I am a recovering Catholic. I say this as someone who has a Catholic family and upbringing. These kinds of things are precisely what drives me away from Christianity. It's sad really, because Christianity can be such a beautiful and inspiring message.

donning my serious hat for a moment, judging a belief system as a whole based on the perversion of its tenets by its followers is slippery in that you will spend your life being disappointed in people until pure apathy washes over you.

that being said,

i hope non Christian organizations begin making sure that Christians are not allowed in their establishments and do business with them. Can you imagine how irrate this will make them when they can't get chinese food no more? or a nice

Isn't the overall point of religion a message of love and a sense of community? How is hate and discrimination acceptable, then?

I'm not shocked, because this is coming from one of the poorest states of the Union. 51st in education, shit for an economy, poverty abundant.

Just sad.

Denied........it should be legal everywhere to deny goods or services to anyone you don't want to provide them to. You should always have the right to decide who you want to do business with. You should never be obligated in a free country to do business with anyone.

Denied........it should be legal everywhere to deny goods or services to anyone you don't want to provide them to. You should always have the right to decide who you want to do business with. You should never be obligated in a free country to do business with anyone.

Denied........it should be legal everywhere to deny goods or services to anyone you don't want to provide them to. You should always have the right to decide who you want to do business with. You should never be obligated in a free country to do business with anyone.

A couple guys here keep saying Catholicism. Reader even went Catholic and Jews in the south. Outside of weddings or a funeral I have not been in a catholic church in many years. It is my belief though that Mississippi and the southern pushes for this stuff is from evangelical bible folks. I would be surprised if someone showed me the south majority religion was Catholic.

Around the country I have seen the Catholic church push to not provide birth control and not perform gay weddings. Those two things are different than denying any and all services like this bill could allow.

Why? That would also be ignorant.

A couple guys here keep saying Catholicism. Reader even went Catholic and Jews in the south. Outside of weddings or a funeral I have not been in a catholic church in many years. It is my belief though that Mississippi and the southern pushes for this stuff is from evangelical bible folks. I would be surprised if someone showed me the south majority religion was Catholic.

Denied........it should be legal everywhere to deny goods or services to anyone you don't want to provide them to. You should always have the right to decide who you want to do business with. You should never be obligated in a free country to do business with anyone.

Interesting take.


So if the Cubs decided they didnt want you at Wrigley ever again, you would support their right to ban you?

I think this is a little more complicated than it seems on the surface. Obviously, the reason for the law in this case is bigotry, so I understand the reaction of people like Darkside and Neil Steinberg and I agree with it in principle. But there are always unintended consequences. I'm not sure forcing someone to do something against his will in the interest of free access to retail is a great idea. Does the Jewish baker now have to decorate a cake with a swastika and "Heil Hitler"? Should a church have to marry people that clearly do not follow its teachings? As far as the churches are concerned, I'd be fine with taking away their tax exempt status and letting them do whatever the fuck they want.

The more timely and over the top example I read this morning was about Muslims. What would a Muslim baker do if you demanded they make a bacon stuffed cake. Ridiculous yes as a bacon cake isn't some right but you get the train of thought.

Ridiculous yes as a bacon cake isn't some right

I think there's a distinction between refusal of service and not selling a product you don't offer. Otherwise we could reduce this to absurdity and ask why Darkside won't bake me a cake.

I understand, but we're walking a fine line. There will be some assholes that sue. Now I've got to prove that the reason I refused to make the swastika cake wasn't because the guy was a Nazi.

And couldn't the churches simply argue that same sex weddings are services they don't offer?

Solution: Make gay people pick out a straight wedding cake