I doubt they are willing to risk their reputation by intentionally baking a lousy cake.

Howard, to counter your hypotheticals, what if a black couple gets a mortgage but the terms are lousy compared to an average white couple of the same means? What if a mixed race couple is given a table but their order is messed up and the manager won't comp them, or the food is undercooked intentionally and they get food poisoning?

I'm sure after integrated lunch counters there were a lot of black people getting served trouser food.

So it's not just gay couples wanting cakes and flowers who could receive terrible service. What do we do in the previous cases now? Interview the mixed couple's intestinal bacteria to see if they were poisoned? Interview the black couple's bank account to see if it thinks the mortgage rate is too high?

You're not the only one who can come up with terrible ways to check for discrimination.

It kind of amazes me that we keep hearing about poor bakers and florists when you can be fired for being gay in most of the country. There will be a federal law against discrimination at some point, so social conservatives would be smart to propose one now so they can get some religious carve outs.

Or you could act your conscience like a moral, independent human being with free will. Thats another option.

Bakers who wont bake cakes for gay weddings are douchebags, but its not because they wont "just do their jobs" its because they are homophobic douchebags.

I mean, surely you dont need it spelled out to you how obviously ludicrous of an idea it is that you should set aside your moral compass and just do what you are told, specifically if you work for the state....right? You've read a history book before?

There's a tiny difference between handing out marriage licenses and Nazi Germany.

The solution might be as simple as making homophobes dress as ghosts. You know, so we can pretend they aren't there and ghost them like in a breakup.

Then as community labour to give back they could identify businesses that accommodate everyone, perhaps with a plus sign because they are positively good people. And maybe the sign can glow somehow to make it easier to find at night.

Jo man! Was my first thought as i read this nonsense.

Differences in mortgages are clear cut and a study of a lending institution's rates/terms compared side by side to those given to whites/blacks is easy to do and the truth arrived at. IIRC, Denny's restaurants apparent discrimination against black customers went on for years and years until a number of Black FBI agents were left sitting at a table w/o service while all the whites were taken care of. That caused an outrage and the whole thing came out.

I'm not arguing to leave the bigots alone, it's just that I can't think of a way to make an effective law compelling the baker in the example to act properly and it's why I'd rather know in advance and take my business elsewhere. Sooner or later it'll be known who is trustworthy and they will reap the benefit of increased business.

FBI gay couple buys gay cake, FBI straight couple buys straight cake, there ya go.

The problem is that these laws have blowback and aren't all that effective at preventing discrimination anyway. Natural cultural and social forces are more able to tackle these social ails with the subtlety that is necessary for effectiveness. Having official protected classes just infuriates the bigots and drives them underground. I would much rather they were out in the open instead of acting on secret prejudices.

Do people honestly think that enacting laws against LGBT discrimination is going to have a larger positive effect on discrimination culture than Brokeback Mountain, Lana Wachowski, Caitlyn Jenner, Orange is the New Black, Glee, Will and Grace, etc.? I don't.

This is pure nonsense drivel.

Yes, driving bigots underground is precisely the point. What on earth do you hope to accomplish by having it acceptable to promote bigotry out in the open? Relegating racists and homophobes to the extreme fringes where they dare not even mention their hateful bull**** is the end goal.

You know what would be even better than having openly gay people portrayed positively in the media? Having openly gay people portrayed positively in the media while also backing that **** up with laws.

Who said anything about promoting bigotry? Who said anything about accepting it?

Why is it necessary to legislate morality onto people? Why can't some things be left up to our culture to work out?

Laws are codified culture. That is how things get worked out.

What a deeply cynical statement to make about our species.

Should then, there be a law against every social faux pas? Should we consult the policemen for every possible personal affront? You know, for cultural progress.

This is not the purpose of the state. The state is there to protect people from violence. Being intolerant of someone is not necessarily violent, and I don't see a need to involve the authorities for every situation where someone was mean to someone. You evidently do, so I don't think we're going get anywhere discussing this.

or perhaps one based on the history of things that have happened in this actual country and not the imagination one in your head

The history only shows that the U.S. needed laws to prevent the government itself from ****ting on minorities, women, and LGBT people. It says very little about the necessity of laws to prevent individuals from doing so. The government has been the prime source of racism and homophobia in the U.S., so I don't have a lot of faith in it's ability to make sure LGBT people are treated justly going forward.

Yes, we have already established that you are partial to the loopy fringe of libertarian thought which is completely disconnected from reality. Back here on planet earth, an ever growing number of us have been convinced that equal protection laws are both desirable and necessary.

Zikzak, honest question.

Are there any immoral actions that you don't feel a need to enact laws against? Can you give some examples of such?

Find a less loaded word than "immoral" to ask your question.

It's not meant to be loaded. Your morality is yours alone, I'm more interested in how severe a perceived problem needs to be before you feel it necessary to involve the authorities.

If it's severe enough for me to consider it clearly immoral than I believe it should be prohibited by law. What other answer are you expecting? It's a circular question. If there are actions you don't feel should be illegal then you obviously don't find them particularly immoral.

This is an enlightening response and precisely shows the difference between how we think. My view is that there is a clear distinction between something that is immoral and something that needs to be against the law. For example, I think people who serially cheat on their spouses are loathsome human beings, but I don't want to throw them in jail for it.

Homophobes are bad people that should suffer (financially). Therefore we should force them to sell their goods to LGBT people...increasing their profits and keeping them in business longer. If the government doesn't force them, they are easily identified by the media and are boycotted accordingly. (uh oh...the market solving a problem without government coercion, gasp!) This will simply not suffice for the feeble minded liberal, obviously we need the power of the state to regulate our morality.


This is liberal logic 101. Enact laws that are based on feels and then produce the exact opposite of their intended outcome.

Boycotting backfires too. See Chic-Fil-A and homophobic pizza joint.

Obviously the bigger deal is people discriminating against gay people by firing them or denying them housing. Can't wait til that's illegal everywhere.

b-b-b-but, shunning!