Announcement

Collapse

Civics 101 Guidelines

Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!

Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less

Christian anti-SSM jeweler threatened after making rings for lesbian couple

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Christian anti-SSM jeweler threatened after making rings for lesbian couple

    http://www.theamericanconservative.c...ails-they-lose
    Via Rod Dreher
    A Christian jeweler agreed to custom-make engagement rings for a lesbian couple, knowing that they were a couple, and treated them politely. But when they found out what he really believed about same-sex marriage, even though the man gave them polite service, and agreed to sell them what they asked for, the lesbian couple balked, and demanded their money back — and the mob threatened the business if they didn’t yield. Which, of course, he did.

    You understand, of course, that this is not about getting equal treatment. The lesbian couple received that. This is about demonizing a point of view, and driving those who hold it out of the public square. Just so we’re clear about that.
    Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

  • #2
    What?
    "Kahahaha! Let's get lunatic!"-Add LP
    "And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin is pride that apes humility"-Samuel Taylor Coleridge
    Oh ye of little fiber. Do you not know what I've done for you? You will obey. ~Cerealman for Prez.

    Comment


    • #3
      Something is seriously wrong with this country if I feel like this was one of the better possible outcomes.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Cerealman View Post
        What?
        Not sure if confused or incredulous
        futuramafry.jpg
        Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Knowing Thomas View Post
          Something is seriously wrong with this country if I feel like this was one of the better possible outcomes.
          This happened in Canada, not the US, but it's still relevant to US discourse.
          Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
            The comments section of a Dreher piece is always a good bit of agreeable reasoning, both supporting and dissenting commenters. In this case, I agree with some of the comments: yeah, the couple was wrong to expect their deposit back once they learned of the business owner's views; yeah, that's what you invite as a business owner when you publicly advertise those views in your shop; yeah, this isn't a big deal — customers, in general, are jerks and any public figure, even those people forced into that role by some news hound, are going to experience a lot of online criticism.

            Dreher has gotten way too paranoid in the last six months to a year as he realized that this battle was well and truly lost.
            "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Sam View Post
              The comments section of a Dreher piece is always a good bit of agreeable reasoning, both supporting and dissenting commenters. In this case, I agree with some of the comments: yeah, the couple was wrong to expect their deposit back once they learned of the business owner's views; yeah, that's what you invite as a business owner when you publicly advertise those views in your shop; yeah, this isn't a big deal — customers, in general, are jerks and any public figure, even those people forced into that role by some news hound, are going to experience a lot of online criticism.

              Dreher has gotten way too paranoid in the last six months to a year as he realized that this battle was well and truly lost.
              To be fair, when anyone who so much as voices opposition to same-sex marriage can expect all sorts of nasty and anonymous threats, a little paranoia might be understandable.
              Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
                Exactly!
                Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
                  To be fair, when anyone who so much as voices opposition to same-sex marriage can expect all sorts of nasty and anonymous threats, a little paranoia might be understandable.
                  I'm old enough to remember certain places (that you had to spend at least four years walkin' around) where voicing support for same-sex marriage got you a good deal of nasty comments and some whisper campaigns. I think if we tally up the oppression and abuse of the homosexual community vs. the oppression and abuse of the same-sex opponents, Dreher et al. have nothing to really worry about.

                  Not that nasty threats, anonymous or otherwise, are in any way acceptable. But they are a staple of the Internet: you can't criticize gamers these days without getting nasty anonymous threats. A Dreher-level of paranoia there probably isn't all that rational.
                  "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Sam View Post
                    I'm old enough to remember certain places (that you had to spend at least four years walkin' around) where voicing support for same-sex marriage got you a good deal of nasty comments and some whisper campaigns. I think if we tally up the oppression and abuse of the homosexual community vs. the oppression and abuse of the same-sex opponents, Dreher et al. have nothing to really worry about.

                    Not that nasty threats, anonymous or otherwise, are in any way acceptable. But they are a staple of the Internet: you can't criticize gamers these days without getting nasty anonymous threats. A Dreher-level of paranoia there probably isn't all that rational.
                    The most obnoxious people with respect to threats and ostracization (at least in my experience) aren't LGBT people themselves, but their self-proclaimed allies (some of whom probably would have once been at least somewhat homophobic and are thus overly eager to demonstrate their bona fides). I've had a lot of very good conversations with people who classify somewhere outside of heterosexuality, conversations in which we've found a good deal of common ground and shared sympathies despite differences in our experiences and ideologies.

                    Any time people use politics as an excuse to dehumanize the opposition, when it becomes obvious that they're looking for excuses to hate, I tend to get just a little annoyed. There is absolutely nothing potentially ironic about that statement.
                    Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
                      So, that is just reverse discrimination. Nobody is arguing that Lgbt's can't be in the wrong as well you know.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
                        So you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.
                        “I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.” - C.S. Lewis

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Spartacus View Post
                          To be fair, when anyone who so much as voices opposition to same-sex marriage can expect all sorts of nasty and anonymous threats, a little paranoia might be understandable.
                          I don't at all agree with or endorse nasty anonymous threats. But sadly it seems that's what the internet produces regularly these days in any situation on any issue.

                          I'm curious however... let's say that someone expressed their sincerely held belief that two people of the Jewish faith ought not to be able to marry one another. This person feels that belonging to the Jewish faith is inherently wrong, and campaigns for the government to prohibit two Jews from marrying. What do you think is a justifiable level of response by the general public towards the person campaigning for that viewpoint to become law? How persecuted would Jewish people be justified in feeling if such views were widespread and if they were widely prohibited from marrying one another?

                          I encourage you to think over this analogy because I honestly think that people who are against same-sex marriage simply don't realize how inherently hurtful such a position is towards gay people. It's hard to find a more personal and hurtful place to threaten people and be nasty to them than in their relationships - people's marriages are really really important to them and to try and take away someone's marriage is about as personal and as hurtful as it gets. So when you say "when anyone who so much as voices opposition to same-sex marriage can expect all sorts of nasty and anonymous threats" I'm not really sure what to make of that sentence, because I'm not sure I'd agree that any level of nasty and anonymous threats can ever reach the level of hurtfulness that trying to take away people's marriages and their right to marry does - that's simply a whole other level of hurtful attack on their closest personal relationship and a fundamental diminishment of their status as humans that operates on a plane far above anything that can be achieved with simple verbal nastiness.
                          "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                          "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                          "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                            I don't at all agree with or endorse nasty anonymous threats. But sadly it seems that's what the internet produces regularly these days in any situation on any issue.

                            I'm curious however... let's say that someone expressed their sincerely held belief that two people of the Jewish faith ought not to be able to marry one another. This person feels that belonging to the Jewish faith is inherently wrong, and campaigns for the government to prohibit two Jews from marrying. What do you think is a justifiable level of response by the general public towards the person campaigning for that viewpoint to become law? How persecuted would Jewish people be justified in feeling if such views were widespread and if they were widely prohibited from marrying one another?

                            Let's clarify this, ok? Are they also lobbying for the two Jews not to even be able to be together, or is it simply to deny them a piece of Government paper?
                            That's what
                            - She

                            Without a clear-cut definition of sin, morality becomes a mere argument over the best way to train animals
                            - Manya the Holy Szin (The Quintara Marathon)

                            I may not be as old as dirt, but me and dirt are starting to have an awful lot in common
                            - Stephen R. Donaldson

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                              I don't at all agree with or endorse nasty anonymous threats. But sadly it seems that's what the internet produces regularly these days in any situation on any issue.

                              I'm curious however... let's say that someone expressed their sincerely held belief that two people of the Jewish faith ought not to be able to marry one another. This person feels that belonging to the Jewish faith is inherently wrong, and campaigns for the government to prohibit two Jews from marrying. What do you think is a justifiable level of response by the general public towards the person campaigning for that viewpoint to become law? How persecuted would Jewish people be justified in feeling if such views were widespread and if they were widely prohibited from marrying one another?

                              I encourage you to think over this analogy because I honestly think that people who are against same-sex marriage simply don't realize how inherently hurtful such a position is towards gay people. It's hard to find a more personal and hurtful place to threaten people and be nasty to them than in their relationships - people's marriages are really really important to them and to try and take away someone's marriage is about as personal and as hurtful as it gets. So when you say "when anyone who so much as voices opposition to same-sex marriage can expect all sorts of nasty and anonymous threats" I'm not really sure what to make of that sentence, because I'm not sure I'd agree that any level of nasty and anonymous threats can ever reach the level of hurtfulness that trying to take away people's marriages and their right to marry does - that's simply a whole other level of hurtful attack on their closest personal relationship and a fundamental diminishment of their status as humans that operates on a plane far above anything that can be achieved with simple verbal nastiness.
                              The worst and most hurtful thing anyone has ever tried to do, the thing that most diminishes the dignity of the targeted group, is to deny them a piece of paper that gives them certain tax benefits?

                              The sort of language you employ is going to be used again-- is already being used-- with reference to incest and polygamy, and when those campaigns gain more steam, what will your counterargument be? How could you possibly stand against the weight of your own words about how there is nothing more hurtful, nothing that effects a more fundamental diminishment of their status as humans than denying them marriage?

                              But let's set that aside for a moment and think about how the rhetoric you use also gives a warrant to the people who issue these threats, anonymous and otherwise. If there's nothing more hurtful than denying someone the right to marry, then effectively denying someone the right to participate in the economic or social life of their country, telling them that they don't belong in civilized society-- that becomes somehow acceptable despite the fact that denying someone their right to participate at all in the public square is, in fact, far more dehumanizing than denying them tax benefits.
                              Don't call it a comeback. It's a riposte.

                              Comment

                              Related Threads

                              Collapse

                              Topics Statistics Last Post
                              Started by little_monkey, Yesterday, 04:19 PM
                              16 responses
                              99 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post One Bad Pig  
                              Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
                              53 responses
                              292 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post Mountain Man  
                              Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
                              25 responses
                              109 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post rogue06
                              by rogue06
                               
                              Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
                              33 responses
                              195 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post Roy
                              by Roy
                               
                              Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 08:34 AM
                              84 responses
                              356 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post JimL
                              by JimL
                               
                              Working...
                              X