How exactly do you catch someone firing a gay guy because he is gay? Other than when he says verbatim "you're fired because you're gay" and it's caught on video, how do you prove that beyond a reasonable doubt?

How will such a law not result simply in gay people becoming harder to fire than straight people, and thus giving employers a rational reason to avoid hiring them in the first place?

cool, doing the 'raised by wolves, just born yesterday, history doesn't exist' shtick. fun stuff renton

I never followed the CFA story very closely, the owners are anti gay marriage right? That's a far cry from banning gays from eating at their restaurants. Do you guys want a law where business owners can't speak about their beliefs? That strikes me as a tad Orwellian.



This would have no effect, seeing as how you can fire people for no reason in non-unionized jobs. Most employers usually won't give any meaningful reasons because no good can come of it in a litigious society. You can also make up any bs reason legal reason not to rent to someone.

I thought it would be a nice lead-in to your 'deflect a query with a personal attack, civility doesn't exist' schtick.

The same way you do for a person fired because of race, gender or religion?

Yes, it's difficult to prove without some kind of direct statement, but at least the direct statement would be illegal. Right now, it's totally legal in most states.

It would be harder to fire people for being gay, not harder to fire them for some other reason. It would also be illegal to fire people for being straight, but I don't think that would enter into the decision to hire either.

No, but since being "anti-gay" is actually a somewhat popular position among some people, a boycott isn't going to necessarily work.

Some employers make it perfectly clear. But, anyway, the fact that it is against the law will encourage compliance. Yes, determined bigots will find a way around it.

These are similarly unenforceable thought-crime prosecutions.

I'll admit that there's some token benefit in it officially being against the law. This would be a practical example of zikzak's 'law as codified culture' argument.

No way. The very existence of this law would give all fired LGBT people extra ammunition to pursue a lawsuit. This translates to protected groups being generally more difficult to fire, and thus more risky to hire.

There is no difference. This is precisely why I asked you to find a different word.

I think there are lots of bad things. Some of them should be illegal. Some should not.

You think there are lots of bad things. Some of them should be illegal. Some should not.

All you've done is muddy things up by using the word "immoral", which sounds like a binary condition but isn't, and is defined subjectively by every individual.

I know this worked really well in the Jim Crow South.

Unenforceable? Are you sure you want to go on record with such a dumb statement of "fact?"

The JCS was rampant state-sponsored racism. It's a different beast entirely from the private sector discrimination that we're currently discussing. When the racism is etched directly into the law, it is kind of necessary to enact laws remedying that.

These laws are enforced all the time.

What extra ammunition? Since straight people would also be a "protected group" wouldn't they also have this "extra ammunition"?

I see some people taking advantage of the change in law, but if someone isn't already predisposed to discriminate against gay people, I doubt this pushes them into outright discrimination.

Yes, some laughably blatant discrimination is caught and justly prosecuted. The laws are still very difficult (read: costly) to enforce, and are subject to the blowback from distorted incentives I've been talking about. You have to assess whether the occasional bust is worth all of that.

It's easy to say that the law against discriminating sexual orientation applies to straight people as well, but in practice this just wouldn't be the case. A claim that someone fired you because you were straight would be about as credulously received as a male-to-female rape accusation.

The deterrent involved is very much "worth all that."

Are you an ACist? You sound like one. You should meet my friend Proph.

I read ACist theory, but classical liberal fits me better, probably. In practice I see a limited role for government, certainly limited enough that don't want there to be laws against being mean to each other.

Something that's rarely discussed in discrimination cases but I think is very important is the number of alternatives available. The impact of discrimination is considerably greater if the discriminated group has nowhere to turn, it is negligible to non-existent if they have many good options.

So it's a bit disingenuous to bring up the Jim Crow South when that was a scenario where black people often couldn't get service anywhere, or had to settle for something really crappy. If we're talking about a scenario where there are 10 cake makers in town and only one of them doesn't want to make cakes for gay weddings... it's really no imposition on gay couples, they could just go to one of the other nine. It also seems to me that it'd be better for them to know that a prospective cakemaker was anti-gay, so they weren't funding a bigot or had to worry about the cakemaker giving them a substandard cake.

Maybe it's a different story for a small town with only one cakemaker (or two that are both anti-gay). It seems to me you could resolve this pretty simply: you can discriminate for whatever reason you like if you can refer the customer to a reasonable alternative option. Nearest non-bigoted cakemaker is a 2 hour drive away? Tough luck, it's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake. You're the sole anti-gay cakemaker in Manhattan's Cakemaking Distict? It's a 5 second walk FFS, what's the big deal?

I guess it's that time of the show where the 'argument' of laws shouldn't be passed because they are not effective and also when they are they are thought crimes happens.

Somehow lawsuits happen when women are fired for being women in general or even getting pregnant specifically but that could never happen because how would it be shown "beyond reasonable doubt"

ERROR ERROR DOES NOT COMPUTE

Probably nothing has a bigger effect than popular culture. Soap operas have probably done more good in this area than seems remotely reasonable. That can't be a reason not to have laws as well. You talk of bigots being driven underground and that's mostly true of the most bigoted but there's a huge number of 'soft' bigots who are just going along with the norms (in culture and in their shop, home town etc) and will easily change their views.

Prosecutions are tough but laws don't just operate by prosecution. Lots of companies will just go along with the law because it's the law. Staff who won't comply can and will be got rid of. If the laws are good (which imo anti-discrimination laws usually are) then overall it's does good.

Yer right, "immoral" is a vague term that muddies the waters, not like the crystal-clear choice "bad."

Sure. There always is. It doesnt make your argument any less terrible.

wait wut

can you point me to such a case? Like, did they guy not know the employee was a woman when he hired her???

It's too bad Renton didn't just stop here while he was way ahead with the easy LOLOWKEY layup.

isn't letting them put "no gays allowed" signs up in their shop pretty freaking close to doing exactly that???

http://www.queerty.com/no-gays-allow...bigot-20150702

It can be if you operate from the principle that laws are meant to be a solution of last resort. Laws cost money and effort to enact and enforce, and the courts are already terminally backed up as it is. They also cost political capital. I'm glad we've made some progress on LGBT rights but its hard to argue that this wasn't a bit of a distraction from more important economic and civil liberties issues. On top of all that, the unintended consequences of such a law must be considered. It's an elaborate costs/benefits question.