Advertising company forced (?) to remove Greg Laurie's billboards.

[carpedm9587]

No, you don't just get to run away and ignore your own hypocrisy, Carp. Answer the question. If the bakery has a policy of "No cakes for gay weddings" and they applied it to all, then why do you still think they should not be able to refuse to make cakes for gay weddings?

Because that is not what the bakery is doing. We've already had this discussion. The bakery is saying, "no wedding cakes if the couple is gay," so the discrimination is about the sex of the two people marrying. There is no rational way around this reality. A wedding cake will be made for any couple, as long as they are male and female. As I have said several times, you cannot define yourself out of discrimination.

As for "hypocrisy," you do love to toss that word around. Unfortunately for your claim, I am not being hypocritical. My position is perfectly consistent and consistently applied. I recognize you do not see it that way. I see little probability that your perspective is going to change, given all of the exchanges already had. So what exactly is the point of going around and around on this yet again...?

[carpedm9587]

Not especially. Billboards are about location. I mean, businesses are free to choose not to advertise somewhere, but who's going to (not) notice?

It is not clear to me why the fixed nature of a billboard and the mobile nature of a newspaper/website has any bearing on the discussion.

[Tassman]

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/0...e-of-the-bible



My second question is this? Does this really differ from the recent Supreme Court decision involving Christians choosing not to decorate cakes for homosexual weddings?

It does differ from the SCOTUS decision re the cake shop because it's concerned with a public space, not the personal rights of an Evangelical baker. It's more akin to the occasional kerfuffle we get over Ten Commandments monuments being erected in public areas.

[seer]

It does differ from the SCOTUS decision re the cake shop because it's concerned with a public space, not the personal rights of an Evangelical baker. It's more akin to the occasional kerfuffle we get over Ten Commandments monuments being erected in public areas.

So it is OK to discriminate here?

[carpedm9587]

It does differ from the SCOTUS decision re the cake shop because it's concerned with a public space, not the personal rights of an Evangelical baker. It's more akin to the occasional kerfuffle we get over Ten Commandments monuments being erected in public areas.

Hmm...as far as I am concerned, there is no issue with the ten commandments in "public" areas. There is a problem with the ten commandments in government-paid-for or sponsored venues (courts, federal offices, national parks, etc.). Even there, I can see exceptions. If the ten commandments were posted in a courthouse as part of a montage to legal codes through history, I would have no problem with it.

[Faber]

Maybe we should put a scripture verse on the Liberty Bell.

[Sparko]

Because that is not what the bakery is doing. We've already had this discussion. The bakery is saying, "no wedding cakes if the couple is gay,"

You are merely trying to rephrase it in a way to dismiss the comparison, carp. I can say the billboard company is saying, "No billboards if the client is Christian"

And that is NOT what happened in the cake case. He would not make cakes for any gay weddings, no matter who ordered them. If a heterosexual came in and ordered a cake for a gay wedding he still would have refused. It was the "cakes for gay weddings" that was being refused. same as a billboard company saying "no religious messages"

so the discrimination is about the sex of the two people marrying. There is no rational way around this reality. A wedding cake will be made for any couple, as long as they are male and female. As I have said several times, you cannot define yourself out of discrimination.

The discrimination was against Christians buying billboards.

As for "hypocrisy," you do love to toss that word around. Unfortunately for your claim, I am not being hypocritical. My position is perfectly consistent and consistently applied. I recognize you do not see it that way. I see little probability that your perspective is going to change, given all of the exchanges already had. So what exactly is the point of going around and around on this yet again...?

No you are a yuuuuuge hypocrite here Carp. Biggly. If you were consistent you would have just said that the billboard company has to print the religious message because to do otherwise would be discrimination.

[Sparko]

It does differ from the SCOTUS decision re the cake shop because it's concerned with a public space, not the personal rights of an Evangelical baker. It's more akin to the occasional kerfuffle we get over Ten Commandments monuments being erected in public areas.

No Tassy. There is no problem with the 10 commandments being placed in public. Just on Government Land/Buildings. The billboard company owns the billboards and they are private property anyway. Try again.

[carpedm9587]

You are merely trying to rephrase it in a way to dismiss the comparison, carp. I can say the billboard company is saying, "No billboards if the client is Christian"

And that is NOT what happened in the cake case. He would not make cakes for any gay weddings, no matter who ordered them. If a heterosexual came in and ordered a cake for a gay wedding he still would have refused. It was the "cakes for gay weddings" that was being refused. same as a billboard company saying "no religious messages"

The discrimination was against Christians buying billboards.

No you are a yuuuuuge hypocrite here Carp. Biggly. If you were consistent you would have just said that the billboard company has to print the religious message because to do otherwise would be discrimination.

Setting aside yet another personal attack (you do tend to use those a lot), the argument I am making is fairly consistent, but you might look closely at your own argument here. Yes, "you could say, "no billboard if the client is Christian." Or, to be a bit more in parallel with your baker argument, the billboard company could say, "No Christian religious messages." According to your baker argument, this would not be discrimination as long as it is applied to everyone equally. After all, "no gay wedding cakes" is not discriminatory, as long as it is applied to everyone. But you and I know that Christians are the ones who are most likely to want to post a Christian message, and gay people are the one most likely to want a wedding cake for a gay marriage.

I am saying that the billboard company is discriminating if they say, "no Christian messages." They are NOT discriminating if they say "no religious messages" and apply it equally to all religions and all people. Likewise, the baker is not discriminating if he says, "no wedding cakes" and applies it equally to all people and places. But as soon as he narrows it to a class of people, he is unjustly discriminating.

[Sparko]

Setting aside yet another personal attack (you do tend to use those a lot), the argument I am making is fairly consistent, but you might look closely at your own argument here. Yes, "you could say, "no billboard if the client is Christian." Or, to be a bit more in parallel with your baker argument, the billboard company could say, "No Christian religious messages." According to your baker argument, this would not be discrimination as long as it is applied to everyone equally. After all, "no gay wedding cakes" is not discriminatory, as long as it is applied to everyone. But you and I know that Christians are the ones who are most likely to want to post a Christian message, and gay people are the one most likely to want a wedding cake for a gay marriage.

I am saying that the billboard company is discriminating if they say, "no Christian messages." They are NOT discriminating if they say "no religious messages" and apply it equally to all religions and all people. Likewise, the baker is not discriminating if he says, "no wedding cakes" and applies it equally to all people and places. But as soon as he narrows it to a class of people, he is unjustly discriminating.

And you would be wrong.

If they would be discriminating at all, it would not make a difference if they said No Christian Messages or No religious Messages. My view is they can, as a private company not publish ANY speech they don't want to and none of it would be discrimination. Just like Theologyweb. We can limit any speech on our site that we want to. We could say only Christian speech is allowed. Or No Muslim speech is allowed, or No Atheist speech is allowed. We don't have to allow any speech we don't want to. Currently we only limit profanity.

Same with the cake baker, he can not participate in any speech he doesn't want to.

But you are being contradictory. You want the baker to be made to make cakes for gay weddings and allow the billboard company to turn down religious clients. At least be consistent in your views. The situations are parallel, even in the way you initially described it as "no billboards with religious messages for anyone". It would be semantically the same as "no cakes for gay weddings for anyone" - But when you realized that, you have to reword my phrasing to try to claim it is a different situation for the baker. It is not. He has said he will not make cakes for gay weddings, no matter who orders them. And he said he would make any other type of cake for the gay couple, such as a birthday cake. So the situation is the same.

[carpedm9587]

And you would be wrong.

I really didn't expect any other response...

If they would be discriminating at all, it would not make a difference if they said No Christian Messages or No religious Messages. My view is they can, as a private company not publish ANY speech they don't want to and none of it would be discrimination. Just like Theologyweb. We can limit any speech on our site that we want to. We could say only Christian speech is allowed. Or No Muslim speech is allowed, or No Atheist speech is allowed. We don't have to allow any speech we don't want to. Currently we only limit profanity.

Same with the cake baker, he can not participate in any speech he doesn't want to.

But you are being contradictory. You want the baker to be made to make cakes for gay weddings and allow the billboard company to turn down religious clients. At least be consistent in your views. The situations are parallel, even in the way you initially described it as "no billboards with religious messages for anyone". It would be semantically the same as "no cakes for gay weddings for anyone" - But when you realized that, you have to reword my phrasing to try to claim it is a different situation for the baker. It is not. He has said he will not make cakes for gay weddings, no matter who orders them. And he said he would make any other type of cake for the gay couple, such as a birthday cake. So the situation is the same.

This is a well structured argument. I have to give this some thought. There is something fundamentally wrong (to me) about targeting a religion and saying, "I will not serve you" but turning around and serving other religions. Or targeting a person based on race. But I have to admit I cannot currently frame that as an argument, so I may have to rethink that position.

The problem with the baker situation, however, is that the issue is not really about the cake. It's about the wedding and the genetic identity of the people marrying. There is no other example of something that is moral for one person, but immoral for another, simply based on their genetic identity. The discrimination is about the people marrying. I've shown this multiple times. You can see this with a simple thought experiment.

I tell you, "two people are marrying tomorrow and will be sexually intimate tomorrow night." If you cannot determine the morality of that act without knowing the gender of the two people involved, then the morality is about the sexual identity of the two people involved. You cannot escape this. You also cannot escape that determining the morality of an act based on the genetic identity of two people is not a "normal" way of determining morality. It is an act of prejudice/discrimination. It is identical to determining the morality based on the racial identity of the two people (which was once widely done and defended - and even encoded in law).

And I have made all of these arguments before - they have been rejected before - and I think I'm going to hop off this merry-go-round before it goes around another couple dozen times. Last word to you unless you ask me something I've never responded to.

[Sparko]

I really didn't expect any other response...



This is a well structured argument. I have to give this some thought. There is something fundamentally wrong (to me) about targeting a religion and saying, "I will not serve you" but turning around and serving other religions. Or targeting a person based on race. But I have to admit I cannot currently frame that as an argument, so I may have to rethink that position.

The problem with the baker situation, however, is that the issue is not really about the cake. It's about the wedding and the genetic identity of the people marrying. There is no other example of something that is moral for one person, but immoral for another, simply based on their genetic identity. The discrimination is about the people marrying. I've shown this multiple times. You can see this with a simple thought experiment.

No, that is how you have framed it in your mind and you refuse to see it from any other angle. You have decided the baker was discriminating because the clients were gay and nothing seems to allow you to see it any other way. You automatically reject any other suggestion. To a Christian, gay marriage is a sin. It is wrong, just like adultery is wrong, marrying an animal would be wrong, beating your wife is wrong, etc. It is an action that is wrong. We won't (or at least should not) participate in any such behaviors, or encourage them, or enable them, or celebrate them. We don't hate the people who do them, at one time we WERE them. We want to save them and then have God change them so that they no longer want to do such sins. So the baker did not hate the gay couple, but he also could not endorse their sin by making a cake for a gay wedding. Even if the gay couple had not come into the shop but sent a heterosexual couple in to buy the cake and it was revealed it was for a gay wedding, the baker would not have made the cake. The people buying the cake was not important. It was the EVENT the cake was being made for. Making a cake for a gay wedding would be the same as the baker saying "I agree with gay weddings and will be happy to help you celebrate your union"

[seer]

It was the EVENT the cake was being made for.

[carpedm9587]

No, that is how you have framed it in your mind and you refuse to see it from any other angle. You have decided the baker was discriminating because the clients were gay and nothing seems to allow you to see it any other way. You automatically reject any other suggestion. To a Christian, gay marriage is a sin. It is wrong, just like adultery is wrong, marrying an animal would be wrong, beating your wife is wrong, etc. It is an action that is wrong. We won't (or at least should not) participate in any such behaviors, or encourage them, or enable them, or celebrate them. We don't hate the people who do them, at one time we WERE them. We want to save them and then have God change them so that they no longer want to do such sins. So the baker did not hate the gay couple, but he also could not endorse their sin by making a cake for a gay wedding. Even if the gay couple had not come into the shop but sent a heterosexual couple in to buy the cake and it was revealed it was for a gay wedding, the baker would not have made the cake. The people buying the cake was not important. It was the EVENT the cake was being made for. Making a cake for a gay wedding would be the same as the baker saying "I agree with gay weddings and will be happy to help you celebrate your union"

I'm not interested in another cycle, Sparko - but this sentence definitely jumped out at me, since it is essentially how I see you arguing. You (and other Christians) have framed this argument in one way, and refuse to look at it from any other angle - so the perspective does not change.

[Sparko]

I'm not interested in another cycle, Sparko - but this sentence definitely jumped out at me, since it is essentially how I see you arguing. You (and other Christians) have framed this argument in one way, and refuse to look at it from any other angle - so the perspective does not change.

Maybe because as Christians, we view it the same way as Phillips does? And we actually listen and believe what he has said? On the other hand you, Tassman and the others ignore what he said, and make up your own motivations for why he did what he did, and then refuse to believe anything else. Aren't you the guy who always gets upset that people don't believe what you say and keep trying to mind-read you? It is exactly what you are doing to Jack Phillips.