Comment by c3534l
9 years ago
Do you think I should have a sign on my business door that says "no blacks allowed," too? Also the cake incident also involved the owners posting the names and phone numbers of the gay couple on facebook and asked people to harass them.
> Also the cake incident also involved the owners posting the names and phone numbers of the gay couple on facebook and asked people to harass them.
Wait a minute... where did you see that? This is the first time I have heard this part of the story. I thought the owners simply said "no", and then got sued for several hundred thousand dollars.
> Aaron Klein had posted a copy of Laurel's complaint on his Facebook page. The complaint included Rachel and Laurel's home address and phone number. Rachel and Laurel received hundreds of angry and threatening messages in response to Klein's post, including death threats. Klein later testified he was unaware that the women's personal information was on the complaint when he posted it. The BOLI decision found his denial was not credible.
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-25119-bittersweet-cake...
No, of course not! I think the line is pretty clear there, a person can't choose to be black or white, but a marriage is an "opt in" event, two people are freely choosing to be married.
There have been a lot of these sorts of incidents; I didn't hear about the DOXing incident, that's quite sad, and of course, inexcusable, for any reason.
However, there was an incident [http://bit.ly/1MxG5S8] where a lady was good friends with a man and was a regular customer for years. She did not want her company's name associated with his wedding (sounds oddly similar to the OP), so she politely declined.
This all being said, I'm very curious how you reconcile the two situations, I'm interested to hear your viewpoint.
You're conflating an act, getting married, with a state of being, being gay. You could use the same justification of marriage being an "opt in" event to justify refusing to serve an interracial couple or literally any protected class.
Similarly, eating at a restaurant is an "opt in" event. Should you be able to discriminate at will in that circumstance?
I am by no means an advocate of Mill's liberalism, but according to that philosophy espoused everywhere else but the case of a business refusing access to black customers seems to me inconsistent.
This discussion would be getting pretty far off-topic, but a lot of thoughtful people would argue that the line isn't clear at all. At the least, marriage confers legal benefits to a couple, including rights during medical emergencies and upon death, and if anyone really "chooses" their sexuality, they do so long before they are at an age to make that choice consciously, and yet long after they can change their mind about it.
I don't think you can justify allowing a business to refuse service on the basis of sexuality using the logic that prevents businesses from refusing service to different skin colors.
I do understand your point about choosing vs not-choosing. A marriage doesn't require the flowers to receive the named benefits above, just a visit to the courthouse though.
In your opinion, how are the two situations different (CloudFlare vs The Florist)?
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