I’m not communicating well. It’s one of the many things wrong with me.

I am in complete agreement with you regarding the freedom of people to choose who they do business with and associate with. Indeed, freedom is sometimes unpleasant.

But there are some folks that suggest that homosexuals don’t deserve equal protection under the law because some homosexuals want special rights, and that’s what I was clumsily disagreeing with.

I agree that no business should be forced to cater to everyone. How about we condemn special rights while at the same time supporting equal rights?

I don’t think anyone is opposing equal right in terms of laws and government policy. So, sure I whole-heartedly agree.

And what does it mean, “…trying to force their agenda on others?” Were people who fought to get women the vote “…trying to force their agenda on others?”

Yes. However, that is a different story. Again it is an issue of equal before the law–i.e. having the same rights. It is not the same as saying that in private matters women should be treated identically as men.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing when “the agenda” is freedom.

Of course, but this isn’t about freedom, but about coercing a private company to do something that one group doesn’t like. That isn’t freedom since it violates another freedom (freedom of association). It is anti-freedom. People are quite free to provide a gay version of eHarmony and call it whatever they want (well within the strictures of copyright laws, etc.).

For example, suppose I’m a complete throwback and decide I don’t like black people and decide I don’t want them in my house or on my property. I should be able to excercise that right. Same when I own a business. Of course, people are free to call me all sorts of things and not patronize my business or not visit my house.

Freedom is sometimes unpleasant. Sometimes you have to let the jerk with abhorrent views speak. You don’t have to listen though.

When gays actually have “equal rights,” then it might be valid. But right now, the only argument is that gays should be treated unequally under the law because they’re asking for special rights, like forcing businesses to cater to them. That’s like saying that local governments should have been able to segregate blacks and whites and prevent blacks from marrying whites because affirmative action (which I oppose) was sure to follow.

I agree that no business should be forced to cater to everyone. How about we condemn special rights while at the same time supporting equal rights?

And what does it mean, “…trying to force their agenda on others?” Were people who fought to get women the vote “…trying to force their agenda on others?” Are the liberals in Iran and Saudi Arabia and China who believe in freedom of speech and religion “…trying to force their agenda on others?” Maybe they are.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing when “the agenda” is freedom.

Well I did give you the reason you can’t see it but if you don’t want to take it out then how can help you?

Sorry your post is devoid of reason. It does however have an amusing joke.

That doesn’t make it any less valid, in cases where the people pretending all they want are “equal rights” are, in fact, actually trying to force their agenda on others. As is the case with the eHarmony lawsuit. Gays already have the right to seek partners over the internet, but what they are actually doing with these lawsuits is trying to force private organizations who are not yet catering to them to do so, and to do so to themselves exclusively.

Adolf Hitler had a moustache too. Doesn’t stop me from wearing one.

The discinction to be made is that there are no such things as “positive” rights. These are not rights, but their antithesis — unchosen moral obligations on the part of whoever must provide the “something”. Freedom means freedom from unchosen obligations (such as those imposed by force).

In their typical Orwellian fashion, the Left sells as positive “rights” what are in fact the antithesis of rights: moral duties. Any and all alleged rights to a product or service necessarily constitutes a duty on the part of those who must provide it.

This is not changed by ascribing the duty to society at large, either; there is no such entity as society apart from its individual members. If you have a “right” to something, someone somewhere just lost the right to not provide you with it.

Hell yes — that’s what got Prop 8 passed: the Yes campaign highlighted precisely this sort of thing in their ads, and the No campaign didn’t address it.

There’s a very good reason for that: that’s what the Left does — erode individual rights wherever possible. They are simply not credible as defenders of any “fundamental right”. so when they went that way with their ads, I knew they were dead, even before the polls started shifting.

And lo and behold, what is that knife in California gays’ back? The sword of democracy, no less — the one the Left loves to wield against individual liberties wherever possible.

It’s pretty clear, especially with Prop 8, that gays need to realize that democracy is no friend of liberty — that contra the Left, some things should not ever be subject to a vote. But if they start thinking like that, they might wander off the plantation and realize that the Left is not their friend. Hence, all the scapegoating of churches etc…. it’s the Two Minutes Hate writ long, designed to direct gays’ anger at the usual scapegoats lest they discover that the Left is not their friend.

You are incorrect sir, churches would NOT be forced to preform same-sex marriages if they did not believe in them if gay marriage were legal. Just as I cannot currently demand that the Catholic church or Orthodox Jews recognize my “traditional” marriage now. I don’t live up to any of their standards for marriage, but I am in a legally and civilly recognized marriage.

@Greg Q-

Who is Randy? More to the point of your comment, gays currently CAN marry women. In fact, it happens quite often because of the bigotry in our society that forces many gays into the closet and into such denial that they suppress their sexuality and marry a woman, often with tragic results. How do you think the poor wives and children of Ted Haggert (sp?) or Larry Craig felt when they discovered very publically their spouse/father was gay?

And there is no “gay agenda”, it’s a figment of some peoples imagination.

This is the same reasoning that fundamentalists use all over the world to prevent people from having equal rights. In Iran, they don’t want liberals “forcing their agenda” on people by being able to hold hands in public or mingling with people of the opposite sex, so they make it illegal to do so.

It’s the same reasoning that people who were against mixed-race marriage and for government-backed segregation used back in the 50′s. They didn’t want to have the belief that blacks were equal to whites “forced” on their kids at school or other public buildings.

Also, why when given civil unions and all rights, for legal proposes, do so many gays still demand a redefinition of marriage.

Why do you need the government to say what a marriage is or isn’t? How does allowing homosexuals to marry actually affect you? (I’ve never, ever gotten an answer to that question.) And why can’t you just live and let live?

Oh, and I think once you add “lobby” to any particular cause, you get bad things happening, no matter who or what. It’s taxpayer money and power of government force they are fighting for, after all. It corrupts.

Well I did give you the reason you can’t see it but if you don’t want to take it out then how can help you?

“I’ll stand arm in arm with the gay rights crowd when it comes to demanding equality under the law.”

Ah, so you think gay men should be able to marry women, just like straight men? Or have you redefined “equality under the law” to mean “I have to get whatever I want, no matter what”?

Same thing goes for the Christian lobby, they want to force their “lifestyle on the rest of the nation.

Um, no. The “Christian lobby” wants to be left alone. No Gay agenda forced on them, or their kids. The Gay lobby wants to force their agenda on everyone else.

It’s pretty damn clear who real libertarians shoudl be supporting. Hint, it’s not the people who want to use the schools to force their idea of “tolerance” on everyone else.

Also, why when given civil unions and all rights, for legal proposes, do so many gays still demand a redefinition of marriage. Damit…I’m married, to a women and thats what marriage is Man and Women.

GTFOI

It seems to me that the “gay lobby’s” approach to this issue has been wrong from the beginning. I agree with them that the right to marry is a fundimental human right that should not require a law to protect.

However, it should also not have taken constitutional ammendments and federal laws for women and blacks to have the right to vote. But it did.

The fact is that the “inalienable rights” that we take for granted
had to be established via debate and voting and secured by war.

If you want your rights recognized and secured, do it the way it should be done: via the ballot box. The more you attempt to get your desires imposed by judges, elected or not, the more ammunition you give to the ‘religious lobby’ to take those rights away permanently via laws or constitutional ammendments.

I believe that a majority of people could be convinced to vote in favor of a pro-gay marriage law. But it will take some effort. But that’s how it’s supposed to work in this country. Stop being lazy, take your message to the people.

I guess what I am saying is that certain aspects in the market are there not necessarily because there is discrimination, but because that is what the market dictates.