Indiana's Govenor Signs 'Religious Freedom' Bill

[robvalue]

I appreciate you at least trying to be being honest, although I still suspect you are covering your real reason with rationalizations. But there is no further discussion to be had.

[Heywood]

I appreciate you at least trying to be being honest, although I still suspect you are covering your real reason with rationalizations. But there is no further discussion to be had.

I really don't care about gay marriage.  Its not like my life is going to change because gays get married.  The only thing that really bothers me about the issue is both sides attempt to force people to behave they way they think they should behave for no good reason other than that is their values.  Gays should be able to get married, and bakers should be able to refuse service to gays.

[robvalue]

OK well, I've decided I will give it one more try.

I'm going to lay out why I think your line of thinking is wrong, and to show you how I think you can be better than this. I'd like you to go away and really think about it rather than just reply and tell me that I'm wrong too. You don't have to reply at all. I hope this doesn't come off as patronizing, I am genuinely trying to help. This is aimed at any theist who thinks it's ok to discriminate against homosexuals.

1. I assume you are Christian. The number one rule of christian morality is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Although not unique to christianity, this is the absolute core of all morality. Using that one rule, you can't go far wrong. You are advocating breaking that rule. You would not like to be refused service by someone because they decided you were inferior in some way. Think about how you would feel. And I'm not talking about just one incident, I'm talking about widespread discrimination against you. If one person is allowed to do it freely, there's nothing to stop anyone with a grudge doing it. Imagine if all atheists decided they wouldn't serve theists. Then imagine atheism becomes so popular 99% of the population are atheist.

2. Christianity also teaches you to not be judgemental. Deeming a whole category of people as inferior, and treating them worse accordingly, is about the most judgmental way you could behave. If, according to you, they are already inferior, why would you want to make their lives more difficult? In the hope that they will go off and kill themselves, ridding you of their uselessness? What do you gain by discriminating against them? They are born that way, not of their choosing. Why do you want to punish them for that? Do you really feel so much better than them that you can't have anything to do with them, that they will infect you in some way?

3. Your reason for homosexuals being inferior makes no sense anyway. I can just as easily make this argument. There are two genders, so one of them must be superior. Imagine what would happen if all of one gender died out. If it was women, that would be it. Humanity would end. But if men all died out, the women could use sperm banks and be able to repopulate the earth. Therefor, by the same reason as your argument, women are superior to men. Therefor, it's OK to discriminate against men, because they are inferior. If you think that argument is stupid, look how closely it models your own one.

4. [This could be way off, but it's just my guess at what happened] I believe that as part of your religious indoctrination, it was drummed into you that homosexuality is "wrong". But no adequate rational reason was given during indoctrination, because there isn't one. Eventually it has become clear that just saying "because the bible says it's wrong" isn't enough to try and justify discrimination. You said you gave a theist perspective, but your argument had nothing to do with theism, it was some judgement about human survival. You need a way of making yourself feel like the prejudice is justified, so you either came up with or latched onto this argument as sounding convincing. As I have hopefully shown, it is not only very unconvincing, you're breaking many of your own religious morals by enforcing it. If you're not careful, I'll be a better christian than you!

As it happens, my parents are homophobes too. But I discarded their ideas of discrimination because it breaks the very core of my morality.

I hope you will think about it, and realize that I'm only trying to help. I'm not trying to force you to do anything, I'm only trying to get you to really think about your beliefs and why you hold them. If I didn't care, I wouldn't even bother typing any of this.

[DeistPaladin]

Homosexuality isn't equivalent to heterosexuality.....not the way races are equivalent.  This is trivially easy to show by way of thought experiment.  Suppose one day every human being on the planet woke up to discover that some unknown force made them all homosexuals. Such an event would be utterly devastating to humanity.  

Now suppose one day every human being on the planet woke up to discover that some unknown force made them all heterosexual.  Such an event would probably have no negative effect at all on humanity.  If it did have some negative effect, it would be inconsequential.  The same is true if everyone woke up to find they had been transformed into African Americans or Hispanics or Asians.  Such transformations would have little impact on humanity.

Because it's not like overpopulation is a problem or anything, right? If we had even more of our population breeding more children, that wouldn't make a bad situation worse or anything, right?

By your kind of analysis, a sexual orientation's value being established by its impact on our breeding of children, if we made half of our population gay, it would potentially solve or at least relieve or problem of overpopulation. Therefore, by your highly questionable analysis of a orientation's "value", homosexuality would be "superior". 

If homosexuality and heterosexuality are not equivalent, then one is superior than the other.  

Non Sequitur. Equality does not require interchangeability. Two things can be different and yet one not be pronounced superior. Men and women are not exactly equivalent and yet we shouldn't think of one as superior to the other. 

Theists have decided that heterosexuality is superior and thus they do not like the ideal of homosexuality being artificially elevated to the same stature.

We could go with your fallacious and uninformed views to explain homophobia or we could go with peer reviewed studies. Studies have shown that homophobic males are likely to be repressed gays/bisexuals themselves. 

[Neo-Scholastic]

Try this one on for size.

If the gay marriage is performed at a church then it is a religious ceremony. In that case the baker is being forced to participate in a religious ceremony. That means, the state is establishing a religion and forcing everyone to participate.

[robvalue]

What do you mean the state is establishing a religion? The church still has to agree to marry the gay couple. They don't have to. Then you're concerned about the baker being forced to participate in a less homophobic form of Christianity? Or whatever the religion already is?

I really am not getting your point.

Forcing everyone else to participate? What on earth does this mean? If you offer services that you give at a wedding, then you should be prepared to go to any sort of wedding, within reason. The baker doesn't bring "everyone" with him.

[Heywood]

3. Your reason for homosexuals being inferior makes no sense anyway. I can just as easily make this argument. There are two genders, so one of them must be superior. Imagine what would happen if all of one gender died out. If it was women, that would be it. Humanity would end. But if men all died out, the women could use sperm banks and be able to repopulate the earth. Therefor, by the same reason as your argument, women are superior to men. Therefor, it's OK to discriminate against men, because they are inferior. If you think that argument is stupid, look how closely it models your own one.

I believe woman are superior to men.....for reasons similar to the argument you made. By the words, "superior" and "inferior" I mean "superior value to humanity" and "inferior value to humanity". Women have more value to humanity than men.

This ideal, that genders are equivalent, that sexual orientations are equivalent, doesn't really make sense to hold if you are an atheist. If there is no God, why would nature deem it necessary to create these thing equivalent? Do you think nature made these things equivalent as matter of pure happenstance? Equivalent genders, equivalent orientations, only make sense if a God exists Who decided to design it that way.

[robvalue]

Wait, you just said you don't think they are equal. But then you're saying they can only be equal if there is a god. You're not even being consistent.

Nature doesn't intend anything. It's not a sentient being. And one more time: life is not a competition. Give me one good reason why I should refuse service to someone because I have personally evaluated them and decided they are "inferior"? Am I actively trying to oust them from society for the good of us all? Should I just bash people to death in the street if I think they are a detriment to society?

You seem to trying to use some sort of "survival of the fittest" argument to justify homophobia. And apparently, you also think men should be refused service if people feel the desire to...?

I think you have some very confused ideas about this.

[DeistPaladin]

Try this one on for size.

If the gay marriage is performed at a church then it is a religious ceremony. In that case the baker is being forced to participate in a religious ceremony. That means, the state is establishing a religion and forcing everyone to participate.

The cake is offered at the "reception", the party after the ceremony, so that wouldn't qualify. Further, unless the baker is required to stand up and affirm a belief in the Gay Pink Unicorn or some such imaginary deity, it doesn't count as being compelled to affirm any religion or religious ceremony. Catering is just catering. 

[Heywood]

By your kind of analysis, a sexual orientation's value being established by its impact on our breeding of children, if we made half of our population gay, it would potentially solve or at least relieve or problem of overpopulation. Therefore, by your highly questionable analysis of a orientation's "value", homosexuality would be "superior". 

If half the population woke to find themselves gay, that would be devastating to humanity. The fertility rate would drop like a rock. Humanity can't tolerate very many gays.