It's not a "blank check (sic)."

Use of 'sic' is typically put in to denote that a spelling error has been quoted as originally written rather than being an error of the person making the quote. In this case you've used it doubly incorrectly since a) you didn't actually quote me as written but felt the need to correct my 'mistake' and b) it wasn't even a mistake in the first place. I use British English, and that's how we write the word cheque.

But anyway how do you know it isn't a blank cheque ? The only way that it wouldn't be is if you (by which I mean the courts) start prescribing what constitutes a legitimate religious belief and what doesn't. We'd only know once it's tested. In my opinion it would open the door to some pretty unpleasant bigotry.

He was pointing out what some KKK-types said half a century ago. That's the past, NOT "where this might lead." There is no evidence that in this case past is prologue.

No, he was pointing out that it's perfectly possible to advance a biblical case for objecting to inter-racial marriage, as proven by the fact that people have already done it. It might lead there again. It might not of course, but do we really need to put that to the test ?

Sassenach wrote:No, he was pointing out that it's perfectly possible to advance a biblical case for objecting to inter-racial marriage, as proven by the fact that people have already done it. It might lead there again. It might not of course, but do we really need to put that to the test ?

13% of Americans think that inter-racial marriage is a bad thing : link.

And is there a link to religion still? Maybe not in the scripture, but seemingly in a subset of the religious - White Anglo-Saxon Evangelicals more likely to oppose same-sex marriage : link

It may not be mixed-race marriage that comes out as the issue, it may be other kinds of discrimination, and not necessarily by Christians.

You can continue to make this about same-sex marriage, but the issue to me is whether a business has the right to turn down business.

The question is "Why" they refuse business. Some reasons are fine (such as they stole from your shop in the past). Others are less so. The one that has come up, consistently, is to be able to discriminate against homosexuals.

Why? Well, because the Arizona bill was about a religious reason, and because you mentioned gay marriage and bakers.

So what do you think was the motivation behind this piece of legislation Brad ? Bear in mind that it's not unique, there have been similar bills proposed in a number of states in the last couple of years, several of which explicitly included language which stated that it permitted discrimination against gay people. They all seem to have failed so far, but nevertheless it seems pretty clear that there's a concerted agenda behind these 'religious freedom' bills and it's not hard to figure out what that is. It's just yet another incarnation of the tedious culture wars.

danivon wrote:The question is "Why" they refuse business. Some reasons are fine (such as they stole from your shop in the past). Others are less so. The one that has come up, consistently, is to be able to discriminate against homosexuals.

Stop it.

They can buy anything in the store--not a problem. No discrimination against the PERSON.

The issue is when they ask the baker to decorate their "wedding cake." That's an ACTIVITY.

Against a person, a la the segregation era, there would be "no gays served here" signs. That's not what is happening, so stop pretending like it is.

Brad, my comment was not directed to you. It was directed to DF.

Moreover, we know that some Christians have used the Bible to justify a ban on inter-racial marriage and they did so in the United States of America. I think the following legal brief summarizes the history fairly well. (my statement)



This fact that you "know" has been established here. You may believe it, but that does not make it so. (DF's statement)

I took issue with that statement because I don't think it is really in dispute. Do we really have go back in history and point out how Christians accomodated themselves to a slave owning society and then a society with Jim Crow laws (afte the Civil War)? Almost every single person in the South was a Christian then. And almost every single white person believed slavery was good (Abraham Lincoln did not get a single vote in several southern states--think about that) and when Jim Crow laws came around just about all white people were in favor of segregation. Oh, but they would have never looked to the Bible to justify slavery or segregation? Well, there was no doubt that some did explicitly but clearly Chrisitians in general had to accommodate their religious beliefs with the type of society they lived in. And if they really believed the Bible was for mixed-race marriage and yet they were against it, they would have had a major contradiction between their religion and how they lived their lives. Part of the purpose of religion is to support morals in a society. I doubt you would take issue with that statement. And one moral the south pre-1960 was no miscegenation.

Clearly that is not the case with Christians anymore and that is great...and I suspect in 50 years they will feel the same way about gay people. But the Bible can be interpreted in metaphorical, allegorical and symbolic ways. That leads to a myriad of different interpretations...Look, you can believe whatever religion you want and we won't interfere with that..until your beliefs start negatively affecting other people--as the court said in the Baker case you have freedom of religion as long as you don't break general societal laws and your religious beliefs don't lead to conduct that negatively affects other people.

freeman3 wrote:Brad, my comment was not directed to you. It was directed to DF.

Moreover, we know that some Christians have used the Bible to justify a ban on inter-racial marriage and they did so in the United States of America. I think the following legal brief summarizes the history fairly well. (my statement)



This fact that you "know" has been established here. You may believe it, but that does not make it so. (DF's statement)

I took issue with that statement because I don't think it is really in dispute. Do we really have go back in history and point out how Christians accomodated themselves to a slave owning society and then a society with Jim Crow laws (afte the Civil War)? Almost every single person in the South was a Christian then. And almost single white person believed slavery was good (Abraham Lincoln did not get a single vote in several southern states--think about that) and when Jim Crow laws came around just about all white people were in favor of segregation. Oh, but they would have never looked to the Bible to justify slavery or segregation? Well, there was no doubt that some did explicitly but clearly Chrisitians in general had to accomodate their religious beliefs with the type of society they lived in. And if they really believed the Bible was for mixed-race marriage and yet they were against it, they would have had a major contradiction between their religion and how they lived their lives.
Clearly that is not the case with Christians anymore and that is great...and I suspect in 50 years they will feel the same way about gay people.

Don't confuse nominal and biblical Christianity. People can call themselves "Martians," but the mere act of doing so doesn't make it true. Those who understand the Bible are able to grasp the difference between a sinful activity and the color of a person's skin. Those who don't understand the Bible might have trouble sorting it out, like you seem to.

The Bible condemns many activities. It does not condemn people on the basis of who they are, but on what they do and what they believe.

Btw Brad, this is the argument you should have made. Or rather, it's the argument you are making but done better:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danie ... h-bigotry/

I like Daniel Hannan and often agree with him, and he obviously has a valid point here. I'm not sure I accept this though. He seems to be underestimating the extent to which civil rights legislation was, and probably remains, a necessary restriction on personal autonomy, although I suppose he's seeking more to say that it's possible to hold libertarian outloooks on this issue (like Brad's) without being a bigot. But I never doubted that.

Sassenach wrote:I like Daniel Hannan and often agree with him, and he obviously has a valid point here. I'm not sure I accept this though. He seems to be underestimating the extent to which civil rights legislation was, and probably remains, a necessary restriction on personal autonomy, although I suppose he's seeking more to say that it's possible to hold libertarian outloooks on this issue (like Brad's) without being a bigot. But I never doubted that.

And he is correct. However, the problem is that the sort of 'libertarian' approach that Hannan and others advocate also enable the bigots. And the thing that the bigots really want to do is to use their power to impose their values on to others - in effect having a reducing effect on their own liberty.

I should point out that I rarely agree with Daniel Hannan, and find him to be overrated with a tendency to tell porkies, but hey, he makes a reasonable argument here, even if he omits some fairly big issues that should be at least on the edge of his vision.

Well of course you don't like him, he's a Tory...

One of their better ones I feel. Shame he's stuck out there in Brussels doing nothing with his talents.

Sassenach wrote:Well of course you don't like him, he's a Tory...

One of their better ones I feel. Shame he's stuck out there in Brussels doing nothing with his talents.

True, but he's not even a nice Tory. And I am on the other hand fairly glad that he's wasting his time tilting at the EU windmill, rather than working with the likes of Carswell over here.

He does give good speech, but I'm not really convinced there's much substance behind it. Especially as the 'killer line' from his most famous speech was actually nicked from someone else (John Smith).

I think there's a lot to him. If you read his columns regularly (and he posts 2 or 3 a week on the Telegraph) you can see a clearly defined political philosophy which combines with a grown-up, largely non-confrontational style to create what is a pretty attractive package. I quite like Carswell too if I'm honest, although he strikes me as being a little naive, especially when he gets going on his hobbyhorse about how the internet is going to completely change politics as we know it.

Sassenach wrote:I think there's a lot to him. If you read his columns regularly (and he posts 2 or 3 a week on the Telegraph) you can see a clearly defined political philosophy which combines with a grown-up, largely non-confrontational style to create what is a pretty attractive package. I quite like Carswell too if I'm honest, although he strikes me as being a little naive, especially when he gets going on his hobbyhorse about how the internet is going to completely change politics as we know it.

Yes, he does have a defined political philosophy (basically a libertarian brand of UK conservatism which would not look out of place in UKIP). And he does spend a lot of time and effort expounding it and defending it. I would not agree that he's non-confrontational (he's less aggressive than the likes of Delingpole, but likes a good bout of 'lefty-baiting'). Again that famous speech was quite confrontational, being as it was a diatribe aimed at a political opponent who was visiting the European Parliament. He's also been known to make suggestions that the chair of the European Parliament was acting in the same way as the Nazis did when they brought in the Enabling Acts, because they cut him off after talking beyond his allocated time.

Yes, he does have a defined political philosophy (basically a libertarian brand of UK conservatism which would not look out of place in UKIP). And he does spend a lot of time and effort expounding it and defending it

Bit harsh I feel. UKIP doesn't have anything close to a defined political ideology, and certainly doesn't have any thinkers like Hannan who are willing to explore their ideas in print and seek to explain them.

But tbh, the very fact that he has a set of guiding beliefs that he bothers to try and expand upon is the reason why I like him. This is vanishingly rare in contemporary British politics. It's not necessary to agree with him to see this as healthy.