The owner of a bakery in Lakewood said he will no longer sell wedding cakes after the Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled he did discriminate against a gay couple when he refused to sell them a cake.
Jack Phillips owns Masterpiece Cakeshop. In 2012, David Mullins and Charlie Craig went to the shop to order a cake for their upcoming wedding reception. They planned to marry in Massachusetts and have a reception in Colorado.
(read more)
373 comments:
1 – 200 of 373 Newer› Newest»It's awesome when little mom and pop businesses are run down like this. For the common good.
That's okay because with the economy booming like it is I'm sure their business won't take a hit.
Oh, wait a minute....
Feel free to make a donation and strike a blow against tyranny.
The right of free association is gone.
Unless you just bow out.
Which I have done.
Won't be long now before the all out assault on the Catholic Church commences.
Or, maybe it already has.
This is so bizarre, I want to say I don't get it.
How does "accommodation" include a baked cake? and if it includes a baked cake what does it NOT include?
So...if a white supremacist goes into a bakery in Denver and orders a caked decorated to say Fuck The N****rs, that baker cannot refuse to make it?
Bullshit. If a baker refused to bake THAT cake, he or she would not be dragged into court, period.
I wrote them yesterday with suggestions on how to subvert State dicta and still produce wedding cakes.
Those two guys don't give a shit about cake. They can easily find a place to make their cake. This "you will serve us and you will like it" is pure bullshit. The whole thing is a search for something to exercise their own internal psychologic need for activism. A search for enemies to traduce knowing society is basically on their side.
How do I know this? Because I saw my own group of gay friends become activist right before my eyes. Wonderful people fun to be around, fun to have as friends suddenly take up the language of the most fierce of national activists. These are not their own thoughts originating from their own minds. It is not so hard to recognize when one's vocabulary suddenly changes, When a sweet and kind and gentle person suddenly becomes hostile and whose heart suddenly becomes impossible to access blocked by somebody else's vocabulary, somebody else's thoughts. You can see the long haired twit was not speaking for himself. He's enlisted in his army of choice and taken up their messaging, and being loyal and true Democrats that same thing has happened to virtually everyone I know. No true heart to heart discussion is possible. All discussions are now me and my heart with the National Democratic Party.
And if you think that developing a whole new set of friends isn't difficult, well it is. The good thing is my early life provided the exact practice required for it. Repeatedly.
The good thing is my early life provided the exact practice required for it. Repeatedly.
Way off topic, but I have often thought of this aspect when you discuss your military childhood which means traveling a lot, moving frequently. I too traveled with my parents a LOT when I was a child. Many times it meant being in different States, different schools several times in a school year. I've wondered if that affected you as it did me in my attitude towards being and in my way (or not way) of closely connected to people and family, how to deal with strangers, should I even make friends? What is the point, since I won't see them again in a few months. Feel free to ignore this if you wish.
As to the cake. I'm torn. The guy has a right to refuse to make an artistic product for someone that represents an idea or concept that is repugnant to the artist. A wedding cake is a work of art. Just like a portrait of the gay couple would be a work of art. Would you force a painter to paint something that they don't want to paint? Why would you do that anyway. It would likely be a crappy painting.
On the other hand......if you can refuse 'service' to someone for reasons like being Black, Gay, Muslim, Christian, then we are going backwards as a society. Refuse to serve lunch. Refuse to let them into your cab. Keep them out of your clothing store. See the difference service versus producing an original piece of art?
Institutionalized discrimination like the Jim Crow Laws is one thing and should not be brought back. But....don't we as business people have the right to refuse to do business if we want to. I know that WE do (my husband and myself). There are some people we just don't work for. Not because of race, religion etc. But because they are either dicks or slow pay or just have trouble written all over them. Find another service provider....we are much too busy.
@DBQ
It may not make good business sense, but that should be his choice, for bad or good.
The gays are pushing compulsory gay worship. That is evil, and destructive.
I think we should have the absolute right to freedom of association.
I used to be a very liberal, idealistic person.
Then I discovered that those blacks and gays aren't really so fond of sharing their stuff. They just want to take from whites and straights.
Blacks have, in my experience, evidenced absolutely no interest in associating with whites on an equal basis. Try living in their neighborhoods if you dare.
I worked in the multimedia biz for decades. Entire shops in NYC employ only gay men. They'll give you a lot of reasons for this, but they just prefer to be among their own kind.
I call bullshit on the whole game of demanding things from whites and straights when you have no fucking interest in reciprocating.
I know what you are saying, Chip. Most of my gay friends are lock-step democrats. Which is fine & understandable. They have been brainwashed into knowing the republicans are pure evil and want to harm them. No thinking, no questioning, just fierce adherence and allegiance.
I know a female gay couple and they run a local lighting shop.
One of the owners stated to me one day "I am a staunch democrat". OK. I said nothing. Then she proceeded to launch into nonsense.
Paranoia about secret republicans who run Boulder. What? There are no republicans who run Boulder. All of our local officials are elected democrats. That's what you get in a town that has a 30/70 split in favor of one party. We have a one party rule, and that party is the D. (honey - you are griping at the wrong party)
But that doesn't matter in her mind. Life is not perfect, gripes and problems exist -- and because democrats are pure, perfect, and well intentioned, -- it's obvious the secret nefarious republicans are behind the scenes, pulling and pushing the levers. High tax rates and punitive command and control regulations?? - all the fault of those pesky evil R's.
How do you reason with someone who operates from a position of false information and nonsensical paranoia?
I think it was Keebler that used to sell cookies they advertised were "packed with fudge."
Sad story. Sad, because I don't agree with the way this case turned out for the baker and sad because I don't believe refusing to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple is what love looks like from a Christian perspective.
Love from a Christian perspective is going along with making a mockery out of a sacrament?
"How do you reason with someone who operates from a position of false information and nonsensical paranoia?"
You don't. They don't really mean the things that they say anyway. They're just repeating lines and dogma handed down by the cult leaders. There is no thinking involved; it's all emotion. The dogma is emotionally comforting. Like religion. The chosen people, the believers, have been wronged, terribly wronged, for millennia, since the dawn of (WO)man, but the cult leaders are going to see that they finally get theirs! The current dogma changes constantly. You have to keep up. They view this as proof of intellectual superiority. If you say something that conflicts with or contradicts or in any way undermines the current dogma you are suspect, a possible heretic. Burn the witch! Or, at the very least, say something terribly cutting and then add "LOL." Maybe ruin their business. They have a very keen sense for heresy but other than that the left is a complete intellectual wasteland. Look at the hypocrisy, the difference in how they excuse Obama versus how they would treat a Republican president, black or white, male or female, gay or straight. It is stark and intellectually undeniable. For that matter, look at the way they run their own lives versus what they purport to propose is best for society. I live in San Fran and know a lot of progs. The ones that actually pay taxes cheat on them. And none of those motherfuckers pays extra taxes because s/he can either. They won't do that unless it's on everyone. Also, did either of these two assholes who ran this guy out of the cake business ever consider HIS right to religious freedom? Ah, hell no. No new ideas, only the same recycled bullshit with a new name slapped on it and a new set of group demands. Over and over and over like they're so confident that none of their followers will notice. And they don't! Roll back the First Amendment? Fine by them, it's for the best! There's no long term goal, other than further accretion of power to the state. Anyone with a functioning brain can see that's a bad idea. Per se a bad idea. But the insecure, the emotionally fragile, and the galactically stupid all believe there is safety and strength with the herd, with the collective.
What do you think Jesus would say, ST?
@Darcy
I think you are confusing condemning people for their sexual actions, which Jesus would advise against, with playing along with their desire to mock the sacrament of marriage.
Absenting oneself from what is essentially a form of blasphemy does not condemn the person committing the sin.
I don't believe that Jesus said we were required to emulate the sinner in order to make him feel better.
Interesting. I don't think baking a cake rises to emulating sin.
What would Jesus do?
This always comes to mind when people ask that.
:-)
@DBQ
Hehe. :)
I don't think baking a cake rises to emulating sin.
Baking a cake for the purpose of worshipping the Golden Calf, however, probably does rise to emulating the sinner.
I don't even think attending the ceremony rises to emulating sin or blasphemy for the attendee.
There is, in my opinion, an eternal cycle of human experience playing out here.
We are about to find out why homosexuals were expected to live in the closet.
The behavior they are now demonstrating will ultimately, I'm pretty confident, lead to the demand that they return to the closet.
Love for fellow humans is a two-way thing. The couple who wanted the wedding cake could have easily exhibited love and respect and then found a different baker for their cake.
I agree with that too, Michael. It's likely, as Chip suggested, that they were looking for exactly the battle they got. They got what they wanted and the baker helped (in my opinion) perpetuate the idea that Christians hate. It's absolutely unfair to the baker, but I was just pondering what would have happened if they had gone looking for hate and found love instead, is all.
But that didn't happen. And before long, another couple will request wedding cupcakes, and the bakers will have to stop making them as well. See where this is heading?
I don't even think attending the ceremony rises to emulating sin or blasphemy for the attendee
IF a person held a belief so strongly, a religious conviction, a moral principle, then attending an event that celebrated or elevated that action would be tantamount to condoning the action. Whether WE hold those beliefs or not, the person who does have them is entitled to not be forced to violate them.
If a person held the belief that capital punishment is murder, that killing another human (even a horrific murderer) is a sin, would you condone forcing that person to attend? Wouldn't you think that if that person held those beliefs and then of their own volition attended a death row execution that they had violated their own moral and ethical convictions.
Haz is correct. The gay couple could have just forgiven the baker for his (perceived) bigotry and gone to another provider. THAT would also have been the Christian thing to do.
If a person held the belief that capital punishment is murder, that killing another human (even a horrific murderer) is a sin, would you condone forcing that person to attend? Wouldn't you think that if that person held those beliefs and then of their own volition attended a death row execution that they had violated their own moral and ethical convictions.
Not only forced to attend, but forced to participate and contribute to the death row execution. Forced to sell the drugs or medical equipment that will be used to kill.
This is (likely) how the baker felt and did not want to participate by being forced to provide for the ceremony, that he felt was sinful. He didn't want to participate in the execution of the wedding....so to speak.
I agree that no one should be forced to do what is against their religious beliefs. I strongly disagree with the legal outcome of this lawsuit.
As a lifelong serious sinner, I have long observed that the perverted and degraded will not rest until they have dragged everybody down into the mud and shit with them.
The classic story about this is Isaac Bashevis Singer's The Gentleman from Cracow.
Refusal to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding does not equate to hate. What does it signify? Disapproval. Have we reached the stage at which overt disapproval of homosexual marriage so-called or even of homosexuals per se is against the law? Obviously. By the way, disapproval of anything is not hate, it is the expression of discrimination, i.e. thinking. We are really at the stage at which incorrect thinking has been outlawed. There is no excuse any longer for being oblivious to the coming horror. Or being surprised by it when it arrives.
Darcy, I understand your tension in asking what Jesus would do. These two guys were doing this to provoke a lawsuit, so I suspect Jesus would know they were lying about the cake to force the man to close his business.
But take out their mendacity. If there were two other gays, just in love and he denied them a cake, would Jesus not only condone their marriage but celebrate it?
I don't know. But I have my doubts. Much of the gay agenda is done to upend all Judeo-Christian morals, and this seems to be using Christian altruism to force them into acts they oppose.
And I agree, it is mocking marriage, or, like virtue, celebrating it mostly in the breach.
I did not say it was hate. I said that it contributes to the perception of hate, albeit very unfairly. I have very carefully chosen my words here so as not to be misunderstood.
Further, I am not suggesting a different response for the purpose of perception. I do not even know what I would suggest the baker do in this case. What I do know is that love wins. Manipulation wins too, but that doesn't mean it is a good thing. Love is good.
I agree with all of that, Pogo. I do think we have to be very careful not to condone sin. I don't know where Jesus would draw the line. I wish I could ask Him! :)
I know not where He'd draw the line either, Darcy, not for actual gays who wanted an actual cake.
But the case here was pure agitprop, a means to an end.
It reminds me of the Beatitudes. People love the "Blessed are they who.." parts, but forget that list which immediately followed: "But woe to you...", including this warning, an apt one here:
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you devour widows' houses, and for a pretense you make long prayers; therefore you will receive greater condemnation.…"
Amartel .... I've just copied and pasted you comment at 1:18 PM today...and added to the outstanding comment by Chip Ahoy on the same basic topic yesterday...that I've saved for future reference and quotation.
No sense me trying to say what you two have said better than I ever could.
Apt, Pogo.
Oh, and there court's ruling on the bakery is a crock of fetid horse crap
The commission also ordered the baker to submit quarterly reports about the customers he refuses to serve and retrain employees to serve everyone.
So now the federal government is in the bakery business with the baker, forevermore?
In short, the finding punishes the behavior in the present and anticipates it in the future and prepares punishment sans trial for the next time around.
What other kinds of "crimes" or "civil disobediences" are punished in such a manner?
Yeah, I already know about the dust up over voting issues in selected states...what else?
Triumph of the Pills.
Darcy said ....
Manipulation wins too, but that doesn't mean it is a good thing.
Manipulation only wins because we let it win...we enable it, instead of calling out liars and agitators directly.
We are about to witness it right here when the smug Terry Jones arrives for an anti-Muslim rally in front of a large Mosque he knows nothing about. I do. I live here. If Mr Jones is struck by lightening...watch me happy dance.
This guy is former Sec Def Gates, General Petraeus, and most recently (9-12-2012 AM) General Dempsey's little telephone stooge to be stirred up by suggestions from DC so he can go out and act the total fool and let liberals point fingers at him and call all Conservatives names. Works every time. Damn sure worked for the "protest-gone-bad" meme, relayed by Dempsey to Jones in a morning phone call 9/12/12...eh, what You don't get calls from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at your house?
You better stooge up then, eh? Like the two fey dudes who managed to pick Phillip's place out the dozen or more wedding cake bakeries I found in Denver when I stopped counting.
And since we are on the topic, let's decide whether the LGBT thing is "just like" civil rights movement for black Americans. It is NOT, never was, never can be...why you aks?
Simple: being black is a condition that is apparent to everyone with no control by the person over it.
Please tell me how one can tell if someone is gay, lesbian, bi, or Trans, just by looking at their skin. Go ahead give it a try.
Don't insult the Civil Rights movement by making the comparison to the LGBT issues. They Are. Not. The. Same.
"What would Jesus do?"
Oh, I think our Lord would go to the wedding, but they wouldn't like what he said:
"'Haven't you read,' he replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator "made them male and female"'"(Matthew 19:4)?
"If that's how it is, it is better for men not to marry!" (Matthew 19:10, paraphrase).
"For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made so by others--and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:12ff).
The disciples were shocked: "This is a hard teaching, who can accept it?" (John 6:60).
"If you want to me my disciple, you must deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24).
The ruling again...
The commission also ordered the baker to submit quarterly reports about the customers he refuses to serve and retrain employees to serve everyone.
What happens when Phillips reports refusing to make wedding cakes. Given he's a baker that bakes cakes for other functions, wouldn't that violate the directive to "serve everyone?"
Tell me? I'll wait.
See how this stuff is fomented to just what Chip Ahoy and Amartel have described so eloquently?
I was hoping you would weigh in here, Father.
And what do you think Jesus would say to the baker if asked for his thoughts?
What happens when Phillips reports refusing to make wedding cakes. Given he's a baker that bakes cakes for other functions, wouldn't that violate the directive to "serve everyone?"
No. Unless he bakes wedding cakes for some people and not for others there isn't a problem. He is merely discontinuing a certain product in his product line.
If his shop was a dress makers shop and he decided to stop making bridal gowns and only produce sun dresses, business suits and casual ware.....this would not constitute "not serving" because he just isn't making bridal gowns anymore.
I think Jesus would say, draw upon your gay gene and bake your own cake, and if you haven't the time nor the mad baking sillz required to do such a gay thing as bake a gay cake then look to your own kind for your own kind of cake, go ye, and sin no more.
But that would be falling on deaf ears, because the whole point of these two is to cause trouble and draw attention to themselves and not to acquire a wedding cake. That is so easy it's not even funny. It's not funny. It's not gay. They've long ago forfeited that agnomen and taken up another "fierce activist."
It would be way too simple to come up with a baker, just a few calls, one who would be well chuffed to participate in a gay wedding. How transgressive! How fun!
Did I mention a gay man I know made for me the best cake for my birthday that I ever saw? I should mention that. He died of AIDS before he was thirty. I recall with a good deal of sadness him being angry about dying before he was thirty. My heart is open to them. I am on their side of things. But not as political stooge self-regarding activists.
The young man worked at a bakery. He applied his wedding cake skills on a much smaller scale and did all the piping with extraordinary care (and I dare say grace) looping swaths of icing from corner to corner, tiny rosettes. It was rectangular and white and looked like a wedding cake in miniature. I hated to cut into it. Carrot cake, my favorite. It must have taken hours. He was a natural born artist. I miss him all over again writing this. The card he gave me was hand written in calligraphic script, very very nice. A Robert Frost poem that I had not known. It could have been his own epitaph:
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
The leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
I'm all verklempt all over again.
My self defenses are such, I cannot even recall his name.
I hate myself sometimes. It'll come to me later when I'm not trying.
In an imperfect world, the correct response would be for straight people to countersue in a case bolstered by unfair discrimination. Here's an example. Years ago while living in Germany and visiting Berlin, my girlfriend and I and another male friend were out drinking. We stayed out well past the time when the U-Bahn public transit shut down and had to walk several miles back to where we were staying. Along the way, my girlfriend had to pee. We found only one bar open along the way and went inside. My friend and I waited in the front bar while my girlfriend sought the restroom. He and I quickly determined that it was a gay bar as we were subjected to "new meat" stares. Before long, my girlfriend emerged from the back -- she was literally chased out --RAUS! by some asshole. We learned later that this club was one of the most infamous gay bars in Berlin.
Now the bar wasn't in the US nor subject to American laws. But such places probably exist somewhere in this country. I'm certain that a small minority of gays harbor intensely misogynist feelings as well as for straights in general. I've listened to them in internet forums.
My point is that it might be relativity easy to provoke a reverse discrimination lawsuit against gays, forcing them to rethink such retributive provocations. It's not a Christian thing to do, but neither was what the couple did in Colorado.
Darcy, I admire your strong, kind and loving heart. It isn't an easy journey to reach that state; I keep finding potholes along the way.
Father Martin, Thank you for your comment. May I suggest an additional comment expanding on the Church's teaching to love the sinner, and to welcome all into the faith community?
Darcy said…What I do know is that love wins.
St. Paul says we must "speak the truth in love," that truth being God's plan for us. A delicate balance, but truth is the goal.
Michael:
Sure.
Heh. Consider it suggested
@Chip: That Frost poem was a "Frost Bite" here at Lem's. MamaM made a brilliant comment: link
"In an imperfect world, the correct response would be for straight people to countersue in a case bolstered by unfair discrimination"
Or how about maybe counter-sue the gay couple for religious discrimination? That would bring out the question of why this couple decided to insist on a cake from this particular bakery instead of the no doubt many other bakeries in the Denver area.
"Love from a Christian perspective is going along with making a mockery out of a sacrament?"
When did a wedding reception become a sacrament? By suggesting that it is, you are the insulter of the sacrament of matrimony, Mocking Thomas.
Someone please let me know when the government begins forcing nuns to bake government approved altar bread or when the government begins executions of virgin martyrs who refuse to marry and I'll join your righteous revolution. Until then, you're just continuing to bellyache over your loss of power to oppress.
Can gay bakers refuse to make a cake that says "Gays are gonna burn in Hell? How about Jewish bakers refusing to make a cake for a NAZI wedding wanting a big swastika on top?
Are supporters of this idea really comfortable with the government or a mob forcing these things? Would they be fine with the exact same punishment for the gay or jewish bakers who refused? Quarterly reporting? Really? Fascism - plain and simple.
DBQ....while I agree with your logic about why Phillips may not be at risk for not baking a certain type of cake versus other types. It makes sense. However, my time in government tells me that the bureaucratic brain at senior levels may not apply logic to the question.
I had to revise this post for better clarity. In essence I am saying that once the Colorado Civil Rights Commission has made a determination and ruling that requires quarterly reports on who is served and who is not in the future...that it is now a vested interest of the State to pursue enforcement grounds.
Not quite like the EPA does, but the sub-species of senior bureaucrat is the same.
I still want you to be right.
This fascism was unimaginable a generation ago in this country. Now imagine what we will have in another generation. It will not ever end, but simply lead to more and more power based on whining, and hatred. It is hatred of these people because of their beliefs that is at the root of this, and that is clearly the target of the haters. It is not gays who are being victimised here, but innocent bakers minding their own business and following their faith.
Who is really being oppressed, and who does that make into the oppressors?
What Jesus said or would do is irrelevant. What do people who really believe in freedom of association and religion do?
I just went to the bakery's website. Looks like gorgeous wedding cakes are a very big part of its business. Not selling them is going to hurt.
There's a Donations link at the bottom of the site's homepage.
Meade wrote...
When did a wedding reception become a sacrament? By suggesting that it is, you are the insulter of the sacrament of matrimony, Mocking Thomas.
Hyperbole cuts both ways, Meadeo. I'm certain that there are those (you will be more familiar with them) who would argue that the bakery's actions were just a slippery slope to fence posts up in Wyoming. I'm talking about those for whom "The Shepard is my Lord" reigns supreme -- the perpetually persecuted ones.
I'd be real interested to hear how this whole bakery case polls nationwide, if that were possible.
"you will be more familiar with them"
No, chickelito, I really will not be.
Why don't you explain it all to us in plain English?
Why don't you explain it all to us in plain English?
OK. You're wife's blog comment section was a forum for some real God-awful anti-Christian bigots: Andy R, & Downtown Lad to name a couple (hopefully w/o summoning them). Those people were as offensive to any right-thinking person as those who offend you. I'm assuming those names ring some bells, given your status. I'd have to review your wife's blog comments to recall the ones who whined the loudest about oppression.
I'm willing to do that if you'll pay me.
And since I never recall a peep of push back on your (or our wife's part) I assume that your sympathies were skewed.
"a forum for some real God-awful anti-Christian bigots"
Try to be more clear. Are you asserting that the Althouse blog is intended as a forum for bigots to single out and oppress Christians? If you are making that scurrilous charge, Bruce, I think you'll need to bring some evidence to support your assertion. Don't you?
Try to be more clear. Are you asserting that the Althouse blog is intended as a forum for bigots to single out and oppress Christians? If you are making that scurrilous charge, Bruce, I think you'll need to bring some evidence to support your assertion. Don't you?
I'm not asserting the intention part, Lawrence, just that it was a free-for-all forum where such offensive views were aired. That's just history. I do find it odd that you seem put out here by just one side of what you find disagreeable and offensive.
What you could say in reply is that the Althouse blog now has a moderated comment section where all offense is largely deleted. And because I no longer read the likes of DTL and Andy R. over there, I assume that you're doing your job, so well done!
Chickelit....its a "record" I think. Meade plops down a troll remark feigning expertise…and by his third comment he’s throwing out first names. That’s usually followed by last names, then any other spurious detail he can dredge up, and usually ends with him promising money to somebody because he’s the biggest best contributor to everyone. Yay!
Good job.
Michael Haz said:
Darcy, I admire your strong, kind and loving heart. It isn't an easy journey to reach that state; I keep finding potholes along the way.
Me too, though I'm well short of even your example, Haz.
Hell, Haz and Chick...I am short of everyone's example. But you just keep trying. I'd dearly love to be as positive as Darcy. Someday maybe....
Aridog said...
Chickelit....its a "record" I think.
OK, record then.
I once paraphrased Hegel in a comment at TOP: The history of a blog is the judgement of blog - Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht..
How this ruling is even allowed to exist from a bogus bullshit group like a 'human rights commission' is absurd. It's unconstitutional on its utter face.
The whole point is that the Government is telling them who they can sell cakes to!
Who cares if *YOU* think its OK, THEY thought it was against their religion.
Its like Don Sterling. So what if he was a scumbag. EVERYONE has a right to a speak privately and not have their conversations taped, made public, and punished for them.
So if I go to a Jewish Cake shop and demand a Christian Wedding Cake with Pork sprinkles on top - that should be forced upon them.
Last comment, when did the USA ever get "Human Rights commissions"?
Its sounds like something out of Orwell.
"Human Rights Commission?" Er, no...it was and is the "Colorado Civil Rights Commission" ... all of these "commissions" are designed to find moral equivalence with the original civil rights movement. Nothing could be further from the truth in this case...a black man or woman can be readily identified by skin color. As I asked earlier...somebody want to tell me how a LGBT person can be so easily identified and discriminated against?
There. Is. No. Equivalence. With. The. Civil. Rights. Movement. Of. The. 50's and 60's. Presuming so is bullshit, plain and simple.
Oh, and it is worse than anything Orwell dreamed up. And both parties do it...hello?! Department of Homeland Security? Please.
Open mindedness. Now coming to a planet near you.
Even if by diktat.
Seriously, while I'm theoretically in favor of businesspersons being able to conduct their enterprises however the fuck they want to, how far do you see this protest movement going? It's a damn shame that they couldn't practice in the antediluvian ways they wanted to, and let the market judge that on its own terms. But seriously. What are you going to do? How do you protest something like that in a way that's at all effective?
Haz, Chick and Aridog. You guys are definitely kind. Thank you.
@Lydia
Yes, I believe that. I don't think that conflicts with what I've said here.
But yeah. Honestly, that truth is awfully hard. I believe I'm clear on what God has to say as far as homosexuality goes, but at this point, I would really, really like an update. I'm not trying to be silly here, and I understand all the logical reasons for God's position. But for the many people I love who are gay, it would be much easier for me if there were an update on God's thoughts. Some additional instruction.
This could be considered a prayer.
For me, the AIDS epidemic already proved that gays belong in the closet, for their own good and for the good of everybody.
This is funny. What would you have told Europeans and Native Americans five hundred years ago who swapped syphilis for the plague?
The behavior they are now demonstrating will ultimately, I'm pretty confident, lead to the demand that they return to the closet.
In what way? How so?
A lot of talk here on loving sinners and hating sins, which is interesting.
As I understand, there are a lot of gay kids forced into a form of excommunication and suicidal self-hate by conservative parents who want those kids to "pray the gay away" and learn to not love the people whom they love and who love them in return. Which is strange. I understand there are all sorts of Jesus-y commandments about love. What about the love, for a person, that you don't ask for? Did y'all who are married require instruction in learning to love your spouse or S.O.? That sounds stifling. How unnatural to not have any natural inclination to romantically love someone.
The good news is, a lot of parents learn to deal with the fact that they're either going to lovingly love (i.e. ACCEPT) those kids despite and because of whom they love, or they won't be loved, or they won't be able to have a relationship with them. They'll miss out. They'll be the ones to lose.
Of course, we could always forego such human observations and take literally, to the very last word, what the last-in-line of some itinerant prophesy-documenting goat herders supposedly told us.
I think the one thing my parents always made sense about was their understanding (although harder for my mom than my dad) that parental control over a kid's relationships is futile. It's like a worse form of the days when parents tried to control their kids' careers. Controlling their love life ensures one thing and one thing only: They won't learn how to independently find love.
Controlling love is what Jiang Zemin and Kim Jung Un and the leader in 1984 are all about. Telling you who to love, and whom you can't love. It doesn't make sense. Never has, never will.
Of course, when your kids need to inherit your farmland in Judea and Samaria and primogeniture only allows for sons, then you might think differently. But I guess the fortune of those farmers means that their social pressures should be assumed for all time to come.
Pretty lucky people, those ancient Hebrews. Not sure what else we moderns do that they'd object to, but we can always ask the official upthread.
Forcing a baker to make a wedding cake for a same sex marriage is the same as forcing him to make communion wafers for a black mass.
The baker should get to decide what violates his religious beliefs. Not the government.
Well, I do appreciate all the loving tolerance of Who I love (God), R&B. ;)
Forcing a baker to make a wedding cake for a same sex marriage is the same as forcing him to make communion wafers for a black mass.
The baker should get to decide what violates his religious beliefs. Not the government.
Why bring Jesus into this. The Constitution is explicit
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
And Congress means every government official, including judges.
The bakers constitutional rights were violated.
Then you can love other lovingly tolerant people too, Darcy. ;-) No need to confine loving tolerance to You Know Who.
Besides Jesus was in charge of the wine at the wedding not the cake.
Leave him out of it.
Well, amp, if you know of a religion that instructs its practitioners in the art of bakery sales, then I guess you might have a case.
I don't think Jesus was all the concerned about gay people.
It's not he set out to multiply the loaves and the fish taco's.
I know the Rastafarians teach their acolytes how to make pot brownies. Does that count.
Darcy, here's an excerpt from the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding gays:
"They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."
I think 99% of other Christian churches hold the same or similar belief. The exceptions would be the full-on wacko churches like Westboro, whose hatefulness disqualifies them from being called Christian.
So regarding your friends, love them as you would any others.
@R&B
Right. And I do. :)
The baker should get to decide what violates his religious beliefs. Not the government.
I'd go further than that.
In my own conscience, I'd like to see businesses be able to be open to whatever form of free-for-all or horrible discrimination they want to. I'm like Rand Paul that way.
But practically, I know this is impossible.
The basis upon which anti-anti-gay rulings are being made is discrimination against them as persons. There's a realistic and rational consensus that gays can't help whom they love any more than straights can.
Religious exemptions usually require some proof that goes beyond just what any one adherent can claim, and it still would be in conflict with the right of a gay person to not be discriminated against. But it obviously could happen. If the government makes exemptions from U.S. laws for Indian tribes that have a long documented history of eating peyote, then the government's been forced out of this domain.
Likewise Jehovah's Witnesses and Christian Scientists who refuse their kids certain medical care, etc.
Sometimes it goes pretty far. But unfortunately you need to have the government recognize you as adhering to a specific religion (which I think is kind of weird on its face) that has an establish doctrine supporting your belief in the matter at hand.
Sorry to be lawyerly here, but I guess the old comment-moderating blonde is good for some things every once in a while.
Schmendrik's perfectly fine with diktats that FORCE open mindedness on the benighted. The whole notion that the price of liberty has to be a pebble in HIS shoe doesn't even occur to the noble thug. But then liberty...so quaint, so yesterday, man. FORWARD!
Yes God. An update, please? It's been so long, and we wonder.
Man is so full of learning and growth, and mistakes, but how does perfection look? Just a glimpse would be helpful. We are so unsure of all we do - so full of experimentation, and exploration. We have little time for much else. We know only our desires.
That's good and solid instruction on most of the love part, but what about the truth?
I had a (for me) heartbreaking discussion with a gay person close to me about the truth as I see it. They asked me what I believe. There was just no glossing over the sin part (believe me I tried), and that's the part they wanted me to deny. I didn't and don't see a loophole here and that was devastating to this person.
Oh whatever. Rip-schmick. My whole point is "what are you going to do about it?" I don't ask that antagonistically/confrontationally, either. I really want to know what you think you can do about that.
Of course, it's pretty easy to just raise one's fist in the air and be an internet rebel. I do that too. But I think it's fair to ask people who use the rhetoric of Tianenmen Square, if they want to be taken seriously, what they really think about the practical constraints of their cause.
No shortage of orators on the internets, Ric. I'm just waiting to see where the generals are. I really want to see this march on City Hall or the State Capitol of CO that you're going to organize - from New York.
Come on, ric. Don't tease me like this.
Meade:
"...your loss of power to oppress."
And that's what drove me from Althouse. Being told that I'm an "oppressor."
Last time Meade was here, he was feigning ignorance over any disinvitation.
When you call your guests "oppressors" and bigots and morally cognate terms, they will tend to feel unwelcome...and leave.
Meant to address my last comment at Michael.
Enjoyed the discussion, but off to bed now.
@Darcy, I've had the same sort of discussion, so I get that it is difficult.
However, I've also been invited to and happily attended three weddings (1 gay, 2 lesbian)in which friends of ours were married by secular officials. The couples all knew that we held them dear to our hearts and that we wished them every happiness.
They also understood that we hold dear our religious beliefs and they respected us for being truthful about those beliefs. It turned out that we weren't the only ones at the weddings who were in that position.
What they do in their secular lives is their choice to make, just as what we believe in our religious lives is ours to believe. Neither should impose those beliefs on the other.
Honesty is the most important of human virtues. If a spouse, for example, cannot believe that you are truthful, no matter the circumstance, how can that spouse believe anything else you tell her or him? Put another way, if your spouse knows that you lie, how can she or he believe you when you say that your love them?
Honesty is sometimes difficult, but always the better choice.
Okay, I'm yammering here, so I'll stop.
The folks said they won't sell wedding cakes anymore.
Question: how does anyone police that?
If someone comes in and says, I want a cake that looks like such-and-such, it's this big, and has a couple of people on top...
But it's not a wedding cake! No, it's, uh, um, just a cake...
Father Martin, it is reasonable to expect that there will be "test" shoppers.
Neither should impose those beliefs on the other.
Amen. And thank you. Good night.
Michael:
OK, I'll accept that. But so what?
Customer: I'd like a wedding cake, please; can you make it look like this? (Show's catalogue.)
Owner: I'm sorry, we no longer make wedding cakes.
Customer: OK. Well then, I'd like a, uh...confirmation cake. Can you make it look like this? (Shows same catalogue.)
Owner: No problem!
***
Michael: what violation has taken place here?
Fr: Probably none.
What I had in mind was something akin to entrapment that could be used to further harass the bakers. I may have been underthinking this.
Michael:
I see that possibility too.
For some time now, it's been apparent that Meade and Althouse are involved in this campaign because of guilt over their own sexual behavior.
Instead of taking the adult route of taking responsibility for their own sexual behavior, and dealing with their own guilt through introspection, they have projected that guilt onto other people.
Everybody suffers from guilt. Guilt is part of the human condition. It is not inflicted from outside us. It emanates from within us.
You don't have to decide to be ruled by guilt in any particular instance.
What Meade and Althouse have done is childish and destructive. They should learn to deal with their own guilt instead of blaming other people.
I'm not making you feel guilty over your black cuckold fantasies, Meade. These are your issues, not mine. You are a fool and a jerk to project them onto me.
It's amazing that that fucking dumb twit, Meade, thinks I have the power to oppress him and his wife, isn't it?
The juvenile, dumb shit Meade and Althouse have produced around this issue is astonishing.
Nobody is stopping your wife from eating pussy, Meade. Certainly, not me. Nobody is trying to stop you for playing out your black cuckold fantasies.
Take responsibility for your actions and quit looking for public approval for your sexual kinks to relieve your guilt.
Althouse is so fucking stupid when it comes to this shit. That seems to be what a lifetime in an academic environment produces.
Dude!
We all know the deal.
Father Fox said it best.
Think good thoughts and live your life. What are the Old Dawgs up to these days?
Do youse guys do any John Fogerty these days. I saw him on this old TV show called "The Finder" and he looked kind of spry for an ancient dude. Kinda reminded me of you.
Mainly because he was hitting on a Filipino chick but still.
Think good thoughts and live your life.
That's precisely what I'm doing.
And, we do play a couple of Fogerty tunes... Green River and Proud Mary.
I'd like to do Lookin' Out My Backdoor, too.
Hitting on a Filipino chick is always a good idea.
Might as well be involved with a woman who wants to make you happy, right?
The older I get, the more thankful I am that I was raised Catholic.
The great sacrament of Confession teaches you to look inside yourself for answers instead of blaming other people.
That is a great source of strength.
Troop, I wished you'd reconsider finishing your fictional masturpiece -- the Love Saga. We need to know what happens to Stubby.
All those in favor say, Aye
"Lookin' At My Backdoor" from "Pretzel Logic"?
The Old Dawgz are recording their first CD of original tunes, which we hope to finish by this fall.
We will be appearing again this fall at Bethel Woods, site of the original 1969 Woodstock Festival.
That will be a very exciting gig.
Good thread. Nice to see the trollery by the High Plains Grifter didn't derail it.
Father Fox, you know they're not going to be happy until we leave the planet, right? Forcibly, if necessary.
ST:
I don't want to be a scold, but...
Your comments last night to Meade and about his wife around 11 pm weren't the best representation of your Catholicism.
Icepick:
The goal will be to have everyone get on board the progressive train, whether in first class, coach, or the boxcars.
The train, however, will wreck ere long.
Your comments last night to Meade and about his wife around 11 pm weren't the best representation of your Catholicism.
I disagree, Fr.
My outlook on Catholicism is that you take responsibility for your own actions.
Meade and his wife are blaming other people for their feelings of guilt about their sexual actions.
I'm not judging their actions. Just telling them that they should take responsibility for them instead of projecting the blame on other people.
There is no way to address this without speaking directly and frankly about what they are doing.
Tell me another way, Fr.
I lived in SF during the height of the bathhouse era. You've got to talk about some pretty rough stuff if you are going to convey the reality of what happened.
Ritmo has presented the genesis of the AIDS epidemic as a sort of accident that nobody could have foreseen.
I know better because gay guy friends were telling me what they were doing in the bathhouses, and inviting me to join the party. I took a look out of curiosity.
They were engaging in anal intercourse, sometimes with a dozen guys a night. They were playing in pools of shit and pissing on each other.
I told my gay friends they were going to die from doing this long before anybody knew AIDS existed. It didn't seem like a mystery to me. All those guys died long ago.
So, how would you suggest I discuss these realities without some blunt talk?
My outlook on Catholicism is that you take responsibility for your own actions.
And that whole love thy neighbor as thyself thing, how's that working out for you?
Which part is made up, Darcy? If anything, ST is understating the depravity of the bathhouse scene. It was, and is sick.
Even after Kaposi's sarcoma was running rampant the city refused to shut down the bathhouses. Democrats, don't you know. The sainted Harvey Milk, may Dan White burn in hell, for example. Fuck them all.
And that whole love thy neighbor as thyself thing, how's that working out for you?
Explain how I've done otherwise with Meade and Althouse.
It's time for them to cease blaming other people for the paranoia that is provoked by their sexual guilt.
I've lived around the sexual rebels for 45 years. This paranoia is the common fate of those rebels.
They imagine that the negativity and condemnation comes from outside themselves when, in fact, it emanates from within themselves.
And, as I said, being aware that guilt works on us in this way does not mean that you must decide not to act upon your sexual kinks.
If you do decide to act out those kinks, place the burden upon yourself, not your neighbor who has done nothing to you.
Re-reading this thread I notice that Darcy and R & B both (and maybe some others) have referenced the trait of "tolerance."
My definition of "tolerance" is that state of mind where one feigns cordiality all the while searching for a rock big enough to kill the other guy.
The rule of law requires "tolerance" but don't let that fool you...given a chance, those who can oppress will oppress.
The Althouse and Meade stuff, Sixty.
One of the most difficult parts of talking about and to sexual rebels is that their first response is to assume that they are speaking to a prude who is outraged and shocked by what they are doing.
I'm every kind of sexual sinner you can imagine. That is not the perspective from which I am speaking.
I know first hand the paranoia that is provoked by guilt over one's sexual actions.
The sexual rebels always look outside themselves, as if somebody forced that guilt upon them.
The guilt comes from inside. Guilt is a warning mechanism that exists inside us, telling us about the risk we are taking or the harm we might do to others.
It is the common reaction of the sexual rebels, however, to assume that this guilt is something that somebody else is doing to them.
@Darcy, oh, never mind.
Althouse and Meade are struggling with guilt over their sexual identities and actions and projecting that guilt onto other people.
This is what is happening, Darcy.
Althouse and Meade are struggling with guilt over their sexual identities and actions and projecting that guilt onto other people.
ST, I think you've jumped the shark.
ST, I think you've jumped the shark.
No, I am correct.
I've also lived around the change the world crusaders for 45 years.
My analysis is right on the money.
ST: My outlook on Catholicism is that you take responsibility for your own actions.
Haz: And that whole love thy neighbor as thyself thing, how's that working out for you?
My outlook on Catholicism and on life in general is live and let live. It is between the 'sinner' and God as to judgement. I don't care what people do (unless they are harming children,animals or harming unwilling people.... then they are in trouble) as long as they don't bother me. I may not approve of some lifestyles, but it isn't up to me to make people change. It also isn't up to THEM to change me or demand actions and thoughts from me. Being told what to do usually has the opposite effect on me :-)
I don't have to LOVE anyone. I also don't have to hate either. I am sad when I see people acting in wrong ways or sinful ways. However, people ARE responsible for their own actions. It is up to their Maker to mete out reward or punishment. Not me.
@ Darcy. Shouting is not making shit up. I lived in the Castro District in SF from 69 to 72. You cannot believe the things that were going on at that time. Do all homosexual people act in this depraved way? Of course not. There are many who have normal boring lives, just like the rest of us. But...he isn't making it up. Exaggerating and generalizing a bit. But not imaginary.
As to the cakemaker. I would guess that he should just stipulate that he no longer makes Wedding cakes and leave it at that. What people DO with the cakes or cupcakes once they have them it is none of his business. They can ask for a fancy cake, a birthday, anniversary cake...and then use it as a wedding cake. Not his problem. But if they up front ask for Wedding Cake. Nope. Don't make 'em. The State cannot FORCE labor, that is slavery. But...then again....I'm not so sure that I don't rule that out given the way our fascist government and fascist society is trending.
@Darcy and Haz
You really think that all this carrying on by Meade and Althouse has been about theoretical stuff?
That's incredibly foolish.
It's about them.
Remember. I'm not condemning them. I'm calling on them to cease condemning other people for the guilt that arises from within themselves.
By the way, Althouse is better at disguising this stuff than Meade. Women, in general, are better at this.
Meade is practically hysterical with guilt and the need to deflect that guilt onto somebody else.
Amartel @1:18 - Nice encapsulation.
I hear all sorts of mind-numb from the left. Listening to someone blame a political party that isn't even in power, is a new one for me. The left are not self-aware and their blind faith allegiance squelches any hope for actual debate.
One party rule? It's still the other party's fault!
There is an oppressor in this sad story. Increasingly, the oppressor is the one claiming to be the victim.
I agree with Pogo - agitprop - all the way.
These two guys were doing this to provoke a lawsuit.
Absolutely.
There are plenty of gay-friendly establishments that would have been happy to bake these guys a cake - with love.
DBQ said ...[vis a vis the baker]
I would guess that he should just stipulate that he no longer makes Wedding cakes and leave it at that.
No, he will need to do more than that. With the "reporting" requirement to the state will come verification test shoppers. The state now has a vested interest in perpetuating the non-judicial punishment. He should not use the examples of his work previously listed (and saved I assure you by the state) as "Wedding" related. He needs to eliminate those catalog pages from his general catalog. Not fair. Yep. Reality? Yes.
The State cannot FORCE labor, that is slavery.
We are one tiny step away from that now, thanks to Justice Roberts of SCOTUS ... who determined against all semantic logic that a "penalty" for non-performance is in fact a "tax," normally applied to the results of some performance (labor, manufacture, created objects, etc.). Think about it.
If you can be financially penalized by taxation for failing to do something ...e.g. non-performance ... how is that not in essence forced labor...e.g., taking your money for not performing? The compulsion is innate in such a system.
Clarification: I said ...
The compulsion is innate in such a system.
The import of that remark is that you will be compelled to perform.
Althouse and Meade are struggling with guilt over their sexual identities and actions and projecting that guilt onto other people.
"ST, I think you've jumped the shark."
No, I am correct.
ST,
In your best representation of your Catholicism, where does bearing false witness fit in?
I've just run through Phillips' catalog to see if there are any cross over uses of individual designs. I did not find any. His business was largely centered on Wedding Cakes in terms of repeat design utilization.
In short, his business has been ruined by two self centered individuals (Wedding in MA and Reception in CO...please) who had an agenda to make an example of someone...not to celebrate their "wedding" such as it was or wasn't.
Did anyone determine if this "couple" actually got married in MA (or anywhere) and held a reception in CO?
In your best representation of your Catholicism, where does bearing false witness fit in?
It fits perfectly within my analysis of your actions.
You are bearing false witness against other people by projecting your feelings of guilt upon them.
I suggest you stop doing it.
Whether or not you and Althouse are acting out your lesbian and black cuckold fantasies is your own business, Meade. I don't care.
Nobody is trying to stop you. Nobody is persecuting you.
So, I suggest you cease bearing false witness against your neighbors.
You and your wife have become, as you like to put it, the oppressors, with your need to find a scapegoat for your own problems and guilt.
The notion that I am bearing "false witness," in this case is particularly interesting since you and your wife have been arguing for several years that no moral approbation should be attached to the fantasies and/or actions I've been discussing.
I also don't attach any moral approbation to those fantasies and/or actions.
I just disagree with you about a pragmatic social issue which is mocking and debasing the sacrament of marriage.
@9:23 - Shouting T. - I believe you re: the gay bathhouse era.
I have a gay male friend who lives in Denver circa now and back in the 1990s and 2000s - the gay bath house scene is/was still alive and well. Perhaps on a smaller more underground scale, but just as you described.
I cannot even imagine what went on and still goes on in SF.
"They were playing in pools of shit and pissing on each other."
You have to hand it to Shouting Thomas. His rhetoric might be a little rough but that is just about the best description of the Althouse blog that I have yet seen.
@DBQ
I meant the A+M stuff. It's just dumb.
"@DBQ
I meant the A+M stuff. It's just dumb."
Maybe. It isn't any of my business what people do in their sex or personal lives unless they are directly affecting me. However, Meade does come off as a sanctimonious scolding prude....Church Lady on SNL. People don't usually act this way unless they are suppressing something.
In Psychology it is called Projection I'm not saying it is so in the case that Shouting is saying... just pointing out that it is a mechanism that is quite often used to justify people's own actions or guilt about their feelings.
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a quotation from the 1602 play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It has been used as a figure of speech, in various phrasings, to indicate that a person's overly frequent or vehement attempts to convince others of something have ironically helped to convince others that the opposite is true, by making the person look insincere and defensive. (quoted from Wiki)
Another technique that Meade seems to use frequently and which sometimes backfires.
Nearly twelve months ago many of the (now) regular commenters on Lem's blog migrated here because we grew weary of the personal attacks we saw and experienced at Althouse (and some other blogs).
While discussions will always have multiple points of view (much more interesting than having a moderator run comments through a sieve), we need to keep to the original premise of this blog and avoid personal attacks.
Aren't we better than that?
Well, okay. Maybe it is not a dumb suggestion, but ST is presenting it as FACT and is very specific with regard to his "facts". Obviously, he is not making up a possible psychological profile, but knowing it is fact here? I reject that, and further, I'm like you - it's none of my business anyway.
I still trying to figure out how what I've said amounts to either "personal attack" or "false accusation."
Meade and Althouse have been arguing for years that the fantasies and/or actions I've attributed to them have no moral consequences and should bear no public shaming or punishment.
Oddly, I agree. If there are no accusations of moral failing or a demand for public retribution, how is that either personal attack or false accusation?
I disagree with where that sense of shaming and guilt is coming from. Althouse and Meade have been harping on this subject for years. Their contention is that the shaming and guilt is external and imposed by a vague entity called "society."
I am saying that that sense of shaming and guilt is internal in origin and emanates from within themselves.
Why is their argument an intellection one, and mine an emotional attack? I am rejecting the most important core assumption of Althouse's arguments.
So, which is it, Meade?
Are these actions/fantasies morally reprehensible or not?
You seem to be confused.
Althouse has also been arguing, in my estimation, that openly declaring one's gaydom is absolutely essential to the affected person's "self-esteem" and public standing.
So, if this is true, what's the offense in discussing that person's sexual inclinations. Proud declarations of one's sexual practices are good, but mention of them by another person is evil?
I seem to be the only person here who isn't impossibly confused.
I've been arguing against gay marriage on pragmatic grounds, not moral grounds.
I have yet to encounter anybody who notices this.
Disingenuous. Your motive is to provoke, which you're free to do, but you should own that, not disguise it as some truth that you know, ST.
No, my motive is that I have unique knowledge as an inside witness to what has been going on in the gay community for the past 50 years.
The attempt to blame what has happened on something external to that community is a falsehood. The blame resides within. Heteros didn't damage that community and thus owe that community no apologies or repayment.
I am trying to provoke people out of the entire false dialogue that Althouse and Meade have provided us. That kind of "provocation" is entirely what this sort of dialogue should be about.
Folks...I've been around for as long or longer than ST. I find what he is saying to be believable. I do not know his sources and do not care either. I know one thing...what was said and done by both at TOP last July, there and here.
The hypocrisy of that pair at TOP is astounding...especially when the lessor light shows up to lecture on Catholicism and religion in general. Does anyone here think that Meade really gives a rat's tinker dang about it?
Deep people over there...who else goes to New York and discovers cheese? Seriously.
It ain't easy bein' cheesy! :)
Well saying "Blessed be the Cheesemakers" is just about all those two douches know about religion.
Well, I hope the cheesemakers are blessed. I feel blessed by the cheesemakers! :)
ST:
You asked, what I'd suggest. I'm a little late with this advice, but...
I'd have suggested avoiding the discussion of Meade and Althouse's motives, based on what you assert are their sinful behaviors.
I can think of several reasons not to get into a discussion like that, but one reason in particular is that they aren't in full view. How you know them I don't know -- and please don't tell me.
But even if you are correct, you aren't entitled to air other people's dirty laundry without a sufficient reason. And I can't see that this discussion is important enough to justify what the Catechism calls detraction.
And of course, you may believe your assessment is accurate; but if you're not accurate, then you would additionally be guilty of the sin of calumny.
Both of those things are good to avoid.
As a rule, I think it's best to stick to what's "in full view." I don't see how the things you're referencing can be "in full view."
But even if everything you are claiming about these folks has been put on full view on their blog, or here, in practice, most people reading this thread won't be aware of it.
In my opinion, it's not a fruitful avenue to pursue.
I might add...
Attempting to talk about the guilt of others is perilous.
It's one thing to say that certain actions are wrong. It's a whole other thing to try to talk about how guilty someone is, who does those things.
The morality of human actions involves not only the act-in-itself, but also the state of mind, the knowledge and freedom of the one who so acts; and circumstances matter too.
It should be obvious that much of this is hidden from view. We may think we know these things about others, but we don't.
I don't join in on beating up on Meade and Ann, but Father Fox makes some pretty good points, and I am a Presbyterian and I read the Bible.
I don't join in on beating up on Meade and Ann,...
I could care less about either of them. This thread was going along just fine for 9 hours yesterday, with several people, including Fr Fox, participating in a discussion of religious beliefs vis a vis the baker in Colorado.
Then, after 9 hours, along comes Meade with a sanctimonious crack about who is being sacrilegious aimed at one commenter. Promptly the conversation became all about him and his wife...quell' surprise!
My point, maybe I miss it, but I don't recall anyone ... "beating up on Meade and Ann..." until Meade shows up with a spurious comment on whatever thread happens to peak his interest.
Like tell me when he has joined any thread in good faith conversation here? I find his little machinations amusing, especially how he's so devoted to his course of action that he feels the need to set up an email feed to any subsequent comments...yawn. Zzzz...
Larry wears green corduroy jeans.
Aridog:
"Then, after 9 hours, along comes Meade with a sanctimonious crack about who is being sacrilegious aimed at one commenter. Promptly the conversation became all about him and his wife...quell' surprise! "
According to your rules, Aridog, when am I allowed to join a discussion? Is it too late if I fail to comment before the 5:51 mark? Is the 8:44 mark too late in your rule book? And does your rule apply to everyone or is it a special rule just for me?
Yesterday, at 1:13 PM, Shouting Thomas attacked Darcy's opinion that baking the cake for the gay couple would be an example of Christian love. He attacked it by asserting that it would be tantamount to "going along with making a mockery out of a sacrament".
Was I too harsh, in your authoritative opinion, when I disagreed with Shouting Thomas's implication that wedding cakes are sacred and wedding receptions are sacraments? I called him Mocking Thomas. That might have been uncalled for even though I thought and still think his implication was, albeit probably unintentionally, a mocking of a religious sacrament - matrimony. It also mocked Darcy's view, as I understand it, of Christian love and grace in action.
By the way, what do you think of Martin Fox's comment at June 3, 2014 at 9:29 PM?
I think it's right on.
It is the being compelled to participate in any way in a gay marriage that is making a mockery of the sacrament of marriage.
I'd have suggested avoiding the discussion of Meade and Althouse's motives, based on what you assert are their sinful behaviors.
I clearly stated, Fr. Fox, that I didn't consider those types of behaviors sinful. The very essence of Meade and Althouse's gay campaign over the past few years has been that those behaviors are normal and not sinful.
So, you've started off by completely failing to understand what I have said. There's not much point in responding to that.
Attempting to talk about the guilt of others is perilous.
Did you even read what I wrote Fr. Fox?
Your analysis is so off the mark that I doubt it.
I didn't accuse Meade and Althouse of being guilty of some act or sin. I said that they were struggling to deal with what is a universal feature of humans, feelings of moral guilt.
I'd suggest you go back and read what I said, because your response doesn't relate to what I said in any way that I can understand.
I went and made a comment at the article, got replied to, and when I went back I couldn't find the comments anywhere. What a pain in the rear... particularly as I had only tried to make a point to a "Imachristianbut..." sort that just because *he* had not a single religious principle that meant anything, it didn't mean that other people might not deserve the right to their religious freedom... and got accused of "really really really hating gay people"... because you CAN'T have a conversation on principles or ask someone to identify some possible reason that their faith (if it's worth calling it faith) would ever go against public opinion without "really really really hating gay people."
The demands these days that we not even speak of principle applied to life in a way that puts value on the necessity of liberty and the 1st Amendment... be it freedom of speech, association, or relgion...
The complete and UTTER inability for ANYONE to put themselves in someone elses shoes and even *imagine* needing those protections for themselves for *something else*...
It's disheartening. We can't have legal principle if the legal scholar is shamed into violating reason and violating law because of some whine-babies who insist that if the Truth can be used against gays, then it should not be pursued. We can't explain why freedom of speech for me, is important for you. We can't explain that criminalizing religion is the thing of witch-hunts and terror.
So we're just going to have to wait for it all to blow up into something that has to be fought, not with *philosophy*... since we're no longer allowed to express mere ideas with *words* if they're the wrong words, and we're no longer allowed the freedom to live our convictions unless we do so in secret... The purpose of the 1st Amendment is abandoned because no one can be bothered to talk about ideas when talking about *feelings* gives them more power.
Will we get over this without blood? I'd hope so, except that getting trough things without BLOOD is what the freaking 1st Amendment is for... and we're throwing it OUT.
Fr. Fox,
Your remarks suggest that you haven't understood what Althouse has been saying for the past few years.
To commit "calumny," you would have to accuse somebody of something that is intended to harm another person's reputation.
Althouse has been arguing for several years that the actions/fantasies that I've described are the same as traditional Christian marriage and bear no moral opprobrium.
Have you been reading her and absorbing what she's said?
She has rejected and renounced all of your concepts of sexual morality and claimed that some external force called "society" has inflicted sexual guilt on people like her and her husband and son.
Her argument is so radical that I think you have trouble believing she means it. In the community in which she lives, a reputation for engaging in such acts/fantasies makes you a hero or heroine.
Meade said....
According to your rules, Aridog, when am I allowed to join a discussion?
My point was that you don't join a discussion so much as drop in to criticize it or someone in it personally.
According to your rules, Aridog ... And does your rule apply to everyone or is it a special rule just for me?
I make no rules here, I am merely observing your conduct here going back to last July. If I had rule making authority, why yes, I'd ban you from any discussion...just as one or two of the masthead authors here have done.
Was I too harsh, ...?
See? You don't get it. Why do you believe your only requirement here is to criticize someone?
By the way, what do you think of Martin Fox's comment at June 3, 2014 at 9:29 PM?
If you'd read my comments you'd know I disagree with him on the mechanism of regulatory enforcement, as well as with a few others. But you don't read. My experience is in regulatory enforcement federally and militarily.
Now if you'd asked about what he said at 9:19 PM, vis a vis Althouse and the melt down, I'd tell you I am in full agreement.
Why do you come here at all?
You feeling all oppressed again?
You know who attacks the economic participation of their enemies?
Our soldiers would drive through plush Sunni neighborhoods in Iraq and then through impoverished Shi'ite neighborhoods... Protestants kept Irish Catholics from getting work... People have been denying Jews the right to participation in the economy for centuries... Blacks were kept from working in the US by the AFL-CIO.
And who is doing the same thing now to people who do not have the right ideas? Liberals... what a freaking obscene use of the word *liberal*. Oh, don't complain that well, they really ARE the wrong ideas and they really ARE bad people... because that's nothing new. That's the human standard excuse for every single oppression I listed...
If it's okay to punish bad people for their bad ideas by restricting their participation in the economy...
McCarthy is owed a HUGE FREAKING APOLOGY.
No freedom to be wrong *and keep your job* is no freedom at all.
But "no freedom" is what people want, when they're the ones in power.
Synova said ...
We can't explain why freedom of speech for me, is important for you.
Well said. Frankly the entire comment was on target.
What happened to us that we've nearly abandoned the very principles that have kept us free?
IN the category of thrashing a dead horse, so to speak...let me repeat a question I asked earlier...
Did anyone determine if this "couple", David Mullins and Charlie Craig , actually got married in MA (or anywhere) let alone held a reception in CO or anywhere?
I tried to Google up an answer, but found nothing indicating they actually carried out the initial premise of their complaint.
Or was it purely a political action effort and nothing more?
Dang...I found a partial answer to my question above:
Charlie and Dave were married in Provincetown, Mass., on Sept. 16, 2012.
Apparently they got their cake there too. What happened to Denver?
Sorry...meant to include the LINK to Huff Po...
But of course he did!
This month, as we mark 45 years since the patrons of the Stonewall Inn defied an unjust policy and awakened a nascent movement, let us honor every brave leader who stood up, sat in, and came out, as well as the allies who supported them along the way. Following their example, let each of us speak for tolerance, justice, and dignity -- because if hearts and minds continue to change over time, laws will too.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2014 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to eliminate prejudice everywhere it exists, and to celebrate the great diversity of the American people.
Proving once again, due his drawing a moral equivalence, he has no clue just what the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's was all about.
I ask once again...can you tell if some one is LGB or T by the color of their skin?
Really. This distinguishing feature of the the real Civil Rights Movement is not hard to grasp.
Unless you grew up more white than black.
@Aridog "Like tell me when he has joined any thread in good faith conversation here? "
Exactly. And not just bad faith, anti-faith.
As such, the intent is evil: to bring blight rather than illuminate. Perhaps he studied the Althouse trolls and learnt their ways, or maybe anti-thought is inborn. Regardless, they want not discussion but chaos; such is their habit.
Now, if true to form, he will speak of first names, then surnames, then employer. Veiled threats to livelihood. The way of cowardice. As I said: evil.
For creation is so much harder than destruction. Chip and bagoh and Trooper and DBQ and Synova and others here are creators. I admire them their erudition and lifegiving manner.
TOP is, was, a destructive force, like Shiva writ small. I feel sad I didn't abandon ship far sooner, like Sippican.
ST:
Clearly, I did take your comments other than you intended. I took you to making reference to Meade and Althouse's sex life and fantasies, and some guilt you supposed they had from that. And that's what I thought was ill-advised on your part.
Well said Pogo.
Except that I am not a creator. Just a knucklehead.
My definition of "tolerance" is that state of mind where one feigns cordiality all the while searching for a rock big enough to kill the other guy.
Not necessarily. And this actually sounds a bit foreign and harsh to me. To my mind, it can simply mean withholding judgment. Or not seeing any reason to offer judgment.
Tell you what, what ST describes is not a scene that I'd have imagined and sounds horrible. Not just horribly excessive, but horrible. And I believe him. I agree with him that sometimes blunt talk is important.
So, I'm open-minded. My tolerance of him, or of anyone who's occasionally got something intelligent or decent to say, leads me to accept that in this case, he might have had a good point to make.
I do the same thing with people's decisions on right and wrong - just to a lesser degree. Sure, I've got moral feelings and judgments that are pretty strong, but I think it's important to make rational sense of them. Do I never judge others? Of course, not. But I sure do try to hear out people and not always assume that what they do that's different from not only what I'd do, but from what I'd ever have thought of doing, is intrinsically wrong.
I just plain don't have time to judge everyone I come across. Just the people who give me a funny story I can tell others about later. And that includes funny stories on the bad decisions I, myself, have made.
PIOMD wrote: "Now, if true to form, he will speak of first names, then surnames, then employer. Veiled threats to livelihood. The way of cowardice. As I said: evil."
His pattern is well established, and while this may just be me projecting, I think that the prelude to the afternoon of the schtick involves the mass consumption of spirituous liquor.
"As such, the intent is evil: to bring blight rather than illuminate. Perhaps he studied the Althouse trolls and learnt their ways, or maybe anti-thought is inborn. Regardless, they want not discussion but chaos; such is their habit."
Now that there is some mighty fine projection, Pogo.
"Studied the Althouse trolls."
Your evil expression of egotism is blindingly illuminating, Nearly Dead Pogo of the House of Chaos Whose Feelings Still Smart Nearly One Full Year After Losing DOMA and Your Power to Quench Your Desire to Harm a Politically Unpopular Group — Gays.
"For creation is so much harder than destruction."
Ah, then this explains your depressing destructiveness both at TOP and here at Lem's Levity.
"I feel sad I didn't abandon ship far sooner"
More pride in his depression, delusions, desires to destroy.
Now scrunch up your little face for me one more time, Po.
For a laugh. For old time's sake.
How much respect do you feel the Althouse blog is entitled to, Mr. Meade?
Res ipsa loquitur.
Too bad this thread went careening off the rails. I think the question of where to draw the line bw freedom of association and illegitimate discrimination is an interesting and important one.
'The personal is political' has become 'the politically correct trumps the personal.'
We must not just tolerate but celebrate and participate in every new demand.
Theodore Dalrymple (emphasis mine):
“In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is...in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
Ein Gedicht für Blog-Kommentatoren:
Sag morgens mir ein liebes Wort,
bevor du gehst von zu Hause fort.
Es kann so viel am Tag gescheh`n,
wer weiß, ob wir uns wiederseh`n.
Sag lieb ein Wort zur guten Nacht,
wer weiß, ob man noch früh erwacht.
Das Leben ist so schnell vorbei,
und dann ist es nicht einerlei,
was du zuletzt zu mir gesagt,
was du zuletzt hast mich gefragt.
Drum lass ein gutes Wort das Letzte sein,
Bedenk: Das Letzte könnt`s für immer sein.
Now that we're all sweet and happy with my little domestic advice in German, I will only say that Chip's question is a good one. But it probably can't be answered, because the algorithm for freedom of association is patented. And so it really belongs in a blawg devoted to patent law.
Post a Comment