Ray Jay wrote:Having spent some time with high school text book publishing many years ago, there is a dynamic whereby larger states have outsized influence in terms of which books get accepted into the market. If you are a serious publisher advancing large dollars to produce a text book, it is very important to get Texas to adopt it or your profits can suffer immensely. Same goes with California. So, companies will change their text books for ALL states so that Texas will use them. That's just how the marketplace works in this industry.

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Having spent some time with high school text book publishing many years ago, there is a dynamic whereby larger states have outsized influence in terms of which books get accepted into the market. If you are a serious publisher advancing large dollars to produce a text book, it is very important to get Texas to adopt it or your profits can suffer immensely. Same goes with California. So, companies will change their text books for ALL states so that Texas will use them. That's just how the marketplace works in this industry.

Indeed. But what that is not is a "free" market when governments skew by creating demands.

bbauska wrote:

danivon wrote:

Ray Jay wrote:Having spent some time with high school text book publishing many years ago, there is a dynamic whereby larger states have outsized influence in terms of which books get accepted into the market. If you are a serious publisher advancing large dollars to produce a text book, it is very important to get Texas to adopt it or your profits can suffer immensely. Same goes with California. So, companies will change their text books for ALL states so that Texas will use them. That's just how the marketplace works in this industry.

Indeed. But what that is not is a "free" market when governments skew by creating demands.

Kind of like when a market should take care of social issue.

danivon wrote:I can see this is a very trying day for you.

I think capitalism is massively flawed, so I am not saying it is "great" either way. But conservatives tend to think it is the best way to organise an economy or a society even.

freeman3 wrote:So Apple is supposed to sell a product they don't want to sell? There is no basis for making a business selll a product they don't want to sell. They may have to make a product equally available to everyone but if the Chrisitan baker does not make wedding cakes...they don't have to make a wedding cake for the gay wedding.

That was the first miracle, the amazing grace that pierced the hearers’ hearts—in America, in 2015, at an alleged murderer’s bail hearing in a plain, homely courtroom. Christian churches and their believers are used to being patronized or mocked as silly, ignorant or hypocritical. They often don’t mind, often laugh along with the joke. But these were public statements that laid out the essence of Christianity, unedited and undiluted, and you couldn’t laugh or scoff. You could only feel awe and ask yourself: “If I were that person in those circumstances, would I be great too?”

Within days, something else wholly unexpected happened. A tough old knot became untied. Something people had been fighting about for a long time was suddenly about to be resolved. The murders at the church, and what was said by the relatives of the dead, prompted the rejection of the Confederate battle flag in gentle, kindly, heartfelt words.
...

It hardly needs be said American politics doesn’t usually work like this. Our political culture tends to be mean-spirited, shouty, full of moral posing and pointed fingers. In this case, everyone seemed to be laying down arms. This was a miracle not of “justice” but of “mercy.” Justice can be argued about forever, but mercy is just what it is, as the people who spoke at the bail hearing know.

It’s hard to imagine the Confederate battle flag is going to be given prominence on statehouse grounds in the future. Something big changed in this old argument, and it won’t change back.
...
The Nobel Peace Prize committee, if they know it, have some new nominees: the relatives of the dead who offered the mercy that relaxed the hands of those who’d been holding, too tight, to a flag.

Everyone thinks progress depends on indignation, accusation, aggression, demonstration, marching. But we just saw anger lose to love. It’s a huge moment.

My point is this. If a vendor does not want to sell his service or product for not wanting to be offensive, that is their right. However, you (Owen), and others here seem to think that a person should have to sell something in the case of a homosexual wedding. I see that as a dichotomy. A vendor chooses to not sell flowers for a gay wedding to anyone (Gay or Straight). They sell general flowers to everyone regardless of sexual orientation. It is not the sexual orientation that is the problem, as they sell to everyone. It is the ceremony that they choose to not provide a sale to any person regardless of sexual orientation

The First Amendment allows individuals to believe anything they want, but it does not allow them to use their beliefs as a license to discriminate in ways that would otherwise be limited by law. No one, at this late date, would claim a religious inspiration for a florist to refuse to sell flowers to an interracial wedding or for a magistrate to perform one; they should not have the right to refuse to do business for a same-sex wedding, either.

Everyone thinks progress depends on indignation, accusation, aggression, demonstration, marching. But we just saw anger lose to love. It’s a huge moment

danivon wrote:A wedding cake is not offensive.

It is the type of wedding they don't like. Should the Baker be allowed to say they won't bake for a Hindu wedding, a secular wedding, a mixed-race or mixed-religion wedding?

Look, we all know that minds are not going to change on this one. You already know my answer having asked it several times on other threads. When I begin to support religious bigotry, I'll let you know