The problem here is that the Civil Rights law infringe on our freedom of association. I would like to see businesses allowed to discriminate on everything but hiring if they so wish.

thuja on February 22, 2013 at 10:33 AM

Why exactly did you say “on everything but hiring”? Is there some Constitutionally protected right to a job or to work for a particular employer that I missed? Hiring and firing are one of the key aspects of running a business. The government should have no more say in that then they have in who I invite into my house.

But this is why I could never be elected to public office. If the owner of a private business wants to put up a sign that says “blacks not served here,” I think they should be able to. I think it’s abhorrent. And I would hope no one would patronize them and they would go out of business. But why should any private property owner be told who they must allow on their property?

Does HotAir ever link to articles defending marriage? Or, must it always be this rino crap 24/7?

Blake on February 22, 2013 at 8:55 AM

Here’s an article defending marriage.

Until someone can explain to me how two same sex people that I don’t even know, getting married is an assault on my liberty, or effects how I live my life, then I have no problem with it.

Norbitz on February 22, 2013 at 9:54 AM

OK, I’ll explain. Right now, a gay couple can get married and not go to jail, not be stripped naked and displayed on the courthouse lawn, not be sent to Gitmo.

What they cannot do, legally, is force you and I to ACCEPT their unions. We aren’t required to share in their delusion that they are man and wife or whatever.

That’s fine. As it stands now, we all have freedom of conscience, and of association. Live, and let live. That should be good enough, eh?

Nope. What the gay marriage movement wants is for government to FORCE gay unions upon everyone else; to force their personal beliefs and the acceptance of their perversion of marriage on everybody else, regardless of individual conscious. That means punishing those who refuse, on religious and other personal grounds, to accept gay marriage.

The choice is tolerance or intolerance. And it’s the gay lobby that is intolerant, because it can’t stand my freedom to refuse to accept same-sex marriage.

What does the government have anything to do with marriage in the first place?

If they had no role in determining who was married and who wasn’t, this would be a strictly religious issue.

Defenestratus on February 22, 2013 at 9:09 AM

Government’s historic role has been to restrict marriage. Keep rich from marrying poor, Catholic from marrying Protestant, white from marrying black, etc. Since, at least in the USA, government no longer has that role, it really shouldn’t have any role. It certainly shouldn’t go about re-defining marriage, which only begets further discrimination as whoever is left outside the government-set definition of marriage can rightly cry discrimination.

Of course you would be OK with your husband being accorded equal substitutal spousal benefits, right?

tommyboy on February 22, 2013 at 10:49 AM

Okay now would be the time to bring up the “you’re just a misgynist” “sexist’ pig” “war on women”– so I can deflect that issue right?

The problem here is that the Civil Rights law infringe on our freedom of association. I would like to see businesses allowed to discriminate on everything but hiring if they so wish. I think any discriminating business would be boycotted and thus disappear. Sadly, I do not think society is willing to think through the issues of rights in any sane and freedom loving way.
This has the unfortunate outcome that I support taking the tax exemption from churches that don’t do gay marriage. It’s pretty much inevitable that this battle is coming. And the crazy thing is this you can’t point to me saying this evidence for your viewpoint, but the people will ignore it until the battle is actually started. I wish the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been written with a sunset provision. We need to put sunset provision in almost all of our laws.

thuja on February 22, 2013 at 10:33 AM

This just shows how shallow your thinking is – or you are consciously in agreement with the gay lobby tactic of using “equality” and “gay marriage” as a tool to attack those who don’t explicitly approve of them and their ideals. Were not even talking tolerance but actual acceptance.

The fact that you’d support stripping religious institutions of their tax exempt status clearly reveals this (but apparently the whole host of liberal “non-profits” get to go along merrily pushing the liberal agenda). You can argue that institutions shouldn’t get tax breaks (that there shouldn’t be any tax breaks) but the reason churches get a tax break is because they perform essential functions of a thriving society like caring for the poor and unfortunate. So you’d rather see churches cut back on these efforts as punishment for not supporting the gay agenda.

The government needs to provide me with a spouse for those two weeks I must do with out or I am being treated unequal- right? Someone has to mow this law; it isn’t mowing itself.
melle1228 on February 22, 2013 at 10:45 AM

Of course you would be OK with your husband being accorded equal substitutal spousal benefits, right?

There will only be True Marriage Equality when the Federal Government provides spouses for everyone.

steebo77 on February 22, 2013 at 10:39 AM
Dibs on Salma Hayek!

Rebar on February 22, 2013 at 10:40 AM

I have a request also. My husband was frequently deployed with the military. Now his job takes him away two weeks a month. I DEMAND EQUAL SPOUSAL TIME.

The government needs to provide me with a spouse for those two weeks I must do with out or I am being treated unequal- right? Someone has to mow this law; it isn’t mowing itself.

I would like to see businesses allowed to discriminate on everything but hiring if they so wish.

thuja on February 22, 2013 at 10:33 AM

Why should anyone have any say in who a private business hires? If someone doesn’t like it they can start their own business and hire who they want. The fact that you think the government should dictate hiring practices shows you why the un-Constitutional Civil Rights laws will not go away. You take the most important part of running a business – the people hired to implement the owner’s ideas – and you think that the public should dictate to the owners what they can and can’t do in selecting their employees. Meanwhile, minority-owned businesses get to do anything they want in terms of hiring – which they should be able to, but so should everyone else.

There will only be True Marriage Equality when the Federal Government provides spouses for everyone.

steebo77 on February 22, 2013 at 10:39 AM

Dibs on Salma Hayek!