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Not sure how to bring it up exactly…is anyone following the New Mexico photographer and AZ law?
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Agreed, but are you now including the florist with the aforementioned services of food, shelter, health, etc?
And I also agree equality before the law is the answer. Sadly it does not exist at present. If God forbid a loved one of mine is in the hospital I am granted the right to visit said loved one, not to mention many other rights that I see as just a matter of course but are denied to other couples I know just a few hundred miles away from here. So, when folks get pissed and sue when they are treated in a way that others would not be treated I cut them a little slack. I think there are smarter ways to handle it and it’s not the way I would handle it. But, then again, I’m not the one who is being discriminated against here. And I haven’t had to put up with it all of my life. I can see that kind of thing making you a little bit cranky.Tim
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“[Andrew Kimery] “Shame you ended a decent post with an ignorant character attack. Where did I say I hated Capitalism?”
[Mitch Ives] Seriously? That whole post came across as an indictment of big business. I’ve shown your post to four other people to get a second read and they all made the same comment on their own. Now, if you didn’t mean it that way, that’s another discussion.”
My take is that Andrew wasn’t criticizing big-business Capitalism so much as the fact that when humans become involved, the principles of Capitalism are often degraded to anything goes (corporate welfare, insider trading, market manipulations of all kinds, monopoly, you name it); this is particularly true the bigger the business. It’s all about what you can get away with, not that you are upholding some abstract principle of free-market Capitalism. The more local and smaller-scale the business the more free-market the interaction, but also the more ethical the exchange due to direct human interaction in most cases.
As one of my best friends who has been a CFO/CIO in the clothing business for many decades across many different large companies (some fortune 500), and more lately the CEO of a smaller clothing corporation has said, any CEO or corporate executive who tried to actually run their company true to free-market principles would be fired immediately. “Free-markets”(as abstract principle) is a business tool (some would say a weapon) that should be applied to everyone else but not my company; a corporate NIMBY of sorts.
Free markets are a myth that have never existed except in places like Somalia. I think an honest viewing of the historical evidence shows that a balance of Capitalism, Socialism and government regulation are (at this point in time at least) best for the health and stability of both business and society.
But I was trained first as a scientist, so I try to look at the empirical evidence rather than getting caught up in abstract principles of either the left or the right.
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[TImothy Auld] “If God forbid a loved one of mine is in the hospital I am granted the right to visit said loved one, not to mention many other rights that I see as just a matter of course but are denied to other couples I know just a few hundred miles away from here.”
Well they can visit, they just can’t act on the patients behalf.
About 30 years ago I had an appendectomy that turned into an infection that turned into a possible embolism that turned into pneumonia – 28 days in the hospital. The woman I had been living with for the past 10 years was allowed to visit me, thank you, but was not allowed any access to the doctors or to receive any medical information. She had to ask my parents what was going on, even though she was there every day. When I got out she laid it on the line, either marry me or next time you go in alone, and that was the story of my first marriage.
Which is why I excepted essentials like health from my laissez faire list. This isn’t about the necessity for making gay marriage legal throughout the world. This is about the fact that you can’t make people nice thru legislation, the courts can’t do it without creating as many problems as they fix; and while it’s painful to see people mistreated you shouldn’t use a hammer to fry an egg.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Walter Soyka] “It’s a complicated issue.”
The details are brutal. Here’s one (‘though I’m sure you’re familiar with it):
It’s not actually illegal to be a bigot. It’s illegal for State Actors to be bigots. The horrible instances when the police removed African Americans from restaurants received “strict scrutiny” from SCOTUS — which forces the government to bear the burden of proof.
Race is a suspect class that receives strict scrutiny.
Sexual Orientation is a suspect class that receives intermediate scrutiny — which means the burden of proof is upon the petitioner. The case in NM does not involve a State Actor.
I happen to enjoy legal stuff as an observer, but I can see how it would seem tedious and arcane to others. Last note, here: the Citizens United case defined campaign contributions as free speech, and I hope everyone who both edits video and reads this post contemplates the notion of What is compelled speech?
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[Herb Sevush] “the courts can’t do it without creating as many problems as they fix;”
Oh boy.
Whatever marriage is, it is most definitely a contractual, legal obligation between parties. GLBT citizens can enter into hundreds of other legal contracts, but not marriage? That is obviously separate but equal and not constitutional.
The important issue in the link above is that when they got married the wedding photography refused based on bigotry inherent in his or her religion. And that is essentially the case: the dilemma of compelled speech: bigots are compelled to photograph GLBT weddings.
The court has a lot to decide, including who and for what reasons could compel me to edit video.
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I think often a hammer is the proper tool, short of a French revolution sort of thing. Otherwise it’s just like trying to talk sense into a bully. It rarely works.
Tim
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Unless I read it wrong she was not compelled to do anything. She refused service and then tried to claim some sort of religious exception for doing so. But I – and please point it out to me if I am wrong – don’t see where anyone compelled her to do anything. She’s being sued because she refused to provide a service soley based on her judgement that gay marriage should not be “celebrated.” Am I getting this wrong here?
Tim
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[Mitch Ives] “Seriously? That whole post came across as an indictment of big business. I’ve shown your post to four other people to get a second read and they all made the same comment on their own. Now, if you didn’t mean it that way, that’s another discussion.”
James Culbertson nailed it.
I have a problem with how many big businesses are run, not the existence of big business itself. Just like I have problems with how various governments are run but I don’t have a problem with the existence of government itself. I read somewhere that criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. 😉
[Mitch Ives] “Andrew, I didn’t to Google it. First, I mistakenly accepted your explanation of it. Second, I don’t live in CA, so I don’t feel the need to meddle in the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Too damn bad Arizona doesn’t get the same courtesy, isn’t it?
“How is self-education and possibly voicing an opinion meddling? I approach life with more of a ‘we’re all in this together’ mindset so maybe I’m just more predisposed to pay attention to things happening beyond my immediate sphere of influence. I mean, I’m not in the tech industry, I’m not in Silicon Valley (I’m closer to AZ than SV) but as a citizen of Earth that lives and works in America I find things like these interesting if not relevant. The world is an ever shrinking place and what happens at Point A can easily impact what happens at Points C, Q and D.
EDIT: Meant to add, communicating over the Internet can sometimes be error prone as a misunderstanding or miscommunication is harder to detect and rectify. I usually end up in the great Phoenix area once or twice a year so maybe we’ll catch a beer sometime. I always like matching people to avatars.
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[TImothy Auld] “Unless I read it wrong she was not compelled to do anything. She refused service and then tried to claim some sort of religious exception for doing so. But I – and please point it out to me if I am wrong – don’t see where anyone compelled her to do anything. She’s being sued because she refused to provide a service soley based on her judgement that gay marriage should not be “celebrated.” Am I getting this wrong here?
“She refused service to a suspect class (GLBT). NM laws states you cannot do that. Photographer was sued and lost. Photographer is forced to pay all the GLBT’s legal bills, about $6k. Photographer appealed and lost again. Petitioned the SCOTUS. Was granted.
In effect, this has put the industry on hold until it all gets worked out. The implication is compelled speech.
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Thanks, Richard. Pretty much what I thought. Sounds like both parties decided to stand on principal and one lost.
Tim
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