Gay “Rights” Force Private Enterprise to Change
November 21st, 2008I hate to immediately replace my last post, but I had to share this.
During our Prop 8 discussion we had a lengthy debate about what effect (if any) legal gay marriage would have on those that disagree with same-sex relationships. Some argued that it would have no effect on anyone, and that it was wrong to discriminate against them. I argued that gay marriage was really about raising same-sex relationships to the same level as straight relationships in every sense. We had some discussions about what would happen if private companies or churches refused to accept or service same-sex relationships. Some people told me I was crazy, and that no one would be forced to accept gay couples.
This isn’t directly related to Prop 8 (not to mention it passed), but this is a clear example of how the gay “rights” movement is about MUCH more than just two gay people wanting to get married. The online dating site eHarmony is being forced to change their business to include same-sex matchmaking because a gay man sued them. He wanted to find a gay mate, eHarmony did not want to provide that service, but after constant litigation, eHarmony finally folded.
This is probably only the beginning. The umbrella of “discrimination” can have far reaching implications, and don’t be surprised when it stretches into the private and religious sectors.
That is actually really scary.
But eHarmony DID fold on its on accord though. I mean, they didn’t lose a legal hearing. But still, it is scary enough that they got taken to court when no laws were broken.
well of course changing civil rights laws to prevent public discrimination will change things, it prevents the restrictions of civil rights so if you currently engage or support those restrictions, your actions may need to change or face repercussions. this is precisely why the battle is fought, to prevent an ongoing discrimination.
of course individuals are free to discriminate in various private ways in their private lives; requiring the state to acknowledge the rights of people doesn’t give the state the right to change your opinion or private behaviour – if you think women are too dumb to vote, even though civils rights laws were enacted to allow it, well you can still express it, but you can’t act on it publicly in most cases without facing civil repercussion – this of course exludes public free speech. you are just as free now as you ever will be to disagree with same-sex or opposite-sex relationships.
same-sex marriages doesn’t need to be ‘raised’ to the same level as opposite-sex marriages; while you and others may have an opinion that gays are some how lower and are trying to raise themselves to your level, they sure don’t feel that way nor does most of the public.
the eharmony case is a perfect example; a public company discriminating against civil rights granted via the state. there are many rights individuals have that others disagree with, but it doesn’t give you the right to prevent them at will. current heterosexual couples still have all the privileges and rights now as they ever did both in marriage and searching on eharmony, this doesn’t materially affect their lives; it grants rights protected under the law.
what i have yet to see is the actually harm that people cry about. california had gay marriages for six months and the state didn’t fall into chaos, or get sucked in the pits of hell by gods wrath. there is no financial harm or extra state duty imposed, and there are no factual basis for how a gay relationship is better/worse than a heterosexual one. no one is forced to change their opinion or relationship, but we are required to be adults and respectful of everyones rights regardless of one’s belief.
the gay rights movement is exactly about what it is called.
if you want to hate, that is still legal, but you just can’t expect the state to enforce your hate policies on others.
I don’t hate homosexuals. I am not homophobic. I don’t care if they marry or not. What I DO care about is what young children are taught in school about homosexuality and marriage. That should be left to their parents. In Massachusetts, I don’t know how long it took after 2003 (or was it 2005?) when same sex marriage was made legal, but currently children as young as first grade are being taught that there is basically no difference between marrying someone of the same sex or the opposite sex. AND their parents DO NOT have the legal right to be notified in advance or opt out of the curriculum. So….maybe for the 6 months that same sex marriage was legal in California, there was no same sex marriage curriculum being taught. BUT first graders were taken on a field trip to their lesbian teacher’s wedding. As a field trip, there probably was parental consent. But give it a few years and CA would probably follow MA in the curriculum with a no opt-out policy. Society in general is only as strong as its individual family units. The best situation is a mother and a father in a life-long commitment. Even in a divorced situation optimally, children need both a mother and a father . NOT two mothers or two fathers. Anyway you look at it, it still takes a man and a woman to make a baby. That is how it works the best.
So does political correctness (the view that everything must be treated as equally moral/acceptable/etc.) increase diversity? There are multiple dating sites providing match services to single gay folks, and eharmony did not. So there used to be different types (read diverse) types of service. Now, thanks to a little litigiousness a PRIVATE company (meaning a company owned by individuals. A PUBLIC company means one owned by the government) is now forced to homogenize with other existing services, meaning we now have more services which are THE SAME (read less diverse). Too bad NC Warren didn’t stick to his guns, but I’m guessing the cost of the fight would have put them out of business, and he’s still hoping to do some good by sticking around.
I find it unfortunate that in a country where we are free to disagree, the preferences of one may be used to override the rights of a private company to operate according to its conscience through litigation. If it is discrimination (and we all discriminate–still no dating sites providing services to minors, matches between relatives, matches between adults and children), then the market should be left free to work and those who disagree with eharmony can patronize another service. The current approach represents to dominance of a litigiously-based form of totalitarianism where non-conforming opinions are homogenized to agree with those willing to find a lawyer to commit a little financial blackmail.
CT: The point of prop 8 and this lawsuit is to raise homosexual marriages/relationships up to par with heterosexual ones.
If it wasn’t, then what were they fighting for?
padfoot240> i guess i was trying to address the two different realms and addressing blarg’s comment about raising the level of gay marriage to that of opposite sex couples in every sense. gays already feel their marriage is just as equal, but the state doesn’t grant them the same civil rights, that is what the fight is about. it seems people take it too personally, as though gay people are after you or to change your mind, when they really don’t care for the most part, they just want the same legal rights. if you don’t like my life, oh well, but if the state punishes me for it with restricted rights, then it would dramatically affect me.
denise> you talk as if all private companies can do as they please and treat any group any way it wants, and that is not the case. and while diversity is nice, especially for minorities, and the acceptance of diversity is even better for them, this is not what the issue is; the issue is the state granting the same rights to everyone. when a private company operates in the public domain, it has to abide by numerous laws to allow equal rights for all, it works in all our interests. in this case, diversity of sites available increased as eharmony created another site so i don’t see your point in that regard. preferences of people don’t override companies – although the tend to guide them – but legal rights do.
what is truly ugly though, is that you are trying to equate gay realtionships to that of of incest(relatives) or sexual assault(adults&minors). a gay relationship is no different than any other, between two consenting adults. the other examples are clearly entirely different. it is also easy to say let the market solve it, when your not the one who is on the other end as the victim. it is the beautiful thing about this country, we strive to give and protect the rights of all, not just the rights of the majority or powerful, nor do the majority get to inflict their beliefs on the minority. there are many states in which such does occur though. and non-conforming opinions are not affected. no law has been passed to force onces opinion and there is no legal right to coerce anothers belief. this is the mix-up in the argument you make, giving rights to one does not constrict or restrict the rights of others. two homosexual people on a dating site or getting married don’t prevent anyone from having an opinion on disagreeing with the practice, or from having a heterosexual marriage or dating site.
Judy> one is homophobic when they view homosexuality with a prejudice, a prejudice that somehow an act involving homosexuals is somehow beneath that of the same act commited by heterosexuals, like a relationship or a marriage. why is a gay wedding not appropriate for children whereas a straight wedding is? what exactly is the difference, or where is the harm to children seeing two people express their love and devotion to one another? children in school are shown examples of all sorts of behaviors, but that doesn’t harm them. why would telling a child about homosexuality harm them anymore than explaining heterosexuality at an age appropriate level? parents have all sorts of values and beliefs different than examples given in school, but that doesn’t harm children. and taking your example for your word, is there any indication that Massachusetts youth are somehow now damaged or harmed? and parents have never had any legal right of notification about what goes on in school, outside of detailed sex education in some instances. you do raise a good point, does a parent get to certify every piece of information presented in school?
as far as the strength of family, this has nothing to do with the states granting of marriage. no one is required to start a family with children when married, nor does the state require them to remain married if they do. in fact the state requires nothing but a signature and fee to get married; you can be the worst parent ever, no problem. numerous numbers of different family compositions exist today, but no factual studies have come forth to show that the determining factor of a strong family is that it is headed by people of the opposite sex regardless of all other conditions. while you may feel your situation ‘works best’ there has never been any current law, and still isn’t on enforcing this belief. we also start getting into a contradictory area here, if one doesn’t want the state allowing gay marriage because they feel the state forces others rights or views on them, should the state be allowed to force its views on how families should be composed and run? this is generally a personal thing.
“a gay relationship is no different than any other, between two consenting adults. the other examples are clearly entirely different.”
I love how you gloss over incestual relationships and polygamy because you have no argument. On one hand you say WE are discriminating against gay people, but here you are discriminating against people that want to have more than one wife.
So wait…how are they “clearly entirely different”? Just because you say that doesn’t make it true. Instead you know that it ruins your entire argument.
This post topic’s cycle.
Nathan posts some new news pertaining to this topic.
Some people murmur in agreement.
(IF) Some people throw out some original thoughts, it makes us all think about.
(ELSE) Some people throw out the same arguments they said in the last point. (THEN) Some people respond back to them in the same way the responded in the last post.
Comments slow down.
Just for the record CT didn’t mention polygamy, that was my mistake. Though many people in favor of gay marriage also are against polygamy, thus my reason for bringing it up. But CT didn’t in his post.
i didn’t attempt to gloss over them, but to associate incest on the same level as two consenting adults is just bollocks to be blunt. i’m at a loss to see any comparitive qualities amongst incest and gay marriage; incest is generally heterosexual in nature so wouldn’t it be more comparitive with opposite sex marriages, if one were to try and make a silly argument like that?
and you have nailed it, as polygamy is a unique angle, and many arguments could run similar to this, but it doesn’t make the right to gay marriage any less valid, i mean ‘traditional’ polygamy is more like ‘traditional’ marriage than it is gay marriage, so should we ban all traditional marriage to prevent it. i’m not aware of much rampant gay polygamy
i personally have no argument against polygamy for consenting adults on a personal level. i do understand why polygamy is illegal, because it typically involves the exploitation of women and i do wrestle with how to prevent that. unfortunately even non-polygamous marriages can run into this problem. i can see how it could potentially get real complicated on a state level with the unique rights and differing laws then applied to groups of people.
but again, the two forms of relationships are very different so they can’t be lumped together.
my overall personal belief is that marriage shouldn’t be a part of the state’s duties.
“my overall personal belief is that marriage shouldn’t be a part of the state’s duties.”
Hey CT! We agree on something!
Technically, and legally, marriage shouldn’t be run by the government since it is a religious institution.
I’m good with marriage not being part of the state’s duties. I also don’t see any reason for public schools to teach anything about the family or marriage, hetero or homo. And the “age-appropriate level” is key, as far as I am concerned. I agree with Padfoot240 that marriage has traditionally been a religious institution. If one’s religion defines marriage as between one man and one woman, then children of that religion should have the right to opt out of curriculum that teaches marriage to be something else. Of course traditional, opposite-sex marriage is not THE determining factor, regardless of all other conditions, in producing a strong family. That would be a pretty stupid position to take. Let’s see, how about a mother and father who are axe murderers? They’d produce a great family, right? If all conditions are equally optimal in 2 families, one being made up of a mother and father and the other being made up of two mothers or two fathers, I maintain the family with both sexes represented in a mother and father will have benefits to the children. I think there is a reason it takes a man and a woman to conceive a baby. If that makes me homophobic, then I guess I am.