continuing proofs America is wacko [3]

Pettytyrant101 wrote: twice now when looking at this story on Fox (granted this is Fox) they mentioned Obamacare in the same breath as religious freedom- how does free healthcare fit into this? I dont get it.

Well honestly, none of this makes sense, but since you mentioned FOX as the source I'd guess their so called "religious freedom" with Obamacare is reproductive rights: basically birth control and abortion (a tried and true straw man from previous election cycles.)

Also if its your right to refuse to serve a gay couple because you disapprove on moral grounds and think it will send you to hell- then why arent they defending the right for muslims to stone people to death fo adultery, bigotry for religous groups that practice it, or slavery as set out and endorsed by God in the Christian Bible? Its the same thing.

Scotshobbit shops must be a very strange place if there's no difference between refusing people service and stoning them to death or pressing them into slavery! I think I may have to shop elsewhere in the future.

Mrs Figg wrote:In a secular state, surely there are laws involving equality? or can people be sued for acting in ways which are discriminatory?

That's true Mrs Figg, but think of us more as 50 different secular states with 50 different legal systems. In many things there's more uniformity in the EU than in the USA, and the same kinds of confusions exist.

Scotshobbit shops must be a very strange place if there's no difference between refusing people service and stoning them to death or pressing them into slavery! I think I may have to shop elsewhere in the future0 David

I mean they are the same in that the argument is the same- the right to practise your religion.
For example a Christian could claim he has a right to beat his wife so long as the stick he uses is only a certain size. Same goes for slavery where God gives rules on how to conduct it, including the classic idea that you should not sell your daughter to a neighbouring country as they might one day be an enemy.

So the right to have slaves or beat your wife could be defended on the grounds God says its ok so long as you follow His rules on it.

This seems the same thing to me- my religion says gays are bad and gay marriage wrong and immoral so I have the right to discriminate against them because Gods Law trumps earthly law.

The right of a shopkeeper to deny service to a customer is tricky one, loaded with racist history.  I don't claim to understand where the line is at this exact place and time, but it's tricky.  

If a customer has a right to choose what he buys, it seems reasonable that a shopkeeper should have some right to choose what he sells.  

Bar-tenders can refuse service to obnoxious drunks. In some circumstances they're required to.  
Some drugstores are required to sell birth control products that they don't think are right. Others aren't.  

A baker can refuse to make a cake with a political slogan he finds offensive, or to refuse to make a wedding cake for her ex-husbands's new wedding (I think). But I don't know if a Jewish baker can refuse to make a Palestinian cake, for example.

Just to be on the safe side I'm boycotting all bakeries.

Can a UK shopkeeper ever refuse service to a customer, and is there a form you have to fill out?

The only similar case I can think of in the UK was a Boarding House that refused a gay couple a shared room with a double bed as it was against their beliefs.
The law came down on them though as its clearly discrimination- if you choose to run a business that offers a service you cant pick and chose who you offer that service to based on your personal prejudices.
You can refuse service based on obnoxious behaviour or abuse from the customer, or if you run a pub you can refuse service to someone you think is already too drunk. Although in practise that one (especially in Scotland) rarely ever comes up where they tend to keep serving you until you need rolled into a taxi at closing time.

add- just did some digging- the casein question a the boarding house it was brought as a sexual discrimination case. The Christian owners appealed the decision to the Supreme Court where they lost and were ordered to pay £3000 in compensation to the gay couple they turned away.

'Dismissing the appeal, Lady Hale, deputy president of the Supreme Court, said: "Sexual orientation is a core component of a person's identity which requires fulfilment through relationships with others of the same orientation."

Homosexuals "were long denied the possibility of fulfilling themselves through relationships with others", she said, adding: "This was an affront to their dignity as human beings which our law has now (some would say belatedly) recognised.

"Homosexuals can enjoy the same freedom and the same relationships as any others. But we should not under-estimate the continuing legacy of those centuries of discrimination, persecution even, which is still going on in many parts of the world.

"It is no doubt for that reason that Strasbourg requires 'very weighty reasons' to justify discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.

"It is for that reason that we should be slow to accept that prohibiting hotel-keepers from discriminating against homosexuals is a disproportionate limitation on their right to manifest their religion."


Strasbourg refers here to a European Law on discrimination which the UK is signed up to.

I remember years ago in Lochmaddy being asked by an elderly widow who was running her house as a Bed and Breakfast,
" Now are you two married, because if you are I can let you share a room."  
How does that work now?

That would fall foul of the same law- its sexual discrimination- not any particular orientation- basically it says if you offer a service to the public the same service has to be offered equally to everyone.

That would have been a little over 20 years ago now. She wasn't interested in seeing proof, she just wanted to make it clear she didn't condone fornication in her own house, and we respected that.

Even now, married couples often get additional rights from merchants (additional driver on rental cars etc.) The laws are strange and inconsistent and clearly in the process of transition. These things seem to take time and drama

I dont see why it should be any different from any of the other rules you have to agree to if you have a business offering a service.
There are tax rules, fire safety rules ect- if you want to run a business you have to agree to lots of thing you might not necessarily want tot do or which seem to be unnecessary extra costs- but if you dont like the rules, dont start such a business. And those rules now include not being able to pick and choose who you serve based on their sexual orientation- that seems fair to me- just as fair as saying you cant refuse service based on race. I dont see the difference here.

That's true. As a small farmer I face an increasing number of regulatory pressures designed for large agribusinesses, and at some point it may become necessary to shut down as some of my neighbors have. Hopefully that's a long way off.

I know of a little family bakery in Portland Oregon a couple hundred miles from here that made headline news a few years ago by refusing to make a wedding cake with two grooms on top. They closed their doors very shortly afterwards. Not sure if it was out of principle or just humiliation.

I'm sure it was like that in the deep South when desegregation was mandated. Some businesses chose to change, some chose to close. That's the way life goes.

Exactly- and would we want to go back to letting business choose if they serve blacks or not? I dont think so. And I think in ten years time no one will want to go back to a time when business could discriminate on sexual orientation either.

Things are certainly changing faster than anybody expected. But the nation is still deeply divided which makes for perfect political fodder.

Here's the same sex marriage map. You can see the strong regional divisions. Expect those to become battle lines in the next few elections. Several more states will almost certainly go pink in the next few years, but I expect that 10 years from now there will still be some large black regions.

The same-sex marriage map has changed a lot just in the past year, entirely due to judicial rulings.  This is the current one (stolen from Wikipedia):



Blue is full recognition of same-sex marriage, purple means there's an active dispute (usually between state and local governments) about recognition, gold means a judge has ruled the state's ban unconstitutional but the decision is stayed indefinitely pending appeal, and red means there is a ban that has not been ruled against (yet).  The Supreme Court seemed content to let the Circuit Courts handle this issue, but now that there are contradicting opinions between the Circuits (several in favor of same-sex marriage, one against), they are probably going to decide on the issue this year.  There is a decent chance that the entire map will be deep blue later this year since arguments before the court start in just a few weeks.

I'm surprised how mixed those maps are

David H wrote:The right of a shopkeeper to deny service to a customer is tricky one, loaded with racist history.  I don't claim to understand where the line is at this exact place and time, but it's tricky.  

If a customer has a right to choose what he buys, it seems reasonable that a shopkeeper should have some right to choose what he sells.

I take your point, but this is exactly the reason why our anti-discrimination laws are based on the concept of protected classes.  The law respects the rights of business owners, to differentiate between their customers and treat some of them by different standards than others, but it limits this right by saying there are certain traits which you cannot use as the basis for unequal treatment.  As far as I know the concept of protected classes isn't really being questioned by anyone in the political mainstream.  The main topic of disagreement is whether LGBT people should be considered a protected class and thus have legal recourse against discrimination in the way that women or ethnic minorities do.

malickfan wrote:I'm surprised how mixed those maps are

The only difference between them is a year's worth of court cases being decided.  The map Dave posted was accurate when it was made in late 2013/early 2014, but the situation is changing very rapidly.

Thats a more hopeful map Eldo- as is the fact its gone that way in as short a time as a year from the one David posted.

Fortunately the courts have been moving at a faster pace than public opinion, but the public is catching up pretty quickly.  However, I think a big part of the reason why opinion is evolving so rapidly is that a lot of people have been forced to confront the reality of same-sex marriage (mostly by the courts, though there were a number of states that approved gay marriage through their legislature or a popular vote) and have found that it's not a doomsday scenario after all.

From my own personal experience very few people in the UK gave a damn either way, or if they did they kept their opinions largely to themselves it seems (I had two openly gay teachers at college and knew at least a dozen gay/lesbian/bi people growing up so it didn't really bother me), I don't follow American politics but it does seem a bigger issue there than in Europe.

There are a bunch of countries in Europe with same-sex marriage (all of the Nordic countries, Benelux, France, Spain, Portugal, and most of the UK), though I've only followed the cases of the UK and France with any attention.  There was considerable social pushback in France, but the Socialist Party government got it passed anyway.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/24/french-anti-gay-marriage-protesters-clash-police

The UK is in a somewhat similar position to the US in that there's actually multiple jurisdictions that have to sign off on the idea.  Northern Ireland seems unlikely to have marriage equality anytime in the near future, but the rest of the UK got on board with surprisingly little fuss.  Even the House of Lords went along with it.  The only problem is that gay couples are forbidden from having their ceremonies in Anglican churches in England and Wales, but I suppose that's part of the weirdness you have to deal with when having a state church.  Scotland didn't have to deal with this issue because the Kirk is not a state church and it operates independently from the government and the Crown.

http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchUK/QueenandChurch/QueenandtheChurchofScotland.aspx

From my own personal experience very few people in the UK gave a damn either way, or if they did they kept their opinions largely to themselves it seems (I had two openly gay teachers at college and knew at least a dozen gay/lesbian/bi people growing up so it didn't really bother me), I don't follow American politics but it does seem a bigger issue there than in Europe.- Malick

I think thats true- but then in the UK I think thats true of race too.
in America everyone gets a weird label that sets them into groups- African-American, Latino-American, Irish-American ect - why arent there just Americans? Why this need to have a subtitle that divides everyone up?

Here if someone is say second generation Indian they arent Indian-Scottish they are just Scottish of Indian descent- just as a lot of us 'natives' are Scottish of Irish descent, or Norse descent or Celtic descent or pictish descent. But we are still just Scottish. The labeling thing just seems divisive to me.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:I think thats true- but then in the UK I think thats true of race too.
in America everyone gets a weird label that sets them into groups- African-American, Latino-American, Irish-American ect - why arent there just Americans? Why this need to have a subtitle that divides everyone up?

Here if someone is say second generation Indian they arent Indian-Scottish they are just Scottish of Indian descent- just as a lot of us 'natives' are Scottish of Irish descent, or Norse descent or Celtic descent or pictish descent. But we are still just Scottish. The labeling thing just seems divisive to me.

That would take a massive essay-post to even try to explain.

The really short answer is that in the 19th century, the country was dominated by the English (and to some extent Scottish)-derived elite, who looked down on more recent immigrants and were generally suspicious of them.  This increased the natural tendency of immigrant communities to want to preserve elements of their original culture after moving.  There was a time when a stigma was attached to the labels "German-American", "Irish-American", "Italian-American", etc., but that time is pretty much past.  Part of the reason for this is just assimilation, which happens naturally with immigrant groups over the course of generations, and because intermarriage makes it harder to pick just one label to stick on people.  However, the laws surrounding slavery and Jim Crow tended to divide people up simply by skin color, so over time it became easier (relatively) for anyone who could pass as white to merge with the existing mainstream.  Especially if they were Protestant; Catholics took longer and Jews even longer still.  Black people, along with Asian immigrants and of course Native Americans (and also mixed race people from Mexico, where the majority are considered mestizo, which is an old Spanish racial classification meaning someone was of mixed European and Amerindian descent), were shit out of luck.  In more recent times, as acceptance of non-white people under the label "American" increased, phrases like "African-American", "Asian-American", and "Hispanic-American" have been invented to create symetry with the older [European country]-American model.

In day-to-day speech, you hear a lot more about just "Americans" then you do "hyphenated Americans" these days, but there's still an underlying recognition that none of us except the Native Americans are really "just Americans".  Plus a lot of people are still fascinated by the old country and all that entails, and like to trace their roots back as far as possible. And, of course, race is still the primary social dividing line in the US, taking the role that in the UK is filled by class. Which is not to say that there isn't a class system in the US as well, but it's of secondary importance at best to most people's self-image.

This is just my take on it and I'm sure others can expand further or contradict me on various points and they'd probably be right.

Plus a lot of people are still fascinated by the old country and all that entails, and like to trace their roots back as far as possible

I understand the fascination, and it is always good to know your roots but I do find it kinda perplexing some Americans refer to themselves as say 'Irish' when they have never even visited, If I had a great great great great great grandfather born in Dublin I wouldn't consider myself Irish, but I guess it boils to to cultural differences and the idea of America as a 'melting pot'

If I traced back my family tree (centuries) I'm apparently Scandinavian-French in my ancestry, but I only consider myself English/British

I think it comes back once again to America being a country of immigrants.  Obviously ethnicity is very fluid but there's no (or at least very little) conception of Americans being an ethnic group in our own right.  I mean, if you look at the history of England and all the invasions it's hard to pretend that there's been an unchanging English identity since the days of King Arthur (especially since he's a Welsh legend), but plenty of people try anyway.  It's a lot harder to pretend with American because of our newness and the importance placed on immigration in our discussion of history.  American history books tend to given lip service to the Native Americans, but the real beginning of the story is colonists crossing the ocean.

I guess another way to look at is, even if a British person has a great-great-great-grandfather or two who was from another country, they probably have more ancestors in that generation who were already in the British Isles, and those people's ancestors could feasibly have been there since the time of the Romans or longer.  Whereas in the US, no matter when your most recent immigrant ancestors came over, they married into nothing but other immigrants (the minority of people with Native ancestry notwithstanding, and that minority is much smaller than the number of people who self-report having an Indian great-grandmother).

I dunno if this makes any sense at all tbh but I know a lot of you Euro guys find it weird so I wanted to try to explain...

Edit: just to be clear, this is just my (white) perspective. There's a whole host of other considerations for African-American or Hispanic identity.