Quote of the Day

by

Rand Simberg:

Art is an expression of one’s beliefs, and artists are always free to turn down a commission (if they can afford it). Were they not, were they to have to create art in someone else’s service with which they disagreed, it would be a violation of their free expression and conscience. Forcing artists to produce art to another’s tastes by force of the state is something that happens in totalitarian dictatorships. It’s not supposed to happen in America.
 
Want to see a real slippery slope? Let’s try a couple thought experiments, to see where this could go, under the logic of the LGBT absolutists.
 
Imagine a neo-Nazi buying swatches of red and black material, taking it to a Jewish tailor, and demanding the production of a uniform. Better yet, and more to the point, imagine the Westboro Baptist Church demanding that a gay interior decorator take a commission to spruce up the facility. And if they didn’t do it, they would be sued.
 
Gay-marriage advocates may think that their new-found right is a thing of beauty, to be celebrated, but that doesn’t give them the right to force others to agree and to celebrate with them. Rather than demanding that others bend to their will, they should be asking themselves why would they would even want people who find their ceremony repugnant to be involved with it.

18 thoughts on “Quote of the Day”

  1. During WW2 some Ukrainians from the west end of the Ukraine helped the German Nazis hunt down Ukraine Jews. The Jews were sent to death camps in Poland.

    With money and expertise supplied by USA’s Asst Sec State Nuland these those same Ukraine Nazis overthrew the elected government of Ukraine. Today they hunt down the remaining Jews in Ukraine and make them sew uniforms for the new Nazi Ukraine army.

    Most jews have fled to the East Ukraine – the Donbas – but the nazis still hunt them down.

  2. All of this bluster by the gays will blow itself out (not sure if a pun was intended or not, it just jumped out). They are appearing to suffer from some sort of hubris or cockiness due to their new-found political strength. Proves the point that those who were bullied formerly many times turn into bullies themselves.

    But on the other hand I don’t understand either side in this lashup. If you feel pressured to provide a business service to a ceremony that is repugnant to you, then why not just claim another engagement, or illness, or family emergency, or ……? Why take it to court? Why pass RFRA? Yah, yah, I know what you are going to say….standing up to bullying!….opposing oppression! Fine, but that is a choice and a hard way to go. Most of us need to get on with our lives.

  4. “Proves the point that those who were bullied formerly many times turn into bullies themselves.” But is the generation of gays doing this one of the generations that was bullied?

    I don’t know about the US but the principal state bullying of gays, the fact that they could be jailed for their sexual activities with other adults, was scrapped in England in the sixties. That’s two generations ago.

  5. I think the counter argument to your examples would be the that people choose to be Nazis or members of Westboro Baptist, but gays are born as they are and therefore shouldn’t be discriminated against.

    Personally I think businesses should be free to discriminate as they choose. I have no right to their services, and they have no right to my money. I guess I’m more optimistic that the financial incentives will get most people to overcome their biases.

  6. But is the generation of gays doing this one of the generations that was bullied?

    The same might be asked of those who rioted in Ferguson. Or women. Or Hispanics. These groups have been granted heritable victim status in perpetuity by the Democrat party so that they will vote Democrat in perpetuity. Expect them to be bullies until they are assimilated and they will be fully assimilated when they are no longer bullies. Hispanics seem like the weak link because they seem to prefer assimilation to perpetual victimhood. Sorry I won’t live long enough to find out.

  7. JaimeRoberto….but anti-discrimination laws typically prevent discrimination based on religion, even though religion is freely chosen. See for example the US Federal civil rights act of 1964.

    It’s not necessary to consider cases as extreme as the Nazis or the Westboro Baptist church. I know people who strongly dislike the Greek Orthodox Church because of what they believe to have been its policy of encouraging government suppression of other religions. (Whether or not this assertion is valid, I don’t know, but I don’t think that’s relevant for purposes of this discussion.) It may be reasonable to require a restaurant owner with this belief to serve a Greek Orthodox priest who shows up at the restaurant, but is it also reasonable to require him to cater a Greek Orthodox food festival or wedding?

  8. I think what you are seeing is just psychic trauma becoming a true maximum return on investment.
    Just more need for money, guns, and lawyers.
    Church and State. Everything new is just the same damned thing.

  9. I’d like to walk into a halal butcher shop and ask them to prepare some pork sausages for me. After all, I’m not asking the proprietor to eat the suasages, and I think it would be bigoted and unfair of them to deny me my rights just because of their silly outdated beliefs.

  10. orthodoc: if pork sausage is prepared in a halal butcher shop, then the equipment must be cleaned thoroughly, then purified, and then reconsecrated. The shop itself must be cleaned, purified and reconsecrated. Further, the person or persons who made the sausage must be cleaned, purified and consecrated – which is painful.

    However, the owner of the halal butcher shop may be willing to arrange for some infidel to meet with you and prepare pork sausage to your taste but both the owner and the infidel will charge a fee for this service.

  11. JaimeRoberto: Homosexuals choose their behavior. They are not “born that way”.

    Granted, one has to do some research beyond newspaper reports to learn these facts. No evidence exists demonstrating homosexual behavior as an innate, genetic, inherited characteristic. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. On the contrary, what even casual thought concludes (how would homosexual behavior not get bred out in at most a few generations?) one discovers as the finding of serious research (dead end failures of every attempt to find a “homosexual gene”, twin studies where one chooses homosexual behavior and the other does not, studies of people who choose homosexuality, and later choose to reject that behavior, cases of people who “waffle” back and forth,….).

    There exist reasons to protect (=allow, even if openly despising and shaming) some choices people generally agree are abominable, eg, Westboro baptists, or commie speakers on college campuses, or the anti-male androphobic vileness one can hear from the Women’s Study Department at the University of Oklahoma. Does society act wisely if it protects (not to mention promotes)the homosexual behavior choice?

  12. “Does society act wisely if it protects (not to mention promotes) the homosexual behavior choice?”

    I’m willing to accept that homosexual feelings are involuntary. There are theories about why they may be a normal variant, For example (not a very attractive one) rats in an overcrowded colony adopt homosexual behavior and this has been attributed to a compensation for overcrowding.I’m sure that example has been attacked by gay rights people but there are mechanisms that are explainable.

    Certainly homosexual behavior occurs in prisons where women are unavailable. In Classical Greece, women were kept in harems and the development of homosexual behavior might have been explainable on the theory of unavailability, as in prison. The same pressures exist in Muslim society where young men are the most sexually frustrated males on earth. The terrible retribution against gays in those societies may be a form of “homosexual panic.”

    Certainly, as homosexual behavior is more socially acceptable, teenagers who are encountering sexual ambiguity may choose the homosexual side. Some may later change their minds or become bisexual.

    None of this explains the anger and hostility to those who disapprove of homosexual behavior as a religious principle. Maybe its guilt disguised as anger. Some may simply be a reaction to what they perceive as ignorance. I am no student of homosexual fiction but I have not noticed an eagerness to explain exactly what it is they do to each other. As a surgeon near Laguna Beach, I have some experience with the more odd variations in behavior. I have sewn up a few recipients of such behavior.

    I am willing to tolerate their activities but do wish they would reciprocate, at least with some modesty. A friend who is an operating room nurse is sick to death about the boasting of lesbian nurses about their sexual adventures. This is done in full knowledge that no one will risk opprobrium and their career by complaining to the administration that is eager to avoid lawsuits by outraged gays.

    Tolerance may turn out to have been a neglected virtue for gays.

  13. Roy – You are correct that it is not genetic. There is solid evidence though that some (perhaps not all) homosexual men were born that way due to Mommy’s hormones during pregnancy.

    As for your fear that the State will come and take your money for feigning illness, I find that pretty damn unconvincing. Maybe it could happen in your State, but not mine. You should cross a few state lines if you feel oppressed.

  14. I agree completely: sexual behavior is genetic and innate. Which is why feminist condemnation of heterosexuality is bigotry, and feminism is an ideology of hatred. I’ll worry about mistreated minorities (homosexuals, pedophiles and the like) when the war against heterosexuality is ended, when feminism is purged from our universities, politics, and culture. And I know you agree with me 100%.

    I agree completely: sexual behavior is genetic and innate: voyeurism, heterosexulaity, rape, homosexuality, pedophilia, bestiality, sadism,”¦ and thus is completely beyond good and evil and cannot be regulated by law or controlled by the state.

  16. These orchestrated outrage spasms aren’t about the supposed infractions that are allegedly so heinous that all the usual suspects are in full apoplectic mode. Their purpose is the creation of an atmosphere of such self-suppressive dread that no one will take the chance of appearing to disagree with the currently approved PC line.

    This is old, tried and true stuff. Find some news shows or other descriptions of the “self-criticism” sessions so beloved of the Chinese Red Guards back in the days of the infamous Cultural Revolution, and there you will find the template for all these current hate feasts against anyone who dares to hold an unapproved, non-PC opinion on any topic.

    Of course, one might also wonder why some totally unremarkable law in Indiana, very similar to other federal and state laws that have been around for decades, or the views of a little pizza joint in the middle of nowhere, are suddenly front page news all over the media and social networks.

    Could it be that some people find it very convenient to change the subject from such uncomfortable subjects as missing emails? Or treaties with other nations about nukes?

    The world wonders…

  18. “I agree completely: sexual behavior is genetic and innate: voyeurism, heterosexulaity, rape, homosexuality, pedophilia, bestiality, sadism,”¦ and thus is completely beyond good and evil and cannot be regulated by law or controlled by the state.”

    It was almost believable until this line.

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