Days after signing a “religious freedom” bill that allows businesses to be indemnified from lawsuits filed by LGBT people for discrimination, Indiana governor Mike Pence tried to backtrack for fear that his state would be vilified and face economic boycotts by the rest of the country. What compromise will he come up with to assuage his right-wing FoxNews-watching base, while appearing not to be that homophobic?
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell 2.0
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is SOOO last century.
The next round of state laws will mandate LGBT persons wear identifying clothing so that good, religious folk can be afforded the “freedom” of knowing without asking.
Taxpayers will provide lovely, elastic, rainbow arm bands.
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Patiently waiting for Tom Cotton to be cited for employing a “wide stance” in an airport restroom stall.
Any time a conservative starts talking about *their* freedom, it always turns out that they’re really talking about restricting someone else’s freedom.
@Jack: No, I don’t literally mean literally every time. Nor do I literally mean literally every literal conservative. It’s called a “generalization” m’kay? You do not need to employ any crack-inspired “logic” to discover that I’m really talking about shipping all the conservatives to Spain. (Not that it’s a BAD idea, but it’s not what I”m suggesting with this particular post.) mmmmm’kaaaay?
I was actually gonna let this one go as such a claim is so moronic that it looks ridiculous all by itself. But since it seems you really need me to respond…
Any time a progressive starts talking about freedom…
But really why should a business have the freedom to decide whom it serves?
Damn!
Are you guys on the same side???
😀
Actually, I was hoping to forestall another idiotic exchange.
> But really why should a business have the freedom to decide whom it serves?
Humans have freedoms, businesses don’t. A business has neither brain nor a soul and is incapable of ‘deciding’ anything. Humans decide things.
We have laws against people’s “freedom” to steal – it doesn’t matter whether that person’s religion condones stealing, our society doesn’t. We’ve collectively decided that one person’s right to keep his property overrides the other person’s freedom to steal it.
Not that long ago, white people hid behind the bible in order to justify discrimination against blacks. We had to pass laws to stop that practice. Today, we have people hiding behind the bible to justify discrimination against gays. There is no difference whatsoever.
But I would like to thank you for proving my point so nicely. You just tried to pass off discrimination as “freedom” .
“I was hoping to forestall another idiotic exchange.”
Why’d you open your mouth then?
It’s my mistake though. I meant to say “Why should business OWNERS have the freedom to decide whom they serve.” As in, why should people get to make decisions about the property they own and how they spend their time and effort.
If someone really wants to be stupid enough to ban gays, then boycott that business. I would. I mean if they really want to turn away perfectly good customers it’s their loss. And if it were legal, we’d be able to vote them out of business with our dollars. If it is outlawed, we usually won’t know if a business is owned by bigots.
I mean why would gay people want to be served by people who hate them and why would they want to support them financially? And how is it a “freedom” to force others to do business with oneself?
I knew it! You two actually ARE on the same side of this issue. Now, kiss and make up!
😀 😀 😀
Comparing discrimination with stealing is a false analogy. Stealing DOES infringe upon right to property; being refused service infringes upon an imaginary right not to have one’s feelings hurt.
No Jack – it’s the right to live your life as you wish.
We’re talking about rural Indiana. You don”t buy a wedding cake at the Quickie Mart. It’s a specialized business and the invisible hand ensures that there aren’t more than are necessary.
That might mean there is only one in your area,and if they refuse service you’re SOL. Or there might be two in the area – which one do you think will do business with gays? The nice one or the other one where the poor people go? Back in the forties, you could find some restaurants who would serve blacks, but they weren’t the nice ones. The owners probably didn’t want to serve blacks either, they only did so out of necessity.
OTOH, the bakery is in business to sell wedding cakes. It’s not like we’re forcing a plumber to make cakes. The only force part is that they have to treat other people as if they were their equals. You know, one of the founding principals of this country.
> If someone really wants to be stupid enough to ban gays, then boycott that business.
“If you won’t serve me then I’ll boycott your store”
uh, yeah that’ll work. So I’ll again thank you for posting – this time for the best laugh I’ve had in some time.
Once again your disingenuousness (or is it your warped thinking? My money is on both.) is demonstrated. When I said boycott a business that refuses gays, I was clearly referring to myself who would be served and you who has at least claimed to be straight and any other sympathetic heterosexuals of which there are many.
@ Jack – are you telling me that YOU would boycott a store because they didn’t serve gays? Somehow I find that hard to believe.
Remember Chick-fil-A? They got MORE business by advertising their homophobia, some other company has over $800,000 a their crowd-funded defense fund. They don’t CARE if a few liberals boycott, they’ve got far more RW idiots ready to back them up. If the homophobes weren’t in the majority, they wouldn’t have gotten the law in the first place.
It is always difficult for the minority to push their will on an entrenched majority. That’s why we have a constitution in the first place.
I heard Mike Huckabee’s rant today. Homosexuals will not be happy until they’ve destroyed all churches in America (or something like that).
For a long time I’ve wondered what it is about conservative “Christians” that make them fear those who don’t agree with their brand of religion? Even to the extent that they feel it is necessary for them to defend “God” (as if He needs their help).
😀
He does seem rather fragile. If two gay people get married, that somehow hurts the sanctity of christian’s marriages. I don’t believe in sanctity, and when two gay people get marred it doesn’t hurt my marriage a bit, even if I attend the wedding.
I have to laugh when I hear “sanctity of marriage” uttered by those pundits who are in their 3rd, 4th, 5th marriages. Yeah, how sanctified is it then?
😀
But mein verehrter Lehrer, surely as a teacher you know that if one marriage is sanctified, five marriages must be sanctified five times as much ?!! Elementary arithmetic, nicht wahr ?…
Henri
There was a reason why Paul chose not to take a wife, unlike Peter. 😀
I suspect the reason was that he knew that he’d never get away with that 1 Corinthians 14:34 bullshit at home…. 😉
Henri
Maybe Paul swung the other direction?\
😀
Said “Christians” lack the faith they vociferously profess to the same (breathtaking extent) that they are terrified of the freedom they insist they must have. The more they expound on “their “God, the more they demean her (generally taken to be a Cuban-Iranian bi-gal).
They, therefore, fear their deaths more than most and have to make everyone else miserable because of it.
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Have you heard of the “twitter tempest” regarding “What Jesus DIDN’T say”? I don’t twit so I’ll indulge myself here:
Jesus did NOT say: “I am the way, the truth and the light AND your personal, unassailable excuse to act in a manner exactly opposite to that in which I have been telling, begging and admonishing you to act.”
There’s a silver lining in this cloud. The First Church of Cannabis claims the law makes it illegal to interfere with the practice of their religion. Their membership is growing by leaps and bounds. [story]
There’s even a little precedence – Native Americans can legally use mushrooms and peyote in their services; and the Scientologopaths got a legal ruling that an organization doesn’t have to worship a “god” in order to be a church. (It’s been legal for a shepherd to fleece his flock since the dawn of time)
hay, it’s gettin’ near 4:20, time for a little worship … (see what I did there?)
Crap – I fat fingered the link, there. It still works on my browser. But let’s try this again:
Story
Brilliant, Ted ! Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell 2.0 resolves the problem, without infringing on the freedom to discriminate against various people that is so dear to the hearts of certain politicians – and it would seem, one commentator on this thread, a certain appropriately named «Jack Heart»…. 😉
Henri
Care to explain how it is a person’s “right” to demand service?
My position is hardly too nuanced to be easily understood. I don’t think anyone should “discriminate” (in the common usage of the term) and I would not patronize anyone that did. I also know the government doesn’t have legitimate power to outlaw it.
@ Jack Heart –
I had begun to think that we all were reaching common ground, but now I’m not so sure anymore.
It was approximately 30 years ago that I was trying to sell a house (my property and my decision) and the government told me that I could not refuse any black applicants. So how is the current situation (gays requesting equal treatment) any different?
The government was overreaching in your case as well. In my opinion that is beyond the legitimate scope and role of government. Just because it doesn’t have the right to do something won’t stop it. Government will take as many powers it doesn’t deserve as we are willing to let it! It didn’t have the right to tell you that, but legally it can anyway.
At this point, I think I could say 2 + 2 = 4 and pigs can’t fly and CrazyH would disagree with an avalanche of condescension and bile.
Why stop at discrimination? If racism is so bad, let’s outlaw racist beliefs! Or are you guys not progressive enough? On the side of racists are you? Stop defending the racists! Being racist is not a right.
Laws, at least of the type we are discussing here, «Jack Heart», are usually attempts to reach a balance between conflicting interests – if a certain course of action is universally agreed (in practice, not merely in words) than such laws are hardly necessary. The «right» of the owner of a shop catering to the public to refuse to sell to people of a certain skin colour or sexual proclivity or political point of view is no more inalienable than the «right» of these members of the public to demand service on an equitable basis. Just as they can take their custom elsewhere (in the event other shops, which do not discriminate are available), so can the owner engage in another type of economic activity (if others in which he or she does not have to deal with the public are available). It is precisely the province of government to settle this type of issue based on the political will of the people ; that is what government is all about….
Henri
> Why stop at discrimination? If racism is so bad, let’s outlaw racist beliefs!
You’ve got that backwards as usual, Jack.
We’re all about outlawing harmful behavior. If you want to make your life harder by hating people who’ve done nothing to you, go right ahead. You’re only harming yourself. You just can’t *act* on those beliefs without violating someone else’s rights. Their right to live their lives trumps your right to be an ignorant, narrow minded, superstitious, bigot.
Your right to swing your arms stops where my nose begins.
No, the people who want to legislate beliefs are on the other side of the aisle. Creationism in schools? “Under God” … “In God We Trust”? Hell, Texas even has an unconstitutional law disbarring atheists from holding public office. (Yes, I know you claim to be a life-long atheist, I’m comparing sides of the aisle here, not individuals.)
> CH would disagree with an avalanche of condescension and bile.
Jack – first, look down this thread: You responded to me, not the other way around. That’s the way it usually plays out – I make a post, and you start calling me names. Take a look back at the last few slappy fights, they went down the same way.
Most people learn by third grade that if you don’t want a fight – don’t start one. … duh? They also learn that if they want other people to talk nice to them, they have to be nice to other people. Are we waiting for you to graduate third grade?
I almost never reply to you on those rare occasions when you make sense. It’s when you stand up on your hind legs and start claiming that 2 + 2 = flying bacon that I come in and shoot you down.
Lastly, it’s the fucking internet. If it’s too hot for you, GTFO of the kitchen. WHINING about it just makes you look even sillier.
I knew it! You’re defending the bigots! That makes you a bigot, bigot!
@Jack –
I’m not sure I heard you correctly. Are you complaining that I treat you differently just because I disagree with your lifestyle choices?
Complaining? Whining? I guess the Internet really is the third grade. No. Mocking you? Most definitely. Our history is a little more than this thread, but I wouldn’t expect you to remember much at your age. You attacked me in the first place because my views so offended your righteousness. Others here who disagree with me are usually civil. You never were.
And I’m making a comment here since that’s what a comments section is for, but I’m not asking for you to be outlawed.
As for the kitchen, I don’t go I there–it’s for women.