Nope. As usual a law professor should get out a bit more. This was in Canada, and I'll describe the reality a small business person faces.
This was custom work, with a deposit. I don't know the dollar amounts.
For the vendor to ask for a legal opinion on what to do means there is no profit anymore.
If the dispute went to litigation, which is likely, the vendor would lose considerable amounts of money and time, and couldn't expect a settlement for years.
So he cut his losses, as any rational businessman would do.
I run a business where we do service. If someone doesn't want to pay there is no protection under the law. Oh you say, there are contract laws. Indeed. So how much does it cost to collect and how long? $15000 and 5 years? As I said there is no protection under law, I depend on the good will of my customers as well as good management making sure that they perceive value and are willing to pay.
This man lost money on the transaction, gave his time and materials, and instead of entering a costly battle that would probably cost him his business, cut his losses.
Call that whatever you like, I call it reality. I choose my customers and I stay away from lawyers and school teachers, am very careful with government workers. Lesbians and homosexuals are now on the list to avoid as well. I can't afford to get into a fight, have no intention and frankly don't give a damn what people do. I just want to do work and get paid. The reason I stay away from those people is that they either know the law or expect something for nothing. I don't give anything for nothing. I stay away.
Althouse's assertion that the sign is "disrespectful" is bizarre only if you're assuming the tolerant, civilized man's definition of "respect". Once you realize that she's using the concept of respect and disrespect in the sense that thugs and mafiosi understand them, it all makes perfect sense
Yup, the jeweler's "sin" is a sign that says he supports traditional marriage.
But in Althouse's world, there is no tolerance for disagreement on this subject. You must not only approve of gay marriage, you must cheerlead it.
Last one to stop clapping gets front-paged by Althouse as a "bigot".
In what way have gays used tactics that can be in any way described as "Nazi" like?
The little online Kristallnacht the gays launched at Memories Pizza. Business had its page vandalized, its online rep smeared, and the owner's family went into hiding over death threats.
So yes, Gay Nazis. To distinguish them from the Gays that just want to be accepted in peace.
Althouse, and the merchant had every right to refuse. Which he did. Until he was bullied and threatened. And so he changed his mind.
"We'll throw our baseballs in your yard"
You would think someone threatened by the Unions for expressing herself would be more sympathetic to those facing similar Brownshirt tactics.
Again, no class.
I am just amazed at how fragile the psyche of liberals are. Do you know how I handle people that disagree with me politically, morally, philosophically? If I work for that person I still work for them. If I am friends with them i continue to be their friend. I don't get on Facebook and bitch about it or them. I don't sue them to make them change their habits or actions. Life is too short to argue with people who disagree with you. Believe me, most of the world disagrees with you on something. Like 99.99999%( wholly ficticious internet stat)
The queers, gays, transgendered, minority, women libber, vegan, peta, et al just need to do one fucking thing. Grow the fuck up.
I listen to Streisand because it gives me pleasure to hear her sing, though her politics make me vomitous. I watch movies with actors that I know are card carrying communist, because I like their movies. I've got a gay buddy from high school, I was at his "wedding" even though he knows I think gay marriage is oxy-moronic at best. I'd defend his life style choice against anyone who would try to change it. If he's happy, who else has the right to say he should change?
All I ask is that I get extended the same courtesy. And more and more the left won't. So when sharia is finally allowed to take hold in this country, I don't want you whinny assed libs crying to "us". Because it's gonna be YOUR head on the chopping block first. "Us" being the people who cling to their God and their guns. You know...normal people.
1. Complaining that someone says "you're full of shit" is rather petty. That is a common idiom meaning "you're wrong and you know it." Objecting to that seems to be a sign of showing that you are sensitive to accusations that you are wrong, and that's because it would appear that you are decidedly wrong.
2. I don't know if Canada follows the UCC or if they have something more akin to common law, but it's probably much the same. The question hangs, in my opinion, solely on whether the jewelry reasonably refunded the deposit because of threats or if the threats are an excuse to get the deposit back. Everything else seems to be side issues to inflame public opinion.
A contract was made, partial performance was done by creating the ring. The ring was not delivered. Pure and simple contracts issue. He had a right to keep the deposit, or at least that part of it that constituted compensation for the work performed. Whether he returned the deposit willingly or under duress is all that needs to be determined.
Ann, your analysis has been flawed, in my opinion. The jeweler's personal views are irrelevent once the contract has been made. If the customer chooses to rescind a contract after it is formed, then the customer is liable for the work performed.
In jewelry, the materials can be melted down and reused by the jeweler, but the work cannot. Parties must be able to rely on a contract to get paid for work performed. Whether lost profit can be sued for is another issue to decide.
But Ann, your glib dismissal of any claim by the jeweler is wrong, flat wrong. It needs to be determined by the finder of fact whether there was duress or coercion in rescinding the contract.
"3. What if a black person made a restaurant reservation and showed up to find racist posters on the wall but the maitre d' was perfectly polite and ready to seat him?"
It's not a restaurant. It's a custom jewelery business. Work was done that presumably can't be simply exchanged with another customer.
I also object to the comparison between disliking people because of their race and disapproving of behavior that for millennia has been condemned and still is condemned by a vast majority of human organizations normally charged with defining morality.
Ann, I don't think your position is defensible from a contract law perspective.
"Complaining that someone says "you're full of shit" is rather petty. That is a common idiom meaning "you're wrong and you know it." Objecting to that seems to be a sign of showing that you are sensitive to accusations that you are wrong, and that's because it would appear that you are decidedly wrong."
It's a signal that the person isn't taking what I said seriously and is making it personal. I choose not to go on to read a long comment. If the intent was to draw me in and attempt to persuade, it's a failure. I always have other things to read. Why should I read that? He lost me in sentence #1.
Your portrayal of me as all emotional about this is completely inaccurate, and I know that, and anyone who knows me personally knows that. So you too are simply making a personal remark instead of actually being persuasive. There are so many comments in here like that, talking about me personally, instead of dealing with the arguments... which requires understanding them first, by the way. And that's a special message to any commenter who thinks I said that the jeweler didn't have an enforceable contract.
The Left has Social Justice Warriors and the Right has Moral Justice Warriors. Both groups seem to prefer the offensive strategy that buries respectful conversation under polemic and vitriol.
This thread had a bit of everything from the old days, a Memorial Day reunion of sorts. We had Nick Spinelli's somewhat creepy obsession with Inga, and Chickelit's equally odd obsession with Palin, R&B pouring scorn, Titus representing the topic of conversation, Meade defending his mistress and even an appearance from somefeller. My favorite Fascist!!! moment was "online Kristallnacht".
Ann said:
"Complaining that someone says "you're full of shit" is rather petty. That is a common idiom meaning "you're wrong and you know it." Objecting to that seems to be a sign of showing that you are sensitive to accusations that you are wrong, and that's because it would appear that you are decidedly wrong."
It's a signal that the person isn't taking what I said seriously and is making it personal. I choose not to go on to read a long comment. If the intent was to draw me in and attempt to persuade, it's a failure. I always have other things to read. Why should I read that? He lost me in sentence #1.
How about you and Meade paying attention to what I actually said:
"You are full of shit on this, Ann." (Emph added JRH)
Not full of shit in general, as Meade seemed to think but full of shit on this particular issue with the jeweler.
I then detailed why you are full of shit on it. You chose to be offended and not read it. Fine, but at least get what I said right.
And I did post a nopology as is current fashion. ("Sorry if you were offended")
Suppose I had said "Ann, you are completely wrong on this"? No problem, right? And the difference between "completely wrong on this" and "full of shit on this" is?
I think you are just using my wording as an excuse to not answer the question of whether extortion (or bullying if you prefer) was involved and whether that is OK. You seem fine with the extortion. At least in a couple dozen notes you've posted here you have not seemed to object to it.
How about it, Ann, will you come out of the closet against the extortion here?
Or will you remain silent?
John Henry
ARM doing his best Titus impersonation, a post of vapid nothingness. Topic? What topic?
It looks like Gooch and others are also pushing this line about how it's supposedly not disrespectful to go around telling people about how you want to deprive them of their rights.
It's not. It's a political issue and the jeweler didn't agree with the couple.
...yet he did the work for them ANYWAYS.
Oh, right. Because "Brownshirts" were legally and not coercively expressing normal market behavior.
Kristallnacht, technically, broke no laws.
Doesn't make it a moral act.
No gun rights for conservatives. No speech rights for conservatives. And if they want to get their marriages recognized, forget it.
Your side has lost multiple court cases trying to stifle gun rights. And colleges are notoriously antagonistic towards conservative speech.
So, you'd have no issues with a state deciding to zero out all funding for higher education, right? No complaints at all, huh?
I never heard about a "right" to not be boycotted. I never heard about a fundamental, essential "right" for people to be prevented from shunning you on account of the offensiveness of your "strongly held belief".
When you're a tiny minority, as gays are, constantly begging the mob to protect you is going to end up biting you in the end. The people you dislike are far greater in number than the mob protecting you.
Were the pathetic shit couple legally justified in doing what they did?
Of course.
I can ALSO be a complete, unmitigated asshole and not violate any laws in the process. There's a wide array of obnoxious --- yet totally legal --- acts I can take. Hell, I can doxx people if I choose to do so and likely fall afoul of zero laws in the process. I can have somebody provide me very personal info and post all of it online immediately and violate no law (since I broke no law in obtaining it). The possibility for mayhem is large.
Society requires better behavior to work --- but if one side sees no point in abiding, why should anybody else?
And in the world of increasing hostility, how well will a 5% (being generous) minority fare?
"Because they took the money, hiding their disapproval, and shortly after put up A SIGN expressing that disapproval" did we read the same article? This sign was not pointed at anyone, was put up seasonally. There is nothing in the article that says he "his disapproval," he just did not refuse to provide service based on his belief. The "bad experience" was their friends pointing out that the man supports traditional marriage.
So, if I buy something from Amazon using the Althouse link and then read a post with which I disagree, will Ann refund me her commission?
"What if a black person made a restaurant reservation and showed up to find racist posters"
Faulty analogy. The jeweler's sign said he supports traditional marriage, that's no more bigoted than a sign saying "black lives matter" is racist.
You need to up your game here, your emotion has clouded your reason.
A couple of notes:
Folks like R&B are making my point for me - they are being intolerant and then justify their intolerance by explaining why they have to be intolerant. That's the purpose of analogizing support for traditional marriage to slavery or antimecegination laws. Their analogies say it all: supporting traditional marriage isn't just wrong or misguided - it is a view that reasonable people cannot hold. So to be clear - such arguments are not "hey, I'm not being intolerant" they are "I am being intolerant, and here is why."
Of course, the idea that support for traditional marriage is equivalent to slavery or other similarly unjustifiable positions is ridculous on its face. But it does help reveal who the extremists are.
I find the "you're full of shit" kerfluffle interesting. Ann contended the sign was inherently disrespectful (although I think even she realized she was on thin ice, and has thus tried to turn it into a passive-aggressive attack on the women reviving the ring without any evidence to support such a supposition). The reason I find it interesting is not the argument itself (though I agree it seems an odd hill to take a stand on...and seems inconsistent given her willingness to respond to folks being more overtly insulting), rather, it is interesting because Ann justified ignoring the post on the grounds it showed disrespect. But if arguing for traditional marriage is itself disrespectful, why is she responding to anyone in this thread? Perhaps Ann does understand that it isn't disrespectful afterall?
Hmmm. D.GOOCH
There are so many comments in here like that, talking about me personally, instead of dealing with the arguments
Several commenters have dealt with the arguments, but it's obvious you don't want to listen. Due to emotional, personal reasons on your end, whenever someone isn't 100% in favour of gay marriage, you flip out. What can we do?
It rescinds the contract by mutual agreement.
MUTUAL agreement? Doesn't that suggest that both parties willingly and freely agree to an outcome? It can hardly be called "mutal" if one of the parties is under treat, can it?
Key phrase, CarlF: "Nice nipples you got there..."
"Several commenters have dealt with the arguments, but it's obvious you don't want to listen. Due to emotional, personal reasons on your end, whenever someone isn't 100% in favour of gay marriage, you flip out. What can we do?"
The sad thing is that this isn't about support for gay marriage (I'm personally rather agnostic on it, since I think it is evident we lost the war on traditional marriage 40 years ago, though I am opposed to the Court imposing it on us by fiat). I was really hoping to see Ann take the right side on this, I would have respected her other arguments on SSM more if she had. Sadly, I think she revealed her to be an intolerant extremist on anything touching this topic. D.GOOCH
From what I can tell, the jeweler was appropriately tolerant of the views of the gay couple. The rings were crafted and sold without offending the couple. Until they were later told of the poster in the store there was no "bad experience".
It appears to me that those who find the jeweler's actions objectionable are not requiring tolerance, but instead are requiring acceptance or possibly endorsement of gay marriage. At the very least, if the views of the jeweler don't conform to a certain ideal they must be hidden and suppressed.
The perpetually offended look for opportunities to find evidence of disrespect. The jeweler worked with the couple and created the rings while he disagreed with the concept of gay marriage. From where I stand that was a tolerant act of respect for the beliefs of others. The rest of the issue has to do with forced/coerced compliance with the views of an identity group.
Your portrayal of me as all emotional about this is completely inaccurate and I know that, and anyone who knows me personally knows that.
I don't know that you're being "all emotional." Just intellectually dishonest and hypocritical.
That was a rude, ad hominem, thin critique.
No, it was not an ad hominem, but applied directly to your argument.
Are you only so brave when you have the protection of a computer screen to shield your identity?
I wouldn't know. I don't shield my identity. Unlike you, my full name is two clicks away. And it's not even a very common name.
If you behave like that in public, you surely have no friends.
LULZ. Sez the person who accused me of an ad hominem.
I am a friend of liberty. And not a fair weather friend of it like you. For instance, I wouldn't advocate the enslavement of a cotton picker just because he might happen to be the only cotton picker in town. You just did.
Individual liberty can pose inconveniences, but generally, when others have to PAY for the liberties enjoyed by other people, the costs are not localized; they are spread across an entire community.
Having to find a vendor who's actually willing to service your wedding is "PAYING?"
One person, or one group, is not asked to shoulder the entire burden. By way of example, we accommodate the religious liberty of parents who send their children to sectarian schools by allowing their children to ride buses that are funded by taxes paid by the entire community.
I'm sorry. Do you think that parents who send their children to sectarian schools don't also pay taxes to fund those busses.
Similarly, in the regulatory takings context, if a complaining party has been singled out by a zoning regulation to bear a disproportionately high share of the cost of producing a public good that will benefit the entire community, just compensation may be owed.
Passive voice much? At any rate, not relevant.
Individuals, or small groups, are generally not supposed to pay the costs associated with the liberty claims asserted by larger groups.
Finding a vendor actually willing to service a gay wedding at the price and terms you offer is not a "societal cost." It's adulthood.
I'm on the jeweler's side but I think the sign was a bit obnoxious and I don't think it makes sense that it was put up to celebrate Mother's Day.
At the same time though, he does have the right to display his opinion and the repercussions of potentially losing business shouldn't be retroactive. Further, the idea that the women had the right to ask for a refund (sure, they have a right, although most reasonable people would agree that it's brazen to do so for a custom creation) and then the guy just agreed (he didn't, but changed his mind only after the bullying) is disingenuous.
Like a lot of these stories, there isn't necessarily an actor on one side or the other who has covered himself with virtue. Why not agree that there's wrongdoing on both sides?
Our hostess wrote, "Your portrayal of me as all emotional about this is completely inaccurate, and I know that, and anyone who knows me personally knows that."
Then next time you're in Austin let's have a beer or pet dogs!
It's a blog and I just think that "you're full of shit" may be coarse in many circles but in many others it is fairly innocuous.
CStanley: Putting up a sign essentially stating Christian orthodoxy for 2,000 years in your own business is "wrongdoing?"
You're willing to accept that?
I frankly just find it amazing that this couple would let the jeweler's personal beliefs and the sign have so much power over their lives together.
It seem his creation of the rings was in good faith. Perhaps not. Maybe there's secret anti-SSM messages hidden within the designs.
"Oh, but what if the ordered item was CUSTOM. Then it might be harder for the shopkeeper to say good riddance. But the asshole customers would certainly be free to ask and to go on Facebook and bitch about it if they didn't like that. Go ahead. Do it. See how well your life works out if you do."
I think professor Althouse is being consistent when she says contractually the homosexual couple are free to ask to be let out of the contract, and free to post on Facebook --- and that the the customers are assholes (although I might have said intolerant).
Socially they were wrong, legally right.
Ann Althouse said, "They bought a product. They didn't keep it. People return products and get their money back all the time. Most shopkeepers are pretty accommodating about returns."
Umm, no. Not when the product is a custom-made. Special orders are almost always not returnable, so long as the order was correctly executed.
@Peter. Beginning a comment with "Umm" is considered very rude on the internet.
Anyway, I addressed the point about the "custom" nature of the rings numerous points in this thread, so you should look at some of that. I've seen this point raised over and over and I've already talked about it and don't want to do it again, especially with someone who begins in that rude manner.
I have never said that the shopkeeper was obligated to take the return, only that he could choose to do so. And in the end, he did, so obviously he could. Some dissatisfied customers are a lot more trouble than eating the loss.
Sure, I asked the girl to have sex with me. And she did!
But just because my friends were standing in a circle around her flashing knives doesn't mean she was coerced!
"He took their money, knowing he disapproved of what they were doing and he subsequently displayed a sign"
So, by Althouse's Rules of Modern Decorum, what he should have done was tell them up front, "I'll do this work for you, but I disapprove of what you're doing"?
Some dissatisfied customers are a lot more trouble than eating the loss.
You misspelled "mob" there.
We've seen businesses shut down entirely due to threats from SJW miscreants.
Is that a world you want to live in? Where protection money is required to do business?
The mafia is preferrable to SJW.
@Peter. Beginning a comment with "Umm" is considered very rude on the internet.
Umm, that's a load of baloney.
Best you step away from the internet for awhile, professor.
"So, by Althouse's Rules of Modern Decorum, what he should have done was tell them up front, "I'll do this work for you, but I disapprove of what you're doing"?"
I'm at a loss as to the proper behavior of the jeweler at the first encounter. He has to take the job, right? To do otherwise is discrimination. But, apparently, it's a transgression not to tell them of his beliefs. So I guess your prescription is correct.
Althouse said: @Peter. Beginning a comment with "Umm" is considered very rude on the internet.
I'm putting my barn boots on now.
CStanley: Putting up a sign essentially stating Christian orthodoxy for 2,000 years in your own business is "wrongdoing?"
You're willing to accept that?
5/26/15, 10:51 AM
I thought that until I saw way the sign actually said. Saying you support the orthodox Christian view of marriage is a statement of belief. Saying that marriage us under attack is overtly political (and dumb, IMO- it puts Christians in a victim status, and IMP much of the attack on marriage involved cultural changes that long preceded SSM,)
So in summary: he has a right to say what he thinks but I don't think the way he did it was effective.
No no, you used the term "wrongdoing."
So making a statement that happens to be "overtly political" is "wrongdoing?"
You're willing to accept that, too?
I have never said that the shopkeeper was obligated to take the return, only that he could choose to do so. And in the end, he did, so obviously he could.
The jeweler wasn't going to refund their depost (same as if heterosexuals cancelled their contract) but the lesbians threatened to have their Social Justice Warriors launch another little online Kristallnacht - vandalize the business, smear its reputation, death threats to drive the family into hiding, same thing they did to Memories Pizza. So the business owner refunded their deposit and ate the cost.
I think its very unwise to invoke mob rule when you are a mere 3% of the population. Karma is going to be a bitch, and people like me will remember what the Gay Nazis have done to deserve it and will look the other way.
@Jason-
I'll backtrack on use of the word "wrongdoing" but can't think of a way to express it. I think that customers' actions were obnoxious (and certainly more harmful) but I don't much like what the jeweler did either. As I said, I'm on the same side of the issue that he is, but I don't agree with the content or the delivery of his statement. It was counterproductive and not in the spirit of Christianity IMHO.
chickelit said:
Boycotting the Althouse Amazon link is always an option if haven't aleatory done so.
This.
There is a larger issue here. I don't know what happens to people in Canada when anyone makes a public profession in support of the historic conjugal view of marriage, but in the U.S. people are viciously harassed. There is an entire cadre of what some refer to as the "gaystopo" the "gay mafia" or what Camilla Paglia describes as "utterly fascist & utterly Stalinist" political correctness, who spring into action. If it's on television as in the case of Duck Dynasty or The Benham brothers cancelled house flipping TV series, gay activists who have fabricated twitter accounts and make it appear as if there's large scale outrage apply pressure to have the shows cancelled. (They did not succeed with Duck Dynasty but were successful with the Benham Brothers.) If it's individual business owners then they start a massive calling campaign to terrorize the persons and their loved ones with the most vile threats that rival the actions of ISIS and place so many phone orders that the business owners don't know what are and what are not genuine orders and the have to shut down there business, sometimes temporarily.
This kind of gay fascist bullying is a stark contrast to the lovable, adorable gay characters portrayed on comedy sitcoms that Hollywood has so successfully propagandized the sleeping public with. This same asleep at the wheel duped public doesn't realize that the purpose of same sex marriage is not marriage equality. In America, once SSM is the law of the land, the full intention of activists will be to enact legislation that criminalizes any public expression or activity opposing the gay lifestyle or same sex marriage. All churches and religious institutions will be targeted for shut down. The U.S. constitution, the most unique document in the history of nations, will be eviscerated and its amendments unrecognizable. Bulwarks against tyranny like free speech, freedom of the press,the right of conscience, the free exercise of religion etc. will no longer be viable principles because gay activism will not tolerate any descent on this question.
While Europe has begun a suicide mission vis-a-vis mutltimulticulturalism and the invitation to masses of Muslim's to immigrate there, totalitarianism is at the door in the U.S. The West is collapsing under the weight of it's own moral bankruptcy and same sex marriage is just one more link along a continuum of marriage deconstruction which began in the fifties. But it's leading to a fascist state with a kind of fascism the world has never seen before, gay fascism.
Cardinal Francis George himself commenting on a now famous statement of his said, "Speaking a few years ago to a group of priests, entirely outside of the current political debate, I was trying to express in overly dramatic fashion what the complete secularization of our society could bring." This is the comment. "I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history."
That's what this is all about. The ruination of "The Church" because it is the church that opposes secular thought with a transcendent world view which secular thought cannot comprehend. Therefore, it must destroy her and same sex marriage is the vehicle.
A sign in his own business is "counterproductive and not in the spirit of Christianity?"
Just what in the world was "not in the spirit of Christianity?"
I really don't see how you can condemn the actions of the jeweler in this case. Over that sign?
Jesus flipped the moneychangers tables in the Temple and chased them around with a whip.
Jesus addressed the scribes and Pharisees and called them "fools! Vipers! Hypocrites!"
There's a reason the Sanhedrin were keen to get rid of him. Jesus wasn't just some little iron-age hippie who wandered the desert picking flowers and saying 'Be nice to people."
Jesus's teachings had teeth.
Matt Walsh deals with the "Nice Jesus" false doctrine at length here.
http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/04/07/jesus-didnt-care-about-being-nice-or-tolerant-and-neither-should-you/
The spirit of Christianity calls us to do many things and be many things. Wishy-washy and lukewarm aren't on the list.
Althouse runs a fabulous blog here, with interesting posts on a daily basis, and a great collection of commenters.
But no one is perfect (not even me!) and every once and a while Althouse reveals this about herself, too. This is one of those times, when she lends serious, high-caliber ammo to the anti-19th-Amendment crown.
Humperdink,
Surely the majority of those non-business-related signs are still business-related in the sense that the owner thinks they will endear him to his customer base.
Jason I don't think I've effectively communicated my position, I'm not condemning the jeweler, and not really saying that he should have been nicer about the way he expressed his viewpoint.; it's more that I'm expressing disagreement with him. I fully agree that there are times when niceness is not called for.
My main objection is that I think the view he expressed is inaccurate, even though I agree with the more general position opposing SSM. My view is that marriage has been more seriously harmed by other social trends, long before gays started seeking access to it. To frame the current situation as an attack on marriage is a mistake that leaves one vulnerable to the charge of hypocrisy.
Jesus could effectively call out the money changers because he was consistent. Christians (or other conservatives) who are now loudly speaking out about "attacks" on marriage, if they have not previously spoken out about divorce, cohabitation, adultery, contraception, etc, have not been consistent and it weakens the argument.
Now obviously I don't know, perhaps this guy really has been consistent, but somehow I doubt that he's displayed that sign in protest of, say, no fault divorce laws.
Also, I will say that since you've given me push back I have considered why that is, and I can see that the bullying by SSM proponents and the attempts to silence dissent is serious enough that it makes it hard to discuss nuance. I'll just say that I'm not trying to weaken the response by saying we should always be warm and fuzzy- I'm saying that we should strengthen our position by acting with integrity and make our arguments as consistent and effective as possible.
Christians (or other conservatives) who are now loudly speaking out about "attacks" on marriage, if they have not previously spoken out about divorce, cohabitation, adultery, contraception, etc, have not been consistent and it weakens the argument.
Well, that's the orthodox position of every observant Catholic on the planet, then, and it's been Church doctrine all along. They've been consistent.
I'm saying that we should strengthen our position by acting with integrity and make our arguments as consistent and effective as possible.
Do you have some evidence that this jeweler has not acted with integrity and consistency?
Are only perfectly observant and consistent people allowed to make an affirmation of their values via a sign in their own store?
Are people who may be ok with contraception or cohabitation but opposed to same-sex marriage not allowed to express their own beliefs via a sign in their own store?
but somehow I doubt that he's displayed that sign in protest of, say, no fault divorce laws.
Lots of people opposed the onset of NFD laws, and still think they are a bad idea. Why on earth would he post a sign in his store about no-fault divorce? He sells wedding rings. Not divorce rings. The terms of divorce simply would not come up in his store, and he would not be dragged into no-fault divorce in any way, shape or form.
Who appointed you the arbiter of consistency for jewelers, anyway? There's not even some rule that says he should also be opposed to NF divorce, unless he professes to be Catholic. It is perfectly possible to be fine with no-fault divorce and still opposed to same sex marriage.
Jason, I have not been appointed "arbiter" and am under no such illusions. I'm a person with an opinion that differs from the jeweller's, and I am expressing the basis for the difference.
And no, it is not wrong to express an opinion if you are not perfect but the greater the difference between your words and actions, the less effective you are as a spokesperson for your beliefs.
It is perfectly possible to be fine with no-fault divorce and still opposed to same sex marriage
Yes it is possible but it is an argument from a much weaker position.
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