House of Eratosthenes

Feelin’ vindicated here. I’ve been saying, ever since this issue took center-stage that gay marriage is not a civil-rights issue, it’s a freedom-for-everyone-else issue.

Find someone who is actively keeping gay people from being together, or trying to at least, then we can have a different conversation. But when we start talking about freedoms being taken away, the first thing we have to do to assess the situation as it really exists, is to look at who’s trying to stop who from doing what.

People who say gay marriage is a civil rights issue, haven’t done that. Or, if they have, they’ve been making up stuff that hasn’t actually happened, while denying other things that are really happening. Like this…

It’s only fair to ask what’s next. Litigation? A church getting sued for not holding the ceremony? When it comes to that point, and it looks like we’re practically there — keep tellin’ yerself that you’re free, little man. Aren’t businesses in America allowed to refuse service to anyone?

Same-sex marriage is a personal thing. So is the decision not to be a part of it.

And regarding the woman at 0:57…I must say I’m getting tired of hearing that. “This community will not allow.” That’s the kind of nonsense people say, when they think they can speak on behalf of such a community.

Buckley was right; they claim to tolerate other points of view, and then are shocked and offended to discover there are other points of view.

You know protesting every little silly thing has now reached the inevitable point of nonsensicalness when people demand that a business perform a transaction…that they don’t wish to.

Let that marinate. A business is willing to NOT take your money and…your upset about it? Oh my, I’ll have to find someone else to take my money. Time to protest!

Grow up, go find another baker and do us all a big favor, shut your cakeholes! (Hah!)

If they think they’re doing their movement a favor by protesting every single time someone doesn’t fall into line with their Gay marriage crappola, they’d be incorrect. At a certain point Americans, even those who are on you side, lose interest in manufactured outrage.

Too bad we can’t legislate maturity.
- tim | 07/31/2012 @ 09:24
House of Eratosthenes: Aren’t businesses in America allowed to refuse service to anyone?

http://www.toadhaven.com/images/Martin1.gif
- Zachriel | 07/31/2012 @ 10:06
Here it is in a nutshell:

(from http://www.city-journal.org/2012/eon0731df.html on “Remembering Milton Friedman on his 100th birthday”)

Consider some quotes from his fascinating, lengthy 1973 Playboy interview: “Under free enterprise, a person who has a prejudice has to pay for that prejudice”;

That’s it. Someone doesn’t want to sell you something – take your money and move on to someone who will. If there is a large enough (free) market, someone will move in to provide for those unserved needs. Simple. Protest with your feet and your wallet. Problem solved.
- pdwalker | 07/31/2012 @ 10:30
PD, if a store said “we don’t serve blacks’ would everyone suggest they had the right to turn them away? I think they do, but the Civil Rights Act says no.

Morgan argues gay marriage is not a civil right….is it a right at all? Is marriage a right or a government granted privilege? The SCOTUS has ruled it is a fundamental right.
- tracycoyle | 07/31/2012 @ 10:58
Tracy, I’m not up on that. Did you mean to say the 9th circuit or the SCOSCA by chance?

To find same-sex marriage to be a civil right, they’d have to either ignore what I said…

…we start talking about freedoms being taken away, the first thing we have to do to assess the situation as it really exists, is to look at who’s trying to stop who from doing what.

Or invent their own reality, one in which we have social conservatives walking the streets, storming into churches, stopping gay people from getting married much like the Ku Klux Klan stopped black people from voting or some such. Now, I will grant here and there, there might be some who would like to do that…but it would be sophistry to claim that such a position reliably constitutes one side of the debate we see raging on this. This is about forcing people to recognize things they don’t want to recognize…people like our cake-maker guy here. The “force versus freedom” struggle doesn’t seem to be manifested in real-life events, in any number, from anything I’m seeing.
- mkfreeberg | 07/31/2012 @ 11:47
Litigation isn’t next – it’s already happened right here in the Land of Enchantment.

http://scottfillmer.com/2008/07/06/christian-photographer-refused-gay-wedding/
- Daniel | 07/31/2012 @ 22:15
http://beautifultrouble.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/student-sit-ins.gif
- Zachriel | 08/01/2012 @ 05:58
In response to Daniel’s link; businesses always react to the market place. Though admittedly usual for the benefit of more income not less but still…hear me out.

For example, if I ran a business that handled walkup customers as described in the article, I would simply in response jackup my pricing to such an amount the customer(s), who I don’t want in the first place, would in turn simply take their business and money elsewhere. Leaving no basis to sue me.

Or say…if I couldn’t get out of the job, simply double book for the day, cancel with the gay couple, a week or two before hand, and refund their monies.

Fight fire with fire. Outwit them and the law.

Just spit balling here, but where am I wrong?
- tim | 08/01/2012 @ 07:41
If I was a gay man trying to get married, I’d be grateful to the cake-making guy for handling it the way he chose to handle it, as opposed to the way small-tee tim is brainstorming there. Can you imagine the frustration that would cause.

As for Z’s false-equivalency with the civil rights marches. I’ve been saying for a long time, the only way you can make liberal ideas look sensible, is to make similar things look different, and different things look identical. This would be an example of the latter.

We’ve got these creepy mayors telling businesses, you aren’t coming into our cities…because of personal opinions expressed by the executives of those businesses. There is a clear and obvious message of “We will destroy you if you don’t have the correct personal values” — echoed here, in the story about the cake maker.

I suppose this opinion is too controversial for anyplace but a blog…but it seems, more and more, like we were faced with a choice of freedom being first-and-foremost, or, check your freedoms at the door society will tell you what to think — because that is how we get the minority population voting. Not necessarily, make minorities equal in every way and settle their grievances once and for all, which would hurt the democrat party, but just get them voting, resentfully, which is clearly advantageous to the democrat party. So freedom took a back seat, and we were sure it would all work out in the end and we’d get our freedoms back…well…nuh huh…the wise elders are telling us what to think, and every year they have more to tell us, and we know less and less about who they are.
- mkfreeberg | 08/01/2012 @ 12:25
mkfreeberg: As for Z’s false-equivalency with the civil rights marches.

Not to the marches, but to whether “businesses in America allowed to refuse service to anyone”. As tracycoyle noted, some think they do, “but the Civil Rights Act says no”.
- Zachriel | 08/01/2012 @ 12:41
Well if it’s a debate about what the law does & does not force the businesses to do, without regard to what is sensible or just, then the wedding-cake guy wins. Until such time as the law is changed.

If it’s a debate about what is sensible or just, then we’ll have to ponder how many different civil-rights-marches we want, for how many decades, how much social unrest do we want…and is social unrest really the only way to achieve equality for the classes of people who should have it? Also to be considered: Is this not the Land of the Free? Doesn’t Milton Friedman have the best idea for a resolution, when he points out that when people discriminate unfairly in a free-enterprise system, they must pay for the privilege?

Or, the debate may be about some third thing I have not identified. But to me, it seems to be one of those two things being discussed; perhaps with people getting those two different things mixed up.
- mkfreeberg | 08/01/2012 @ 12:48
mkfreeberg: Aren’t businesses in America allowed to refuse service to anyone?

No. Under civil rights laws, they can’t refuse based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.

mkfreeberg: Also to be considered: Is this not the Land of the Free?

So are you against civil rights laws that prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations? Most people look on the lunch counter protests to be one of the defining moments of American liberty.

mkfreeberg: Doesn’t Milton Friedman have the best idea for a resolution, when he points out that when people discriminate unfairly in a free-enterprise system, they must pay for the privilege?

Not necessarily individually. People can profit from keeping others down.
- Zachriel | 08/01/2012 @ 16:53
In Loving v Virginia, the SCOTUS said “Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival….” It went on to note that using race to deny marriage had no support.
- tracycoyle | 08/01/2012 @ 17:09
Tim, deliberately overbooking, or lying about overbooking, would have that person violating other morals to keep from violating a particular one. That’s not the best solution, IMO.

Zachriel – I have to hand it to you. Your skill and extracting sentences and constructing straw men is among the best I’ve ever seen.

The fact that an argument was used improperly in the past does not mean that every time the argument it used, it is being used improperly. Yes, the civil rights act prohibited discrimination on a host of things. The comparison between gay marriage and “separate but equal” is so far apart, apples to oranges doesn’t even do it justice. More like apples to wheelbarrows. Gay men are free to marry whatever woman they choose, provided she’ll go along with it; gay women are free to marry whatever man they choose, provided he’ll go along with it. This is NOT an “equal protection under the law” issue – this is a “justify my fringe behavior” issue. I, for one, do not wish to cede any more ground than the “divorce for any reason a’tall” people already have.
- Daniel | 08/01/2012 @ 17:11
So are you against civil rights laws that prohibit racial discrimination in public accommodations? Most people look on the lunch counter protests to be one of the defining moments of American liberty.

I’m not attempting to evaluate moral superiority here, I’m simply stating a purely logical point. Without freedom of non-association, there is no freedom of association.

As far as my opinion is concerned, I have to doubt there is much racial harmony to be gained from requiring the businesses to attend to clientele against their wishes. It would seem history has generally supported this viewpoint. Yes, we have a new cultural ethos in place, discriminating on the basis of skin color was in vogue once, now it no longer is; that’s a good thing; but only a fool would say we have racial harmony. It is imagined by many millions that “America is not ready” for a black president — this is proven wrong, beyond any reasonable doubt at all — and not only does the racial strife persist, but the new black president and His defenders exploit it routinely.

A reasonable observer would have to say, if the goal was to increase minority voting, which helps democrats, then it is a success, but if the goal was to decrease racial polarization — which would hurt democrats — then it was a fail. Perhaps there was another way to end the discrimination without sacrificing real freedom for that goal. Like, allow the market to work?

Here it is, 2012, and we’re obliged to have another revolution for the gay people who want to get married…plus, whoever is coming after them, with a similar grievance, in the next generation or two ahead. If that isn’t a fail, I don’t know what is.
- mkfreeberg | 08/01/2012 @ 17:18
tracycoyle: In Loving v Virginia, the SCOTUS said “Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man”

Good point.

Daniel: Your skill and extracting sentences and constructing straw men is among the best I’ve ever seen.

If you are referring to our comments to mkfreeberg, he repeated his position more than once. Thought it was important to make sure we understood it correctly.

Daniel: The fact that an argument was used improperly in the past does not mean that every time the argument it used, it is being used improperly.

Yes, that’s true, but some people don’t think the argument was used improperly in the past with regards to race.

Daniel: Gay men are free to marry whatever woman they choose, provided she’ll go along with it; gay women are free to marry whatever man they choose, provided he’ll go along with it.

The same argument was made about interracial marriage.

mkfreeberg: Without freedom of non-association, there is no freedom of association.

Freedom of association is protected. You can belong to a racist church or club. However, if you open your doors to the public as a business, then civil rights laws apply.
- Zachriel | 08/01/2012 @ 17:24
Loving, in context, actually cited Skinner vs. Oklahoma (1942) which said…

We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race. [bold emphasis mine]

Gay marriage is not a civil rights issue.
- mkfreeberg | 08/01/2012 @ 18:06
Yea, it is. Gay marriage does not stop procreation. If marriage is fundamental, why is preventing people from getting married beneficial?

Your quote doesn’t change the meaning: marriage is a basic civil right. Procreation does not require marriage to occur, and marriage does not need procreation to be valid. The race will survive as long as procreation occurs – as we have seen in societies that have negative birth replacement yet continue to have average marriage rates, marriage+procreation does not = survival.

From the New World Encyclopedia:
Civil rights are the protections and privileges of personal power and rights given to all citizens by law. Civil rights are distinguished from “human rights” or “natural rights,” also sometimes called “our God-given rights.” Civil Rights are rights that are bestowed by nations on those within their territorial boundaries, while natural or human rights are rights that many scholars claim that individuals have by nature of being born.

Nothing can prevent two people from getting ‘married’ in the sense of the commitment to each other. V and I were never married in the legal sense, but in the ‘traditional’ sense that two should become one and pledge themselves to each other, BAM, we were there. And, regardless of the law, our friends, neighbors, family and community (schools, hospitals, businesses) all treated us as a couple. All that was lacking was a legal recognition and what are the objections to legal recognition?

In the Iowa Supreme Court opinion on same sex marriage, every argument that I have heard,here and elsewhere, was put forth and discussed. Gay marriage does not stop heterosexuals from getting married. Procreation occurs outside of marriage, married couples do not procreate, therefore marriage is not the only way to have procreation, and gay marriage neither encourages nor discourages heterosexuals from procreating. Families do better with mom and dad marriages. I agree, marginally. I know some heterosexual marriages that were doing significant damage to their children and CJ was and is a fine example of child-rearing regardless of the family makeup. That said, we don’t disallow families that lack a mother or father, and we allow divorces to couples with children. Therefore, while gay marriages may form additional families, it does not prevent heterosexuals from forming families outside of marriage, within marriage nor does it prevent families once formed from breaking up.

I have the right to marry whomever I choose. Nothing in the law can change that. Society recognizes gay couples as, at a minimum, a couple, and when children are involved, as a family. V, CJ and I traveled on vacation to 38 states and in none of them were we treated as anything but a family. We lived in rural Montana in a community that would put to shame a Southern Baptist and we were still treated as a family.

Government must state a reason for denying recognition of a right, or infringing on a right – it must serve a defined purpose. Gay marriage does not stop heterosexual marriage, it does not stop procreation. If marriage is ‘fundamental’ to the existence and survival of the race, then encouraging MORE marriage would seem to be a valid position.
- tracycoyle | 08/01/2012 @ 18:31
If marriage is fundamental, why is preventing people from getting married beneficial?

Again, when we debate the merits & demerits involved in stopping people from doing things, the only way for the debate to be useful is to keep in mind who is stopping who from doing what. We do not have activists breaking into churches disrupting gay wedding ceremonies. Homosexuals can set up households, and then as far as the religious ceremony, all they have to do is find a willing church just like they have to find a willing partner. The point of contention is the state recognition of it, and at that point we’re talking about forcing other people who live in the same state people to recognize a union they, personally, do not want to recognize.

The point about procreation is, in context, this was the sole underpinning justification for the much-quoted statement declaring marriage to be “one of the basic civil rights of man.” I’m guessing your point is, since it’s basic, if one can have it then all must have it. But it doesn’t make sense to disconnect it from the procreation (“it does not stop procreation”) and then try to keep this justification as a “basic civil right,” when its qualification for that status is based on that human act and on nothing else. I understand you’re involved in this personally, but as far as why the nation is tying itself up in knots about it right now, it’s just so obviously a failing incumbent president looking for a mandate during an election year. This one has currency because a lot of people like the feeling of being part of a “civil rights revolution”; but this is not Selma.

So you have the right to marry whomever you choose. Forcing others to recognize it is outside of your rights though. As the wedding-cake story illustrates, that is what it’s really always been about. Now, to me, the primary issue is really, can society work indefinitely the way it is — with slavery legal, the answer was no, and a reading of history from that time will confirm it; we were embroiled in a pro- versus anti-abolition controversy boiling under the surface, before Fort Sumter, going all the way back to the Revolution. With the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments duly ratified, could society work the way it was, indefinitely, before the CRA…well…probably not. There, we had an enforcement problem, so the “basic civil rights” were properly legislated but these literacy tests and other hijinks were being used to deny the rights. And so, the way I see it anyway, when we discuss basic civil rights we’re asking my litmus-test-question…can society work, indefinitely, this way. Well, if it’s “legalize gay marriage and the whole controversy goes away” then, absolutely yes. But I don’t have any faith in that anymore, because this current tempest in a teapot is driven by this modern human need to be part of a perpetual revolution. So maybe that’s what we should really be discussing, all these people living out their whole lives on a hairpin turn, wanting to be part of this Anakin Skywalker “Let’s take over the galaxy and make things the way we want them to be” thing. Polygamy does not follow, they say — based on what? What’s so magical about the number two?

Can society work, indefinitely, with a periodic every-ten-years dust-up over re-defining marriage to include this, that, something else? I think not.
- mkfreeberg | 08/02/2012 @ 06:38
mkfreeberg: The point of contention is the state recognition of it, and at that point we’re talking about forcing other people who live in the same state people to recognize a union they, personally, do not want to recognize.

Yes, and many people didn’t want to recognize interracial marriage.

mkfreeberg: But it doesn’t make sense to disconnect it from the procreation (”it does not stop procreation”) and then try to keep this justification as a “basic civil right,” when its qualification for that status is based on that human act and on nothing else.

So old people shouldn’t marry? Should there be a fertility requirement for marriage?
- Zachriel | 08/02/2012 @ 07:23
“Tim, deliberately overbooking, or lying about overbooking, would have that person violating other morals to keep from violating a particular one. That’s not the best solution, IMO.”

Agreed, without even going into a debate about the lesser of two evils.

However, we can be forced by the law to violate one’s morals; forcing Catholic Hospitals to perform abortions, requiring public (tax payer funded) libraries to allow patrons to view porn…right down to cakeman (and the other recent examples) being forced to do business against his personal beliefs about gay marriage. And that’s OK?

Either way how you stand on those examples, surely you can envision the dilemma and feelings you would struggle with if forced into something completely against your belief system.

Then what to do? Overcharge your service, or some other tactic, as an end a round to the law. That’s what’s coming, mark my words. Back people against the wall and don’t be surprised when you don’t like what happens next.

Why do think so many folks turned out in droves yesterday at all those Chick-Fil-a’s? People don’t like when politicians, and others, try to bully decent folks.

To say nothing of the overwhelming majority who do not support gay marriage. SCOTUS, or whatever other court, ruling be damned. Same with abortion and Obamacare. Sure it’s the law, but the law doesn’t rule man’s conscience.

But this isn’t really about a cake, or even gay marriage. It’s about tolerance or rather intolerance. (And not necessarily the way you think. Another words, the intolerance goes both ways.) And forcing people to tolerate. Good luck with that.

And to equate race and sexuality is beyond ridiculous. Go ahead and try that, for example, with the Blacks in California who voted for Obama AND voted against same sex marriage. But yet I’ve never heard of a governor, etc. or a gay organization speak out or protesting a Black church or such. Now why is that?

Is the Chick-Fil-A’s CEO’s statement any different than what most Black preachers say about gay marriage ever Sunday? Or even what Pres. Obama’s stance was on Gay marriage, up until recently? Yet he seemed rather popular with the gay crowd. Odd.

Selective outrage, bully and forcing people…you think that’s the way to persuade people that your side is righteous?

(Personally, I’d take bake the gay couple’s cake. Gay folks have money, and I’m a capitalist. I could give a rat’s ass what you do in the bedroom. Though Gay marriage is another matter entirely…)
- tim | 08/02/2012 @ 08:04

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VindicatedTuesday, July 31st, 2012

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Tuesday, July 31st, 2012