US Politics Mega-thread - Page 35

On March 25 2018 05:21 zlefin wrote:

the president is responsible for overseeing and directing the state dept; so a failure at State (if any) is partly the fault of the president.

and generally speaking, the president can do a lot on those topics. (i.e. he has the authority to do quite a lot in terms of trade and trade deals)

On March 25 2018 05:21 zlefin wrote:

the president is responsible for overseeing and directing the state dept; so a failure at State (if any) is partly the fault of the president.

and generally speaking, the president can do a lot on those topics. (i.e. he has the authority to do quite a lot in terms of trade and trade deals)

On March 25 2018 04:25 iamthedave wrote:


This thread is getting to be a pain to chop up so I'm cutting it down again.

How am I restricting anyone's civil rights? You can have any sort of marriage you want. But that doesn't make it an actual religious ceremony. It doesn't mean it ever has been. It's just an unjustified assumption that people have run with and never examined. In almost every culture everywhere in the world, churches need to go to the government and say 'may we perform marriages in our establishment?' And the government has the right to say 'no you may not'. And if the government does that, no 'marriage' performed in that establishment is legitimate.

HOW is that a religious ceremony? That is a secular ceremony that people choose to apply religious overtones to. That's not my opinion, that is the objective facts of what actually happens. If it were a genuinely religious ceremony, the government would not be necessary.

I'm guessed you're a Christian from some of your comments, apologies if I'm wrong. But I'll assume you're a church goer. Your church does not need anyone's permission to perform Sunday mass, and it sure as hell doesn't need the government to say 'your sunday mass is legitimate'. Because Mass is a religious ceremony and it's validation comes from all the trappings of its performance within the context in which it is performed.

A wedding requires none of that. I could literally take my housemate to the registry office and be married tomorrow evening if I wanted, and that marriage would be as legitimate as a £10,000 marriage that takes place in the cathedral down the road. The trappings are entirely irrelevant, the meat and bones of a marriage is the secular, legal structure that supports and legitimises it, and it has always been so. That is why King Henry the 8th was able to say 'Actually... no,' when the church tried to force him to keep his wife. No amount of excommunications or wars were able to change the fact he had a divorce and then had another marriage and the child of one of his later marriages ended up King.

It's also - not coincidentally - why the rich and powerful throughout history conveniently find their way into and out of marriages that are supposed to be unbreakable until death. Ain't no wealth getting someone around Mass, though.

I don't care how you practice your faith. But you can't redefine reality with it. Marriage is still secular. Now I appreciate Christians believe that there is a spiritual component to marriage, and that is where much of the issue arises re: teh gayz. But that's your trappings. It's not real. And that is not my opinion, that's the state's opinion. The state doesn't care if you think you've married someone. It cares that you married someone in a place that it considers legitimate, and if the state doesn't think your marriage is legitimate you'll very quickly run into problems when you try to assert otherwise.

As to your last point, compelled speech is a thing. It just is. Complaints about compelled speech are a far bigger slippery slope than 'let the public know that you're putting certain elements of your religious beliefs ahead of your business'. I mean, why SHOULD I be forced to let the public know all of my sliced ham includes uranium in it? They're trampling my first amendment rights and making me say things I don't wanna!

Yes, it's a silly, extreme example, but compelled speech is a standard part of business. If you want to make your religion part of your business, you're damn skippy you should be expected to say up front that you're doing so.

Religions do not deserve the special pleading and status they unduly get, not in your culture or mine (not that we're half as bad as your lot are on that front). 'Good' Christians are far too often content to hide behind the sort of Christians who don't give a fig about civil liberties for anyone but themselves, who believe gay people deserve no rights, who think Muslims should be thrown out of their 'Christian' nation, who would gladly outlaw any beliefs but their own and enforce those beliefs on anyone who disagreed and crush any speech that went against them. You know those people exist and so do I, and unfortunately for you, an awful lot of them get voted for by your good honest religious Christians. It is an utter embarrassment that Roy Moore came so close to being elected, even without the allegations that brought him down.

Your lot are not content to keep their religion private. Far too many of you want to enforce it on everyone else, and damn the consequences. That is your slippery slope, and it's a far more dangerous, far more deadly one than being forced to tell people you aren't going to serve them if they're gay.

On March 25 2018 04:38 Danglars wrote:

I covered the trampling of civil in the unquoted part of my last post. You can read it there and respond to what I wrote if you still don't understand. As you haven't responded to it, I don't know what was less than clear.

You're still really deep in the hole with a historically acknowledged religious ceremony. Religions all over the world call the union of a man and woman a central God-purposed event. God ordains this union. You act or don't act in accordance to his will in this union. Et cetera. You're taking a historical revisionist route, and frankly an unsupported assertion, that it should be a secular event because you think some people just happen to choose to put religious undertones on the event. It's a religious event that some people adopt secular attitudes towards, and that's precisely why it's a core feature of this case. None of this wordy mash justifies adopting your attitude. It is a religious ceremony for a huge number of Americans, and just because you think it shouldn't be the case does not diminish that it will involve religious objections if they're making you be part of the service. Will you force a pastor to officiate the event on grounds of discrimination, because after all it's just this secular event to you? The folly just stretches on and on.

I understand your perspective in the last three paragraphs. I live in a country that recognizes the role religion plays in life and how government intrusion on core beliefs would destroy a society and cause it to trend authoritarian over time. To re-purpose a sentence of yours, you really don't give a damn about civil liberties for people who you don't think deserve them. You simply don't think they should exist, therefore they don't exist, therefore they should be done away with. Therefore, direct your attention to constitutional amendments because I'm definitely talking about interpreting laws on the books by judges ... the proper realm for judicial battles.

On March 25 2018 04:46 Danglars wrote:

Maybe then you do understand why I'm ignoring your edit until you either delete the rest of your post I responded to, or show an interest in responding to the post. I can't respond to 12 sentences and later discover the entire thing hinged on a future-added last 13th sentence with a question after I spend time responding to what was written. My time posting in this forum is not an unlimited quantity subject to any edits and tangents and side-questions people feel like typing. I don't think I'll need to post this disclaimer again.

On March 25 2018 06:52 GreenHorizons wrote:
This conversation makes me want to seek out homophobic bakers and trick them into making cakes for gay people then parade around saying how the bakers fully endorse gay marriage with pictures of their cake at the gay weddings.

Just to get them to try to sue me for slandering them by saying they support gay people getting married.

All so I can see that split second when they realize they are arguing that opening their business to more people caused them economic harm.

On March 25 2018 06:59 Sermokala wrote:

I bet tricking Muslim people into serving pork or hindu people into serving beef would be hilarious to you as well. I'm sure they'd take it as the good matured fun that you're having. After all you're just opening their business to more people.

On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:

We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious.

Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage.

You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them.

On March 25 2018 06:59 Sermokala wrote:

I bet tricking Muslim people into serving pork or hindu people into serving beef would be hilarious to you as well. I'm sure they'd take it as the good matured fun that you're having. After all you're just opening their business to more people.

On March 25 2018 07:10 GreenHorizons wrote:


I mean, sorta, except there's no underlying issue of Muslims/Hindus being part of a power structure implementing discrimination on a national level in this country so I wouldn't get the same kind of pleasure out of it. I guess I should also add that whether someone serves beef or pork at a restaurant isn't a choice they need to justify with their religion. They can just choose not to serve those meats for innumerable reasons.

I think most religious traditions are laughable though. I just find the whole thing to be fascinating. Wouldn't this same logic mean that hotel/land owners should be able to not rent single bed rooms to unmarried or gay couples?

On March 25 2018 06:10 iamthedave wrote:


Okay. I'd like to get you to directly engage with something you consistently are ignoring, as it seems you don't understand my actual argument.

If religion is required for marriage and it is a God-purposed event, why is the marriage a) not legal unless the state recognises it and why b) can the state annul it irrespective of the wishes of religious leaders?

I have yet to see you concretely point towards a group I think don't deserve civil liberties. I do think that no group has the liberty to oppress another, and I think that the religious hide behind their religion regularly and use it as a shield to permit them to discriminate. And I think that is wrong.

I don't think I'm rocking the boat there.

I think I've already answered the post you're directing me towards. I believe marriage is obsolete personally so I do not intend to get married. I have no issues with other people choosing to do so, or the methods and trappings they use to complete that union. But I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular, and that marriage being secular is the only way to reconcile the vast gulf between what people say marriage is and what it actually is, and which part of that union the state - which is required to legitimise the union in the first place - actually cares about.

On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:

We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious.

Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage.

You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them.

That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ...

On March 25 2018 08:47 iamthedave wrote:


Your argument is flawed, because everyone is required to engage in forced speech. Only Christians - and Muslims as well, let's not be unfair - claim special exemptions and start waving books around to say they shouldn't have to do this or that because their beliefs are so precious. Why should religious beliefs be treated differently to other beliefs?

Unless you have an incredible argument to demonstrate how fundamentally religious a cake-maker's day to day activities are, you have to acknowledge that it's special pleading for the religious owners to say they shouldn't have to serve customers who are perfectly reasonable save for the fact they are gay (it is of course reasonable to refuse service to rude, abrasive, abusive or unnecessarily awkward customers). Irrespective of how the courts ruled, the one and only exception 'justifying' the behaviour of the staff, is that they have religious objections.

Would you have supported them if they refused service to a black couple because they believed the black people have no souls? It's a reasonable objection if their religion says so, is it not? Reminding you that this was an argument made about black folks by religious people once upon a time. Your own logic means you should support this. It's an argument made for religious reasons, by religious people, not to have their amendment rights violated.

You raise a final good point, though: rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them; a fact that has been tripping the religious up where it concerns LGBT folks for an awful long time. And women. And African Americans. And basically every group that religious people have oppressed sequentially until the state decided they weren't allowed to anymore.



I want to highlight this as well. I know that you mean this sincerely, but you don't appreciate how appalling it actually sounds. They are 'very sympathetic' and are willing to treat gays and transgenders almost like they're real people. They're oh so sorry about their condition. So terribly sorry.