Quote:
Originally Posted by Sea Dangles
Right or wrong, any person should be entitled to discriminate as they see fit. This baker wasn't bothering anyone but the fag nazis want everyone to see things from their perspective.I am not a homophobe at all,I just can't stand that our right to opinion and individualism are being taken away. The government is forcing people to play nice and that is not necessarily in our best interest. I really don't see things Jim's way but I support his view in this case.
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That, in a direct non-legalistic way, describes the fundamental transformation of our society. Those humans who wished to be free have sought through the ages for a society to exist in harmony. One of the most basic ways to do so was the golden rule of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. But that was a philosophical maxim not a governing law. And it wasn't general enough to account for the personal concepts of what you wish to be done unto you. And it certainly didn't have the force of law. And laws tended to deprive individuals of personal opinion.
The Founders were very much in agreement with you that you should be able to discriminate as you wish. But they also understood that, though the individual is paramount, we must exist in society. The clash of individual wishes vs. societal cohesion needed a way to preserve one within the other. They came up with the concept of individual unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness among those rights which individuals could inviolately posses and which society must protect. This social compact would protect the individual and unify the society. The individual could "discriminate" as he wishes, but must not act in ways that would negate another's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
So they instituted a system of government which would accommodate the sovereignty of the individual and the cohesion of society.
Apparently we individuals, over time, have been found wanting. We have been deemed by other individuals to be incapable of their version of golden rules or of forming their version of society. We must subscribe to THEIR way of acting nice, and live in THEIR version of society. "Our best interest" as an individual, because of our selfish incompetence, must conform to the best interest of the society created by this higher group of beings.
The baker may not have denied to the gays life, liberty, or PURSUIT of happiness, but he did not conform to the new ideal--the subservience of the individual to the will of the collective. Of course, neither the will of the collective, nor the ultimate motive for that will, is fully understood at this time. It is wrapped in some convenient phrases such as "fairness" or "equality" or "anti-discrimination" even though pitting one person's version of those qualities against another's denies one of them the same fairness, equality or anti-discrimination.
So the individual's desire to live freely within a society of free individuals has been, apparently, a pipe dream. We are too imperfect as individuals, so must bow to the perfection defined by the State.