General LGBTQIA issues thread

[Ari]

Originally Posted by Crumb

I have to say that I agree with Glen Greenwald on this one.

Damn you! I thought I had a solid opinion on this and he comes along and makes a good point.

As much as Chick-Fil-a belief's are bullshit and hateful, unless they actively act on them I worry about places banning them for it.

[LadyShea]

I am wondering if their signs about the "safety issue" with the Henson company's puppets isn't acting on it...via defamation

[Crumb]

Originally Posted by Sauron

If a business owner came in there, publicly espousing the belief that interracial marriage was a sin, do you think they'd get a permit to set up a franchise? NO.
If a business owner came in there, publicly espousing the belief that blacks were inferior species and not really human, do you think they'd get a permit to set up a franchise? NO.
If a business owner came in there, publicly espousing the belief that women should never have the vote, do you think they'd get a permit to set up a franchise? NO.

You are asking the wrong questions. Would you feel the same way if a right wing community did not allow businesses that supported same sex marriage to locate in their towns?

As far as I know opposing same sex marriage is not against the law.

[erimir]

Originally Posted by Crumb

I have to say that I agree with Glen Greenwald on this one. The government should not be restricting people's ability to do business based on their political views.

Rahm Emanuel’s dangerous free speech attack - Salon.com

As long as they're not violating any laws (i.e. discriminating against gay employees or the like) then yeah I suppose I agree.

I'm pretty sure Chick-fil-A has gotten in trouble on discrimination in the past (I think it was against a Hindu though) but that's not evidence that they're currently doing so.

[ChuckF]

Yeah, that's pretty very unconstitutional. So let them sue.

Good press, though.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I am wondering if their signs about the "safety issue" with the Henson company's puppets isn't acting on it...via defamation

While Henson could and possibly should hit them with defamation it seems more like poor damage control by Chick-fil-a.
The best I can think of is that the CEO's statements probably make for a more hostile work environment for gay people who do work for them. However that feels a bit too reaching to be comfortable.
I would feel quite happy if government officials instead called them out and warned them they will be watching for violations.

[wildernesse]

Just a randoming, a friend's fb blah-blah that I read today included her grandmother giving someone the benefit of the doubt because perhaps they were transgender. As in transgender people are possible, and so normal that they may also be thoughtless because that is in the range of humanity.

Hello, south Georgia, I didn't know you.

[Sauron]

Originally Posted by Crumb

You are asking the wrong questions.

I don't think so. Try framing your question again, and this time use "interracial marriage" instead of "gay marriage".

Would you feel the same way if a right wing community did not allow businesses that supported same sex marriage to locate in their towns?

I would ask myself: is the mayor of this right-wing Mayberry town compliant with state law, or in violation of it? As they are trying to block this progressive business from coming into their town based on their religious beliefs, let's consult the statutes. What does the actual *law* in their state have to say on the subject?

In the case of Massachusetts, gay marriage is legal.

As far as I know opposing same sex marriage is not against the law.

Opposing it is not a crime. Anymore than opposing mixed-race marriage is a crime, or opposing civil liberties for Muslims is a crime. But they all run counter to existing civil liberties as established by social norms and actual state/federal law. Part of the mayor's responsibility as a public servant - his oath of office - is to uphold the laws of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Let's be clear about one thing, which may not be obvious from all the discussion: Tom Menino is mayor of Boston, not governor of the entire commonwealth. He doesn't have the authority to ban Chick-Fil-A from all of Massachusetts, nor did he say that they couldn't open a franchise in some other part of Boston. His rejection of Chick-Fil-A's request was for a specific location, a unique location, across from town hall, near the Freedom Trail. Just one location.

So there's a space there. Big enough for a franchise restaurant. But a choice must be made using some criteria. It's inevitable - there are far, far more applications for this space than there are available spaces. In this scenario there will be one winner, and everyone else will be losers. How should a mayor, entrusted to uphold the laws of Massachusetts, decide? What criteria should he use to pick the winner, or exclude someone from becoming the winner?

"Companies that support our state's civil rights laws" vs. "companies that don't" seems to be a pretty good criteria to me.

[Crumb]

Originally Posted by Sauron

I don't think so. Try framing your question again, and this time use "interracial marriage" instead of "gay marriage".

I don't think that changes anything. I believe it would be an abuse of political power for a mayor to discriminate against a business locating in their community based on the political viewpoint of the CEO. Regardless of what those political viewpoints.

Originally Posted by Sauron

I would ask myself: is the mayor of this right-wing Mayberry town compliant with state law, or in violation of it? As they are trying to block this progressive business from coming into their town based on their religious beliefs, let's consult the statutes. What does the actual *law* in their state have to say on the subject?

It is the same situation just with the opposite political view. The state does not allow same-sex marriage, the business publicly supports it and this town says "no this business does not support the values of our community" based on this issue. Would you not decry that as an abuse of power?

Originally Posted by Sauron

In the case of Massachusetts, gay marriage is legal.

Yes but in the case of the United States of America we have the freedom to speak out against or for things whether they are legal or not. I don't believe the laws of Massachusetts that enable same sex marriage have language that restricts speech against it.

Originally Posted by Sauron

Opposing it is not a crime. Anymore than opposing mixed-race marriage is a crime, or opposing civil liberties for Muslims is a crime. But they all run counter to existing civil liberties as established by social norms and actual state/federal law. Part of the mayor's responsibility as a public servant - his oath of office - is to uphold the laws of the commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Policing free speech is not upholding the law. The mayor does not get to use their political power to inflict their or their communities political viewpoints on others.

Originally Posted by Sauron

Let's be clear about one thing, which may not be obvious from all the discussion: Tom Menino is mayor of Boston, not governor of the entire commonwealth. He doesn't have the authority to ban Chick-Fil-A from all of Massachusetts, nor did he say that they couldn't open a franchise in some other part of Boston. His rejection of Chick-Fil-A's request was for a specific location, a unique location, across from town hall, near the Freedom Trail. Just one location.

So there's a space there. Big enough for a franchise restaurant. But a choice must be made using some criteria. It's inevitable - there are far, far more applications for this space than there are available spaces. In this scenario there will be one winner, and everyone else will be losers. How should a mayor, entrusted to uphold the laws of Massachusetts, decide? What criteria should he use to pick the winner, or exclude someone from becoming the winner?

He should do so based on valid criteria as outlined by the law. Is there a law in Boston or MA that allows a business political affiliation to determine the result? I doubt it.

Originally Posted by Sauron

"Companies that support our state's civil rights laws" vs. "companies that don't" seems to be a pretty good criteria to me.

Speaking out against a law is not breaking the law.

I understand it is distasteful and I to thought this was a good thing until I read Greenwald's article. But having considered it, this really is quite clearly an abuse of power. I am almost certain that you would agree if the situation was reversed and the viewpoint being repressed was one that you agreed with.

[erimir]

You could certainly imagine something like Colorado Springs doesn't want a Ben & Jerry's near the city hall because they're evil liberals who like gay marriage.

[Sauron]

Originally Posted by Crumb

I don't think that changes anything.

This may be a tempest in a teapot. The mayor issued a clarification late this evening:

“I was angry to learn on the heels of your prejudiced statements about your search for a site to locate in Boston,” Menino wrote. “There is no place for discrimination on Boston’s Freedom Trail and no place for your company alongside it.

“I urge you to back out of your plans to locate in Boston.”

The letter drew intense reactions on both ends of the political spectrum.

Since it was posted on the city’s Facebook page Wednesday, about 140,000 people have “liked” it. Others posted comments criticizing the mayor’s stance.

But Menino clarified his view Thursday, saying that it would not be within his power to take any steps to prevent the business from establishing a franchise in the city and that he could not deny permits to the company. His only recourse, he said, is expressing his disapproval.

[Anastasia Beaverhausen]

When the news first broke, I was up until 5 am on the Chick-fil-A facebook page. SHIT GOT REAL.

They were deleting things as fast as possible, but they couldn't keep up with the angry posts.

you can read here.

[Miisa]

I had an "OMG, FREE SPEECH!!" reaction when I first heard of the Boston thing (hadn't heard about Chicago until now), but when I saw the actual letter it seems a lot more temperate that I had thought, and more like the Mayor also expressing his view freely rather than autocratically banning someone, it isn't as if he is the one in charge of approving or rejecting new businesses personally:

[Crumb]

In Chicago they were actually blocking them right?

[beyelzu]

A few days ago, a woman who worked for amazon back when it only had a dozen or so employees sent an email Jeff Bezos Amazon's founder and ceo and asked him to donate 100-200 thousand dollars in support of the pro gay marriage referendum in washington state, their response was to pledge 2.5 million dollars.

Some people are good.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2...x-marriage/?hp

In the e-mail, Ms. Cast described in detail the pain she endured as a young adult and the difficulties she faced publicly acknowledging her sexuality. At the end, she pointedly asked him to donate between $100,000 and $200,000 to the referendum cause.

“Jeff, I suspect you support marriage equality,” she wrote. “I beg you not to sit on the sidelines and hope the vote goes our way. Help us make it so.”

She hit “send” and waited.

Two days later, on Tuesday, she received a reply while in a car with her family. Recalling that moment, she said she had to read it out loud twice to make sure she had read it right.

“Jen,” the e-mail said, “this is right for so many reasons. We’re in for $2.5 million. Jeff & MacKenzie.”

[Sauron]

And it just keeps getting stranger.

Chick-Fil-A's vice president of public relations has just died of a heart attack.

[ChuckF]

Looks like God hates homophobes.

ETA: Shit, now I have to finally buy a Kindle, I guess.

[Sauron]

Yeah, I'm not comfortable taking any pleasure in this man's passing. He was a father, and a grandfather, was loved by his family, and almost certainly did a lot of good in his life, even though he obviously supported some questionable ideas.

But let's not kid ourselves: if the shoe had been on the other foot, and it had been Boston mayor Menino who suddenly died of a heart attack instead, we all know what would have been the outcome. The fundamentalists would be on here trying to tell us that God had punished Menino for supporting gay marriage, just like God punished Sodom and Gomorrah.

I think this event needs to be remembered and bookmarked for future use. That way, the next time one of our "good guys" passes away, and the reactionaries try to spin the death as some sign of judgment from heaven - we can pull this card out of our back pocket and ask them why it didn't apply to the VP of Public Relations at Chick-Fil-A.

[Demimonde]

I was never good at team sports.

[Janet]

Actually, I was expecting talk of the heart attack gun the Brietbartites seem to think exists. But then, I always expect the worst of people.

[Sauron]

Moar Chick-Fil-A news via DailyKos:

A nice, emotionally tugging letter from the owner of a Chick-Fil-A franchise in Hollywood. Basic message? Please don't judge your local franchise by what our founder has said / done. We serve good food and don't discriminate.



Only one problem.

It's a form letter sent out by the parent company to all its franchisees. Just replace your own name and the location of your franchise, and voila!

The thing is a form letter. This is the identical letter sent out by franchise owners John and Cristina Crays of Chick-fil-A Downtown Decatur, GA, also Chicago, IL and apparently elsewhere as well. All that's been changed are details specific to each location.

So, clearly this is a top-down effort orchestrated by corporate itself to distance individual owners from well, corporate itself. It's an attempt to spin individual stores away from the mess President Cathy has created for the whole chain of 1,600 stores. We're encouraged to not take it out on individual franchises, just keep buying that chicken because they're such nice people.

The problem, of course, is regardless of the individual owner's feelings on the whole mess, the franchise fees of the individual stores still move up the corporate tree and ultimately into the hands of anti-gay activist hate groups. The total was up to $5M at last count.

[The Man]

From the comments of that Daily Kos piece:

Brenda Honeycutt, Former Chick-Fil-A Employee, Sues Restaurant Over Gender Discrimination

I guess this could go in the gender thread but we're already talking about Chik-fil-A here, so yeah.

[Vivisectus]

After reading the article posted in the Lisa Miller/ Janet Jenkins thread, I was rather interested to see the kind of words people who oppose same sex marriages on religious grounds use. There are loads of weaselly expressions that are used to make homophobia seem acceptable. When I started to think about them, I was amazed at how used I have gotten to seeing them. I do not even feel that much revulsion when I see these words in print, at least not nearly as much as I should. They have become so common that they have lost some of their shock-value. And that is pretty messed up.

For instance, the born-again fundamentalist in the article refers to being gay as “Diametrically opposed to her worldview”. But being gay is not a worldview: it is a sexual preference. Sexual preferences do not oppose religions. Having a sexual preference that is proscribed by Christianity does mean that certain Christians will oppose you, however. This opposition can range from actively seeking to keep the right to marry away from you to, in extreme cases, denying your right to exist at all. The actual conflict is not a two-sided struggle, but merely one group of people who feel that another group of people should not have the same rights they have. What she should say is “My worldview is that gay people are bad because my religion tells me so.” They should not try to make it seem like all gay people are part of a worldview that feel Christianity is bad.

Then there is the phrase “The gay lifestyle”. A wonderful phrase that simultaneously turns being gay into something like vegetarianism or feng shui, and is also useful for saying “I hate fags” in a more socially acceptable way. Suddenly it is like the person speaking has nothing against homosexuals, but is just opposed to a lifestyle. It also suggests that this lifestyle is a set of behaviours that are typically engaged in by all gay people, although it is never quite defined what those behaviours are. And that is of course what is so useful about the phrase “the gay lifestyle”. It allows you to convey disapproval that does not seem overly offensive to those that do not share your bigotry, but in a way that lets the lurid imagination of those that are fellow-bigots run as wild as they want.

We have, of course, the famous “traditional values”. I think it right and proper to point out that homophobia is indeed traditional. It ranks next to witch-burning, anti-Semitism, sexism , racism and slavery: all venerable practices hallowed by centuries of tradition. The only reason people claim values are traditional is because they do not intend to justify them – it is a way to avoid explaining why they feel the particular value that says “Homosexuality is immoral” is a just one. Claiming that homosexuality and certain traditional values are not compatible is completely correct. But the same is true for the idea that women should be allowed to vote, or that black people should not be the property of white slave-masters.

Then there is the wonderful stance that “We do not judge gay people, but we feel homosexual acts are immoral”. As long as gay people stop being gay in any way, they are perfectly acceptable, and therefore the stance that they should not have the same basic human rights as the rest of us is not bigotry. Only the problem is that homosexual acts pretty much define homosexuals: a gay person is a person who feels a preference for homosexual acts. By proscribing the very thing that makes them gay in the first place is the same as proscribing the person. I could simply say I have nothing against Muslims, as long as they don’t do anything that has anything to do with Islam, and then claim that this is not bigotry.

Does anyone know any other good examples of these euphemisms and weasel-words that try to re-package bigotry as an acceptable politico-religious position?

[Ymir's blood]

partial birth abortion
death tax
death panel
the birther movement
creationism
intelligent design

all are attempts to cloak one's position or demonize the other side.

[Ymir's blood]

Birthers being a cloak for racism, not the weasel word itself.