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[Reelya]

Because the alternative is to keep "going to the back of the bus" for eternity. In fact, did it make a lick of difference where black people sat on the bus? Not really. It's the principle.

If someone goes to a bakery to buy a cupcake, and they won't serve you a cupcake because you're gay, then you fight to get that damn cupcake, it's about more than that one cupcake. In fact, it's about everything except the actual cupcake itself. It's about the denial of service.

[Neonivek]

On this matter, I've always been of the opinion that... well, I can't really think of other cases off the top of my head outside of religious businesses, but businesses which are primarily of a religious nature should have the right to refuse service on religious grounds.

The ultimate problem with this is when people concede to this as a right... They typically mean "People I don't like, or care about".

A Muslim organization that forbids Christians from coming in would be seen as heinous.

The real issue comes from private businesses that are "public" in nature. ANYONE can come into a grocery store and pick up food... I don't think a grocery store should ban people for being gay.

A Doctor requires you to sign up and they decide whether to give treatment to every single person who comes in. THAT is far more reasonable... so long as it doesn't become systematic.

And we ALL have seen how "Separate, yet equal" went with the Crowe laws didn't we? (In fact... THAT is why they were successfully fought... Because they weren't equal. The courts would have been all for continued segregation had the American people actually made the separate amendeties equal.)

[Reelya]

Religious grounds opens up the possibility for e.g. a Baptist church to say "no Jews or Catholics" for functions in the church. Baptists often have weird conspiracy theories about Catholics being devilspawn.

[Neonivek]

Well, as I said, religious institution. Grocery stores aren't what I'd call religious. This is why in my second post I clarified that it's religious institutions performing religious services.

Chik-A-Phil?

[Reelya]

Well that Chik-A-Phil thing was more the other way around: the public boycotting a store because of the owner's beliefs. That's much less controversial, since you have the right to take your dollars elsewhere.

EDIT: One of Jack Chick's Chick Comics claimed that the Catholics were literal demon-spawn. 1980s churches were actually handing those out: I've seen a copy for real.

https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0074/0074_01.asp

It's called "The Death Cookie" and it postulates that you're imbibing demon stuff when you eat the communion wafer. you have to remember, Jack Chick was completely serious about this, and stuff in Chick Comics like actual devil-worshippers running daycare centers and D&D games were normal, widely believed things in mainstream media reports of the 1980s. This stuff wasn't even fringe.

[Reelya]

They could deny wedding guests from entrance based on the religion, race, LGBT-status of the guests. If they can claim their religion supports it. Maybe two Baptists are getting married, or a Baptist is marrying a Catholic, or extended family etc etc. There's no guarantee at all that all the guests you want are going to be straight white baptists, even if the couple are.

And the problem is also that if you can claim "religious services" as a loophole to keep gays out, then why not put some religious symbols up in your bakery, now you can claim it's a religious service, as well as selling bread.

[Max™]

Super neato article about the school system:
http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

This was a weird thing for me as an undiagnosed aspie, there seemed to be things which other kids were concerned about which didn't involve learning more stuff. I had been looking forward to new sources, I found a 1962 or 1963 set of encyclopedia brittanica on a shelf when I was like 4 after having gotten the hang of the various little picture books and such, I was curious what these big weird smelling books were full of, and then I saw that things I had asked my mom about previously were in there, in far more depth... and so much more!

I saw stuff about schools being places were you go to learn more, how exciting!

*kindergarten*
"Put these colored pieces of paper in the same order as the ones on the board."
'Uh... I was kinda curious if they ever figured out what was going on with atoms?'
"Adam, he's not in this class."
'Hmmm, something odd here, maybe this is just how things are introduced, and they'll move on later?'
*1st grade*
'Huh, guess I'll go help that kid who looks confused, wonder when we'll get to the stuff about stars?'
*2nd grade*
"Hi, my name is Mrs. Thorne!"
*raise hand*
"Yes?"
'Is that a picture of you and Christa Mcauliffe?'
*she looks a bit sad briefly and catches on that I was a bit more into the learning stuff*

So by the time I get to middle school I had long since figured out that I wasn't there to actually learn anything new, and if I was supposed to care what a bunch of little kids think of me I would have had to tell those expecting this to get used to disappointment. I simply got tired of it and decided to spend my time reading instead of doing whatever work was due, made it through three grades exclusively on end of year test scores, principal in 9th told me to knock it off or get the fuck out of here and go get a GED, so I did.


Went out, got a job at a few fast food places, same shit, except a bit of money, lots of grease, and random idiots who forget why they were at a drivethrough menu.

*boop*
'Why the hell did you choose Dairy Queen, please go away now.'
"Uh yeah, I'll have uhhhh... "
'...really? You want one or two number 1 or 2 meals, with cheese and bacon, large fry, and an oreo blizzard with reese cup's. THAT IS WHY YOU CAME TO DAIRY QUEEN, FUCK!'

Figure the least I can do is teach elementary school and explain some of this shit while encouraging the little people to start loving knowledge and learning and understanding!

[birdy51]

Still, just trying to wrap my head around why a Jewish person would go to a Baptist church despite being Jewish, outside of the one foot in, one foot out consequence of cross-religion relationships where both sides in the couple take place in the opposite's faith as well as their own. Though I imagine if they're so exclusionary as to forbid any other faith from even entering their church, I imagine they'd already make that couple a pariah regardless of the right of law to do so.

As to the above edit, why would a Catholic go to a Baptist church anyway?

Outreach to other religions? If the other group would be comfortable with it, I would have no personal issue with stepping into a Budhist Temple or a Mosque. I think that it's important to show community as religious people; not just as a singular religion.

[Reelya]

But they're performing the service to the couple, not the guests.

Huh? But they'd still have the right to deny gay people (or catholics, jews, adulterers or any other group that can justify with a bible verse) being involved at all, as in attending. How are you going to specify in law every possible religious service and whether people are mere "guests" or involved in the service. There's no way you could write that legislation. And to keep gays out, the church just needs to claim that anyone in the room is part of the overall 'service', rather than just the bride and groom.

[Reelya]

Nah it's cool. It's just that any exception which is based on something that's hard to define is going to be exploitable. The thing here is that it's almost impossible to define "religious service" since anything can have a religious service added to it. And on the other side of the coin "group our religion is against" is a pretty broad and vague category, which would basically allow discrimination against almost anyone. And who's to say what's a real religion or real religious belief that warrants being allowed to discriminate?

Have you ever eaten shellfish? Then I have good grounds to exclude you from almost anything on well-versed religious grounds.
http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

[Shadowlord]

It's worth remembering that there are catholic hospitals and they already like to not do patient-requested post-pregnancy surgery to prevent any further pregnancies. Iirc they don't bother to tell you that they won't, or didn't, either. I remember reading about this... Somewhere. I'm on my phone, so not googling for an article now.

I'm not sure if they also refuse to do medically necessary abortions, which could have deadly results (as it did for one Indian woman in Ireland, due to abortion being effectively illegal there).

And even this isn't as bad as what could happen if religiously-run hospitals outright refused to help anyone of particular classes. Imagine being tossed out of the ER and being told "You're going to die if not treated? Hmm, it says here that you are married to another man... We don't serve your kind here. Have a shitty day and don't enjoy your all expenses paid trip to hell, sodomite." Needless to say, this would be very, very bad.

[Rolepgeek]

While I think its best to prevent that from happening, I get the feeling most people who staff hospitals are in it to help people. Unless the top management made it a very explicit rule that they will kick out anyone who's gay (violation of the Hippocratic Oath, remember), in which case they might have a hard time getting skilled staff (would you want to work for that hospital, if you were a doctor? again, keep in mind why people become doctors)...

Meanwhile, abortion is actually one of the things that the Hippocratic Oath forbids. So one circumstance (not providing surgical birth control) is a highly controversial thing anyway that is specifically mandated by the original version of one of the most sacred oaths in medical practice, as well as the religion...and the other is violating the basic tenets of the hippocratic oath as well as the current Pope's position on interacting with gay people.

There's more to this than 'these people are religious, therefore they all hate me and want to me to die horribly, because that's what religion is about'.

I don't know how many Baptist (I think an example of the more forceful sects of protestantism?) or Mormon-run hospitals there are, however, to be fair.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Can we just ban all official forms of public address and advertisement as related to religion? If you have a religion, fantastic, do it behind closed doors. Churches are still cool, just can't be spreading the word outside it or your own home.

[PTTG??]

While I think its best to prevent that from happening, I get the feeling most people who staff hospitals are in it to help people. Unless the top management made it a very explicit rule that they will kick out anyone who's gay (violation of the Hippocratic Oath, remember), in which case they might have a hard time getting skilled staff (would you want to work for that hospital, if you were a doctor? again, keep in mind why people become doctors)...

Meanwhile, abortion is actually one of the things that the Hippocratic Oath forbids. So one circumstance (not providing surgical birth control) is a highly controversial thing anyway that is specifically mandated by the original version of one of the most sacred oaths in medical practice, as well as the religion...and the other is violating the basic tenets of the hippocratic oath as well as the current Pope's position on interacting with gay people.

There's more to this than 'these people are religious, therefore they all hate me and want to me to die horribly, because that's what religion is about'.

I don't know how many Baptist (I think an example of the more forceful sects of protestantism?) or Mormon-run hospitals there are, however, to be fair.

The original Hippocratic Oath forbids a lot of things. Surgery in general, for instance. We've updated it a few times.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

That would go against quite a few religions, and ruffle quite a hell of a lot of feathers.

Some of the most intriguing discussion I had on philosophy and religion was by a Jehovah's witness (is that how you spell it?). Not even a came-to-the-door situation, just a friend in middle school.

That's fine--I was thinking more like you can't preach in public kind of thing, no ads/billboards or flyers. You're still allowed to bare symbols of your religion and adorn churches as such, as well as discuss religion, just no preaching, no advertising, no public acknowledgement or assertion that officials are of a certain faith. Something like that.