@ straight people: if you happen to be buying a cake for your wedding, your first question for every possible vendor needs to be “Would you provide this service for a same-sex couple?” If they say no, don’t hire them. Do right. Be allies.
You ever heard of “no shoes no shirt no service”
A store has a right to not serve you
If you were to walk into my store and talk to me with disrespectful, I wouldn’t serve you.
Just like I have the right to refuse you service because of my religion.
We allow Muslims to wear their headdresses to express their religion, but Christians aren’t allowed to refuse service to someone because of their religion?
@theshitneyspears , please explain why your rights are more important than others’.
How the hell is wearing a headdress in any way comparable to refusing service to someone?
And if you use “freedom” as your argument, then businesses have the right to refuse service, but customers also have the right to refuse their business. And that’s exactly what OP said.
Also lol they both missed the point. Do you but doing you is gonna hurt that dollar sign. We promise you that.
The point about this is religion of freedom.
It’s against our religion (mine and the baker) to support SIN. For a SINFUL EVENT. Decorating a cake with a man and a man or a woman and a woman. Against our religion.
You being black and coming into a store has no relevance to this situation
“Our religion”
I was raised in the South between Baptist and Catholic families on one end, Jewish on the other.
Also, religion and religious ‘freedom’ was literally used as a justification to deny my people rights and services for, oh, a few centuries. Also also– ‘Curse of Ham’. The Klan.
I know your religion far too well to buy this bullshit.
Need I go on? Gay people are a legal minority. Same as being Black is.
So answer my question, please.
Why does your freedom of religion supersede my freedom to go out and buy a cake??
Why does your religion have anything to do with selling me a cake??
Why does your right to buy a cake supercede someone’s freedom of religion?
Because there are laws against discrimination and your religion– which Conservatives have been using as an excuse since time immemorial to exclude and abuse any part of the ‘Out group’– does not supersede that. Yes. even after that supreme court ruling. If you read the actual ruling, they only moved in his favoor because Colorado state mishandled the case. Legally, it does not strike down any anti discrimination laws.
So yeah. You want your “religious freedom”? Do it in the fucking church.
…says the guy whose About excludes half the damn planet.
We get it. Your discrimination is good and righteous and holy. The First Amendment’s guaranteed rights of freedom of religion and of association don’t apply to Christians.
Yawn.
Oooh you’re one of those doofy people with no reading comprehension who also thinks “Half the damned planet” is oppressed for being in the majority religion with the most political power e v e r. Also lmao please point out where I said literally anything about excluding Christians from my business? As someone who is actually a tradeworker and sells a product, that is.
Again, don’t worry. I’ll wait! And, bonus– by your own logic shouldnt it be perfectly legal to tell Christians to keep it fucking moving? Regardless of what the laws say? Because I’m positive that would go over VERY well with you, huh? Y’knnow, since you have such a victim narrative that you think Christians are persecuted. Which is hysterical, by the way.
I want to break this down because I was raised to be a conservative christian and I kinda hate this argument every time it comes up.
This is aimed at what @coolmanfromthepast, @millennialrepublican, and @theconcealedweapon have said, but really I’m writing for everyone else who might read this and should know something about modern conservative Christianity in the US:
It’s not against Christianity to support someone who commits a sin. It’s just not, no matter how much religious freedom you claim. The fact of the matter is that you’re actually compelled to do good things for other people because we are all sinners and it is only through the forgiveness of Christ and emulation of his ways that we will be saved.
People living are not sinful. Nor are people getting married. Expressing your romantic love for another human being who just happens to be the same gender as you isn’t a form of sin according to the bible. The closest we get, and the only real support for Christian hatred of gay people, is in Leviticus, and it’s been well documented at this point how the popular interpretation of that book misrepresents the rules provided therein. Namely, that the prohibition wasn’t men fucking other men, it was men fucking in a woman’s bed and violating her private space.
Render unto Caesar [what is Caesar’s] is usually read as advice to obey secular laws in the land in which you reside rather than disregarding them in the name of God’s laws. In this regard a Christian baker who chooses to act as a baker to a community has accepted the responsibility of doing so without discrimination. Choosing to not serve gay people or black people or anyone that you could classify as ‘sinful’ in some way is a direct violation of this responsibility.
Really what it comes down to is that you want the to discriminate as you see fit and you just happen to be disgusted by the fact that gay people exist. This is somewhat expected, as after all conservative Christianity in the US was just as disgusted by black people. And you’ll twist the Christian bible into whatever shape you need it in to get the justification you need for your disgust.
Do you know why people so often try to remind Christians about the laws against wearing multiple fibers, against eating pork, against adultery and drunkenness? It’s because as the world has changed so too has Christianity changed. Most modern Christians are well aware of the rules and precepts from their bible that are no longer relevant, or even compassionate, in today’s world.
If you don’t feel like discriminating against someone for eating pork, you shouldn’t be discriminating against a gay couple for being gay.
If you feel like discriminating against someone for eating pork, but serve them anyway because you forgive them their sin, you shouldn’t be discriminating against a gay couple for being gay, you should be serving them anyway because you forgive them their sin.
You shouldn’t be telling other people whether or not they’re sinners. You are supposed to worry about your own sin before anyone else’s sin.
Discriminating against someone, expressing disgust at them or judging them, is sinful. It speaks to a sinful pride in the person doing the judging.
The core thing here is that you shouldn’t be discriminating against anyone. To do so is nothing but the sinful pride that is directly spoken against in the bible.
And if you don’t believe that, Jesus is pretty clear on that whole ‘forgive’ thing. Like, he may have been a revolutionary zealot who wanted to topple the Roman power structure, but he was pretty certain on the role of forgiveness in everyone’s life.
I feel like I live in a world where everyone knows that Christianity doesn’t say anything about discriminating against gay people or calling them sinners, but people do it any way and we let them get away with it. But it also disgusts me that so many Christians want to act against the words of Christ on matters of prejudice and persecution.
You really have no idea what disgusts me. Hint: It’s not gay people.
What disgusts me is the government forcing itself into my decision on who to do business with. My faith has nothing to do with it.
So you should just stop.
I do though. You told me, by supporting this line of reasoning.
If it isn’t against your religion to serve gay people, in a conversation about religious people stating that gay people are sinful and therefore should not be served, how does that read as anything other than you being disgusted by gay people?
I could understand your faith having nothing to do with it, but you came into a thread about religious discrimination and then started arguing about freedom of religion.
And last I checked, we all accept limitations on our behavior as a part of living in this society. Why should you be exempt from the laws that protect us from discrimination? Why is it forcing you to do something when the rest of us accept that it’s a responsibility instead? The responsibility to be kind and compassionate towards others?
Why do you want to get special treatment? It kinda sounds like you’re looking for a free handout, friendo.
Are you functionally illiterate?
That just sounds like quibbling coming from someone who wants a free ride.
Where I come from, being part of a community means being responsible to that community. It means not inventing reasons to refuse service to people just because you’re feeling put out.
me: this is what i believe
you: NUH UH YOU BELEIVE THIS
I never said I wanted a free ride. That’s your insane misrepresentation of my clearly-stated position, which I’ll repeat:
People should be able to do business, or not, with anyone, for any reason…or no reason at all.
Again, clearly stated.
Do me a favor. Read the words I actually write instead of filtering them through your prejudices.
^^^^ Agreed If I own a shop and don’t like your blue and tell you to fuck off, I should be able to. I’m not concerned with backlash of public opinion, but rather the government telling a shop owner how to operate.
@korrasera You seem to be kind of knowledgeable in the Bible because you were spot on with your Old Testiment examples, but you’ve completely left out any of the examples given in the New Testament, like when Paul addresses this issue in Romans 1:26-27: “For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.” And again in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians.” This leads me to believe that you either aren’t as knowledgeable as you claim to be (or think you are), or you’re simply cherry picking what you want to fit in with your argument. I’m not even claiming to be a Christian myself (even though I was also raised in a Christian family), but my point is that it’s incredibly dangerous to leave out or miss information because it leads to a plethora of new problems.
@coolmanfromthepast, sorry, I don’t make the rules, I just point out how you’re happy to take and take and take and refuse to give anything back. If you want to run a business and make a profit from the exchange of goods and services with people you’re required to do so in a way that doesn’t let you discriminate. Doesn’t matter if your customer is Christian, a nazi, gay or straight, part of the contract of getting help from society to run your business is that you live by the rules of our society that attempt to make a fair and level playing field for everyone.
It’s not that you ever said you wanted a free ride, not explicitly. It’s just between the lines in everything you said. I’m sorry if you’re not comfortable confronting this fact, but all I can do is tell you what is.
@masculinityfuckyeah, the problem with passages you’ve called out are as follows:
Romans 1:26-27
Paul is talking about the nature of the world being unfit in God’s eyes and in this passage is talking specifically about people giving themselves over to lust, using a term that means unnatural. The emphasis in the text is that these are lustful people, not that they’re homosexual. You should also take note of the way it points out that it talks about women partaking in relations that are contrary to nature without specifying them, as well as the way he talks similarly in first Corinthians when describing how men with long hair are unnatural before the face of god.
Not exactly a great condemnation of homosexuality there.
Just because the New Testament changed the relationship Christians have with purity laws doesn’t mean those purity laws went away. So you should probably consider what else Paul said was unnatural if you want to use this as a condemnation of gay people. How long does your hair need to be for you to be considered unnatural, anyhow?
So, in short, weak.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
The term that you’re looking for isn’t homosexuality. While gay people have always existed and did exist back in the days of Christ, the terms that are being used here are two Greek words, malakoi and arsenokoitai, which don’t translate to homosexuality.
IIRC, arsenokoitai was probably Paul referring to the practice of sexual service by temple prostitutes. One of the interesting elements of both Romans and Corinthians is that they’re describing the Christian view of the outside world and the ways in which Christians are separate from gentiles, specifically the people of the Roman empire. Oh, and it’s also possible that this term referred to specific sexual practices associated with domination in Roman culture, but I’m less clear on that one. The point being that some men of the era would use sexual penetration as a way to establish some kind of social dominance and clearly the early church thought that was pretty shitty behavior.
As for malakoi, it’s important to note that this also touches on Christian hygiene traditions carried over from Jesus’s practice of Judaism. A man who was effeminate was unrighteous and unnatural. In this case that meant shaving your beard or shaving your sideburns, or referring back to my previous point, having long hair.
That people have mistranslated this to be a blanket condemnation
against homosexuality isn’t surprising, because, well, just look at
modern evangelical Christianity in the US. The minute we point out that
Jesus was a political revolutionary that wanted to topple the Roman
power structures and how a lot of the early parts of the New Testament
read like the condemnation of Roman culture, crickets.
So, in short, this one doesn’t even say what you think it says.
Look on the bright side though! I’m not even very knowledgeable about this stuff, so at least you got that one right! There’s a reason I didn’t claim to be an expert, but you might have missed that in your frenzy to type out a reply.
I just have a grounding in Christianity from my upbringing and I like debunking things so I’ve spent time learning how to do research and how to spot nonsense. And boy howdy, once my father got into The Bible Code, the nonsense that I got to read about. But I’ll wait until another time to talk about the possibility that Paul was a great big authoritarian asshole who seized control of the early church from the family of Jesus and had a hard on for calling people unnatural…
The Big Takeaway
No where in any of these passages does it suggest that it’s acceptable to discriminate against gay people. These passages are talking about God’s relationship with people, as “delivered” by Paul. They don’t call any Christian to action.
By comparison, the words of Jesus do, and those words command all Christians to be generous, compassionate, accepting of immigrants of all kinds, and supportive of their local secular community.
You know, like being willing to bake a cake for a gay wedding.
@korrasera , stop projecting your bigotries on other people.
It’s not bigotry, it’s just me pointing out what your argument means. Sorry! I wish you the best dealing with your discomfort. As a piece of advice, maybe try giving instead of taking and see how that feels. It’ll grow on you.
You make a lot of assumptions about people you have never even met
*buzzer noise* Sorry pal, wrong guess. Would you like to go for Double Jeopardy where the scores can really change?
Wasn’t a guess, that was verifiable fact that I stated….thank you for proving that you are completely ignorant
*buzzer noise* Sorry! Still wrong.
Your basic statement is still false. You want to characterize what I’ve said as assumptions because that makes you feel like you can ignore the argument that I’ve made.
You know, the one that points out that
a) people living in society have a responsibility to not simply take from that society and refuse to give back like those people who want to be free to make up any reason they want to discriminate and
b) that it’s not Christian to deny service to a gay couple and all of the reasons people bring up to support that kind of bigotry are easily disproven by referencing the very bible they claim supports their prejudice.
It’s all just deduction.
If someone make an argument that states you should be free to discriminate against gay people for being sinful, that suggests that they’re disgusted by gay people. Even if they’re saying they’re not, their actions speak otherwise.
If someone makes an argument that they should be free to discriminate against anyone they please in a society that agrees that we will all accept certain rules to protect and nourish our society, that suggests that they’re interested in profiting from the help they receive from society, but don’t want to accept their responsibility for supporting it. Hence, people who want something for free.
The basic problem here is that you misused the word assumption. Also that you misused it at me and I love argument so there you go.
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