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Gen Con Threatens To Leave Indianapolis Over Religious Freedom Bill
Grymalkin writes A controversial religious freedom bill has passed the Indianapolis Senate and is now awaiting Governor Mike Pence's signature to become law. Supporters claim that this bill will protect business owners from excessive government control while opponents argue it is just a veiled attempt to allow those same business owners to deny services to individuals because of their sexual orientation. Now, Gen Con has released a statement saying this bill will influence their decision to keep the convention in Indiana. This announcement has tourism officials worried as Gen Con brings in roughly 50,000 visitors each year, contributing $50 million to the local economy. So far Gen Con's announcement has not swayed the Governor who says he is looking forward to signing the bill into law. Gen Con currently has a contract with the Indy Convention Center through 2020. No word yet as to exactly when the convention would be moved should the bill become law.
For that matter a gay baker shouldn't have to bake a cake for a real marriage.
A "real marriage"? Which marriages are real, and which are fake?
Doing business with whomever one wants, while denying to do so to others on whatever whim, is a fundamental tenet of freedom
Swap the word "gay" for "black" and try again. The country already learned, rather painfully, that letting businesses refuse to serve whole segments of the population causes one hell of a lot of unrest.
It would be really handy if the article mentioned what Gen Con even was. I had to go look it up.
And a white baker should not have to serve a black customer, right?
WRONG!
No one is forcing you to associate with anyone.
But as a BUSINESS, you will provide the same service to everyone regardless of race/creed/religion/etc.
You may not like being "forced" to serve black people.
You may believe that it is an infringement of your "freedom" to be forced to serve black people.
Fuck you.
Being homophobic or racist is also a freedom, but has a price, which usually involves being called a douchbag.
Doing business with whomever one wants, while denying to do so to others on whatever whim, is a fundamental tenet of freedom
That bullshit argument was rejected pretty soundly 50 years ago. It is reasonable in limited circumstances, for businesses which can only deal with a very limited range of customers. It is not considered reasonable for any business which claims to be open to the public--we decided long ago that you're either open to the public or you're not. You cannot be open to the public except for women; you cannot be open to the public except for blacks or latinos. Etc.
Isn't it amazing how people who enjoy protection from being discriminated against want to use that same protection to allow them to discriminate against others?
Sorry, but if you think your religion should allow you to discriminate, you should be subject to the same thing.
Oh, what's that, your religion is a magic double standard which exempts you from logic and you are special? Go piss up a rope.
You're just as stupid as the people who want to force Sharia law on the rest of us. Stop pretending otherwise.
Your religion doesn't make you some special little flower who operates under a special set of rules.
"Asshole" is universal, no matter what you believe in.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
So, you think that people should be free to discriminate, for any reason? That it's okay so long as it's just private citizens, and not the government?
So by that line of thinking, it would be okay for there to be a town where:
-The local bus company won't serve ($category) people.
-The local taxi company won't serve ($category) people.
-The local restaurant won't seat/serve ($category) people.
-The local real estate agency won't sell homes to ($category) people.
-The local baker won't bake cakes/pies/etc for ($category) people.
Putting it in the context of "religion" doesn't make it any better. Nor does it make it any better regardless of whether ($category) is Black, Gay, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim, or, yes, even Christian.
Here's an idea. Maybe, if your religion says you can't serve everyone else in society equally, then you shouldn't be choosing to work in a role where the rest of society expects you to treat everyone equally and fairly in public life? If I'm a religious conscientious objector who believes it's wrong to kill people under any circumstances, should I be able to voluntarily join the Army and then be exempt from anything to do with shooting anything or anyone? Of course not.
A Christian baker should not have to bake a wedding cake for a gay "marriage"
You know, I get really tired of the way the term "Christian" has been co-opted to mean "member of the bigoted, extremist Christian right".
I'm a Christian. I have been a Christian all my life, and I bet I read the Bible and pray far more often than a lot of these "Christian" blowhards. (Currently doing one of those read-the-Bible-through-in-a-year thingies.) I've been a camp counsellor at a Christian summer camp, I teach Sunday School, I sing in the choir, I occasionally play piano for the worship services, I have helped advise our pastor on sermon topics, and I was at one time the president of my congregation,
And you know what? Gay marriage doesn't bother me one bit, Leviticus notwithstanding. Being gay isn't a choice, so if someone is gay, God must have made him that way. If that's the case, who am I to condemn it?
It will be sad to see GenCon migrate to Seattle, where it would be far more welcome than in Indianapolis. But the Indiana General Assembly's act of antagonism will cause a loss of customers and business, which should be enough cause for GenCon to claim breach of contract on the part of the Indianapolis Convention Bureau, even if it was not its fault. And the law itself will be litigated over. Lawsuits will be flying this summer in Indianapolis, not cosplayers flying to Indy.
--- Andy West http://andywest.org
The convention organizers aren't trying to punish those who are being homophobic or racist, though. They're trying to punish those who believe that homophobes or racists have that freedom.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
If they had to accommodate groups they found objectionable.
Lets say 4th Reich games wanted a booth at the convention ? Or Klansman entertainment.
Really ticks me off how the left has completely destroyed the meaning of words like freedom and liberty.
it really ticks me off how the right has characterized the ability to be openly racist, sexist, misogynist, transphobic, and homophobic as "freedom and liberty. absolutely disgusting.
society cannot and will not have actual liberty when businesses and public-facing organizations are permitted to discriminate against people for who they are under the guise of "religious freedom" or "liberty." the very notion is abhorrent to an open democracy, and it amazes how the right uses mental gymnastics to reach the conclusions they have.
When you run a public business, the government gives you nice shiny benefits in exchange for you following certain standards. You can't kick out service dogs, you can't advertise sales on things you don't have, and as a public business, you have to serve the public. That's what your business license says!
When your city says "yes, you can own this land and open a storefront"--they sold that land to you because it's zoned for businesses that sell to everyone. They don't sell land on main street to warehouses, they sell it to companies that bring foot traffic and make that area into a commercial hub. Again--you own (or rent) the land because you agreed to serve the public.
If you're baking cakes out the back door of your house and selling them on Etsy (never mind how that works), fine, the government probably didn't support you, and you didn't promise them you'd participate in the economy they set up. But if you have a storefront, or if you pay taxes as a corporation, then society gave you special consideration and you MUST return the favor by doing what you agreed...serve everyone, regardless of skin color or orientation.
After all, divorce statistics show that most people live happily ever after, right?
Actually, they do. Half of all marriages end in divorce, but more two thirds of all people that get married don't get divorced. How is that possible? Many people get married and divorced repeatedly, and that throws the numbers way off. Second marriages have a 75% chance of divorce.
Nope, the bus was public transportation; Rosa was part of the public. Any private transport, say a cab company, that decides to discriminate against groups of people might find their business hurt if enough sympathetic people decide to boycott it for that reason. That's a right way to solve such problems.
Owning a business does not imbue the owner(s) with the rights of feudal lords. A keystone principle of American society is that you can't discriminate by refusing to conduct business with others based on ideological differences. A great struggle over civil rights would seem to have settled this, but some throwbacks still want to impose un-American values on others. The Declaration of Independence and the U. S. Constitution were founded on the principles of the Enlightenment. It is high time our citizenry got enlightened, as well.
Same shit, different decade. Bob Jones University in South Carolina tried this crap in the 50s and 60s, saying their policy of discriminating against blacks and Asians was a divinely ordained part of their religion. According to Bob Jones, the Bible clearly told him that blacks were inferior to whites. This is the same bullshit argument. It will fall in the courts, and it will fail in the marketplace. In the meantime, GenCon, and everyone else should avoid spending money in Indiana.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Allowing people to express their sincere religious belief in how and who they choose to do business with SHOULD be allowed regardless, as a matter of law.
Why 'sincere religious belief' ? Why not any other arbitrary made-up criterion ?
Suppose you owned a business, would you serve a white-hooded KKK Grand Wizard who came in for supplies for his next hate rally? I'd rather not. You imagine calling names will change someone? You are being silly, would might change a place would be a boycott organized against a business, dropping sales even ten percent would probably wake them up.
The freedom to be a dick is exactly what liberty is all about.
Do you think freedom of speech means you're allowed to write a letter to your grandmother? No, it means you can say controversial and offensive things without fear of government retribution.
Freedom isn't a word that's supposed to make everyone happy all the time. Liberty is about having the right to be "openly racist, sexist, misogynist, transphobic, and homophobic", without fear of physical aggression.
That's not to say there aren't consequences for one's actions, but a free society isn't one that mandates everyone conform to specific belief system, it's one that allows people to believe what they want and behave as they like, as long as they don't physically hard other people.
Oh. Well, what if I want to run a business without their "nice shiny benefits"? Can't do that, eh? I have a natural right to run a business. Since when is government "giving" me rights?
Actually, you'd probably be running afoul of many, many laws by doing that. You'd be lucky if you were allowed to GIVE away food.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
So are you saying that racists/homophobes are allowed to say "I refuse to do business with people based on this $race / $sexualpreference", but we are not allowed to say "I refuse to do business in an area where such people are also allowed to do business"? Because I really cannot tell if that is the message you are trying to convey.
I'm sure that, maybe, YOU would be able to think of a business (profitable) that did not have customers that could be referred to as "people" but as for me ... I have no idea what you're talking about.
Then think about taxes.
Black people pay taxes. Those taxes are used to pay for the road in front of your business. And the cops who keep your business safe. And so on.
And you are going to take the services provided by the black taxes and then REFUSE TO SERVE THE PEOPLE PAYING THOSE TAXES BECAUSE YOU DO NOT LIKE THEIR SKIN TONE.
Fuck you and your fucked up ideas about YOUR "rights".
Read a history book.
Bullshit.Seeing as you don't even know the meaning of the word
http://www.merriam-webster.com...
: the state or condition of people who are able to act and speak freely
: the power to do or choose what you want to
: a political right
You want to tell me how forcing anyone to provide service is compatible with that ?
When you say freedom and liberty, you mean certain people have a license to force people to participate in activities they find repulsive.
and yet you don't even grasp that businesses having the ability to deny service to a particular group of people because the business owner does not like that person's sex or race or other fundamental part of their being is precisely denying those people their right in choosing what they want to do?
be self aware for at least ONE SECOND in your life. liberty is a TWO WAY STREET.
Doing business with whomever one wants, while denying to do so to others on whatever whim, is a fundamental tenet of freedom
That bullshit argument was rejected pretty soundly 50 years ago. It is reasonable in limited circumstances, for businesses which can only deal with a very limited range of customers. It is not considered reasonable for any business which claims to be open to the public--we decided long ago that you're either open to the public or you're not. You cannot be open to the public except for women; you cannot be open to the public except for blacks or latinos. Etc.
While a business shouldn't be allowed to not serve a segment of society, a business shouldn't be forced to contribute to something to which they object (on any grounds, but religious grounds for this argument). So while a bakery should have to sell a pre-made cake/cookie/whatever to any customer that walks in, it shouldn't have to make a cake promoting a gay wedding or a NAMBLA meeting or a Jihad Dance Party or Furry Orgy (I'm not equating those things, I'm just listing things that many people would object to being a part of). In an extreme example, a Jewish-owned bakery shouldn't have to make a cake with a swastika or "Death to Jews" written on it. Some people would see making a cake with a rainbow on it for a gay wedding as just as offensive. Let them believe that and take your business elsewhere - why would you want to give them money in the first place? Bring attention to that business, boycott them, do everything legally possible to embarrass them, but don't force them to go against their beliefs, no matter how wrong you think that those beliefs are.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
So the KKK can force a black or Jewish printer to print posters for their next rally, then?
If you answer no, you agree with the govenrnor of Indianapolis. If you answer yes, you're in favour of slavery (forcing the printer to serve against their will). Pick one.
He would be asked to remove his hood upon entering the store.
If he did not remove it, he would be asked to leave. At which point he is trespassing if he stays.
If he did remove his hood then you'd have a funny story to tell all your friends about who the Grand Wizard is. Want to see it on CCTV?
What is this nonsense? They aren't trying to "curtail the freedom" of anyone. Businesses are already prohibited from acting in an arbitrarily discriminatory manner towards people. They're calling it the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act" to feed a bullshit persecution complex, while enshrining their hateful nonsense into law. If you can refuse business to gays because your religion says so, then you can refuse business to anyone, and that's bullshit.
Well, religion is bullshit, by and large, which is why laws like this are terrible. You have the First Amendment, you don't need to have your superstition put on a privileged pedestal.
"Klansman" is not a protected class. Of course, would you know if he came in while not dressed so as to call himself out so obviously? No!
And if you knew who he was, you could refuse to sell to him individually.
Or whole towns could adopt similarly hateful attitudes and make it de-facto. Why the fuck are we wandering back down this path? Oh right, because Christian Love^WHate.
No. The organizers of a convention that arguably falls under the umbrella of "the arts" want to avoid a venue where many people that work in "the arts" would be treated like an underclass.
Indiana can have the NRA convention.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Extremist strawman is extreme.
Any public shop must allow the public to enter and purchase products or services. A merchant doesn't have to do everything the customer asks and they can refuse service if they have good reason. But any shop that discriminates on any stereotypical ground is at least being unprofessional and unethical but at worst breaking discrimination laws.
This law is a thinly veiled attempt to remove all of the civil rights successes of the last sixty years.
Anyone can make a religion and say they aren't allowed to do X or talk to Y, then discriminate against anyone they choose. The entire point of the United States of America (LITERALLY) was to avoid that kind of thing.
You're free not to operate a store or restaurant if you don't want to serve everyone.
Says who? Which provision of the Constitution grants this authority?
Who determines which classes are protected? It's completely arbitrary.
If a person is denied service, what's their injury? The common law system (not to mention the US Constitution) requires an injured party to bring up a civil lawsuit. If they were extended a written offer to purchase a product, that might be an injury. But if not?
E.g. You want to force a photographer to to work an event they don't want to be at? And then I'm guessing the government will have to investigate if they did a 'good enough' job photographing the event they didn't want to be at.
Or prosecutors have to introspect the inner machinations of the professional to make sure their rationale for accepting a different event was 'good enough' for them to legally decline the one they didn't want to be at. It's absurd, but this stuff has actually happened.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
There's no such thing as "homophobia" ... an irrational fear of sameness
It's just a political slogan with as much legitimacy as 911 trutherism (none)
The fact that some little boys (2% of them?) never grew up and got over the "ewwww, girls are icky and have cooties" stage dose not mean that all of society needs to redefine "right" and "wrong" to meet their narccisstic demands. SOME people shoose to rob banks - we do not need to have society decide that robbing banks is now ok - it's still "wrong" (even if bank robbers have "always felt like" bank robbers and never felt inclined to earn an honest living.
Freedom does NOT just mean perverts get to try to push their proclivities into the public forum, it ALSO means that civilized adults get to push back. The emporer may chhose to stride through the town naked like a gay guy in a Folsom st parade, but the normal kid on the sideline also gets to point at him an laugh and point out that he's naked (no matter how many other people have been intimidated into pretending the guy is wearing something fabulous. Oh, and don't even START trying to pretend that being a black man is the same as being a sexual deviant.
Don't like people resisting the pro-pervert messages? Tough luck. It's called "freedom". If you insist we are all free to advocate things, and most-particularly unpopular ones (as the gays insisted in the 60s and 70s when society had not yet caved-in on this toxic garbage) than you have no right to try to suppress your opponents. Wanna blacklist businesses, employees, and communities that are not "pro-gay"? OK, then you have no right to complain when straight people begin firing and boycotting gays and gay-friendly businesses and communities. "Tolerance" is a two-way street, and it's NOT the same thing as forcing people to accept one side.
I think you're free to not serve gays if you don't want to.
I literally cannot believe that anybody would seriously hold that opinion. It's certainly not freedom for those being denied service, is it? Oh, they're free to go somewhere else, are they? Sorry - that's not freedom. Freedom itself is a woefully under-examined notion in the good old United States of America.
If you don't want to serve some groups of people for whatever reasons, you aren't open to the public. And then you have to say that first, e.g. by calling you a club or a closed society.
Society has a very clear interest in preventing you from running someone over in your car, which trumps your claim of religious freedom.
It's much more debatable whether society has, for example, such an interest in forcing you to participate in a gay wedding.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Regardless of who "wins" this argument, one side will have pushed their "personal beliefs" on the other. If "pushing your beliefs on someone else" is the basis of your argument against, that's hypocritical. I'm not defending the proposed law here; just pedantically pointing out the logical flaw.
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
The law is in response to assholes making trouble and causing timid, straight-laced shop-owners to lose heaps of money. Instead of choosing another business to get their goods, the troublemakers insist on bringing grief to one shop.
Furthermore, most of the "civil rights successes of the last sixty years" have to do with race, and race is not an issue of Christianity for any but a very few loonies. This whole subject has come up because a small bunch of homosexuals are trying to make other people miserable.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
So the KKK can force a black or Jewish printer to print posters for their next rally, then?
If you answer no, you agree with the govenrnor of Indianapolis. If you answer yes, you're in favour of slavery (forcing the printer to serve against their will). Pick one.
Since when were the KKK protected?
Same as if the Black Panthers or ISIS came in and asked you to print up some hate speech. You can refuse service as the job they're asking you to do is borderline illegal.
I cannot refuse to serve a Muslim or black person on account of their skin colour or religion, but I can refuse to serve someone for being unruly, disruptive, drunk, argumentative or would harm the good name of my business. That last one is important, refusing to serve people with ginger hair would harm my businesses reputation, not refusing to serve the grand pooba of the KKK would have the same effect.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
So that means you think it's fine if a restaurant posts a sign saying "NO BLACKS".
Because history shows us that it turns out bad. When bigots are a small minority, it's ok to let the free market deal with the problem. When they are in the majority, or when they wield a majority of the power, the free market gets ugly. Just look at pre-civil rights era segregation.
That's the deal. Society says that if you want the protections of incorporation you have to abide by the rules, which say you can't discriminate on the grounds of pretty much anything involuntary (race, gender, sexual orientation etc.)
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Instead of choosing another business to get their goods, the troublemakers insist on bringing grief to one shop.
I guess you were on the bad guy's side when watching Scooby Doo. So what if they were criminals trying to cheat some widow out of her inheritance by haunting the old theme park, it's all the fault of those meddling kids! The audacity of standing up for justice!
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"Furthermore, most of the "civil rights successes of the last sixty years" have to do with race, and race is not an issue of Christianity for any but a very few loonies."
Wow, you couldn't be any more ignorant.
"This whole subject has come up because a small bunch of homosexuals are trying to make other people miserable."
And an bigot as well.