Monday, March 30, 2015

Tim Cook, social justice warrior


This is a screen shot, the link to CEO Apple, tim_cook goes to his timeline.


Well look at you. This is good, Tim. Opposed to what though, treating everybody differently? According to race as our governments do? Or making news items and covering them according to racial script as our legacy media does?  Or adjudicate cases of sexual predation by sex of the accused as our courts and our colleges do? You're cute, Tim. I like this part best, "no matter who they love." That's so sweet, because it so breezily and summarily dismisses everything surrounding the issue and looks only at the puffy little cotton ball of love blowing around in the shoebox corner that occurs here and there in and out for romantic love between two people is tender and evanescent, and everyone loves love. 


Shit. I guess I have to read the whole thing now even though I flatly don't care what Tim Cook thinks.  

He opens ominously that something very dangerous is happening all across the country. Waves of legislation introduced in several states will allow people to discriminate based on their religious prejudices. They can actually cite their religious beliefs to refuse service.

The audacity. Like bakers chosen for being Christian being forced by the state of Colorado to bake a wedding cake for out-of-state activist customers mobilized specifically to challenge their basic beliefs that fill their spiritual lives, their business that is specifically Christian that funds their economic lives, and the state laws that govern their operations? And then, get this, the owners must endure some sort of attitude rehabilitation classes run by the state, and they must also keep records of how many minorities they serve and which type of minority. Nobody is interested in that except government. NOBODY! But, that's how our state government rolls. Those neighbors, Tim?  

But Tim would never have that problem, he'd sell his computers to anybody anywhere. It's a wide open global business model unlike a small local Christian bakery.


I don't know what that means.




Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Tim cites Texas considering legislation that would strip clerks who issue marriage licenses to gays of their salaries and their pensions no matter what the Supreme Court does with their ban on single sex marriages. He counts nearly 100 such bills.

The next paragraph is a cartoon suitcase bulging with presumption on its stand trembling under strain about to burst its faulty lock. Tim dismisses opposition with a breath.
...rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear.
They're pretending.
They go against the very principles our nation was founded on,
Founded on the principles of gay sex. He means equality, of course. My conversations on this go off the rails when I dare mentioning that gay males always had and always used legal equality to marry any female they want. Looking at it from the interest of state, whatever legal benefit proffered by state or derived by couples from this marriage between male and female, whatever subsidies, tax breaks come to a marriage that is acknowledged by government with their license is a form of bribery by government to coerce two impossibly divergent sub-species to cohabit long enough to possibly pull off raising a few children and supply good solid citizens for the state in their fashion.

Weren't expecting that, were you?

Of course they mean especially-equal, not equally-equal.

Now that wee bit of economic coercion hasn't the effect it once did as government makes itself more and more useful in fulfilling functions that families once fulfilled, we gave government that power to pick up where extended families once functioned and make themselves indispensably useful as surrogate husbands in the realm of nuclear families, so marriage itself is redefined by the support that government gives and so is economic success redefined. Yet marriage laws and tax laws, and inheritance laws, reflect the original almost pioneer era coercion. Why else have them? That is one of the perceived threats to marriage, the loss of government lagniappes. And now as consequence to all this equalizing between especial equalities we're creating inequality between married and unmarried. Why the discrimination? How can this unequal treatment between marrieds and unmarrieds be tolerated?

Our cue ball sets up the next shot.

This all seems so last century yet here we are Tim is finally catching up to the bandwagon. Welcome aboard, Tim, what took so long?

Tim lectures us.

The picture on Washington Post shows Tim with his mouth open in a lecture-y stance. His body configuration reads: "this pile of mud here." If I were a comic I would put one arm akimbo and with the other presenting an invisible pie and say, "For you see...
America’s business community recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all its forms, is bad for business.
Touching. Then no need for Apple to interfere. That bit is self-correcting.

Apple won't discriminate against anybody who can both afford and decides to purchase their axiomatically overpriced products. No matter what. Tim says Apple strives to do business in a way that is just and fair and that is why he is standing up to oppose this new wave of legislation. He wants to start a movement and hopes we will join. He says the bills will hurt job growth and economic vibrancy [but doesn't say how] in these southern places where 21st century economy was once welcomed.

Tim says he has great reverence for religious freedom. He cites his own religious experiences. He recalls his life in the south in the 60's and 70's how difficult discrimination is to extinguish, how it moves to shadows and embeds in our laws.

The rest is a good load of tripe, horn tooting, platitude, bromide, homily and tardiness.
Our message, to people around the country and around the world, is this: Apple is open. Open to everyone, regardless of where they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love. Regardless of what the law might allow in Indiana or Arkansas, we will never tolerate discrimination.
You're full of shit, Tim. You do tolerate discrimination, you exercise discrimination against anyone unwilling to go along with your company's well known marked up prices. And now you are practicing discrimination against entire states attempting to wrest control of language concerning the institution of marriage. Frankly, it's none of your business's business but if you make it so it will be so and to your company's detriment and that is not good stewardship.

Tim goes on about our fighting men and women and what they fought for:  Gay marriage. He means equality, of course.

We owe it to them to continue to fight. Tim blends military personnel, patriotic duty, race civil rights and sexual preferences again with reference to "whites only" signs on shop doors.

Speaking of that, I actually did see one those signs hand written on a board above an exterior door to a crumby looking place. But that was what, some three lifetimes ago. We were sitting in a restaurant in Bossier City very close to Barksdale AFB, across the street from the main gate actually, perfect Mayberry type restaurant or similar to AFB tarmac type cafes and I asked Mum, "What kind of laundry only does whites?" Seemed a strange business model. I don't know what Tim is on about mixing these two things like this with such glib ease.

A glance at the last paragraph, bink, limelight.
This isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue.
Yes it is, and yes it is. Moreover it's an economic issue too if you persist in blending your politics and your evolving secular faith with your company's prospects.
This is about how we treat each other as human beings. Opposing discrimination takes courage. With the lives and dignity of so many people at stake, it’s time for all of us to be courageous.
Yes, of course it's about how we treat each other, but it takes no courage to oppose discrimination, simply stop doing it. As you do discriminate, right here, Tim, against southern states.  Starting out by telling us under your leadership following your spiritual humanity how much better Apple is than all those southern states that are far less righteous than yourself and  that fail to follow the cues dropped by your Democratic Party.

Comments at Washington post to the article are useless. They're still piling up as I write this.

Back to Twitter.


Toot toot. 



Eh, Tim makes some good points, but Man, I'm tired of this crap. The thing that pisses me off is I honestly believe we're all social justice (warriors?) in our way and for the most part living as good people, that is what I see with very rare exceptions. Inhumanity happens, but rarely. I see people going out of their way helping others all the time as part of their everyday being and over decades I see slow evolution on all fronts. The fronts having to do with all these issues cited by upstart so-called social justice warriors. (Was there ever a term self-referential that says, "I'm a deluded dick" more than this, other than "progressive?" It's an idiot's way of patting them self on their own back by the use of a term for themselves. This is the epithet I'll have for myself. It sounds good and that's all.)  I can cite dozens of examples of steady and observable progress but we've all seen it right before our own eyes over decades and contrary to opinion social change is not all the result of the noisiest and most aggressive and obnoxious nor best funded activist who put themselves out in front of a movement already occurring if in too slow motion to suit them. Progress is made despite their interference not because of it, despite the immense waves of backlash that activist caused that disrupted change in attitudes occurring palpably and naturally, by their influx of cash, virtually unending wealth, by their anxious and premature legal wrangling leading to referenda in reaction to their urgency that would not have happened without their interference, then challenging those referenda, plus individual law suits, by their positions within government and by their illegal releasing tax information so they can harass their opponents illegally, along with the dirtiest of dirty politics to push it all forward faster that hardly puts a shine on the cause. I've had people travel, pick me up for dinner, become red-face livid and ruin the dinner over a cartoon version of their opposition on an issue that I know they didn't care about a month previously. It was all suddenly contrived. All of the psychologically disturbed urgency of wrenching the natural development of acceptance from steady line of progression  then claiming credit for victory for any and all progress. They are heroes of their own stories for obnoxiously and fiercely fighting for speeding ineluctable change. 

Separated out, gays are the most privileged people I know. They know that they are better than you are, intellectually, wit, talent, taste, worldliness, looks, careers, money, knowledge, fashion, spiritualness, you name it. The occasional pair that were interested in marriage did so. The sudden mass caterwauling about feeling like second class citizens is risible coming from the singular most privileged, and frankly elitist group that I know. At this point it became a game that anxious people play. A hobby. How do I know this so solidly? First, as set up, we see the couples on t.v. rushing to the courthouse for the papers that validate their love and our hearts are filled with warmth and goodwill and superiority because we support love. As if they hadn't been actualized until government gave its blessing. As if they hadn't been wed all along.  Kind of like a knighting. As if their legitimacy of their love, of their being, was not realized until this special moment. An affirmation of one's validity. So there's that. From my point of view government's affirmation of my marriage is the same as my dog's affirmation of my marriage. And I know that attitude is shared. So what is going on is something else. This is a war won already and passed entirely like the Civil War with only echoes fading off although activist will cite these laggard states with new proposed legislation most likely arising from their own activism although they will never admit that. After all the unnecessary and contrived recrimination that could have been avoided so easily with mere steady patience, I know solidly because couples living as married all along having won then never bothered. After all that, "You noisy-ass bastard, you had better get married." But they didn't get married. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... down the line I can go citing examples of activist couples, recriminating and fierce against opposition, not bothering with marriage. It was an idea for other people, you see. You know, equality for youngsters coming up not necessarily for themselves

They're building a more equal future. And then at last here's Tim long after the dust settles and with only cleanup activity remaining in a few lagging states here and there so late to the trundling bandwagon pitching his Apple products in the form of company position paper on social issues.

Finally, more tweets dogging Tim Cook.












131 comments:

I'm Full of Soup said...

I am in the market for an IPad like device. Now, after reading thie crap from Cook, guess whose product I will not be buying?

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

With all this commotion you think a gay baker or a baker willing to cater to gays could get rich. We haven't abolished the market last time I checked.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

**** They go against the very principles our nation was founded on,***

"Founded on the principles of gay sex."

lol - I had to stop and laugh at that. Why yes.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Forcing the religious to celebrate your homosexuality is one giant daddy issue that will never be resolved.

Perhaps a spanking will do it?

chickelit said...

I doubt that Steve Jobs would have cared.

Apple seems to have blurred its focus.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Listening to Glen Beck saying the targeting of Indiana seems to be a "solution" looking for a problem that has not come up. But the people targeting Indiana are convinced that it will come up because religious people are bigots or whatever. They are convinced that people will do x y and z.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Isn't the targeting, the calling for boycott against a whole state, a form of bigotry?

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

As far as I understand it. Bakers don't refuse to sell cakes. What they refuse is to participate in the ceremony.

That's where I'm puzzled by this thing.

Why do they want to force the baker to participate?

Who or what has endowed, blessed, graced and supplied the baker with such qualities that they are essential to the ceremony, in a way that say (as an example) a catholic priest is not?

This is highly irregular.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I suspect something is missing and the baker has been chosen to deliver it because any number of reasons. there is strength in numbers and if you could manage the butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker, the roll of the missing priest is somehow not as noticeable because of all this other prominent upstanding butcher, the baker and the candlestick-maker.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I'm wildly guessing. don't take my word for it.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Last night's rerun of Mad Men was "The Monolith." That's the one where Roger and Mona drive way out to the sticks to go to a hippy commune intending to retrieve their daughter who has abandoned her husband and child. Roger and Mona go there dressed as if they were going to a social event at a country club. Mona is wearing a fur, I kid you not. I'd describe the wardrobing decision as lacking in subtlety, to be overly kind.

A missed opportunity for humor would have been Roger going to Abercrombie & Fitch beforehand and dressing as if he were going on safari.

But no. The climax is the next morning when Roger has had enough and he tries to man-handle his daughter away from the commune, and she fights back, and they both end up wallowing in mud.

Roger's fancy city clothes all covered with earthy hippy mud. Get it?

I thought only Star Trek TOS pulled crap like that.

chickelit said...

Isn't the targeting, the calling for boycott against a whole state, a form of bigotry?

A blatant one. Castigate ALL members of a state based on the few. That's what they wish done unto others.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

"based on the few"

So few, they don't even exist yet.

It's like a preplanned baker refusal birth control.

Michael Haz said...

I'm through with Apple, just like I ended my user relationship with Firefox when the morons forced out Brendan Eich.

When it's time to replace my phone and pad, the new products will not be Apple. Period.

Tim Cook is welcome to his opinions; I am equally welcome to laugh at them.

What the hell is Cook thinking? His corporate philosophy now penis-centic and intolerant of any kind of freedoms he personally doesn't like? Moron.

All because he frets that some owner of a small bakery in Fort
Wayne or Gary or Gas City might not want to bake a wedding cake.

Get over yourself, Tim Cook.

And start having your shitty products made by subcontractors who don't enslave their employees to the point that for some suicide is the only way out.

rhhardin said...

The point of provoking backlash is to make it clear that backlash will be crushed.

rhhardin said...

I played with an Apple PC in a store in the 80s, and couldn't get anywhere because it wasn't enough like unix.

I did cripple it, though, in the attempts.

rhhardin said...

Now I use XP with Cygwin, which makes it exactly like unix, except all the windows applications work too and you don't have to hunt for drivers.

Fr Martin Fox said...

It is kind of funny at you-know-where seeing the blogger-who-must-not-be-named lamenting all this fallout from redefining marriage...

As if those of us who opposed it did not predict exactly this (and more, stay tuned) would happen in the wake of the "gay marriage" express.

Liberals used to be for religious freedom. Till they decided they liked "same-sex marriage" better. Religious freedom is so two-and-a-half years ago!

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The title "The Monolith" was an allusion to 2001 because the ad agency gets a mainframe computer and it's all novel and frightening and all that.

The camera shows you an elevator door at the very beginning of the show that looks just like the strange, black monolith.

Subtle.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The guy who's in charge of installing the mainframe on Mad Men is very entrepreneurial and he's trying to come up with a way to compete with IBM. He thinks that Big Blue is missing something because it leases its systems in anticipation that they will soon become obsolete.

He believes, believes, in the machinery and wants it to be cared for so that it will endure. I got the impression he was based on some stock character from the WWII Navy movies: The not-alpha-male mechanic who loves the ship's engines. He's a man you can trust. Scotty on Star Trek TOS comes to mind.

But I had to wonder. Was the computer entrepreneur on Mad Men based on an actual computer guy from the 1960s? Was he, like, Hewlett or Packard or somebody?

Guess I'll never know.

Michael Haz said...

Tim Cook said religion is dangerous.

By the way, Tim, it was Catholic hospitals/nuns that treated the first AIDS patients when no one else would.

Meade said...

"It is kind of funny at you-know-where seeing the blogger-who-must-not-be-named lamenting all this fallout from redefining marriage..."

What "lamenting"? And what "fallout"? Hurry, all of us Good People! To the fallout shelter!

Mike Pence was an idiot, trying to make an appeal to so-called Hoosier Hospitality. He couldn't answer the question honestly — with Hoosier Honesty — because he knows the honest answer is yes, we want the state to have power to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

Personally, I prefer having all my bigots out and proud. Where I can keep an eye on them.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

I knew this subject was familiar.

There was a real baker about whom I made a post. I ended up taking it down... but if you all are up to re-baking that cake again be my guest.

Methadras said...

The entire concept is hokum. You ask for religious and social tolerance, but you want it forced down the throats of anyone who doesn't comply. Yet we are believed to be able to apply our constitutional god given right of freedom of association and the instant we pull that card out, why that is intolerance and is subject to the swath of regulatory jackboots that will descend upon you for doing so. Discrimination may be a legislative quandry, but at what cost. Can I deny someone into my home because of their race, creed, religious affiliation, or sexual orientation? Is the answer yes or no? Can I do that with my business? Can I do that if my business is in my home? Does the status of my home change at that point? What if I object to a government official of a certain color, religious, or sexual orientation from entering my home. Can I do that without penalty? When and where can I exercise my rights on the issue?

SJW's should all be punched in the fucking face for their tireless nanny-statist bigotry against freedom and liberties. Fucking assholes.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

BTW I didn't delete the post. I didn't pull a Hillary wiping her server. I took it down but I didn't delete it. For all I know it's still there.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

We live next door to an irregular lot which has a lot of ground but not a lot of continuous, useable open space. That makes it expensive to maintain and not very good for activities like playing tag, or kickball, or kid-friendly stuff like that. A number of young families have come and gone.

So when it went up for sale not too long ago, we were hoping that a gay couple would move in and turn the place into a landscaping masterpiece. But that didn't happen.

Instead a young married couple moved in and now they have a newborn. That's nice. We'll see how long they last.

I'm still kind of hoping for the gay couple, though, and I state with all certitude and confidence that that makes me a bigot, I guess, sort of.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Another disappointment from last night's Mad Men was Don taking a major office-status bitch-slapping (it ends up with his having to report to a woman who used to be his secretary and protégé) and yet we get no flashback to some as-yet-unrevealed humiliation of his youth.

NO FLASHBACK!!!

Is that justice? I ask you!

rcocean said...

Great post Chip. Again, we find that Activist Gays don't want tolerance or Freedom they want power to force everyone to celebrate their sex acts.

I've never understood how any business can discriminate against Gays unless you run around with a "I'm Gay" sign on your head. How does a restaurant owner know your Gay? You're "gay" cause you don't have straight sex - which no one knows about unless you tell them.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

There was a deft cinematic touch in The Monolith, so let's give credit where credit is due. There was a well set-up shot of the mainframe in the midst of its installation. It looked absolutely massive and immoveable. Imperious, even.

And you got a great big eyeful of a great big vibrant rectangle of blue -- the side of the mainframe casing.

That said, I don't recall anything said about a clean room. Back in the day, we were warned to spend as little time as possible in the computer room and to run for our fucking lives at the first sign of trouble. Suffocation by Halon.

Maybe that was what passed for freshman hazing among the programmer set.

Michael Haz said...

Let's review. Indiana's law is based on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

It is a federal law aimed at preventing laws that "substantially burden" a person's free exercise of religion. The bill was introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993 and passed by a unanimous U.S. House and a near unanimous U.S. Senate with three dissenting votes[1] and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Barack Obama voted for passage of an Illinois version of the RFRA while he was an Illinois state senator.

It was upheld by the Supreme Court in the recent Hobby Lobby case.

It gives religious people a right to invoke their religious principles, if those principles were contradictory to established laws.

That's what Indiana's law, and the similar laws in more than twenty other states calls for. It is not bigotry, is it duly enacted law, state and federal.

And now, once again, those who preach tolerance demonstrate their utter intolerance for anyone who holds a different opinion than theirs. We again see the oppression and demonization of those whose beliefs and opinions are not identical to those held by the progressive leftists.


Well, they can just piss off.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

The big leftwing pile on... you're all bigots! you're all bigots!

You hate love! So sayeth the scrubbed clean server of grandma.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I've just finished the part of The God Delusion where Richard Dawkins explains that religious belief is properly subject to scientific criticism and that it doesn't measure up. The premise is almost certainly false. Believers are delusional.

He has just begun the second part, which is why religious belief -- delusional or otherwise -- is undesireable, if I've got it right.

I fully anticipate that things will get even more interesting than before.

Academic showmanship abounds.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The God Delusion is chock full of clever little tidbits.

For example, when asked what it would take to dissuade him from his confidence in the theory of evolution, some famous scientist guy named Haldane said "fossil rabbits in the Precambrian."

I thought that was pretty funny.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I mean, I can see why people would want to discourage the practice of homosexuality and call it religious law.

There was this scene in The Monolith where it's bedtime at the hippie commune and Roger Sterling and his daughter bunk together in a hay loft, or something like that, in a barn. They gaze at the night sky, and it's sort of dreamy and low stress, and they reconnect as father and daughter. Nice.

But then, after it appears that Roger has fallen asleep, some guy sneaks in and he and the daughter form the beast with two backs, Roger fully awake but pretending to be asleep.

HUMPAH! HUMPAH! HUMPAH! HUMPAH!

If the vast majority of our evolutionary history was us living in hunter/gatherer bands of 20 to 100 individuals . . . well, I think it's obvious where I'm headed with this. And don't get me started on that whole group selection thing.

That said, that doesn't mean homosexuals should be persecuted in the here and now. And besides, how can we be so certain there weren't homosexuals around back in the old days boinking like crazy way out in the bushes?

I mean, I'm hard-pressed to think of a better early warning system to detect when there's a sabre-toothed tiger lurking about.

Lem Vibe Bandit said...

Instapundit...

Here’s the deal: (1) Indiana has gone from a swing state to a red state, so it’s fair game; and (2) Dems need something to agitate the base so it doesn’t pay attention to Iranian nukes, trashed email servers, and an overall culture of corruption. Those who join in are willing enablers.

Two excellent points.

ALP said...

As if they hadn't been actualized until government gave its blessing. As if they hadn't been wed all along. Kind of like a knighting. As if their legitimacy of their love, of their being, was not realized until this special moment. An affirmation of one's validity.
********************
Wow, I thought I'd never read something like this in print. Love the knighting analogy. The only thing you forgot to note is the nauseating worship of the state inherent in this view. Why do perfectly loving, committed couples need so badly to be blessed by The State as personified by your typical government/county worker?

chickelit said...

Perhaps somebody could suggest things we can buy from Indiana to counter the insane boycott.

Trooper York said...

Father Fox I point you to the example of Father Merrin. No could can come of summoning the beast or it's minions.

Chip Ahoy said...

The tweets are interesting to me because wherever Tim Cook's name appears in blue it means someone I follow is dogging Tim Cook directly, pow, right in the twitterbeak.

Trooper York said...

It is difficult to boycott Apple products because they are so pervasive.

But if they push this might be surprised at the pushback just as Modzilla was after they knuckled under to the gay Mafia.

Trooper York said...

The gay mafia will not be satisfied until Churches are required to perform the Sacrament of Marriage to same sex couples. When their apologists and their hangers on say this is not so they are lying. We have already seen how they are forcing small businesses to close if they not violate their religious principles to celebrate sodomy.

Michael Haz said...

Perhaps somebody could suggest things we can buy from Indiana to counter the insane boycott.

Hondas. Subarus. Hoosier racing tires.

Trooper York said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Trooper York said...

You won't have to wait. The boycott is coming to a place near you.

On the other hand if I can buy something other than Apple I will be sure to do that.

Michael Haz said...

...we want the state to have power to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

This is the usual bullshit the progressive left likes to foist on people. The RFRA is not about lesbians and gays. It is about the constitutional right to freely practice one's religion. And if one's religion includes the provision that marriage is between one man and one woman, the state has no authority to require that person to take part, in any fashion, a wedding between two men or two women.

The RFRA does NOT give the state the right to discriminate against gays and lesbians. It protects individual citizens from the power of the state to overrule religious beliefs.

I'm Full of Soup said...

What do you guys think about the Apple Watch? Dumb move or smart move? I say it will be a huge bust and Cook will take the blame.

Michael Haz said...

Thirteen gay-owned bakeries refuse to make a wedding cake with a traditional marriage message.

Tim Cook silent.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Being a full-on anti-gay bigot, now in my middle years, I have worked my way up to a comfortable lawyerly income, with excellent job security, and I have been lifting weights consistently, and I now have a kickass bod that totally rocks and that can't be missed, even under a business suit.

And I go to gay hangouts and let the young guys come on to me and I wait a while before I let them know I'm just waiting for a friend.

Cruel neutrality.

Michael Haz said...

Comment from hoosierdaddy at Insty:

"The arguments that are being made is that the Indiana law is different from say, Illinois because 1) Illinois has laws on the books that prohibit discriminating against the LGBT community and 2) the Indiana law then defines businesses as 'persons' and allows those businesses to raise the RFA as a defense in a civil action. Those are the main differences that has folks in an uproar.

Then again if they actually, you know, read the law, they'd know that it isn't a license for a business to ban LGBT folks from their business because other than in a few municipalities, they can do that already. Again, all it does is raise the RFA defense if they get sued and that is no guarantee they would prevail.

The kicker of it is, this whole thing literally blew up overnight when it came out of committee and it was announced the Governor would sign it. Up until then, not a peep from the outraged crowd. I guess the battle over the serious matter of selling alcohol on Sunday's distracted everyone."

Methadras said...

Tim Cook and the radical left homosexual velvet mafia don't get it. This is about a state protecting the religious liberties of it's citizens against onerous demands on businesses and owners to force them into capitulation and servitude for things they don't believe in. Tim Cook has ZERO FUCKING CLUE about the issue. And now that he's an out gay man himself, he is taking it as a Social Justice Warrior stance and business opportunity to let his voice be heard.

Hey Tim, before you came out, did you voice any opposition to any other states laws that protected their citizens rights? Hmmm? Oh, but now that you are an out gay, why you feel morally dignified and virtuous in your retaliation against Indiana. So does this mean that you will close up all of those two Apple stores in Indiana? I see they are still open. Fucking hypocrite.

Meade said...

chickelit said...
"Perhaps somebody could suggest things we can buy from Indiana to counter the insane boycott."

Hey, how about a lawn mower? Made right there in Indiana. Buy it through the Althouse Amazon portal!

That'll show those gay and lesbian activists that they can't push you around! (if you know what I mean by push you around and I think you do.)

Michael Haz said...

I am growing older and maybe my mind is slip slip slipping away. The memory isn't what it once was.

I simply don't remember those SJW demonstrations at the East Madison Islamic Center wherein the demonstrators demanded that the Islamic Center perform SSM marriages. And while they are at it, also demanded that Islam stop killing gays.

Doggone memory. Maybe and observant reader of this blog who is familiar with Madison can help me fill in the blanks in my memory. Because I'm sure that the SJWs in Madison and especially at the U of Double U have been all over this.

Trooper York said...

No way to make money off of that Haz.

Grifters gotta grift.

Trooper York said...

It does come with a whiff of desperation. Anyone who post or reads here would use Lem's portal because he needs the dough.

Even if it is a same sex portal. Just saying.

Meade said...

First they came to demand that the Islamic Center perform SSM marriages and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Islamic.

Then they came to demand that Haz and Trooper get married in an Islamic gay wedding ceremony and I did not speak out —
Because, well, hey, live and let live and just saying.

Then they came to demand that I star in an Apple produced gay porno film with them called "Lawn Boy Mows His Way Through ISIS"—and there was no one left in Indiana to save me!

Titus said...

The thing is the more corporations complain the more the governor will relent.

Nine of the largest employers in Indiana have requested they change this law.

Eli Lilly being one of them-any of you need to stop taking your blood pressure pills?

Money and Corporations will always trump religionists.

This will be changed.

Michael Haz said...

Meade - do you mock gay marriage over at your wife's blog? Just curious. Or isn't your leash that long?

Trooper York said...

He is good to go Haz. She is already three sheets to the wind.

Don't worry that stuff will be deleted by tomorrow.

AllenS said...

Meade, that was absolutely stupid.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Lol. You guys are hilarious. I didn't even have to read a sentence of Cookie Monster's diatribe to guess that he's irate about this. His emotional state can be estimated by the number of paragraphs and topic, alone. It's almost like you could work backward that way to figure out his emotional state - the sole issue behind his posts. And what range they have. Two: Really angry (social issues) or really introverted (arts and crafts).

As for the topic itself, good for Cook. And the Yelp guy. This only shows how out of touch with modern economies the assholes of Indiana and other enclaves are. Face it, this social regression is just anti-free market. The most cutting edge companies in America want nothing to do with this kind of constraining hate, and a state at the bottom of the economic ladder (while pretending to be at the knife's edge of free market capitalism) throws out some totally gratuitous, extra-constitutional douchiness that they're too stupid to realize is aimed at some of the most creative, talented and innovative people driving America's best industries.

Indiana deserves everything they'll get for this. Not like they can sink much further backward, or anything - socially or economically.

The GOP is showing itself to be not only anti-social, but anti-capitalism. It's a display I welcome wholeheartedly. Get it out in the open.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It is difficult to boycott Apple products because they are so pervasive.

Exactly. Consistent integrity in innovation + Talented leadership = (Over time) Essential company. That's the way it works, in America.

They don't have any room for hate. Or fear of not living in the past. No room for any of those things in that equation.

So, what represents America? A company as groundbreaking and powerful and iconic as Apple? Or paranoid regression designed to exclude America's best talents, simply because they're not part of some outmoded code?

We know the answer. America pushes forward. Of course our constitutional liberties permit us encourage old, exclusionary hatreds. But guess what? CEOs are allowed to have feelings, too. And successful companies have inspirational goals and missions. They see opportunity, are expansive, and aim to be inclusive. This is the complete opposite of the organizations appealed to be Indiana's government.

This is a war between two sorts of corporations. One that actually produces useful things for people today and brings us into the future, and one that clings to useless dogma because it's afraid of no longer living in the past.

This being America, the former will win.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It protects individual citizens from the power of the state to overrule religious beliefs.

Oh. So I guess a "religious belief" is a permit to allow anything one wants, then. I suppose a cultist with a belief in mass suicide-murder has a legitimate reason for getting in the way of state laws or actual economic progress. Or the many psychos in state wards who proclaim endless warnings about their prophesy of an impending apocalypse by lunchtime.

Even a mid-sized hospital runs into those types on a weekly basis.

Some anti-war types believe the mass-murder-suicide cultists are basically in charge anyway, the way America's bellicosity rages nowadays.

You would do well to differentiate between "beliefs" and "acts". There is no mind-control in America, yet - despite your understanding that any curb on a zealot's actioned excesses is an "attack" on his religion as such.

Well, maybe if his religion is its own state, and for a long time, was one of the most powerful ones around. In that case I could see your point.

Michael Haz said...

The GOP is showing itself to be not only anti-social, but anti-capitalism. It's a display I welcome wholeheartedly. Get it out in the open.

The progressive left continues to show itself as anti-freedom, anti-religion, intolerant, and fascistic. It's a display you welcome wholeheartedly.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Let's review. Indiana's law is based on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

It is a federal law aimed at preventing laws that "substantially burden" a person's free exercise of religion. The bill was introduced by Congressman Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on March 11, 1993 and passed by a unanimous U.S. House and a near unanimous U.S. Senate with three dissenting votes[1] and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.

Barack Obama voted for passage of an Illinois version of the RFRA while he was an Illinois state senator.

It was upheld by the Supreme Court in the recent Hobby Lobby case.

It gives religious people a right to invoke their religious principles, if those principles were contradictory to established laws.


Oh. I see. So let's recite so much legislative history as if to pretend that courts aren't increasingly hostile and entirely within their rights to question using those outmoded statutes as a way to discriminate against the one class of citizens they have left to harangue, hate, exclude, and demonize.

chickelit said...

Indiana deserves everything they'll get for this. Not like they can sink much further backward, or anything - socially or economically.

Pure bigotry. Nothing like castigating an entire state!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The progressive left continues to show itself as anti-freedom, anti-religion, intolerant, and fascistic. It's a display you welcome wholeheartedly.

Yep. THe only "freedom" and "religion" you're defending is the freedom to hate gays and the religious conviction of excluding them.

The only "tolerance" you're defending is the "toleration" of homophobia.

The only "anti-fascism" you're defending is the small enterprise that cares more about whom it demeans and belittles than whom it allows as a customer.

Newsflash: Indiana is a customer of Apple, too. This works both ways. And Apple's deciding that maybe, just maybe, they're not all that interested in having backward, jerks more concerned with their "freedom to hate" anyway. They're more interested in the vast majority of humanity who appreciates the way people are connected to each other, their communities, their interactions and online commerce, and everything else.

They're deciding not to piss off the much more powerful, much more numerous and much more decent consumers. Apparently the State of Indiana doesn't want its citizens and companies to be among them.

I guess that sucks - for Indiana.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Pure bigotry. Nothing like castigating an entire state!

"Indianans", if there even were such a designation, are not a class of people confined to hateful discrimination. They can go anywhere they want (America allowing for free movement), take on any attitude or interest they choose, and no one will judge them on any other basis.

The state itself, however, reflects what some real bullshit thinkers are up to, obviously. At some point you can no longer refrain from judging the people of a state for the actions of its democratically elected government. Same with 1979 Iran. Same with the Palestinians. Some people seem to deserve the government they get. In this case, one whose principle industries are agriculture and unregulated chemicals. Not so sure how well those go together.

Point being, if they're embarrassed by the disrepute their state's brought to them -- as they should be -- then there are remedies available to them.

Michael Haz said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
chickelit said...

Maybe the best way to support Indiana is to show a little more support for the next Indy 500. It seems to me that the same sort of people who'd boycott Indiana are the same types who loathe auto racing (motor cars are icky and destroy the planet!).

chickelit said...

Point being, if they're embarrassed by the disrepute their state's brought to them -- as they should be -- then there are remedies available to them.

So...right thinking Indianians should up and move! Why would you impose that on people you agree with?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Ok, Haz. I'll try. Maybe I'll reduce it to coded appeals and coded language. Or justify it by appealing to time-honored "traditions". That way burning witches will simply be one of my 1st amendment religious freedom rights.

chickelit said...

Actually, Ritmo, I'm getting a whiff of Titus from you today. You two are are two peas in a pod.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

So...right thinking Indianians should up and move! Why would you impose that on people you agree with?

They should put pressure on their governor to accept that there are more important corporations than the few corporate sects that collect your dues on Sunday and figure out which non-conformists to persecute by Monday.

This solution has been available to them all along. There is nothing in the water that prevents Indianus from being decent. Unless, maybe they really aren't doing enough to keep all those chemical industry byproducts out of the irrigation. Unfortunately, I've suspected that's been their problem for a while, though.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Actually, Ritmo, I'm getting a whiff of Titus from you today. You two are are two peas in a pod.

Your moral progress would improve greatly if you jettisoned the "guilt-by-association" mindset.

chickelit said...

Here's a Meade-approved, eco-friendly product which helps support an Indiana-based company: link. I've owned two myself.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Liberals used to be for religious freedom. Till they decided they liked "same-sex marriage" better. Religious freedom is so two-and-a-half years ago!

I'm all for religious freedom. Believe whatever you want. Religion is primarily an issue of conscience, after all.

(At least, it is for those of us who aren't told to subordinate every part of our conscience to a centralized authority).

Religious "acts", however, are sort of different. All sorts of acts, legal, illegal, moral, immoral, might be construed as having a religious element to them.

So, why can't we bring back the burning of witches, then? Clearly witch hunts were an important part of the Puritans' religious freedom.

Islamic State has some very religiously inspired ideas -- condoned, as many would say the their scriptures indicate, by Muhammad himself. Peace be upon him.

We need to welcome the leaders and followers of ISIS to America, so that they can show us the virtue of their religious conviction - in practice. That's what America's all about.

Unless you hate America, you need to let religious wackos of every stripe roam free to violate others in whichever way their Sky God and Messenger and Messiah and rock have ordained!

Methadras said...

AllenS said...

Meade, that was absolutely stupid.


It's meade, so this statement goes with the territory.

chickelit said...

Another way to strike back at Apple is to dump their stock or reduce exposure in any mutual funds you own which are heavily invested in Apple. Of course, don't make a bad business decision if in fact you believe that the company is going to boom.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Another way to strike back at Apple is to dump their stock or reduce exposure in any mutual funds you own which are heavily invested in Apple.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

People need music and art more than they need to tell gays that they're wrong for falling in love with and marrying one another.

chickelit said...

Rhythm and Balls said...

Your moral progress would improve greatly if you jettisoned the "guilt-by-association" mindset.

I was hoping you'd reaction more strongly. Nobody likes to be associated with a bigot.

chickelit said...

People need music and art more than they need to tell gays that they're wrong for falling in love with and marrying one another.

Amazon sells music too. I admit, I've gone to iTunes by default in the past. But I don't really buy much these days. When I do buy in the future, or link something on KLEM FM, I'll try to source and recommend an alternative source.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Electronic art and music, anyway.

What we need right now is a playwright willing to make a script about a guy in black robes ripping them off and declaring in a loud, screaming voice, "I've GOT TO BE FREE!!! I NEED TO EXCLUDE! PRAISE JESUS, DISCRIMINATION IS MY BIRTHRIGHT!"

It could be like a baptism, of sorts. It would surely offer him the type of cathartic spiritual relief that the economy and political process don't seem to avail us of, unfortunately. Plus, it would be sensationally artistic.

It's been a while since religion's been this natural and free-form. I think it would be a good "revival".

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh ok then, Chickie. We can always root for Amazon to be as innovative as Apple in the hopes that they might be more friendly to the "discrimination as a form of religion" mindset. But then again, maybe not.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Remember the success of the Amazon Fire phone, after all.

Methadras said...

Ritmo, in the entire set of screeds you've projected by using the words from your ideological side of the bench, hence anti-, you fail to notice a couple of things. One is, is that you thinking this is somehow sanctioned legislative hate doesn't make it so. It's a position you disagree with, I get that. However, if someone doesn't want to participate in endorsing, working for, providing service to, or in any way capitulates with someone or a group that they have a religious objection too, then who must the state support? Those with a religious objection or those that want to enforce their anti-discrimination regulation against? It is the states duty to protect the rights of citizens. However, which takes precedent?

The mere act of walking into a business by a person classified as a homosexual and that person asks for a service or a product and is then met with an objection for said service or product on a religious basis because that person or persons is of a designation that doesn't comport with the business owners religious beliefs is grounds for legal action? So ones religious rights must be trampled in order to preserve the rights of the sexual orientation designate?

But then if you disagree with it, you demonize those you disagree with as hateful bigots, homophobes, and haters when nothing of the kind is being done. A person can be homo-discriminant or homo-intolerant without being hateful, but you just go off the other end because frankly, that's all you know. People must have the freedom to tell others no and not be legally sanctioned for it and no, there are no religious grounds against discrimination by race and that should be the only criteria by which the religious burden test should apply. Everything else is transitory, even religious preferences.

Titus said...

Do any of you get your prescriptions from Eli Lilly? Because they agree with Cook, and are an Indiana based company.

Face it, you lost.

Get over it. And suck the gay dick long and hard and all the way to the base until you gag on it you old non productive, retired people.

A majority of you are retired or unemployed and your voice really doesn't count in today's world. Yea, the pubes will accept your vote when you support this shit, but really they don't give a shit about you. They want your company and jobs in their state and if you do this crap they lose. No young talented peeps will move to states like this.

Even the crazy governor from Arizona caved to big business.

Money talks dumb shits.

Methadras said...

Rhythm and Balls said...

People need music and art more than they need to tell gays that they're wrong for falling in love with and marrying one another.


Your ability to conflate is still legendary. No one said a word about telling gays who they can marry or fall in love with. What is being said, is that people who don't agree with homosexuals or homosexual marriages shouldn't be forced to comply with their wishes for products or services or be penalized for not doing so under religious objection.

It's really that simple, but you can't help yourself to make it more than what it is. I'm still an original owner of Apple stock. I own quite a bit of it actually, and I reject Tim Cooks assertion that he even understands that subject at hand. There is a twinge of hypocrisy on this entire debacle and it doesn't look good for Apple, Tim Cook, or those on your side of the arm-flapping pro-homosexual hysteria mob. When he was still closeted, he never showed his objections to any homosexual marriage prohibitions and now that he's out, it's all hands on deck. This is going to be a PR nightmare for Apple I think and he's going to affect my bottom line which pisses me off even more.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Those with a religious objection or those that want to enforce their anti-discrimination regulation against? It is the states duty to protect the rights of citizens. However, which takes precedent?

I think we might be in uncharted territory, here. I can't remember a time when as potentially powerful (if superficially) a religious interest took such an interest in excluding classes of people.

In the abstract, I'm in favor of a business excluding whomever they want.

In practicality, I think we have to learn, as Rand Paul did, that interstate commerce needs to be as free as possible. He had reasons that I could respect for opposing CRA legislation on the basis of restricting businesses from doing business as they wanted. But the fact is that lunch counters that could exclude business were f*cking with interstate commerce of a greater sort: Being able to travel the highways freely at all.

So it might be similar here. If "religious" folks want to complain that what Apple et al is intolerant of them, is that really the more stifling, more intolerant or more freedom-constricting choice?

But then if you disagree with it, you demonize those you disagree with as hateful bigots, homophobes, and haters when nothing of the kind is being done.

Well, sorry. I admit I'm getting a bit "screed-y", but moreso out of humor than meanness. I think we can agree that what's being advocated is exclusion. That's the proper word. Religious folks might have been taught that since their exclusionary preferences are institutional, they've been denuded of "hate", bigotry, etc. Maybe that's true.

But it can't be ignored that this outsourcing of doctrine to the "CEOs of Religion" shouldn't absolve non-laity from examining their justifications for adhering to the dogma. If it's not hate, it's certainly exclusionary - which can be effectively, remarkably similar. I think we owe it to ourselves, in AMerica, to consider who or when or whom we want to exclude - because it can be a big thing.

These issues are best considered, the way I see it, as recognizing both religious organizations, smaller businesses and big corps like Apple as economic actors - duking it out. If you believe that, in general, the government shouldn't get involved in deciding economic outcomes (as I do in this case), then I see it as nothing more than protecting religious monopolies of traditional exclusion to the detriment of more successful businesses that don't.

chickelit said...

Titus said...
Do any of you get your prescriptions from Eli Lilly? Because they agree with Cook, and are an Indiana based company.

I'm not on any meds and I'm employed. I do have friends at Lilly so why would a want to join a petulant "gaycott" of an entire state?

I also feel no urge to "suck the gay dick long and hard and all the way to the base until you gag on it" -- that's your bailiwick.

Oh and stop channeling Ritmo!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

What is being said, is that people who don't agree with homosexuals or homosexual marriages shouldn't be forced to comply with their wishes for products or services or be penalized for not doing so under religious objection.

See, the thing is, this would have been fine and caused no such ruckus had the Indiana government and governor kept his mouth shut and just stepped out of the way. Let people quietly discriminate as they see fit, whether to satisfy their fears or impulses or dogmas or hate or love of tradition or whatever the heck they want to call it. Go on, and do it. It's pretty hard to prove your reasons for not frequenting a business.

But the problem is, the govt of Indiana took a totally gratuitous, totally unnecessary step, and outright declared some type of strange need to protect such exclusion. It was weird. It was unnecessary. It was insanely provocative.

So all that Apple did, was to bite back in the same way. Apple's excluding them the way the state said it want to "protect" people choosing to exclude people like Apple's CEO.

It's just turn-about. It's just FairPlay. And no one would have known about it if they didn't get the governor to loudly ratify their ridiculous non-grievances. But he did and now a business with just as much a right to exclude has turned around and done the same thing back to them.

I hardly see anything for the initiators of this fiasco to complain about. If it's good for their goose, it's good for the gander.

Methadras said...

Rhythm and Balls said...

I think we might be in uncharted territory, here. I can't remember a time when as potentially powerful (if superficially) a religious interest took such an interest in excluding classes of people.


You touch on it later in this post, but i don't think it's as powerful as you might think. The idea is clearly to protect people and businesses that simply do not wish to cater to homosexuals on religious grounds. Think about it, I can walk into a store ask for a product or service and buy it usually without issue right? But, once you've declared yourself a homosexual, now you've potentially run into a quandary with the person providing the service or product. They now may not wish to provide that service or product. You as the offended can now haul them into court and judicially force them into compliance. Freedom of association for me, but not for thee? What isn't being recognized here is that people have the right to their religious freedoms. They also have a preeminent right to freely associate with whom they so choose. This to me should take precedent than the civil rights of a protected class of people who identify with one sexual orientation over the other. After all, even heterosexuals can run afoul of being discriminated against by other heterosexuals.

In the abstract, I'm in favor of a business excluding whomever they want.

In practicality, I think we have to learn, as Rand Paul did, that interstate commerce needs to be as free as possible. He had reasons that I could respect for opposing CRA legislation on the basis of restricting businesses from doing business as they wanted. But the fact is that lunch counters that could exclude business were f*cking with interstate commerce of a greater sort: Being able to travel the highways freely at all.


I see that point entirely, but I believe people and business should be able to discriminate on everything except race. Besides, we as individuals discriminate daily and constantly on all sorts of things. This is no different.

So it might be similar here. If "religious" folks want to complain that what Apple et al is intolerant of them, is that really the more stifling, more intolerant or more freedom-constricting choice?

Wait, that isn't he argument here. Tim Cook didn't need to poke his nose into Indiana's business with regards to this legislation to be honest. And this isn't what Indianans and Americans at large are objecting to is being held legally liable for saying no to individuals or groups of people on religious grounds.

continued...

Methadras said...

Well, sorry. I admit I'm getting a bit "screed-y", but moreso out of humor than meanness. I think we can agree that what's being advocated is exclusion. That's the proper word. Religious folks might have been taught that since their exclusionary preferences are institutional, they've been denuded of "hate", bigotry, etc. Maybe that's true.

True, I would agree that exclusion is what is being done here. However, I think people should be allowed to exclude as they see fit outside of racial exclusion. They should be able to without government encroaching on them. In the end it would work itself out. People will associate with those they agree with and stay away from doing business with those that don't. People should be allowed to do that without fear of legal penalty, however, societal penalty is something different altogether.

But it can't be ignored that this outsourcing of doctrine to the "CEOs of Religion" shouldn't absolve non-laity from examining their justifications for adhering to the dogma. If it's not hate, it's certainly exclusionary - which can be effectively, remarkably similar. I think we owe it to ourselves, in AMerica, to consider who or when or whom we want to exclude - because it can be a big thing.

These issues are best considered, the way I see it, as recognizing both religious organizations, smaller businesses and big corps like Apple as economic actors - duking it out. If you believe that, in general, the government shouldn't get involved in deciding economic outcomes (as I do in this case), then I see it as nothing more than protecting religious monopolies of traditional exclusion to the detriment of more successful businesses that don't.


This is the issue at hand. Are we adult enough to sort out our business with each other without the heavy hand of government telling us how to do it? Even I don't like the idea that this is law has to protect an individual or a business from sanction because there are those that don't like being told no, we can't or won't service you based on religious grounds. Let them hash it out themselves and no one is stopping the offended from seeking services elsewhere and from other people. In fact, it may be an opportunity for markets to spring up that cater only to those people. Can't compete, oh well, guess you shouldn't have run to the state for protection both for those seeking religious protection and for those seeking protection or their sexual orientation. This is uncharted territory and frankly, if I were in charge, I'd tell them all to go fuck themselves and figure it out without running to government to solve it for them because that's really the ultimate problem.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I see that point entirely, but I believe people and business should be able to discriminate on everything except race. Besides, we as individuals discriminate daily and constantly on all sorts of things. This is no different.

Well, I think that's where I will have to disagree with you my friend because in these cases are being given cover by a fig leaf of appeals to "religious sentiment" that rally a 1st amendment cause.

The problem with that, though, is that the religious appeal is being given outsized importance in a fight that it's bound to lose, over time.

So I defer to the economy. Churches and technology companies are both corporations. They're both political actors. Treat them like adults, indeed, and if one's going to go to bat for the cause of excluding, so can the other. That's really the only way for exclusionists to figure their shit out. The government will back whichever is stronger, politically/economically. Maybe in Indiana its churches or maybe its competitive companies (which seem to be overwhelmingly anti-discrimination).

We're simply left with an abstract case for outright (as opposed to covert - which is always possible) discrimination, and a series of developments - social, political and now economic - that seem to be making the outright defense of such discrimination on such grounds practically impossible.

I just see it as a practicality thing, at this point. The abstract point can't matter any longer when so much of social, political and now economic reality demands that the Old Theology can't run to Big Government to defend it any more. It's simply a lost cause.

Meade said...

"However, I think people should be allowed to exclude as they see fit outside of racial exclusion."

Wait. Why not racial exclusion?

Michael Haz said...

You're right Meade. And good job keeping Crack MC off the comments section.

chickelit said...

All in all, a great post Chip.

And I can see from the stats that others liked it too!

rcocean said...

Well, this thread turned to shit fairly quickly. But y'know, once the usual suspects show up...

Methadras said...

Meade said...

"However, I think people should be allowed to exclude as they see fit outside of racial exclusion."

Wait. Why not racial exclusion?


Because I think racial discrimination is pernicious and evil. People have no choice as to their race and race isn't transitory. It's fixed.

Fr Martin Fox said...

Rcocean--

My fault.

Meade said...

"My fault."

Give thanks to the Lord for He is good.

Now do your assigned penance.

Trooper York said...

Don't you have some Holy Water to throw so we can avoid this?

We have to deal with this until school lets out and Mommy takes her computer back.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

After reading Meade's 10:58 AM comment directed to Fr Martin Fox, I think I'd like to make a global apology to anyone, and everyone, who has ever been personally offended by what can be fairly construed as a personal attack that I've typed out here on the internet.

I try not to do that, and I don't recall having ever done it (not for years, anyway), but my sense of humor can get pretty sarcastic sometimes and I can see how someone might feel like something I've said was intended to be a mean-spirited, unproductive put-down. I apologize.

There's no need for that kind of crap.

Life is short.

And playing on the internet should be fun.

Michael Haz said...

Well said, Eric.

And Father Martin, no need for apologies at all. It must be a challenge to remain tolerant and pleasant in the face of intolerance and hatred. Interesting that it pops up during Holy Week.

Meade said...

Yes, Eric, well said. The cutesy unproductive mean-spirited personal put-down crap attacks of thinly veiled hatred and intolerance such as "It is kind of funny at you-know-where seeing the blogger-who-must-not-be-named lamenting all this fallout from redefining marriage..." are hardly Christlike, are they?

Orrey G.Rantor said...

The ironical nature of this is most amusing. Apple long having been the home of techno facists controlling everyone in their walled garden. "If you don't like it, dont buy in!" Yet the techno-evangelists just can't shut up about how great their lifestyle tech is.

In a bad economy, over priced boutique computer/tech products that have very little in the way of options are not the best bet for long term corporate viability. See the mac pro trash can (but its cute!), the new macbook with one port and specs barely better than their tablets or the Air (but its thinner!) and the one market they had locked up the mac mini, overpriced and it has competition from intel now with their "nuc" designs.

But hey, maybe they can advertise spin people into buying more Beats headphones.

On the Indiana law, I'll steal a bit from Karl Denninger at MarketTicker:

"Take a Jewish cafe owner. He insists that everything that comes into his restaurant to be cooked and served by him must be kosher.

This law says you can't sue him for refusing to sell you a side of bacon.

Guess what: Pence is right and those of you who wish to argue that that restaurant owner has to sell bacon are wrong.

The same is true the other way: A Jewish patron cannot demand kosher food in a restaurant. He can ask, but can't demand.

This also applies to a church. The Catholic Church, for example, demands that (1) marriage be between one man and one woman, (2) both parties by confirmed Catholics and (3) neither have a previous deemed valid, non-annulled marriage. What the screamers wish to argue and enforce by law is a requirement that a Catholic church be willing to conduct a marriage ceremony for a pair of men.

So please explain to me how it's different when someone wants a wedding cake with Jack and John instead of Jack and Jill on top?"

Meade said...

And thank you, Methadras, for answering my question:

Meade said...
Wait. Why not racial exclusion?

Methadras said...
Because I think racial discrimination is pernicious and evil. People have no choice as to their race and race isn't transitory. It's fixed.

Racial discrimination is pernicious and evil (I agree) because a person cannot choose his race — it's fixed — but sexual orientation and gender discrimination is NOT pernicious and evil because why? Because people CHOOSE their sexual orientation and gender — characteristics which are transitory?

Do I understand you correctly?

Michael Haz said...

Good ol' Meade, still walking around with that plank stuck in his eye, making everyone else aware of the splinters in their eyes.

Fr Martin Fox said...

My comments about an unnamed blogger on an unnamed blog were meant to be amusing, hopefully thought-provoking, with rather mild ribbing.

To call them "mean-spirited," "personal put-down," "thinly veiled hatred and intolerance" so redefines over-the-top as to make Liberace look like Esther Walton. And all this gives a whole new meaning to "thin-skinned."

I don't apologize for what I said, only that I did say it, since it served as unfortunate bait. And I am truly sorry for that.

And if our genial host would rather this added comment -- offered to defend myself -- not appear, I will not be in the least bit offended if it disappears.

AC245 said...

A few commenters in this thread function as little more than busted sewage pipes, conduits who spray filth and bile from Mealticket's blog all over this one. Unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of either from that source.

"Get over it. And suck the gay dick long and hard and all the way to the base until you gag on it you old non productive, retired people."

"Personally, I prefer having all my bigots out and proud. Where I can keep an eye on them."

"Indiana deserves everything they'll get for this. Not like they can sink much further backward, or anything - socially or economically. The GOP is showing itself to be not only anti-social, but anti-capitalism. It's a display I welcome wholeheartedly. Get it out in the open."

(And to punctuate their own self-unawareness, they declare that it's everyone else who is hateful, close-minded, exclusionary, and bigoted.)

I hope the proprietors here clean the place up a little. No one wants to visit a cesspool.

Titus said...

Pence said there is nothing discriminatory in the law....but they are going to "clarify" parts....meaning change.

And all the stupid pube presidential candidates jumped onboard to support it. Clueless.

The country has changed so much since 1992 and 2004 regarding this issue.

Good for the pube primary. Horrible for the general election.

How long before these old crusties "evolve"?

AllenS said...

You did nothing wrong, Fr. Martin Fox.

You exercised your right to free speech and along came someone with no humor.

Meade said...

"And if our genial host would rather this added comment -- offered to defend myself -- not appear, I will not be in the least bit offended if it disappears."

Not this again. Sheesh.

Meade said...

Lem said...
Instapundit...

Here’s the deal: (1) Indiana has gone from a swing state to a red state, so it’s fair game; and (2) Dems need something to agitate the base so it doesn’t pay attention to Iranian nukes, trashed email servers, and an overall culture of corruption. Those who join in are willing enablers.

Two excellent points.


Lem, when you said "two excellent points" what do you think Glenn meant by "Dems need something" and "those who join in are willing enablers"?

Don't you think the "willing enablers" are the Mike Pence-type RFRA supporters — enabling the Dems "to agitate the base so it doesn’t pay attention to Iranian nukes, trashed email servers, and an overall culture of corruption."?

Titus said...

Nascar and Wal-Mart are against the law-that's bad.

But now Pence relented....that was quick.

The chamber of commerce and corporations have spoken.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

(And to punctuate their own self-unawareness, they declare that it's everyone else who is hateful, close-minded, exclusionary, and bigoted.)

Nope. Just all those who aren't doing their part to get the mealy-mouthed Governor Pence and those running his state's GOP to own up to his flip-floppety flirtation with exclusionary soft-bigotry.

Nine out of ten Indianoplace large corps agree.

It's not bigoted to not have much to like about one silly state in a union. Or two. The state is not all the people there, anyway. Or did you suddenly convert to the religion of statism?

Methadras said...

Meade said...

And thank you, Methadras, for answering my question:

Meade said...
Wait. Why not racial exclusion?

Methadras said...
Because I think racial discrimination is pernicious and evil. People have no choice as to their race and race isn't transitory. It's fixed.

Racial discrimination is pernicious and evil (I agree) because a person cannot choose his race — it's fixed — but sexual orientation and gender discrimination is NOT pernicious and evil because why? Because people CHOOSE their sexual orientation and gender — characteristics which are transitory?

Do I understand you correctly?


Yes, you understand me correctly. I do not see sexual orientation or gender orientation worthy of discrimination as pernicious or evil simply for the fact that they are transitory. One can enter or exit such labellings at will. For example, all or most government forms ask for gender, male or female, there is no other (that I know of to date). Also those government forms ask for racial categorization with a set amount of choices. What you won't see is sexual orientation, sexual preference, or anything related to gender preferences.

Also, the incidence of discrimination against sexual orientation or gender orientation is very low. Outside of a few media highlighted cases, this is not a regular occurrence in America. Therefore, to me, this isn't an evil or pernicious form of discrimination, even if someone wishes to discriminate on those grounds.

Methadras said...

AC245 said...

(And to punctuate their own self-unawareness, they declare that it's everyone else who is hateful, close-minded, exclusionary, and bigoted.)


That's really the issue at hand. Leftists and the velvet mafia will wholeheartedly claim bigotry, discrimination, and anti-gay rhetoric where none exists because their need to conflate the issue opens the door for this kind of language against their ideological opponents. They are children unaware of the language they abuse and simply in a tantrum of rage will spew any vilification against those they simply disagree with. Not to mention they simply do not understand the legal issue put before them because of their short sighted nature.

Anything that would trump their ability to leverage public opinion, legislation, or the inertia of mass they've attained to normalize and codify homosexuality as mainstream and as a means to attack the church will be met with shrill hysterical gnashing of teeth and the rendering of flesh. They've done this to themselves because they don't know any other way than to be the 3 year old kid in the middle of a super market throwing a massive raging temper tantrum because he asked for a box of his favorite sugary cereal and his mother simply said no. It's that simple.

Methadras said...

Meade said...

Don't you think the "willing enablers" are the Mike Pence-type RFRA supporters — enabling the Dems "to agitate the base so it doesn’t pay attention to Iranian nukes, trashed email servers, and an overall culture of corruption."?


It's the usual suspects and they are waiting for the final clarifying language before they issue their injunctions if they haven't already to higher courts in the hopes SCOTUS will do a review and take it on only to be met by a 7-2 or 9-0 ruling.

Titus said...

Obama evolved in 4 years; Pence in 48 hours.

rcocean said...

Father - your comments are always welcome.

I wasn't referring to our friend Meade but a couple others who drone on and on whenever anything Gay is mentioned.

rcocean said...

I should have been specific or simply kept quiet.

chickelit said...

rcocean said...
I wasn't referring to our friend Meade but a couple others who drone on and on whenever anything Gay is mentioned.

So name them. I'm tried of people pussyfooting around. And I'm tired of people covering for others like Titus here and elsewhere. Call them what they are: bigots. And quit laughing at his antics and "funny stories" about shitting on Middle America. That goes double for you, Spinelli because nobody does Boston and scatology better than you.

The high point of my last career was when I helped a Midwestern inventor recoup millions of dollars of income from a dishonest Boston pharmaceutical company. For all of Titus's horn-tooting, he never tells the seedier side of his town.

chickelit said...

How many people here give a Titus a pass because he's gay? That kind of thinking has to end. Factor out the gay in him and judge him on his bigotry.

Would you like to work for a company that employs people like Titus? Would you like to work for a company under somebody who even thinks like "Titus"?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The high point of my last career was when I helped a Midwestern inventor recoup millions of dollars of income from a dishonest Boston pharmaceutical company.

I'm shocked. You actually believe a company could actually do something wrong? My, my. How things change.

chickelit said...

I'm shocked. You actually believe a company could actually do something wrong? My, my. How things change.

I've revolved.

rcocean said...

Chick,

You want names, I give you names -
R&B and Titus.

And as for "laughing at his antics" you must have me confused with someone else. I found the guy funny the first year he posted, which was what 6 years ago? Which means 5 years of being boring.

Methadras said...

chickelit said...

How many people here give a Titus a pass because he's gay? That kind of thinking has to end. Factor out the gay in him and judge him on his bigotry.

Would you like to work for a company that employs people like Titus? Would you like to work for a company under somebody who even thinks like "Titus"?


I could care less that Titus is a shit pooter obsessed pole inhaler. His effete little schtick grew tiresome a long time ago. No one likes uppity, much less uppity faggot and I never gave titus quarter, whoever the fuck titus is.

Meade said...

How about a pizza? If we bake you a pizza, then will you stop trying to anally rape us?

Trooper York said...

You know chickie I finally have to agree with you. Titus and Leisure Suit Larry are working in concert. Much the same way it was with the Crack Emcee.

The comments and page views and Amazon dough must have really went into the dumper.

It must burn their ass that Turley is getting 200 plus comments on his threads nowadays on a regular basis.

You were right. Sorry I doubted you.

Meade said...

Trooper: "And so you and Titus & Crack were..."

Leisure Suit Larry: "Yes! Say it! They... were... my BOYFRIENDS!"

Trooper York said...

Nobody is listening pal. Time to move on.

Okey Dokey?