[aeturnum]

I think Christians have the right to hold whatever judgements they like about people, as we all do. However, that doesn't mean that they should be able to discriminate in the professional services they provide. In fact, these same laws protect the Christians who wish to deny services to gay people from having services denied to them.

I'm not sure I agree that LGBT folks are getting "massive support" from governments more than other groups do (for instance, churches have a very effective tax carve out which I support), but there certainly has been a push for LGBT people to be recognized as humans who have the right to exist like anyone else. Again, we can all view homosexuality (and other queer identities) in whatever way we want - but this case and the questions before civic society in general are about the provision of services. The standard we should all follow is that people are free to believe what they want (and suffer the social consequences of being known to hold those beliefs) but still be free to access the commercial services that are available to the general public without fear of being exiled for their beliefs or identity.

Edit: FWIW, I generally support the finding of Masterpiece Cakeshop, which is that the work of people doing 'creative' work is speech-y and they cannot be compelled to do creative work for a cause they oppose. However, it says that you cannot refuse service to protected classes if your creativity is not called on (i.e. Masterpiece Cakeshop does not have to design a cake, but does have to bake a cake if the design is provided). I would support a similar standard here and I expect Smith to lose unless she can argue that a commercial website for gay people requires some kind of creative act specifically about the sexuality of her clients.

[betwixthewires]

> However, that doesn't mean that they should be able to discriminate in the professional services they provide.

Why not? It's a genuine question I'd like to get to the bottom of. I have no interest in discriminating against people professionally and wouldn't even be able to be friends with those who do, but that's personal. Why shouldn't someone be able to if that's what they want to do?

[awb]

In other words: Why is discrimination in the private sector bad?

Look at 1950s segregation. No one wants that again. It creates an imbalance that’s unnecessary, unfair, unkind and hard to recover from for those being discriminated against.

If all necessary goods and services were provided by the State (a horrible idea BTW), then discrimination in the private sector would have a much smaller impact.

But in the US, the vast majority of jobs and goods are in the private sector. To legalize discrimination there is to essentially legalize discrimination for the majority of all daily interactions.

If you’re familiar with the power of compound interest, now imagine everything in your day is 1% harder than your non-discriminated peers. Doesn’t seem like that big a deal to go to the next diner to eat or the next web designer to get a website, but if the discrimination is rampant, that 1% friction compounds and becomes a major detriment over time, especially when compounded over generations.

[betwixthewires]

I get how it's bad for a society as a whole. The US for example has done really well engineering it out of the culture.

But is it morally right to tell individuals who they can and cannot associate with? I'm trying to get to the bottom of it fundamentally.

[sofixa]

Do you consider "selling to" to be a type of association? I don't, it's purely a business transaction, nobody is talking about going on vacation or to watch a game together.

[betwixthewires]

It's a degree of association, yes.

[awb]

> But is it morally right to tell individuals who they can and cannot associate with

No law is saying that you can or cannot associate with someone. You have always been free to pick your friends.

Anti-discrimination laws are saying you can’t refuse service based on someone’s status as a protected class (age > 65, gender, race, religion, etc.).

Laws basically are morals. So there’s no right or wrong, just costs and benefits.

We know the cost of allowing discrimination by looking at history: segregation, generational decline, hate crimes, genocide, etc. When you allow one group permission to treat another group differently based on something that group can’t change or shouldn’t have to change about themselves then bad things typically happen.

What’s the benefit of allowing discrimination? Not much I can think of.

Maybe try a little experiment: pick a letter of the alphabet like ‘A’. Now, go about your day, but pretend anyone who’s name contains an ‘A’ doesn’t want to do business with you. Ask everyone their name (because in this society pretend that names are super important to people’s belief systems) and you have to go to a different gas station, coffee shop, restaurant, get a different Uber, etc. if the person doing business with you has an A in their name. Pretend that these folks don’t want to do business with you and you don’t want to force them to.

These are good questions you’re asking, but the history I’m aware of is pretty clear cut about the dangers of discrimination.

Basically every law that’s ever been passed had to go through this scrutiny:

Should we allow murder? What’s the benefit of allowing murder? What’s the cost of telling people “who they can and cannot” murder?

We like to think of the US as a bastion of freedom, but you don’t have the freedom to buy drugs, pay for sex, stone adulterers, own a wife, conduct honor killings or discriminate, unlike some other countries where you are free to do those things.

The question of freedom is not how much you can do as an individual. The question is how much you can do as an individual before you start harming others. That will always be a moving target, but for discrimination I personally think it does more harm to the group than the benefit it could potentially give to an individual.

[aeturnum]

Simply, denying someone a service because you dislike them is a harm. It's less stark than some harms, but it's clearly along a line that ends in direct violence. If someone is starving and has money to pay for your food, but you refuse to sell to him, you share some responsibility for his death.

Obviously, we allow people to cause harms under certain circumstances. Self defense is one, situations where we have competing rights is another. The standard we've come to is that, in order to be allowed to offer services and goods in the US, you also need to agree to obey our laws, which includes the protection of certain 'protected classes' - which are generally seen as qualities a human has that are not entirely voluntary (sex, sexual orientation [in some places], race, national origin, disability, age, citizenship status and religion). Other qualities are not protected. You are allowed, for instance, to deny service to anyone who doesn't like Seinfeld, or to ugly people, or any other non-protected class.

At the end of the day, I don't think its in our interest to allow commercial activity with no rules. Everyone benefits from having some elements of their identity that cannot lead to them being denied services. It's true that sometimes you have to suck it up - but that's a drawback we all share as well.

[betwixthewires]

I can see how systematically denying someone services is harm, but refusal to engage with someone as an individual? I'm not convinced. At the end of the day you're compelling someone to perform work they don't want to do.

And I understand the "rules of our society" stuff, but I'm trying to get at it on principle. And I am not saying commerce should happen with no rules, that's a different discussion, I'm talking about this specific set of rules.

[calciphus]

This case like many others isn't about private individuals - it's about a business (even a business of one) - whereby someone receives all manner of structure supported by the institutions around them in return for abiding by the laws that bind such entities.

Declaring oneself a business comes with protections for the individual in exchange for agreeing to serve society at large. Refusing to do so is failing to uphold the obligations one agreed to.

[betwixthewires]

Every human being is a business. You don't declare yourself a business, you trade with your peers to survive and thrive. To talk about doing business like it is some privilege bestowed upon you by the state is really just rationalizing the level of control they've taken in recent years.

[todorus]

Are you wilfully ignoring that there is a legal definition of what a business is, that the issue at hand is spoken about in a legal context? Your personal semantics are irrelevant in that context.

[aeturnum]

Again, we've settled on rules that allow you to deny a particular person because you don't like them. The scenario where you won't sell food to someone who is starving to death - totally legal, as long as you refuse based on personal dislike. The thing we won't allow is, again, discrimination based on the protected classes I listed. The logic is that, while we have some control over if people like us, we have no control over our membership in a protected class (and all people are members of some part of each class).

[nathanaldensr]

To extend your use of "compelling," in my opinion, the end goal of these arguments is to give the State the power to force you to perform work (State-sanctioned slavery) regardless of your personal beliefs. The specifics of who is demanding the work be done and who is doing the work are honestly irrelevant.