4 ms·

Actually the LGBT cake you have a very big misunderstanding of what that was. The person was more than willing to sell them a cake because he did not discrimin

Actually the LGBT cake you have a very big misunderstanding of what that was. The person was more than willing to sell them a cake because he did not discriminate in his business on who he sold his items. What the disagreement was on is he did not want to perform the artwork on the cake. What was upheld is you cannot enforce an artist to do work for you against their own opinions. This is a completely different thing. They were not asking GoDaddy to create their website or perform any task other than the hosting of it which is the selling of the cake. If GoDaddy chose not to create the website and instead referred them to other places for their creative work that would be the correct comparison. This is the lack of History that we seem to have in this country currently.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
I removed the example because it was a poor analogy. Regardless, a webhost or cloud provider is within their right to turn away anyone's business, including if it violates their Terms of Service (which is open to broad interpretation by the business). Can't discriminate against a protected class of course, but that's not the case here. The law, as it currently stands, cannot force a technology provider to provide a platform for content if they prefer not to host it.
- elmerfud 5y ago
  The point is not about what the company is able to do legally. Because the legality of things is the lowest possible bar that we could set in our society. It's a really poor excuse to do something and say well it's not illegal. My point is this excessive moral arbitration that causes the exclusion of people and entities from society is a very dangerous path to head down. We should want individuals to make moral and political decisions and participate in the processes that allow for change and remediation. By having companies both large and small become the moral arbiters and forcibly excluding people from the participation in society will only ever end badly.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Who is this path dangerous for? Society as a whole? Or the malicious who are attempting to take advantage of weaknesses in societal fabric or democracy? When certain systems fail, we require other systems to take up the slack. In this case, private industry is stepping in where government (in this case, the State of Texas) as horrifically failed. The legislation in question was specifically crafted to subvert US Supreme Court (Roe vs Wade) precedence. > My point is this excessive moral arbitration that causes the exclusion of people and entities from society is a very dangerous path to head down. We should want individuals to make moral and political decisions and participate in the processes that allow for change and remediation. By having companies both large and small become the moral arbiters and forcibly excluding people from the participation in society will only ever end badly. Some people and entities should be excluded due to incompatibility (broadly speaking, but would include human rights beliefs, harming others, etc). Their participation is not in good faith. They are not attempting to have a debate or a discussion, but are attempting to rule through tyranny. In this example, Texan conservatives are ramming through legislation to enforce their belief system on the women of Texas. They are simply running up against the consequences of such (distasteful, unethical) behavior, and as conservatives, you would think they're comfortable with the idea of personal responsibility and business freedom, and consequently are prepared to face the repercussions of their decisions. You can have a conversation, a discussion, or a debate of ideas with a rational actor operating in good faith; you punch a bully in the face.
    - powerslacker 5y ago
      Regardless of your or anyone's personal preference for the law, it ought to be respected on the ground that the men and women who passed it are at least to some degree elected by the people. We're not talking about King Henry VIII here — this is a democratically elected republic trying to build laws that meet the needs and wants of their supporters. If GoDaddy is selectively enforcing its ToS to disable potentially legitimate government action then there is an argument to be made that they are unjustly wielding their oligopolistic power. Either GoDaddy should be required to enforce its ToS across the board or it should be required to do business with the Texas government. GoDaddy cannot be considered a content neutral provider under Section 230 if it is selectively enforcing. When this kind of thing has happened in the past, the government has enacted and enforced antitrust laws — e.g. Cornelius Vanderbilt.
threatofrain 5y ago
The more critical answer is that religion has a special place in the US, and is among the foremost of rights. A business which develops religious art for any of their customers except with regards to Christian art would also be violating constitutional rights, despite the fact that their non-Christian offerings are available to all. Also, we could pick easier discussions like how religious organizations have broad freedoms to discriminate against gay individuals, such as by firing gay employees or evicting gay students. There it becomes clear that religious rights have a very special place in law, and that gay marital benefits by the likes of Microsoft or Google is simply an expression of soft company power. Furthermore, gay protections exist at the federal level largely due to a previous Supreme Court with a Sandra Day O'Connor acting as a pivotal vote. It is not obvious how Lawrence v Texas, which legalized gay sex, would've turned out in today's court.
amanaplanacanal 5y ago
> What was upheld is you cannot enforce an artist to do work for you against their own opinions. That was not the decision, though it appears to be a common misconception. The decision was that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had exhibited hostility towards religion and that wasn't allowed. They didn't rule on free speech grounds.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> The person was more than willing to sell them a cake because he did not discriminate in his business on who he sold his items. What the disagreement was on is he did not want to perform the artwork on the cake. No, he refused to make any cake at all for the event for which one waa sought, explicitly because it was a same sex wedding. Artwork was not the issue: ---quote--- Phillips informed the couple that he does not “create” wedding cakes for same-sex weddings. Ibid. He explained, “I’ll make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don’t make cakes for same sex weddings.” ---end quote--- MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD., ET AL. v. COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION ET AL. 584 US ____ (2018), No. 16-111, slip op. @ 4 (Sup.Ct., June 4, 2018) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf

toomuchtodo 5y ago

I removed the example because it was a poor analogy. Regardless, a webhost or cloud provider is within their right to turn away anyone's business, including if it violates their Terms of Service (which is open to broad interpretation by the business). Can't discriminate against a protected class of course, but that's not the case here. The law, as it currently stands, cannot force a technology provider to provide a platform for content if they prefer not to host it.

elmerfud 5y ago
The point is not about what the company is able to do legally. Because the legality of things is the lowest possible bar that we could set in our society. It's a really poor excuse to do something and say well it's not illegal. My point is this excessive moral arbitration that causes the exclusion of people and entities from society is a very dangerous path to head down. We should want individuals to make moral and political decisions and participate in the processes that allow for change and remediation. By having companies both large and small become the moral arbiters and forcibly excluding people from the participation in society will only ever end badly.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Who is this path dangerous for? Society as a whole? Or the malicious who are attempting to take advantage of weaknesses in societal fabric or democracy? When certain systems fail, we require other systems to take up the slack. In this case, private industry is stepping in where government (in this case, the State of Texas) as horrifically failed. The legislation in question was specifically crafted to subvert US Supreme Court (Roe vs Wade) precedence. > My point is this excessive moral arbitration that causes the exclusion of people and entities from society is a very dangerous path to head down. We should want individuals to make moral and political decisions and participate in the processes that allow for change and remediation. By having companies both large and small become the moral arbiters and forcibly excluding people from the participation in society will only ever end badly. Some people and entities should be excluded due to incompatibility (broadly speaking, but would include human rights beliefs, harming others, etc). Their participation is not in good faith. They are not attempting to have a debate or a discussion, but are attempting to rule through tyranny. In this example, Texan conservatives are ramming through legislation to enforce their belief system on the women of Texas. They are simply running up against the consequences of such (distasteful, unethical) behavior, and as conservatives, you would think they're comfortable with the idea of personal responsibility and business freedom, and consequently are prepared to face the repercussions of their decisions. You can have a conversation, a discussion, or a debate of ideas with a rational actor operating in good faith; you punch a bully in the face.
  - powerslacker 5y ago
    Regardless of your or anyone's personal preference for the law, it ought to be respected on the ground that the men and women who passed it are at least to some degree elected by the people. We're not talking about King Henry VIII here — this is a democratically elected republic trying to build laws that meet the needs and wants of their supporters. If GoDaddy is selectively enforcing its ToS to disable potentially legitimate government action then there is an argument to be made that they are unjustly wielding their oligopolistic power. Either GoDaddy should be required to enforce its ToS across the board or it should be required to do business with the Texas government. GoDaddy cannot be considered a content neutral provider under Section 230 if it is selectively enforcing. When this kind of thing has happened in the past, the government has enacted and enforced antitrust laws — e.g. Cornelius Vanderbilt.

threatofrain 5y ago

The more critical answer is that religion has a special place in the US, and is among the foremost of rights. A business which develops religious art for any of their customers except with regards to Christian art would also be violating constitutional rights, despite the fact that their non-Christian offerings are available to all. Also, we could pick easier discussions like how religious organizations have broad freedoms to discriminate against gay individuals, such as by firing gay employees or evicting gay students. There it becomes clear that religious rights have a very special place in law, and that gay marital benefits by the likes of Microsoft or Google is simply an expression of soft company power. Furthermore, gay protections exist at the federal level largely due to a previous Supreme Court with a Sandra Day O'Connor acting as a pivotal vote. It is not obvious how Lawrence v Texas, which legalized gay sex, would've turned out in today's court.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago

> What was upheld is you cannot enforce an artist to do work for you against their own opinions. That was not the decision, though it appears to be a common misconception. The decision was that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had exhibited hostility towards religion and that wasn't allowed. They didn't rule on free speech grounds.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> The person was more than willing to sell them a cake because he did not discriminate in his business on who he sold his items. What the disagreement was on is he did not want to perform the artwork on the cake. No, he refused to make any cake at all for the event for which one waa sought, explicitly because it was a same sex wedding. Artwork was not the issue: ---quote--- Phillips informed the couple that he does not “create” wedding cakes for same-sex weddings. Ibid. He explained, “I’ll make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don’t make cakes for same sex weddings.” ---end quote--- MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP, LTD., ET AL. v. COLORADO CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION ET AL. 584 US ____ (2018), No. 16-111, slip op. @ 4 (Sup.Ct., June 4, 2018) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/16-111_j4el.pdf