Transgender bathrooms?

[Buster's Uncle]

Note to self: talk about the latest Pat Mcrory bullcrap tomorrow.  -Weird day for me, folks.

[Elok]

...WTH, Elok?  I bring theology into it and nothing to say? ...

I didn't think I had a lot to say to that, honestly.  Orthodoxy is panentheistic; creation is not an independent clockwork into which God intermittently shoves His hand to give things a push, but a perpetual expression of God's creative energies.  God continuously pervades and sustains the universe.  Sin and consequent death are something like an autoimmune reaction (geez, I'm bringing those up a lot in this thread), where disorder stems from the parts rebelling against the order of the whole which sustains them.  Or so I understand it.

If you want to theologize things like ALS or cystic fibrosis, they would be specific manifestations of the generalized decay and ruin of the world.  How transsexuality fits into all that, I don't know.  I sometimes suspect much of our sexual and identity diversity is something akin to a culture-bound syndrome anyhow.  Which would make it neither an individual choice per se nor strictly deterministic, but something in between.

[Buster's Uncle]

I guess what I'm proposing is that -without trying to diminish God as I was taught to understand Him- He made it and knows everything for all time and all, but couldn't He have chosen not to peek at the end of the book?  (I made AC2 a living community, and I have a vision for it, but I constantly improvise according to developments - mostly, I've thought of what sort of thing I'd do if X happens, but it's always a juggle/dance and I guess that's part of the entertainment value I get back.)  To the extent He shoves His hand in -and I'm like you in thinking He doesn't all that much- maybe part of the charm of having us is He deliberately chooses not to know everything and how it ends, and tinkers rarely if at all.  (I would say Jesus was a major tinker, but that's a whole 'nother thing.)

After all, one of the most fundamental tenants of the faith is that We Don't And Can't Understand Him and His ways, not being big enough - and it follows logically that thinking He couldn't do anything, even limiting Himself or being dead for three days without being three, is foolish and arrogant...

[Buster's Uncle]

A florist caught between faith and financial ruin
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0712/A-florist-caught-between-faith-and-financial-ruin

Quite sympathetic to the florist - and gentlemen, it's a KKKake deal, only we don't have any dolts (besides Dale) here, so we can actually kick this around like adults...

[ColdWizard]

“I am guessing the amount of fees is going to be substantial, but I don’t have a specific number for you,” says Emily Chiang, legal director at ACLU of Washington.

“Litigation is a messy, expensive thing, which is why we typically urge people to settle cases,” she says.

Why does this sound like extortion to me?

[Elok]

What is there to say, BUncle?  This is absurd; she plainly has no animus against homosexuals as such, and only objects to celebrating something against her beliefs.  There is no reason why there couldn't be a sensible exemption here, and no reason to believe in a slippery slope where allowing her to not provide flowers for a gay wedding will somehow lead to gays dangling from lampposts.

It sounds like extortion because, like many elements of modern law, it effectively is.  Not as horrible in its consequences as, say, the extortion of plea bargains, but still pretty bad.

[Buster's Uncle]

Fun fact, Elok - ninja'd, but doesn't change what I have to say beyond this line.

I think the nice church lady is probably wrong about what Jesus expects of her, that it's built into the basic rules of our country that she's at liberty to be wrong that way - and this case is just sad.  Somebody gets their rights abridged in an unfortunate way that matters profoundly to them no matter how you slice it, no matter what the outcome is.

[Valka]

A florist caught between faith and financial ruin
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2016/0712/A-florist-caught-between-faith-and-financial-ruin

Quite sympathetic to the florist - and gentlemen, it's a KKKake deal, only we don't have any dolts (besides Dale) here, so we can actually kick this around like adults...

I am not sympathetic to the florist. While it's overkill to run her into financial ruin, the fact is that she's a hypocrite. Either you love your neighbor or you don't. I don't remember the bible making exemptions for ignoring that.

I used to have a craft business, making 3-D plastic canvas stuff - everything from fridge magnets to costume accessories, and a lot of Christmas decorations.

When someone asked me to do a custom order of angel ornaments for a Christmas tree, did I say, "I love you dearly, but I'm an atheist and would feel uncomfortable stitching these things"?

No, I did not. I decided to be a professional about it and asked her what colors she'd like for the hair color and trimming. Then I got busy and completed the work, and did a good job. Happy customer, I was paid, and no problems.

Either you serve the public, or you don't. And her statement that " “That’s like me telling Rob and Curt you can be gay, but once you leave your house you can no longer be gay.”" doesn't make sense. Religion is a choice. Whether or not a person is gay is biology.

[Elok]

Without getting into whether or not her conscience conforms correctly to the dictates of Southern Baptist religion, which I know little of, we would generally allow a business owner to avoid doing commissioned work not consistent with his or her beliefs.  The KKKake example seems germane, and you could think of any number of others.  To say that it is not allowable in this particular case is to put ourselves in the awkward position of policing freedom of association based on differences in individuals' principles.  I'd say we need a compelling reason to get into that business.

The oft-made parallel to Jim Crow is bunkum; even the most die-hard progressive is unlikely to believe that there is a massive institutionalized agreement between business owners and the state to keep gays down.  These cases seem to represent occasional aberrations which could be accommodated with minimal trouble beyond the . . . seven dollars the plaintiffs say they spent finding a different florist.

The disparity in harm done to the respective sides is staggering.  On the one hand, feelings were hurt, and these two guys had a hassle finding another florist.  On the other, this lady lost her business and is being steadily driven into bankruptcy.

[Buster's Uncle]

Well right there, Elok - plenty to say.  I don't see an outcome in a situation like this were no one gets hurt, where somebody's rights aren't abridged.  Discrimination ain't cool, but forcing someone to act against their convictions ain't either.

[Spacy]

I personally really don't care. 

However, I see both sides.  Children (specifically middle and high school aged children) are often not mature enough to really understand the difference, and are in the process of discovering their own sexual identity.  I teach in poorer schools, and to give you an idea each of the past three years, at least one student has been kicked out for prostituting themselves.  These kids saw nothing wrong with it, and that attitude is not one that is conductive to a lot of things - but in particular towards really understanding and creating an identity.

As such, the Obama blanket statement is I think out of line.  It should be something more like "schools and impacted students should meet and discuss and come to a solution that is mutually acceptable". 

I know I have gone into ladies rooms before.  Not because I am a perv, or because I ID with that gender - but because men's rooms often don't have changing tables for changing my baby's diapers.  Nobody has ever minded knowing what I was doing - and yes, I have had a couple of interesting conversations with ladies while taking care of business, while they also took care of their business. 

[Buster's Uncle]

My ultimate conclusion about the larger bathroom issue is that it's kind of profoundly silly on both sides - that is, that trans people of whatever stage have always -after some exploration and trial and error- chosen the bathroom that they deem suits them best, hoping they pass and don't get caught and whatever, and legislation in any direction changes absolutely nothing in the direct practical sphere of what bathroom any given trans person goes into.  Theoretically, it matters as to getting arrested or not if failing to pass, but I'll confidently assert that trans people always have been, and will always continue to be, -alas- far more concerned about getting -at least- beaten up.

It's only a gesture, whether a raised finger at the strange preverts in their dresses and their friends -as Elok rightly points out- or the ignorant bigots who can't see past the end of their genitals and embedded caveman mores thousands of years old that they wrongly assume are simple universal truth.  Gestures matter, but it's still a very foolish hill to fight over, possibly even for the trans people.

[Elok]

Going back to the gay flowers, I don't believe it properly counts as "discrimination" in the sense we're accustomed to; her objection is clearly not to serving the clients themselves, as she has served one of them in a variety of capacities for years, knowing full well what he is.  The objection is to the wedding itself, i.e. the nature of the service provided.  This is a fine point, but I think it's relevant.  Courts have consistently recognized over the years that any artistic component whatever--all the way down to pole dancing and porno--renders something expressive and therefore protected.  A floral arrangement certainly counts as an artistic act in such a context, even if you leave out the religious element, which you shouldn't.

[Buster's Uncle]

And yet -and I'm partly arguing just to argue, I acknowledge- she put out a sign and offered her services to the public, and any way you slice it, it's a sort of discrimination - and where do you draw the won't-lead-to-hanging-from-lampposts line?

I should probably make a few remarks soon as the resident expert on things Southern Baptist soon - I discern some probable misconceptions in play...

[Valka]

Hm. I should say where my personal line would be drawn. Something like the KKK would fall under Canada's hate laws, and my cooperating with that would also put me in the category of violating them. So I won't. No swastikas, no anti-minority stuff, no advocating hate or violence or death.

Besides the fact that I honestly do believe that people like that are colossal wastes of oxygen and should find some other country to live in. Canada is multicultural, but we're not that multicultural.

There's a woman in Jasper, Alberta who made an appalling YT video apologizing to her mother for not believing her when she said the Holocaust was a hoax. Then she continues to blather on about how it's all a conspiracy and how the Nazis were really misunderstood and benign, and boo-hoo, her Canadian classmates were so MEAN when they teased her for wearing an apron on her first day of school...

This woman has been kicked out of the political party she tried to run for in the past. The Green Party does not welcome neo-Nazis, so if this woman wants to get into politics, her only option now is the federal Conservative Party of Canada, aka the Reformacons, as THEY take that sort... oops, but her video, which clearly violates the hate speech laws here, would make her unelectable. She's already been banned from the Legion in Jasper, and has a Human Rights Commission complaint filed against her.