Congratulations, Mississippi.
You've created and signed into law the ability for 21st century legalized discrimination.
It is now legal to deny services to people whose lifestyles you don't agree with because of your religious beliefs.

Anyone who claims that providing comfort and services to a gay person is against their religion doesn't have a firm grasp on their religion or reality.

And worse is the doors this kind of law opens. At some point, could it be legal to murder someone who say draws a cartoon of the Prophet because it is an affront to his religion? Why not? How far a jump is this really?

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. But the perversions of the message are what makes Catholicism, or more honestly religions in general, more and more detestable as I get older.

Imagine I go to a home on a -10 degree night and refuse to fix their furnace because the homeowners are gay. What kind of monster does that make me? Their pipes freeze while they wait for a non religious nut to get there and make repairs, thousands of dollars of damage? Because they're gay.

Screw you Mississippi. I should say I'm shocked but I'm not.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

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.

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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

Take away Atlanta, New Orleans, Asheville, some of east Texas & far south Florida, the rest of the south is pretty much all the same. That two idiot states codified their old ways (& large pluralities or majorities of the rest want to) just proves how little has changed in that giant hellhole. Substitute LGBT for people of color, Catholic/Jewish faith and the incestuous two-teeth folks down there would only be happier.

In deference to the minority of good guys like Hawger, I'll hold something back, but I've always wanted to see real reform. Close most of the military bases in the deepest south, the shipyard in Mississippi and cut off most of the federal welfare to companies down there (the old Confederate states are the larger drains on the federal economy, look it up) and only then can we really address the issue of the south.

Indiana, with the old description that it is the "middle finger of the South" is pretty much the same. F many/most of them too.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

It's Mississippi. We are still waiting for them to make it to the 20th century.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Why? That would also be ignorant.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Wrong Section:

viewtopic.php?f=100&t=99517

The overall point of religion is a message of, "here's how you should live". Unfortunately, the followers tend to switch out the word should with must. That generally leads to hate and discrimination. If Catholicism just said, "look, we think this is a good way to live. Its not perfect, but its got a lot of good aspects." I'd totally be on board. Instead, what I hear from the religion is, "God is perfect, the Bible came from God; therefore, the Bible is perfect. There are no inaccuracies. Since the Bible is perfect, it tells you the only right way you must live. And everyone must live this way, because its the only right way to live. And if don't live that way, we understand because humans are infallible, but you better get with the program soon or else you are going to hell!"

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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.

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Go Cubs!!!!

I had a sneaky suspicion you would endorse state sponsored bigotry.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

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Never mind.

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Wrong, based on this simplistic statement. All depends on 'why.' Denying goods or services to someone based on their demonstrated behavior, i.e. someone who still owes you money or who is verbally abusive, is perfectly valid.

But denying goods and services on the basis of ones race, religion, national origin or other trait is wrong, and in many cases illegal.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

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.

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Elections have consequences.

Agree 100%. While though I am a practicing catholic I don't agree with everything, Still, I am hard pressed to believe any leader with a brain would condone this. Especially after the Pope has already soften the stance on gays. As you state, this is a long way from not allowing gay marriage.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."

I can remember being an undergrad student in Louisiana and having to pass through Mississippi on one of our road trips home. We stopped off at some gas station at about 1 or 2 in their morning. They had a sign posted stating that "all shoplifters will be shot". That told me all I needed to know about the law abiding ness of the state of Mississippi.

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they have those signs in deli's at the italian market in philaldephia (pennsylvania) too. i don't know if it's cooler to be shot by a mobster or a redneck though.

you know when you saw someone doing something pretty douchey to one of your kids, but you let it happen anyway because it was a teaching moment because you remember one time when your child did that to someone else? or maybe you didn't let them use of your things when there was no good reason why they shouldn't but your remembered when they wouldn't let their little sister borrow something. a teaching moment that you were able to sit down with them and be like "see what happens?"

not that it would help i imagine.

It's not, other than in Louisiana. (Missouri might be close to a Catholic majority but also might not be the South; a reasonable argument is that the ingrained Catholicism of St. Louis is what makes it not a Southern city.) I have a friend from Gwinnett County, GA, and she can't wrap her head around the Catholic Church being the kind of institution it is up here. Once texted me a picture of a bumper sticker for a school called Saint so-and-so of this-and-that and thought it was a ridiculous name for a school. Just business as usual.

There's a lot I don't like about the Catholic Church and the Catholic faith, but they're still preferable to southern evangelicals.

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Interesting take.


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

Obviously

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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.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

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.

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Elections have consequences.

Dude, there are no Catholics in Mississippi. They'd be one of the groups not being served.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

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.

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GREAT out of context quote

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?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Solution: Make gay people pick out a straight wedding cake

I've mentioned this before, but this story is worth repeating. I once owned a bakery. We sold a good number of novelty cakes with cocks or tits on them for bachelorette/bachelor parties. My partner's wife didn't think that was "classy". (You know what's "classy" to me? Counting my fucking money.) Anyway, we agreed that would would stop selling such cakes. So I had this busted down old mobster working as a salesman. He spun some bullshit about his connections at downtown hotels. He actually talked his way in to see the chef at Hotel Sofitel and he dropped my prices low enough that the chef was willing to give us a shot. He ordered 20 genoise cakes. This old mustache had no clue what genoise was. He called in the order to our Hungarian pastry chef as "genital cakes". The Hungarian called me up in a frenzy: "DUDE! John just took an order for genital cakes but Amy said we can't make those no more!"

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don