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The Pursuit of Knowledge
Non-Discrimination
By penalizing old-fashioned morality you do not make toleration of the new morality more likely.
A court in Britain has just awarded damages to a gay couple against the owners of a family hotel who had refused to allow them to share a bedroom. Until recently it was normal for hotels in Britain to demand proof of marriage, before allowing a man and a woman to lodge together. Even now it is permissible for a hotel to refuse a room to a couple if one is a prostitute and the other her client. But it seems that it is not possible, even for Christians running a family hotel, to withhold a room from a couple of homosexuals. How did we get to this point, and what should we make of it?
Various statutes make it an offense for one who offers services or employment to “discriminate” on grounds judged to be irrelevant. Discrimination on grounds of race and religion has been ruled out for some time, on the understanding that our societies have to become blind to racial and religious differences if conflicts are to be avoided. The reason for this is not just pragmatic. We are heirs to the Enlightenment. Our public doctrine holds that morality is founded on humanity alone, and is therefore independent of race and religion. People believe this, even if they cannot prove that it is true.
And maybe they are right to believe it. But how do we translate that belief into law? The answer is that we do so by making racial or religious discrimination into an offense — a civil offense, and maybe a criminal offense also. Maybe that is the only way to proceed, but it involves curtailing freedom in ways that can easily be resented. People don’t always trust each other, and immigrant communities in particular, who are unsure of the surrounding world, are apt to rely on ethnic and religious ties in order to gain a foothold. They will trust people from their own racial or religious background more readily than others, and, when it comes to business, will prefer their own kind as employees or partners. Whether or not that is wrong, it certainly leads to discrimination of a kind that is now punished by our law.
Nevertheless, we have learned to live with this restriction of our freedom, since we recognize the value of a society in which racial and religious distinctions play no public role. And when, in due course, the feminist claim that women have suffered injustice in a male-dominated world became part of the public culture, it seemed natural to extend the idea of illegal discrimination to cover the distinction between the sexes too. Again, there has been a substantial loss of freedom. But, for many people, this loss of individual freedom has been more than compensated by the gain in equality. Whether you agree will depend on your situation. As things stand, much of the cost of a woman’s pregnancy is borne by her employer, and he may wish to protect himself against incurring this cost by employing only men. In doing so he will breach the law against non-discrimination. Hence the law restricts his freedom. But the supporter of the law will say that such a freedom must be surrendered for justice’s sake.
We discriminate between people on grounds of their height, their age, their strength, their virtue, their looks. Just when is this an injustice? And if it is not an injustice, when would it be justifiable, in the interests of public policy, to prevent it? It seems to me that the anti-discrimination legislation with which our Western jurisdictions abound has gathered momentum without any real attempt to answer those questions.
All European legislation is now subject to open-ended anti-discrimination provisions which have simply assumed that “sexual orientation” belongs with race, sex, and religion in the list of things that are to be disregarded. But disregarded when, and why? Sometimes a reference is made to “human rights,” implying that to discriminate is to violate the “human rights” of the one who loses on the deal. But what about the one who gains? When an employer asserts his freedom to employ whom he chooses, is he asserting his “human rights”? And if so, is he also denying the “human rights” of the one whom he refuses to employ because race, ethnicity, or faith are not to his liking? Clearly the concept of a “human right” is doing no work here, but merely underlining the conflict.
OF COURSE, we have a commonsensical idea of relevant discrimination. It is surely right to discriminate on grounds of religion when appointing someone to be pastor of a church or imam of a mosque. There would be a grave breach of duty in those who made an appointment to a religious office without taking the religion of the candidates into account. It is reasonable to think that the sex of candidates for the position of midwife is similarly relevant, given the reluctance of most women to give birth in the presence of an unknown man, and the need at such times for womanly reassurance. It is reasonable to take age into account in candidates for a position that requires extensive training, since to train an older person for a job from which he will very soon retire is unaffordable. And so on. In all such cases common sense authorizes discrimination, since the distinctions made are essential to the job.
But should the law compel people to offer employment or services against their will, when their reluctance stems from moral or religious scruples? In a recent Californian case a husband and wife team refused to offer their services as professional photographers when asked to take pictures at the “marriage” of a lesbian couple, holding it to be against their Christian principles to attend such a ceremony. They were held to be in breach of anti-discrimination laws. The case of the British hotel keepers is similar, and shows that the law is prepared to compel people to violate religious scruples, if this is the only way to ensure equal treatment for heterosexuals and homosexuals.
In the British case the respondents argued that the hotel was their home, and that they could not allow unmarried couples to share one of their beds, whether or not they were gay. But this argument was dismissed by the judge as irrelevant. All that matters in the eyes of the law is discrimination, not how it arose. The purpose of including sexual orientation in the open-ended “non-discrimination” clauses of modern legal systems is to overcome “prejudice,” to normalize homosexuality, and to make clear to the ordinary citizen that, as far as the law is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether you are straight or gay. Many people think of this as a natural extension of the Enlightenment morality. Just as the moral sense, they believe, disregards differences of race, religion, and sex, so does it disregard sexual orientation. It is not simply “none of your business” that someone else is straight or gay; the matter is outside the reach of moral judgment altogether. Only “prejudice” could lead someone to behave like those British hotel keepers, and when prejudice loses, justice gains.
It is, however, much more of a prejudice to think that matters of sexual conduct can, in this way, be simply placed beyond moral judgment — as though they were not, for ordinary people, the very essence of the moral life.
Maybe the British hotel keepers have failed to move with the times; but their “prejudice” is not some blind, dark passion like the visceral fear of albinos. It is one part of a considered religious morality that has stood the test of time. You may question this morality, and it could be that it has lost some of its former credibility. But to marginalize it in this surreptitious way is to do a great injustice to the many who have lived by it and the many who strive still to adhere to it.
THIS, IT SEEMS TO ME, shows what is really at stake in these disputes. They are not about human rights, or about the perennial conflict between liberty and equality. “Non-discrimination” clauses are ways of smuggling in vast moral changes without real discussion. Their open-ended nature, and the vagueness of their application, renders them almost immune to reasoned rebuttal. There is no knowing, from one year to the next, which of our ways of discriminating between people will be ruled out in the next extension of the law. Sex, sexual orientation, and maybe soon sexual practices — so that the hotel keeper will no longer be able to discriminate against the person who happens to live as a prostitute. By penalizing old-fashioned morality in this way you do not make toleration of the new morality more likely. On the contrary, you sow the seeds of resentment, by removing from ordinary people the freedom to follow their conscience in a matter that deeply troubles them.
Liberals do not usually notice this, for the reason that the new society, shaped by the ideology of non-discrimination, seems to be going their way. But it could easily start to go against them, as the Islamists use the non-discrimination clauses in order to protect the segregation of women, polygamy, incitements to violence, and all the other things that Islamists claim to be demanded by their faith, and which it would be “discrimination” to forbid. It will be clear, then, if it is not clear now, that vast changes in the moral standpoint of the law cannot be smuggled in by open-ended clauses, without creating a weapon that can be used as easily by your foes as by your friends.
About the Author
Roger Scruton is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His latest book, How to Think Seriously About the Planet: The Case for an Environmental Conservatism, has just been published by Oxford University Press.
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Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.3.11 @ 6:56AM
I think you used a rather poor example of the effects of collectivism which is all equality policies become.
Since men travel on business it's not unusual for two men to want to get a room together. In fact, in some areas men rent rooms for golfing outings, etc.
However, your overall point is stated well but does not go far enough.
In the United States the federal government has become the back bench coach and referee in all hiring transactions. To avoid litigation many corporations are forced to hire applicants based on their race and gender and not in spite of it.
A decade long result is that many jobs have simply disappeared in the private sector while the government has gone on a gender and racial hiring binge. That's why when you look at any government agency there are layers of supervisors and managers because it gives everyone a piece of the alleged pie.
Until these policies are ended in America jobs will continue to be moved overseas and opportunity for many will be quashed.
Alan Brooks| 3.3.11 @ 9:24PM
" America jobs will continue to be moved overseas and opportunity for many will be quashed."
For many; but others will win. What I want is no peace of mind for you, for others to fight you as you fight them-- let your loss be their gain whether they are gay, straight, bi, or asexual.
You declared economic war November 2nd, and you shall have your war.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.4.11 @ 5:56AM
There are no winners when the government determines who gets the jobs. We all lose.
Appleby| 3.3.11 @ 7:13AM
Why could the two homosexuals ask for a room with two beds and simply shut up about what they intended to do when the door was closed for the night?
I used to travel extensively in the company of young male photographers (to cover racing events) and we frequently shared a hotel room. The only question we were ever asked was *One bed or two?* and that was only once (to the intense embarrassment of the young man, I might add).
If people would stop blabbering to all and sundry about sex, the whole problem would quickly disappear.
IMKessel| 3.3.11 @ 10:01AM
When people choose to open their business to the public, the public is anyone and everyone. The business is blind; it (through the owners) cannot cherry pick its customers. But as Mr. Appleby insightfully points out, the customer has no compelling reason to open the eyes of the establishment, let alone poke a stick in those eyes. If the (gay) men did not make a point of bringing out their (sexual) relationship, the owners would have had no reason to assume the men’s reason for staying at their particular establishment.
Government has a responsibility to protect the right of their citizens, but it is equally prohibited from interfering with individual choices. When people choose to ask a giant to wake up and become regulate their affairs, they would be wise to ask where might the giant to intervene next.
cv| 3.9.11 @ 11:43PM
The couple runs a Bed and Breakfast in their own house! That's why they only wanted married couples under their roof.
We have an exception to the Fair Housing laws in America for everything except race, when the owner occupies the building and it has 4 or fewer units. It's considered the little old lady clause...you can require your co-tenants to share your religion, to be the same sex, to not have children...the only thing you can not discriminate on as an individual is someone's RACE.
These B&B owners in Britain did not have a similar protection. However, we have homosexuals in this country who are also seeking to financially destroy those who object to serving them for deeply held religious beliefs (such as B&Bs; and wedding rentals, wedding photography.) The homosexuals could support a wide variety of businesses that cater to them, but instead they seek to destroy religious people.
David W| 3.3.11 @ 8:32AM
The British couple should have said they were Muslims. Then the courts would have been in a quandry - forcing them to accept the homosexual couple would have been islamophobic, but letting them refuse service would have been homophobic. I think the judges' tiny little minds might have imploded.
Gay Girl Patriot| 3.6.11 @ 3:30AM
Too true. David, that gets my vote as the best comment on the board. Or, as Ann Coulter said after 9/11..."The Left has finally found a religion they can love."
MikeD| 3.3.11 @ 8:51AM
I'll just lump them all together as the LL's; or LIBERAL LEFTIES. Include any part of that sick group you wish, the analogy is the same.
Generally, the LL's are driven by one thing: pleasure. (I could also include the pursuit of pleasure too.) These people care about nothing else, and, like all addicts, every part of their behavior is aimed at doing whatever necessary to get that pleasure. But, there's a problem. Many were actually raised by parents who tried to teach them right from wrong. Many went to church and/or Sunday school. That was a bad thing for them because they heard the dreaded "NO", which they have diligently removed from their minds and their vocabulary. Oh, what to do?
I got it! Decide which pleasures I like the most and get together with others that feel the same. (Note that I did not use the word "think".) Get a whole group to start doing it, and give yourselves a name. But, it casn't be just any name, it has to be perky, positive, and completely devoid of ANY possible connection or connotation with their deviant pleasurable behavior. Then, when that gets rolling, start calling yourselves VICTIMS! Yeah! That'll work! America (mostly the media and the libs) LOVES victims! Then, when you're recognized as victims, start yelling about your rights.
It has been such a successful strategy that the most disgusting, repulsive, and horrible activities have been sanitized so that, not only to most people turn a blind eye and pay no attention, but a sort of legitimacy oozes over the activity and the degenerates that engage in it.
Remember Mike's Rule: "The more abberant and disgusting an activity or practice is; the more 'BANAL; will be the named developed to describe it and it's adherents. Like "GAY", just a bunch of happy people. Or, "CHOICE", just smart people making decisions. (Yeah, to murder babies by sucking them from their mother's body; and, if they have the temerity to want to live, they get their heads crushed or spines 'snipped' with big scissors. Yup, that's "CHOICE".)
One group that has been getting lots of attention is NAMBYLA, a bunch of happy guys who just want to take love you young boys from Thailand to New York. What could possibly be wrong with that? "NAMBYLA" just sounds so pleasant. And, it IS all about love... Just ask the young boys who got the benefit of that deep, long-lasting love. I bet they're thrilled! But! We can't even mention NAMBYLA in the same breath as "GAY" (ie, happy folk...) people. Besides, it's still all about love; and words, and "rights".
MikeD| 3.3.11 @ 8:54AM
Now that the 'rant' is over; just one more point: The pursuit of pleasure has become so all encompassing, that they have to discredit any of that 'crap' they learned in Sunday School or church. If they pretend that there's no God watching, they can forget all about that morality stuff and forget about the ancient concepts of Heaven and Hell. Just live for the moment! And, if anybody complains, cry "Discrimination" or "Victim"! It ALWAYS WORKS.
Petronius| 3.3.11 @ 9:59AM
The real issue over discrimination depends on who is doing it. Freedom is dead. So long as liberals control the powers of state and all cultural institutions, any who do not fall into line will be persecuted. It is what they live for.
Storage Steve| 3.3.11 @ 1:21PM
To me society as a whole is focused on sex, I can't believe that each morning in the sports section of the local paper we have at least 4 adds claiming to provide better sex results. If this is the focus of the American public no wonder we are having the problems with government over spending and over regulating. It seems our attention spans are focused on a half hour of pleasure and not the future of our country.
Jim Hlavac | 3.3.11 @ 1:31PM
While these couples pushing the discrimination claim may be leftists, and they're gay, don't broad swipe the brush against all gay folks thinking this is cool. From the very few cases there are it shows that in general gay folks are not pursuing these sorts of things. We're trying to get rid of legal discrimination in the sense that the law penalizes gay folks just for being gay.
Don't go down the road that being gay is a Leftist political position. Gay folk are too obviously a worldwide phenomenon than to be tied to any political position within any country.
However, we have set up a separate economy precisely to avoid this issue. There are gay run B&B's, gay resorts, hotels, cruise lines. There's gay everything; including a National Gay Rodeo Association. Here in the US the 1 million business strong National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of commerce encompasses every sort of business known to mankind. Similar it is in Europe. A gay guy can now go through life with almost never interacting with straight folks.
We did this partly because you all wouldn't deal with us at all just a few short decades ago, and partly because the more rational, or conservative, among us figured out that there's no point in pushing buttons to rile folks up. And another aspect to this is that, well, yes we are different, and when we're together without straight folks we talk and make jokes, and carry on in ways that we don't do when you are around. No, not wanton sex or anything, it's just different. We even have a sort of separate set of words that we use, or regular words in different senses.
Let me put it this way, nothing so kills the mood in a gay bar as when a straight couple walks in. It's sort or like women sitting in the kitchen and men watching sports on Thanksgiving -- you gravitate to your own kind. So why at this point in the game any gay couple would push this issue on some small family run inn is beyond many of us. I'm sure within a few miles there's a gay B&B -- we're in all the best resort towns. Just like up the beach from your Club Med we might have a "Club Ted."
I talk too far more regular gay folks than you all do, that is, we who are not driven by politics, and none of us are happy with our self-appointed political advocates. We have no earthly idea what they're doing or why sometimes, or even who they are. And we're divided on every other issue of public discussion, from roads to taxes, the US defense budget to high speed rail. There is no "gay" position on any of this.
But the only thing we are all insistent on -- and the only thing we have been consistent on -- for decades now -- is this:
We're born this way. We don't know why. But we all knew at an astoundingly early age, 8 to 12, when we hit puberty. It's not conscious choice, we just wake up one day and realize it.
It's you straight folks who are conflicted on the issue of why gay folks are around: some say it's our mother's fault, she was too clingy or too distant. Some say it's the father's fault, he was too bossy or not bossy enough. Some of you think we were all molested into gayness, or lured, seduced, educated, convinced or somehow recruited. There's those of you are sure we just up and chose to turn off our natural heterosexuality -- for that's what had to have happened if no one is born gay. There's hundreds of books setting forth any number of reasons -- virtually all focusing on the first 5 years of life -- some event, something external. Even many who tackle the issue throw their hands up in "Beats Us." The Archbishop of the armed forces just said it was "largely unexplained." So why not try?
In fact, I'd say almost 75% of Americans still believe that gayness is an external factor that happened to us. Or that we caught somehow. This is the belief of all those who want to "cure" us like a bunch of hams.
There are so many reasons you all think we're gay that no gay person could help to argue against them all.
But the one reason that Occam could tell you - the simplest -- is that because men get a female X-dna set and a male Y-dna set -- and something got crisscrossed from the outset -- we're gay. It's there in our brains. I sort of compare it to autism -- which actually, would be a fine place to put us: Put gay folks on the autism spectrum -- and you'd all have a lot easier time dealing with us. But we're not going anywhere, because we just are.
Steve B | 3.3.11 @ 6:23PM
This accords with what my gay friends tell me, and my own experience as a straight male.
I believe gayness to be inborn, whether from genetic inheritance or factors in the womb, who knows?
But I have to believe it, because I cannot see it in myself - i.e. I cannot imagine any circumstances in which sex with a guy would be preferable to a fantasy female in the absence of any heterosexual outlet.
I don't mean it repulses me or disgusts me, I mean I can't see it. It's like the fourth dimension to me. Something I can conceive of theoretically, but can't imagine.
Anthony| 3.3.11 @ 8:05PM
If homosexuality is inborn, so is bestiality, necrophilia, pedophelia and every other sexual deviancy. Own up to what you are, stop whining about being "born that way". It's a load of garbage.
Jacob| 3.4.11 @ 10:16AM
You're completely right.
I feel quite sorry for the obvious internal war that all gays are going through, but just because your situation hurts you and it's really vexing means you were just "born that way".
And this guy hits the nail on the head...if gays are just born not being able to stop having sex with other men then pedophiles must just be born not able to stop having sex with children and we can't discriminate against them.
Also everyone has heard the claim now but it does stand up to all scrutiny society has given it..if a man can't be stopped from marrying a man then why can't I marry 19 women, three pigs, two men, a chicken and a mouse?
Why can't I marry my daughter?
Hypothetically if there were a man who had a daughter and the mother died, couldn't he marry his daughter at either 15 or 16? (I know women do get married younger than 18 with parental consent.)
If we fully and coherently follow the gay agenda we will have no reasonable basis to discriminate against him.
Furthermore as gays and other leftists are always telling us religious you can't just make a claim and say it's true because you believe it.
Gays cant just say "I swear to God guys I didn't choose this" and we go "ok there's sufficient scientific proof that homosexuality is a gene trait!"
Jacob| 3.4.11 @ 10:17AM
*doesn't mean you're "born that way".
Ted| 3.3.11 @ 10:07PM
Jim, you heterophobic bigot, you..... If you aren't happy with your self-appointed political advocates, you best be doing some advocating of your own in the way you want it done.
Minnesota Broad| 3.3.11 @ 1:50PM
How did the hotel owners know that the couple were gay? Were they holding hands? Bumper stickers? Tshirts? Buttons? If the couple didn't walk in and say, "We want a room in order to have gay sex and offend your personal morality", and begin making out on the counter, their personal relationship to each other was really not relevant to renting a room. It also makes the assumption that the couple was renting the room in order to have sex. Do married couples have sex every time they're in a hotel room together? I know my hubby and I don't. If we've been traveling all day, and are tired out, we just want the room to sleep.
There is also a difference between a business and one's home. You might live in the same building as your business, but that doesn't make it the same thing. If you were allowing someone to sleep in your own bed for the night, that might be a different story.
As far as social engineering, we've had it for centuries. What do you call "blue laws", for example? It is illegal to have certain businesses open on certain days, because people weren't supposed to engage in certain actions on those days. In a lot of cases, what people are railing about is just the neutralizing of some of the social engineering that is so ingrained that it's not noticed any more, or just accepted as the norm. If there is a logical reason for it, that's one thing. But if it was just because one person's holy book calls for something doesn't mean that everyone should be subject to the laws of that person's book. We live in an increasingly secular society, and it would be a great step backwards to turn to any religion to dictate our laws.
And to cut off any kerfluffle about the US being a "Christian" nation, or the founding fathers being "Christian", this is a secular nation founded by free-thinkers. Christianity dictated "the way things are" for centuries; that didn't make it the best way.
Anthony| 3.3.11 @ 8:15PM
Every persons holy book calls homosexuality abarrant, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, all of them. Because it is aberrant.
Anonymous| 3.4.11 @ 3:40PM
The polytheistic Romans and Greeks agreed with homosexuality. Buddhism has no prohibitions against it, although traditional practitioners hold it to be a form of sexual misconduct, there's no 'canon law' (but I encourage you to research it). Native American religions accept and even encourage homosexuality.
Actually, just read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.....osexuality
And if you can think of an actual reason for homosexuality to be aberrant, then let me know.
Anthony| 3.4.11 @ 10:05PM
Just in case you go back and read this, firstly, homosexuality was illegal in ancient Rome, although it became more or less tolerated near Rome's fall. Buddhists do forbid homosexuality, as for so called "Native American" religions, I don't know. In answer to your question about why homosexuality is aberrant, 1)Homosexuals as all research shows, are a very promiscuous group. 2) Putting certain things in places that are meant for waste products is apt to spread dangerous diseases. 3) Fisting, a homosexual practice, cannot be healthy. 4)Drug use and alcoholism are extremely high in the homosexual community. 5) Aids
Anonymous| 3.3.11 @ 5:22PM
The British court's decision is actually quite laudable. The couple were discriminated against because of their sexuality, a sexuality that is entirely lawful in civilized countries. Mr. Scruton brings up a lot of non sequitur examples that simply don't hold water: Prostitution, like violence, misogyny, etc. are all illegal, and discriminating on that basis (and calling the police) is entirely justified. Discriminating against someone due to their sexuality, like refusing to serve someone because of the color of their skin, is simply disgusting.
PolishKnight| 3.4.11 @ 3:07PM
"Prostitution, like violence, misogyny, etc. are all illegal, and discriminating on that basis (and calling the police) is entirely justified."
Ask most men that if they hadn't paid for their wife's company on dates and provided for them, if they would be married. (Heck, ask a butch lesbian that question too!)
While misogyny is illegal, although not specifically in the USA fortunately (freedom of speech), misandry certainly is encouraged. Not just against men as a gender, but even against the culture itself as France and England are waking up to. Hating men for earning a living and supporting their families while lauding welfare motherhood has resulted in working Brits and the French being told to apologize to Muslim immigrants for not delivering welfare checks on a silver platter.
There is an interesting parallel between the welfare and socialist state and chivalry and feminism which relies upon a white knight government benefactor.
Anonymous| 3.4.11 @ 3:26PM
I'm sorry, are you saying you're for prostitution, or are you saying all women are prostitutes? Either way that hardly invalidates the issue of legality, but consider me intrigued on this as a tangential discussion.
In that order:
I whole-heartedly agree that prostitution should be legal (and taxed) so that the women who choose that line of work can be protected and the tax revenue from men having sex with prostitutes can be collected.
If you're suggesting the second... what? I always go Dutch on dates, I about break even when it comes to splurging on gifts for girls (or boys) I'm with... what kind of twilight zone from the 50s do you live in?
Misandry my foot.
PolishKnight| 3.4.11 @ 3:44PM
I didn't say all women are prostitutes. Just that most engage in behavior that fits the definition of prostitution where someone has to pay someone else in order to get sex.
Saying that the purpose of legalizing prostitution should be based upon women being safe and men being taxed reveals again that men's interests are not represented (other than as vassals for the welfare state as taxpayers.)
this begs the question: Why not just add that prostitution should be legal so that men can enjoy sex in a controlled, healthy, and HONEST environment?
Regarding the occasional man-bites-dog story. I don't doubt there are some bisexual women or a few rare feminists out there who pay for dates and usually make a big fuss about it but that's the point: lesbians and a few, very rare women, paying their way were around in the 1950's too. NOTHING has really changed since the 1950's except that the media is full of angry career women griping that most men aren't footing the bill anymore without the "three date rule" in effect.
Anonymous| 3.4.11 @ 3:54PM
Do you have any statistics on that? Because I have seriously never footed the bill on a date, and girls don't care. If you have to give girls money for them to spend time with you, then that's your lot and I'm sorry, but it's hardly a requirement.
And what's this about men being taxed? The tax money comes from the prostitutes. Prices might rise (well, for you I guess?) but they'd still be competing for your money with other prostitutes.
And do you even know what has happened legally since the 1950s?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_equality
And I guess I never saw those news broadcasts you're talking about, but it hardly matters. If a girl wants me to pay for her food and entertainment then she's either poor or conceited. Either way, not worth my time.
PolishKnight| 3.4.11 @ 4:24PM
Er, I shouldn't need to provide statistics to prove the obvious (the nose on your face or that most heterosexual women still expect men to pay for dates) and also a misinterpretation on your part:
I never said that I had to give girls money for them to spend time with me. I wasn't referring to women who might more than happy go out free for, say, shoe shopping. They usually have to bribe me for that! The "time" spent on the date, in many cases, is just a formality for an economic transfer of food and paid services for sex.
Hmmm, isn't the whole dinner date paradigm rather interesting? A waiter or waitress serves a man and woman food in the hopes of getting a "tip" from a man for serving a man and woman in order for the man to get sex from the woman...
Regarding gender equality: ahahaha! Listen, when "gender equality" is defined as society revolving around women as entitled victims, that's like the KKK being a civil rights movement! So called gender equality doesn't care when women get those comfy lifeboat seats. There were no blacks and asians first announcements on the Titanic!
Feminism is itself a paradox since it requires that chivalrous men protect women from the harsh realities of equality in order for women to be equal in certain ways.
Eliminate chivalrous patronage and the welfare state and we'd be back to the 1950's in a MUCH shorter time than the 1950's are away from us now. Like in a few months or so...
Anonymous| 3.4.11 @ 4:45PM
Er, actually you do. But since it's not central to the issue, I won't press it. It's enough to acknowledge that a significant portion of women expect a free lunch when on a date.
Your idea of needing "bribery" to spend time together sounds more than a little cynical, but I guess it's a nice peek into how you view human relations. Personally, I go out with people for their company, not their sexual favors.
Seriously, if it's just a booty call to you, then get a friend with benefits. I've had plenty, and I never had to bribe them with shoes.
Your "dinner" paradigm is flawed. Waiters in general have no incentive to get tips. Most restaurants pool tips and split them equally, since they have to compensate the gap if a waiter doesn't make minimum wage after tips.
I'm not sure what kind of "entitled victims" you've been encountering, but career women I know work hard for their money and live pretty much the way I do. Again, evidence?
(Incidentally, the Titanic sank in 1912... what exactly are you trying to say?)
I'm not sure exactly what you think is so great about the 50s... The nation was segregated, the nation was under a real nuclear threat, we were engaged in a destructive conflict in Korea (with a draft), political persecution (McCarthy) was rampant... Not to mention how far behind medical science was compared to today.
Count your blessings, guy.
PolishKnight| 3.4.11 @ 6:19PM
Now you're just blustering. I didn't talk about bribing with shoes or paying to merely spend time with people. That's all your wording and now directed as an ad-hominem towards me as a distraction from a point that makes you uncomfortable: Most heterosexual women are as sexist in their traditional demands as ever from men as in the 1950's and this is a form of legalized prostitution either as marriage or paid dinner dates (aka meal whores.)
This undermines a cherished modern belief that you seem to share that feminism and women's equality really changed anything about women. Legal requirements that employers hire women and a massive welfare and legal state that enforces that belief is about as real as, say, the puritans believing in witches flying around on brooms and throwing anyone who says otherwise into jail with one difference: The puritans spent a whole less to prop up that silly belief!
Certainly, we're more advanced technologically since the 1950's but that's not due to feminism or the end of the McCarthy era. Actually, while medical science has advanced it has also become more expensive thanks to all kinds of government mandates including in labor that drive up the price. Regarding McCarthism: He was most of the time based upon the Venona papers retrieved from KGB archives later. Before anti-McCarthyists yearn for socialism, they might want to consider what happened to homosexuals under the USSR and National Socialism...
Indeed, speaking of counting blessings: It's amazing how many leftists live in the states who think it's the worst place in the universe but just can't seem to go elsewhere. Love it or hate it is simplistic, but also has a point. Oh, wait, most leftists can't learn a foreign language or get into the countries they worship. Nevermind.
David| 3.3.11 @ 5:25PM
Jim, I don't believe there is ANY proof that homosexuals are born that way, and much evidence that external did cause it.
IF such and identification was made, and IF such a gene or whatever could be corrected in the womb or soon after birth, should parent choose to have the procedure performed on their child? Or do you say that any being born homosexual is the way the child should remain?
I assume from your comment that "something got criss-crossed from the outset" means you would favor FIXING the criss-cross - correct?
I do appreciate your comment that the gay couple should not have forced a family-owned business to rent them a room.
I also appreciate your acknoweldgement that people gravitate to people like them, and that nothing ruins a mood in a gay bar more than to have a hetero couple walk in.
So, hopefully homosexuals will acknowledge that heteros moods are also changed when exposed to homosexuals.
Anonymous| 3.4.11 @ 12:54PM
How many gay bars have you been to? Everybody's welcome there, at least in the ones I've visited.
As for the comment on genetics: There is no proof one way or the other, so assuming either is a fallacy. Because homosexuality occurs in nature, and because many homosexuals would rather be heterosexual in order to avoid the stigmatism, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that it is an immutable and natural occurance (a genotype). Homophobia is not even a standard response in human beings: Several cultures have espoused and encouraged homosexual behavior.
PolishKnight| 3.4.11 @ 3:47PM
"Several" people have survived jumping off of high bridges into deep water. You're playing a cute little game with words. "Several" can mean more than 1 while simultaneously meaning "few" in comparison to the majority of cultures that are homophobic.
This is why homosexuals hate the slippery slope curve. If homosexuality should be tolerated, encouraged, and ultimately subsidized why not polygamy? PLENTY of cultures tolerate that too! Or ages of consent down to 13? That has been "natural" for most of huMAN history!
Anonymous| 3.4.11 @ 4:02PM
The age of consent is actually already 13 in Spain. It goes as low as 12 in Mexico.
In Mississippi kids between 14 and 17 are free to have sex with each other.
These are simply factual statements and I don't intend to convey any value judgment with them. The issue I was responding to was that homophobia is a standard response in human beings. It doesn't matter how often it occurs in other cultures if certain ones have historically had societies where no such attitudes existed (or was the opposite).
Put simply: Human beings don't have an ingrained "homophobic" attitude.
PolishKnight| 3.4.11 @ 4:08PM
"It doesn't matter how often it occurs in other cultures if certain ones have historically had societies where no such attitudes existed (or was the opposite)."
I'll respond with an equally non-value judgment observation: If something happens more often than not, then it is a standard response BY DEFINITION. Showing that there are "many" exceptions to a "rule" or generalization only further helps to illustrate that the rule or generalization is valid.
Anonymous| 3.4.11 @ 4:14PM
It does not, at least not anthropologically.
The idea of an "ingrained" response is that it occurs regardless of culture and situation. For instance, all human beings have standard facial expressions we recognize in other human beings. When we apply that test to homophobia it falls flat.
Why?
Because the cultures I mentioned are large, significant populations who accept(ed) and practice(d) homosexual behavior. When the cultural influence went in the other direction (acceptance), there was no residual antipathy, as well there shouldn't be.
PolishKnight| 3.4.11 @ 6:23PM
That's only half of the story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.....cient_Rome
"The social acceptance of homosexual relations waxed and waned during the centuries."
Tony in Central PA| 3.3.11 @ 9:19PM
The " Hate Speech " laws being pushed by the EU will open a real can of worms. Historians centuries from now will conclude they facilitated the implementation of sharia.
Sam Levi| 3.4.11 @ 11:30AM
What ever happened to "We reserve the right ot refuse service to anyone."?
Sam Levi| 3.4.11 @ 11:31AM
Sorry, typo correction
What ever happened to "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."?
Anonymous| 3.4.11 @ 12:57PM
For your situational awareness:
http://www.legalzoom.com/us-la.....se-service
PolishKnight| 3.4.11 @ 3:02PM
"But, for many people, this loss of individual freedom has been more than compensated by the gain in equality."
"Many people" is a relative term. How many is many? Is 10 people "many?" Such high minded policies sound reasonable when "many" people benefit, but what about the tyranny of the minority?
Imagine, say, if pedestrian walkways were required for ALL roads including freeways. Someone living on one side of the freeway had the right, say, to push a button and demand the whole expressway come to a halt for 3 minutes while he sashayed across the way.
Sound rediculous? That's what women's equality has done!
For most women, women's equality has harmed their interests more than helped. If a woman earns more than the average man, will she be happy marrying down? With more labor for companies to choose from, wages have also deflated and costs of certain goods for two career families went up (housing in particular.) So where's the benefit of such a policy for most heterosexual women?
Feminism has helped put more young black men into jail the KKK and Jim Crow put together. Welfare benefits went primarily to unwed poor black women and black men were put out onto the street. All so that middle class white women, including from conservative families, could PRETEND to be "empowered" and "independent" (before they chased after a 1950's Wally Cleaver or wound up coming back home as a spinster.)
Here's a more personal, daily reminder of the failure of so-called women's equality: With women out on the road to work, and most men having to also go (since women's equality says that men still have to go to live up to their traditional role), that's twice as many cars on the road. Next time you're stuck in traffic for a few hours for the schmucks going back and forth to work, thank women's equality!
David| 3.4.11 @ 11:36PM
I guess Jim left the discussion. I enjoyed anaoymous and polish knight's comments. I did not read the links.
There really is no credible, legitimate evidence that homos are born that way.
PolishKnight| 3.7.11 @ 12:54PM
David, I'm flattered! (pardon me for saying that considering what I'll write about below)
Here's a way to shed new light on that hypothesis: If homosexuals really were born that way, then there would be no way for lebians or gays to "flip" straight men or women.
Jokes are often made about the stereotype that gay men put a lot of work into making themselves attractive. One reason might be that gay men really don't find each other's sexuality attractive. Gay men are attracted to men, namely straight men (or boys) and lebians are attracted to women (especially straight, feminine women).
It's understandable why gays and lesbians flock to the left since they're both welcome there and unwelcome among most conservatives. But there's an additional reason: feminism and socialism seeks to destroy nuclear two parent families in order to generate "fresh meat" for the socialist state. A welfare mother or an unwed mother with a state supplied daycare is the ideal democrat voter. They're also fodder for seduction.
A friend of mine has a daughter who bought into feminism and married a good looking slacker. After a period of time, she got disgusted with him not living up to her feminine desires and dumped him. She then went to a new age church and was seduced by a lesbian. She's been in and out of different lesbian relationships since then. It's good that she couldn't get married because if she could, she would have been divorced several times by now!
Want some more unPC blasphemy? How about this one: Most rapists engage in a homosexual act (either as pedophiles or prison rape.) Our society has a love hate relationship with rape. On the one hand, it's viewed as the most vile act even perhaps greater than murder. On the other hand, it's lauded as an underground form of punishment. And most of it is in the form of homosexual rape. Think about that sometime. The same people who say that homosexuality is offensive to them, or those who enjoy it, laud it as a form of punishment in the prison system! Messed up, eh?
Cecil Proulx| 3.7.11 @ 12:41AM
Far too many words to make a simple point. My God, man, don't be so wishy-washy, tiptoeing around the issue, lest you might offend.
العاب بنات | 4.11.12 @ 6:04PM
Every persons holy book calls homosexuality abarrant, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, all of them. Because it is aberrant.