The most common definition of a slave is: A person who is the property of and wholly subject to another. There is another definition however: A person entirely under the domination of some influence or person. Slavery has been outlawed in the US for 150 years, but some people want to bring it back… but not necessarily in the form you might think. Uncle Sam of course is not a master and citizens are not his slaves. The government – at least not the government defined in the Constitution – doesn’t have the right to tell Americans who they have to work for or who their businesses have to serve.
It can however, at least according to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, demand that businesses that offer to provide services to the public not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. That means however that if you are offering to sell cakes, you must not decide that you will sell cakes to men and not women, to Jews but not Christians, to blacks but not whites, or to a native born American but not a naturalized citizen born in Canada.
Interestingly, other than religion all of the limitations are innate, things that people are born with or had from birth. That prohibition also applies to the later characteristics defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The CRA says what a business can’t do, it can’t discriminate based on a clear set of criteria… but it says nothing about what they must do. A black chef can’t legally refuse to provide service to someone who walks in simply because he’s white. He can however choose not to provide service to him when the man tells him that the event is a celebration of KKK history. That’s discrimination, but it’s legal discrimination and its well within the chef’s rights.
The CRA lists specific criteria upon which a business is not allowed to discriminate: race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. But that’s it. Other than those reasons any business can choose who they would like to serve. A 7-11 store is well within its rights to say “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service”. By the same token a gun store can choose not to sell a gun to a drunk person and business can choose not to hire people with tattoos. A community can limit its inhabitants to those over 55 or a storekeeper with a Napoleon complex can choose to never serve customers over 6 ft. These restrictions may or may not be prudent, but none of them are illegal as businesses have the right to choose to whom they provide services within the framework of the CRA, the ADA and the Equal Protection Clause upon which both are based.
Which brings us to the issue of bakers and photographers and others. The question is, working under the shadow of the Equal Protection Clause, do such businesses have the right to refuse to provide services for a gay wedding, something their faith tells them is a sin? Absolutely. Do they have the right to refuse to provide services for a gay wedding? Absolutely. Should they be protected from lawsuits for doing so? Of course.
The point is, in almost every one of these cases the service providers did not refuse service because someone was gay. Rather, they declined to participate in an activity their faith tells them is sinful. Indeed the baker in the case actually offered to let the gay couple purchase any one of the cakes in his shop. He was simply refusing to bake a gay themed wedding cake.
The distinction between the activity and a customer’s gayness or lack thereof may be a fine one, but it is an important one. The CRA says businesses cannot discriminate against customers based on various innate or unchangeable characteristics. Significantly, the characteristic of being gay is not among them. Which means that theoretically businesses have the right to discriminate against gays or 22 year olds or journalists with no threat of government sanction. Nonetheless, most Americans oppose discriminating against people for their sexual orientation and the businesses in question were not doing so. (Similarly, 85% of Americans believe service providers should be allowed to decline to participate in gay weddings.) They were simply declining to participate in an activity that their faith says is sinful.
The jilted couples in these cases looked to the government to force the said businesses to provide the services they wanted. In all three cases the government obliged stating that the religious objections of the business owners were trumped by the couple’s equal protections. That is both unfortunate and absurd. If the government can force a Christian baker to bake a cake for a gay couple, can it force a Muslim grocer who does special orders to special order pork? Can it compel the aforementioned black chef to cater the KKK’s event? Can it force a vegan landlord to rent his building to someone wanting to open a steakhouse? The answer of course is no, no and no and the reason is because Americans are not slaves and the government has no right to compel them to do things that go against their moral convictions.
That is likely news to people in government (and their liberal enablers) who believe they are the masters of the American people. They are not. Americans are free and by constitution they have given government limited powers – even if the government is increasingly obliterating those limits. Of those freedoms, religious freedom is among the most important. It is what brought the Pilgrims to America 400 years ago and it’s been a hallmark of American society ever since. A government commanding its citizens to do things beyond its scope is never a good idea, which Obamacare demonstrates on a daily basis. A government commanding its citizens to do something that goes against their religious faith is even worse because it undermines the fundamental legitimacy of the government itself. If these rulings stand, if the most basic freedom to abstain from participating in activities your religion tells you are sinful is now largely gone, then the progressive barbarians are no longer at the gate… they’ve entered your home, taken control of your life and have carte blanche to force you to do whatever it is they demand – or face ruinous consequences otherwise. Such is the kindling with which revolutionary fires are often started…
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@George Wells:
Quote ALL of Scalia’s opinion, not just the part that you can twist to comply with your agenda of pushing same sex marriage on the rest of the nation. By twisting his meaning, you again show just how dishonest you are.
@retire05 #50:
“that the gay movement cannot be considered the same as the equal rights movement of black Americans who were discriminated against simply because of the color of their skin.”
Well, OK, if YOU are not implying that these equal rights issues are dependent upon “looks,” that why have YOU continued to make such a big deal about being able to visually identify gay people? Maybe I AM guilty of reading between your lines, but I cannot read your mind. Look at YOUR quote above – YOU put those parts together in the same sentence, not me. If you don’t mean what I have been assuming, then exactly what DO you mean?
George Wells
you cannot use the BLACKS PEOPLE trying to prove your point,
the BLACK AND THE WHITE ARE EASY TO RECOGNIZE,
AND ARE NOT IN THE SAME GROUP AS YOURES, THEY BOTH CAN CLAIM THEIR RIGHT,
WHICH ARE CONNECTED WITH THE SECOND AND THIRD PRIMARY RACES OF AMERICA, WHICH THE INDIANS ARE THE FIRST NATIONS OF THIS AMERICA, WHO ARE MUCH ELLIGIBLE TO CLAIM FIRST RIGHTS, BUT NEVER DO THEY ARE TOO PROUD TO ASK, AND THAT’S WHY THEY ARE NOT BEING GIVEN ANY THING FROM THE AMERICA THEY FIRST CEDE TO THE WHITE AND BLACK NATIONS
YOUR CLAIM IS ONLY FOR A GROUP YOU BELONG TO, AND YOUR GROUP ARE ALREADY AMERICANS,
IT SOUND LIKE A WAY TO DIVIDE AGAIN THIS COUNTRY WHICH HAS NOT BEEN INTENDED TO BE DIVIDED BY THE FRAMERS,
I THINK YOU SHOULD THINK OF BEING AMERICAN IS INCLUDING THE GROUP ALREADY, WELL INSTALED,
IF YOU PUSH IT TO FAR, YOU MIGHT DEMOLISH WHAT YOU HAVE TRYED SO HARD TO GAIN,
WHY? BECAUSE OF THE MARGINALIZE GROUP WITIN YOUR GROUP HARD AT WORK TO SINK
WHAT YOU GAINED, AND AS LONG AS THEY ARE MORE VOCAL THAN YOUR DISCRET GROUP,
IT WILL PULL YOU BACK,
@retire05 #51:
Oh PLEASE! Stop with the “LIAR-LIAR!” noise! If you have an argument to make, make it.
“Quote ALL of Scalia’s opinion?”
Hardly – it was what, 20 pages long? LOL.
Scalia said what he said (the complete transcript is on line for anyone to read) because he was sore about losing the 6-3 Lawrence v Texas decision. He DID say that moral disapproval was not a rational basis for a law restricting gay rights. He DID say that without the criminalization of gay sex, states would be left with no justification for preventing gay marriage. That was his angry point: Only the continued criminalization of gay sex (and the assumed performance of those criminal sex acts by all gay persons) could justify the legal oppression of gay people, the withholding of otherwise constitutionally guaranteed equal rights, SUCH AS THE RIGHT OF MARRIAGE. How ever are you failing to see this? It is right there! He predicted exactly what is happening today BECAUSE he understood exactly how equal rights are dependent upon a person’s status as a law-abiding citizen, and he was all too aware that the decriminalization of homosexual sex would render gay people law abiding. Connect the dots for yourself. The federal judges who are using Scalia’s words to justify their decisions in favor of marriage equality are doing it, you can too.
If you think his logic was something otherwise, then pray tell, what else did he mean?
@George Wells:
So now you’re going to play stupid? It is not me saying that the gay “equal rights” movement is exactly the same thing as the civil rights movement of black Americans. It is the gay movement making that claim. I, along with many black Americans, dispute that claim since blacks were discriminated against due to the color of their skin, i.e. their appearance.
What you are guilty of is what you have always been guilty of,
lying aboutfabricating what others say to push your agenda. Nothing more, nothing less. You are blatantly dishonest, George, and you continue to prove it.@ Retire05 #54:
“So now you’re going to play stupid? It is not me saying that the gay “equal rights” movement is exactly the same thing as the civil rights movement of black Americans. It is the gay movement making that claim. I, along with many black Americans, dispute that claim since blacks were discriminated against due to the color of their skin, i.e. their appearance.”
Well, gee! if that is really your point, then there are precisely NO two civil rights issues that that can inform one another. Only blacks have black skin. How can I disagree with that? ( I never did). And I never said that the two movements were the “same thing” as you suggest. There are similar features: Both are minority classes of people who have had their rights restricted by voting majorities that are reluctant to share with them the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution, and both have made progress in gaining rights by appealing to the courts.
I didn’t make an issue of distinguishing members of a class based upon their appearance, YOU did. I have been arguing all along that looks or the absence of them is irrelevant to the civil rights issue (re: the civil rights of religious freedom). But if we are indeed both agreeing here, lets move on.
@George Wells:
Do you deny that you support the same gay movement that does say that the two movements are the same thing?
Yes, or no?
Ok, remind us again where there were “gay” and “straight” water fountains, or where gay teen agers were denied access to certain public schools, or where gays have ever been denied the right to vote, where gays have been required to ride in the back of the bus, or where gays have not been allowed to sit at lunch counters.
The U.S. Constitution does not say one damn word about marriage. Instead, that falls under the purview of the 10th Amendment, the states and the people. But we all know how much respect gays have for the 10th Amendment and the right of the people of a state to vote on what kind of state government and state laws they want. So considering your agenda, I doubt that referencing the U.S. Constitution is a good avenue for you since you seem to dismiss parts of it and support other parts that you can misread to promote your agenda.
@George Wells:
I agree with you on nothing, but you are getting your ass handed to you by others so now you want to “MoveOn.”
@retire05 #57:
“Do you deny that you support the same gay movement that does say that the two movements are the same thing?
Yes, or no?”
The same thing??? I’m not surprised that you see the answer to your question in “yes or no” terms, as if support must be unconditionally all or nothing. How nice that life is so simple for you, but I don’t find it that way. I GENERALLY support the Democratic Party, but I certainly don’t agree with everything done in their name. Similarly, I DO support various organizations that champion gay rights, but upon their methods and priorities there is much disagreement, and I certainly do not agree with everything ANY of them stand for. Short of bankrolling my OWN advocacy lobby, I don’t see that I have a better or more reasonable option. The Republican Party certainly isn’t inclined to push for anything beyond locking me back in the closet, and Scalia et. al. would return us to the criminalization of gay sex if given half the chance. He said so. But nobody I know of has said that the gay civil rights and black civil rights movements are “the same thing.” True that comparisons are made – there are common elements. The two issues are not mutually exclusive nor entirely unrelated.
“Ok, remind us again where there were “gay” and “straight” water fountains, or where gay teen agers were denied access to certain public schools, or where gays have ever been denied the right to vote, where gays have been required to ride in the back of the bus, or where gays have not been allowed to sit at lunch counters.”
Easy one. A baker somewhere refuses to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, claiming that his refusal of service is protected by his freedom of religious expression. What difference would there be if instead that baker was a waiter at a lunch counter, refusing to serve a couple of sandwiches to a gay couple because he thought such discrimination was protected by his freedom of religious expression? That wedding cake has caused such an uproar precisely because there is no difference in principle between that and the “no-blacks” lunch counter, water fountain or seats on a bus. Once you find a reason to condone discrimination, there is no end to how far that reason can be taken.
Did you Google my Mom? If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t like Warren Burger, because he didn’t give me the answer I wanted. But I have to give him credit for predicting the future with accuracy, just as I give Scalia credit for the same reason.
@George Wells:
Have you notified the Log Cabin Republicans of that part of the GOP platform?
And that baker should have been allowed to make decisions about the business they owned just as the hair dresser refused to do a Governor’s hair due to the Governor’s stance on same sex marriage and the bar owner in California refused to allow women to hold bachelorette parties at his bar because he thought the parties were anti-same sex marriage. But I noticed those were two incidents that you didn’t seem to care about since you have never mentioned them. Do I support the hair dresser and the bar owner in making those decisions for their own businesses? You betcha. But I doubt the hair dresser and bar owner got death threats like the baker did. You see, conservatives may not like the decisions business owners make, but we don’t sue and we don’t make death threats to prove our point. Gays do.
Why should I? I’m not interested in your ancestry.
@retire05 #60:
“Did you Google my Mom?
Why should I? I’m not interested in your ancestry.”
Well, as you have repeatedly called me a “liar” when I referenced Chief Justice Warren Burger’s comments about gay rights, I thought that if you were made aware of the numerous opportunities I had to pose such questions, you might not be so quick to jump to the wrong conclusion. Evidently, you didn’t bother, just as you don’t ever acknowledge instances where I correct your other false assumptions (most recently re: “What benefits have you gained that couldn’t otherwise have been arranged by having a lawyer draw up a few documents?) Ancestry had nothing to do with it.
“Do I support the hair dresser and the bar owner in making those decisions for their own businesses? You betcha.”
Obviously you are a champion of discrimination. Let’s just see how successful your side is as the courts decide this issue.
By the way, I do not support the actions of the “hairdresser and bar-tender” which you reference. I didn’t mention them because I had not heard of those cases and am unfamiliar with any of the case details. But as I have already made abundantly clear, I do not tolerate ANY discrimination in the provision of services or products to the public, and that intolerance is, as you correctly surmise, the product of my fondness for the protections provided by the fourteenth amendment of the U. S. Constitution. I appreciate that your fondness of the tenth amendment of the same is the basis for your disagreement with me on this, and as in all matters where a conflict exists between two legitimate legal interests of this magnitude, the final resolution of that conflict will be made by the SCOTUS. I promise to respect whatever their decision in this matter might be. You, I expect, will cry “Judicial Activism!” if the decision is not the one you hope for.
@George Wells:
You have presented no proof that the conversation you related ever happened. Hell, you’ve offered no proof that you even accompanied your mother (if that is who your mother was) in any sitting with the Justice Berger.
So you believe that business owners are nothing more than slaves to those who want their services? I guess that means that you think a bar owner does not have the right to refuse to serve a patron a drink, no matter the circumstances. News flash, George, you do not have the right to the labor of others, even if you are queer.
The 14th provides for life, liberty and property. Not one of those things are endangered because you are denied the ability to “marry” your same sex partner in some states. Your life is not endangered, your property is not being taken away and your liberty still exists. If I were to use your line of thinking, I could say that the states could not deny me a driver’s license simply based on the fact that I did not know how to drive, and it damn sure could not deny me a driver’s license based on not having automobile insurance. By forcing me to buy auto insurance, the state is denying me property by forcing me into a commercial transaction that removed my property (wealth) from me. I could say that the state has no right to limit my freedom by placing restrictions on it.
@retire05 #62:
“You have presented no proof that the conversation you related ever happened. Hell, you’ve offered no proof that you even accompanied your mother (if that is who your mother was) in any sitting with the Justice Berger.”
Sure, like I had a video camera running back then, right? Mom’s name is on my birth certificate, she lives here in MY home, and this is where she has her art studio. I guess that you would like for me to have her mail you a signed and notarized affidavit attesting to these facts? I would have had to try hard not to cross paths with the chief justice and his wife, though they sat for and had their portraits painted at different times. Warren was a busy man, Elvera was not. She was sweet, but unimportant, and mom painted her real… “fluffy.” I’m sure I could dig up a few copies of those portraits if you’d like for me to mail them to you, but I’m afraid that there are no recordings or transcripts of my conversation with the chief justice concerning gay rights. But that doesn’t make me a liar.
If being a liar would cause a person to burn in Hell, one of us would be toast, and it wouldn’t be me.
“I guess that means that you think a bar owner does not have the right to refuse to serve a patron a drink, no matter the circumstances.”
Well, you guessed wrong. The law (at least in Virginia) requires the bartender to refuse service to anyone who appears drunk or who becomes violent or otherwise disturbs the peace, for starters. But in the absence of good cause, that bartender would risk being sued if he or she refused a service to one person while providing that same service to another. Watch how quickly the lawyers get called if that bartender turns a black man away while serving whites. There are classes of people who are protected from discrimination in these sorts of situations, and black folks are among them. Gay people are not yet included in those protected classes because Republicans oppose their inclusion. But it will come, and that is one of the things – but not the ONLY thing – that gays are fighting for. Do you think that because that bartender MUST serve the black man, the bartender is therefore a “slave?” Maybe you think so, but I don’t.
Per your rest – I apologize, but I cannot follow your reasoning about driver’s licenses and your problems with needing to purchase car insurance. But if you have a problem with those things, as I have a problem with anti-gay discrimination, I suggest that you “work within the system” as I am doing to achieve the changes that you want. I can tell you from personal experience that this works.
@George Wells: So, basically George, you are admitting that the ploy gays used about let us marry and we’ll leave you alone, gay marriage won’t change a thing for anyone but us, right?
You’re real agenda was to push the ”we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,” into new territory day after day.
I was reading a Salon article from end of Feb (http://www.salon.com/2014/02/27/gops_religious_liberty_scam_just_died_why_brewers_veto_is_so_momentous/) where the writer hints about removing tax exempt status from religious organizations if a gay marriage is refused.
But (naturally) the writer has no concept of spiritual things.
Almost all churches are only tax exempt as a paper-saving thing because nearly all churches run in the red.
So, it is easier to simply exempt them all and be equal about it.
But more than that, churches and other religious organizations set all sorts of standards about who can and cannot be wed inside their walls.
Muslims will never allow a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man with their blessings.
Many churches only allow fellow believers a church wedding, mixed believers must marry in parks, recreation centers and backyards, etc.
Some religions kick people out. They will not marry those ex-members inside the church.
And so on.
But admit it, this is the real hidden agenda.
Attack family and traditional values and criminalize or marginalize them all as soon as possible.
The whole idea of ”we just want to marry and it won’t negatively affect anybody else,” was a lie.
@Nanny G:
The goal all along, designed decades ago by Antonio Gramsci. When people no longer have family and traditional values to believe in, they will turn to the government for their values. Marxism On The March.
@Nanny G #64:
“Some religions kick people out. They will not marry those ex-members inside the church.
And so on.
But admit it, this is the real hidden agenda.
Attack family and traditional values and criminalize or marginalize them all as soon as possible.
The whole idea of ”we just want to marry and it won’t negatively affect anybody else,” was a lie.”
I cannot speak for what agenda may be motivating other gay people, just as I am sure that you are not on board or even aware of all of the various iterations of the what the “conservative agenda” or the “heterosexual agenda” might be. The practice of some to simply lump together every diverse political idea that comes out of the gay community under the umbrella term “GAY AGENDA” is simply lazy. Some gay activists say that they are in favor of ending the entire institution of marriage, while others spend their time and money fighting to be married, and yet others couldn’t care less. Pointing to Antonio Gramsci and suggesting that all gay people follow him is about as realistic as pointing to Obama and saying that all Americans (or even all Democrats) follow HIM. In both cases they don’t, and suggesting that they do is simply a shameful effort to distract readers from the merits of the arguments being presented.
Yes, a few of those activists ARE demanding that unwilling churches marry gays, but they would be a small minority of gays who care about this issue. For the reasons you describe, I don’t think that ANY church will EVER be force to perform a wedding for anyone that they don’t want to serve. I recognize that this prediction flies in the face of my anti-discrimination argument, but rights are rarely so absolute, more often amended with exceptions in cases where more compelling freedoms are otherwise interfered with. The courts arbitrate this conflict of interests. I predict that those who advocate for that much “equality” will never succeed for this reason. But that was never the mainstream goal. My understanding of the essence of the issue is that gay people want the opportunity to legally marry in churches that ARE already willing to marry them, and at this point in time they have that right in only 17 states. I sincerely hope that you have the mental acuity to distinguish the difference between this and the scenario you propose.
George Wells
what you want is for the GOVERNMENT TO erase your guilt feeling which is haunting all of you,
and is sticking on you like a plague which you never could get rid of,
no the GOVERNMENT can’t even if they are in bed with you all, even if they use their power to make a law fit exclusively for you all, they won’t ever deliver you from the deep feeling in your core,
that you are doing some un_natural actions, IS IN IT THE FINGER OF GOD POINTING AT YOU?
AND why are the GAYS multiplying?
it’s not by procreating, it must be by inciting the weak and young to join your pleasures
is in it?
@George Wells:
i.e. “Gee, Nan, I can’t speak for other gays, although I have lived as one of them for over thirty years but since I lead such a secluded life, in spite of my mother being a famous sketch artist who traveled in famous circles and my having claimed to hob-nobbed with those people, as well, and well gee, Nan, the subject of the gay movement’s goals just never came up with other gays, so I am at a loss as to what they might think. And well, yeah, I did learn of that Gramsci guy months ago, but hey, I didn’t bother to research him or the origins of the gay movement because….well, because.”
What a load of horse hockey. Entry after entry you have presented your point of view from a gay movement perspective, which indicates that you are well tuned to the general consensus of other gays. Now you are trying to push the crap that “Hey, this is only my opinion and well, golly gee, I don’t know what other gays think.”
Of course, that is not what I said, but since when does quoting me honestly become important to you. And since you seem to dislike the term “liar” so much, let me just say that you are willfully dishonest.
Then there is that whole thingie about forcing church organizations to include abortion serves in their health insurance plans although they are totally anti-abortion (Little Sisters of the Poor ring a bell?). What’s a few laws that destroy the First Amendment as long as you can bastardize the 14th Amendment?
You are so full of crap, George.
@Nanny G:
IOW, Nan, George is hoping you are more intelligent than he thinks you are and your intellect is conditioned on whether you see things his way, or not.
@retire05:
Well, you seem to have me right, but you question your own assessment. I am indeed out of touch with the so-called gay movement. I don’t receive any gay publications. In fact, most of them that I once knew about no longer publish. Some of them are now online, I have been told, but they lack the financial resources that mainstream news organizations have access to, so their product is inadequate, out of date and excessively biased.
I DO read The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and most current articles that show up in a Google search of the subject: “Gay Marriage.” This is how I get ALL of my news about gay rights. Those sources are generally reliable, although in some cases biased one way or the other on the issue. I do NOT get information from exclusively gay sources – including from individuals – because I am not in communication with but one other gay besides my husband, and because exclusively gay sources would be too biased to trust. I’m going out to plant a few hundred feet of potatoes in my garden now. BYE!
George Wells
you don”t think that CHURCH WOULD BE FORCE BY LAW TO MARRY GAYS,
WELL THINK AGAIN OF THE LAW YOU WANT,
LIKE THE CAKE PERSON REFUSE, HE END UP TO LOSE HIS BUSINESS AND
WORK AT HOME , BECAUSE OF THE HASSEL HE WAS WITNESS TO,
AND ARIZONA FAIL TO PROTECT HIM, on top of it,
so the laws you ask for would have consequences and could hurt other people
and force them to comply, specially comming from Obama like he is forcing the CATHOLIC HOSPITAL,
TO PROVIDE THE PILL TO THEIR EMPLOYEES, SINCE WHEN A PRESIDENT FORCE OR PUNISH? so many AMERICANS AND STILL AT IT, SINCE WHEN? COME ON TELL US,
it never happened in history, and what you activists are doing is taking advantage ,
OF AN ANTI CHRIST AND RELIGION PRESIDENT, to further your selfish agenda.
@George Wells:
Well, at least we know that you get the bulk of your information from reliably left wing sources.
It’s too early to plant potatoes. They will probably be just as big a failure as your arguments.
@retire05 #72″
I do read The Wall Street Journal, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, but I also read every other article on gay marriage and/or gay rights that I have time to read. Unfortunately, I DO get a lop-sided perspective, but it isn’t by choice. Conservative news sources simply don’t write a whole lot about gay marriage and/or gay rights, presumably because conservatives are already tired from hearing too much about a subject they wish would just go away. If you Google gay marriage right now, you will find only three conservative articles in the first six PAGES of entries: The National Review, The Right Scoop and The Christian Post. I read them all.
“It’s too early to plant potatoes. They will probably be just as big a failure as your arguments.”
LOL. it’s late for them in Virginia Beach. They usually go in sometime in February. For potatoes, the rule is “as soon as the ground can be worked.” I’ve been tilling for two weeks – that’s “working the ground – and the soil has the right moisture and temperature for planting potatoes. And potatoes don’t expire when a freeze hits after they’ve been planted. I’ve been farming here since 1980, and have never lost a crop of potatoes. Your propensity to boldly leap into subject matter of which you know little is once again demonstrated.
@George Wells:
#1, the time of the moon is currently incorrect for planting potatoes, even in Virginia Beach.
Well, aren’t you special?
Your propensity to whine about being insulted while having no qualms about insulting others, is once again demonstrated. But knock your lights on the potatoes. Makes no difference to me.
@retire05 #74:
“#1, the time of the moon is currently incorrect for planting potatoes, even in Virginia Beach.”
Ahhhh. You’re a “Moonie!”
Yeah, some farmers are into lunar cycles, but I have never followed that BS. If the ground has the right temperature and moisture, the things you plant do fine. ALWAYS.
@George Wells:
Wrong, Georgie. Farmers, for millenniums have been planting by the signs and feeding the world using that system. No self respecting farmer would discount using the signs, and the stage of the Moon, for planting seasons.
But then, I guess they were not a queer from Virginia Beach pumped up with his own [perceived] intelligence.
The slippery slope keeps getting steeper.
Not content with flowers, cakes, photo albums…..the sexually confused have gone another mile.
A transgender woman in Northern California has sued the company behind the popular CrossFit workouts for refusing to let her compete in the female division of its annual fitness competitions.
Now, “she” claims being sex-re-assigned by operations and pills and shots equalizes ”her” to the level of all other female competitors, but what is missing?
Hips are different from genetics as is center of gravity.
Both of those things favor men in a fitness competition.
This person would have an unfair advantage over born women in the same acts, running, jumping, lifting etc.
CrossFit did promise there would be a sex-re-assigned competition category for just them if enough of them sign up.
I think that’s a cool solution.
@Nanny G #77:
I agree with you 100%. And if not enough trannies sigh up, then “tough”.
Some folks here think that I am as radical “left” as is possible, but if you check, you will find that I agree with a LOT of what you guys advocate for. I just never get credit for that agreement because it contradicts the claim that all gays have exactly the same radical agenda (a patently ridiculous assertion), so instead I am called a liar. In fact, I get that label EITHER way – isn’t THAT a fine reflection on the intellectual integrity of the accusers? But thank you for calling attention to a reasonable solution to a problem. If more people would strive to find such compromises instead of just heaping vile condemnation upon those who are different, it would be a better world for everybody.
@retire05 #76:
” Farmers, for millenniums have been planting by the signs and feeding the world using that system.”
Yeah, and they were also doing rain dances and praying to the sun god and praying to the rain god and sacrificing lambs and all sorts of other stuff that was “THE BIG IDEA” at the time, but for which there was no scientific basis. The lunar cycle DOES have a SLIGHT effect on the weather, but the effect is much smaller than meteorological influences such as El Nino. And the lunar effects on the weather that are important to crop success are temperature and rainfall-related. I already told you that I plant when the soil temperature and moisture are conducive to crop success, and this is EXACTLY what all successful farmers do. It matters not that the lunar cycle is “favorable” if you have received 8 inches of rain in the past week. Seed will rot. The lunar cycle is really only a tiny bit better at predicting the weather than a coin-toss. It is much more reliable to stick your head outside and stick your finger into the dirt. But how would YOU know? And now that you have been told by ME – a gay person – you will never accept the truth.
@George Wells:
And I said the lunar cycle was a predictor of the weather where?
Ummm, maybe because I ranch, and that requires growing certain crops for feed and the fact that I work more land than some tiny acre plot in Virginia Beach?
There are gays that don’t distort the truth. I think you just happen to not be one of them.
@George Wells:#70
let’s see if I interpret you correctly. you have not read them but somehow, through osmosis, I guess you have determined that they lack financial resources, their product is inadequate, out of date and excessively biased. To reach all those conclusions without having read any of them is quite amazing.
Why waste your time reading all those publications? Why not just absorb their message through osmosis, I sure it would be just as informative.
@Redteam:
Apparently, George wants to be preached to by the choir.
@Nanny G: So they should have 4 classifications. Women, men, trans women and trans men. I’ll bet those last two categories will fill up fast. I think they should only award trophies in classes that meet a minimum sign up number.
@George Wells: Thanks, George, but it was CrossFit’s idea, not mine.
I thought it was a good idea, too, btw.
Before I moved to Utah (where all gays are ”out”) I lived in Long Beach, CA.
I knew lots of gays of all political stripes.
I think it’s odd that there were so many more closeted gays in LB than there are in Utah.
But then 1/2 of the state are LDS (Mormon) and they are very open and understanding, even officially putting a float in the Gay Pride parade this year.
I don’t know if you saw my post about my discussion with a nun about these wedding cakes, etc.
She and I agreed that it is a matter of conscience whether to work for gays weddings or not.
And, as moral objectors, those who refuse should pay whatever the government lays on them.
We also agreed it would be (like when Jesus ate with sinners) a great opportunity to be a living witness of the power of Christ.
What happens though, sometimes, is an ”occupy” type attempt to destroy a business informally.
We saw that happen when CA had a ballot measure about gay marriage and gays destroyed a restaurant in Los Angeles.
That ought not to happen.
@retire05 #82:
“Apparently, George wants to be preached to by the choir.”
Precisely the opposite. As SUN TZU admonished in his famous “The Art Of War”, it is vital to “KNOW YOUR ENEMY”. My “choir” can only report to me the details of current trials or of the efforts being made in my behalf, but conservative media reveals the more esoteric stuff, like what arguments Christians or the RNC are concocting to thwart our progress. My problem is, like I said, that there simply isn’t much you guys are writing on the subject. Your media doesn’t want to talk about it, plain and simple, as if ignoring it will make it go away. Given a choice of material to read, I’d always read yours first, for SUN TZU’s reason.
@Nanny G #84:
Agreed. Brinkmanship rarely accomplishes anything constructive (the opposite being “destructive”). Yet so many in this and other debates resort to brinkmanship in the earliest stages of an issue’s life. Look at Congress and how much it has accomplished in the last few years. Small wonder. When an opponent puts up every possible barrier to compromise and digs in his heals in a siege-mentality sort of way, you do the same. But when some flexibility and the offer to compromise in good faith is put on the table, I’m the first to return the favor. Thanks for your open mind.
@Redteam #81:
Argumentative without content.
@retire05 #80:
Like redteam’s #81, your post is argumentative without content.
@George Wells:
Boohoo from the guy who wants you to know that not all gays subscribe to monolithic group think. Yet he said this about his political opponents:
who he obviously thinks do subscribe to monolithic group think.
And then, there is this:
where George infers that anyone who doesn’t jump on the same-sex marriage band wagon is his “ENEMY.”
Sorry, George; you’re more Saul Alinsky than Sun Tzu.
@retire05 #89:
Make no mistake, my dear retire05: This IS a cultural war, and in it, you are my enemy. We are opponents on the cultural war’s field of battle, and Sun Tzu is relevant.
@retire05 #65:
” When people no longer have family and traditional values to believe in, they will turn to the government for their values.”
No they don’t. The “traditional value” of slavery was taken away from them against their will. Slavery was a “traditional value” supported by the Bible, but it was in conflict with our Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. Government DID supply a different – and better – value: Equality. People didn’t turn to the government for it, they had government shove it down their throats. Regarding gay marriage, may I suggest you purchase some Vaseline and a few throat swabs…
@George Wells:
I can certainly see why you think that. You say you know what’s in books without reading them. You think that claim has content?
@Redteam #92:
“You say you know what’s in books without reading them.”‘
False statement – unsupported and unverifiable hypothesis. Irrelevant conjecture. Waste of time.
@George Wells: From #70
From 93 you said:
You sure have a short memory, OR ——NO memory?
@Redteam #94:
Since you asked SO politely, I’ll try again:
First: I receive NO gay publications. This statement would seem to refer to periodicals, but in fact, I haven’t gotten, taken, received, subscribed to or bought ANY books OR periodical publications on ANY subject in YEARS. They are all unnecessary – archaic vestiges of past media. I DO research information that IS written and posted on-line. But the only source of gay information that I know of that is on-line is “The Advocate,” and that source focuses mainly on fashion, cinema, music and the like, subjects that are of no interest to me. I Haven’t bothered to read “The Advocate” for at least ten years. I DID read it, back in the day, but like I said: not any more. My statement: “I receive NO gay publications” refers to the present and is a true statement.
Then: You QUOTED your OWN earlier statement from YOUR post #92 (not mine):
“You say you know what’s in books without reading them.”
That I answered with “False statement (and so on)” in MY post #93.
I never made the statement: “I know what’s in books without reading them.”
I quoted it AFTER you said it.
Next time, quote ME, not yourself.
@George Wells:
how do you know that without reading any of them?
Here are your words quoted exactly:
That clearly says:” I don’t receive any gay publications. In fact, most of them that I once knew about no longer publish. Some of them are now online, I have been told,” I interpret that to mean that you don’t know for sure they are on-line, but you have been told they are. If you don’t even know for sure that they are on line, I’m gonna suggest that implies you have not read any of them on-line. If you had read them, then you would know that they are on-line. But, without reading them you know that: ” they lack the financial resources that mainstream news organizations have access to” how do you ‘know that’ if you haven’t read them? And you say: “out of date and excessively biased.” Again, how do you know that if you have not read them?
So my statement:“You say you know what’s in books without reading them.”‘ is pretty much a summation isn’t it?
Rather humorous, don’t you think?
George, as a point of interest, I no longer receive any magazines in the mail. I read books on Kindle from Amazon. I don’t know if the magazines I used to read are now on-line or not. If they are, I have no knowledge of what is in them. I will not claim that I have heard that they are on-line but the info in them is old and outdated. I have no knowledge of that, or even if they are on-line.
So I will not claim for myself that I know what is in magazines that I have not read.
George: Technicality: I did not quote you saying You say you know what’s in books without reading them. I made it as a statement, not a quotation. There were no quote marks around those words, were there?
@George Wells:
Taken away from whom? Please, try to write with more specifics.
Wait a minute… were you not the guy who said you were not versed on Biblical scriptures? But now you know what the Bible says? Is that another case of you knowing what a book says without reading it?
And you seem to want to ignore the fact that the Abolitionists were mainly Christians who, in the Biblical beliefs, did not support slavery.
Who did the slaves turn to? Did they not turn to government, via the Abolitionists, who convinced Abraham Lincoln to write the Emancipation Proclamation? Who did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. turn to for civil rights for blacks? Local school boards? No, he turned to Congress and Senate members and promoted the Civil Rights Act which was an action of government.
Seems that your life style is the one that requires Vaseline and throat swabs, not mine.
Now, why you even bring up slavery, when gays have never been enslaved in this country, is beyond any rational thinking person’s imagination. Obviously, you think there is some connect between slavery, and same sex marriage. There is not.
You, as a gay, have never been moved from your home and told where to live. You have never been denied the right to vote, the right to obtain work from a company where you are qualified for the position, the right to purchase a home, a car, a microwave. You have never been forced to provide your labor to someone who owned you and did not pay you for that labor. You have never had your partner ripped from your home and sold off, or worse yet, had your family slaughtered by soldiers who rode into your village, killing everyone in sight. You don’t have the first clue about slavery, except from what you have read. You have never experienced anything close to it.
So why you want to take that route, will puzzle anyone with two grey cells bumping together. Except that you consider yourself a victim. Which you are not.
@retire05 #99:
The subject of this thread was a comparison Vince made between being compelled to bake a gay wedding cake and slavery. I doubt that any slaves were compelled to bake gay cakes, but that really isn’t the point. The point that Vince was making was that being compelled to do ANYTHING against your will “enslaves” you. In this broad sense, are we not ALL slaves? Are we not ALL forced into one act or another against our will? In order to get the chance to serve my country honorably, I was forced to lie about my sexual orientation. (I know you like to say that I lie all the time, but if you replay that tape, I will waste no more time answering it.) Some people object to being forced to pay auto insurance.
Whether it is an objection to paying taxes (especially when we object to how our money is being spent), or to being forced to purchase auto insurance, or an objection to baking gay cakes or being made to lie, none of us are totally free. That is the price we pay for living together on the same planet. You are right – it ISN’T slavery. None of it comes close.
By the way, I read the Bible, cover to cover, back when books were in vogue. Took much longer than War and Peace. Had a lot of trouble keeping up with all of the characters in the… plot? Don’t read books any more. Fall asleep.