What if all landscapers decided that gays were icky, and refused to either train them or work for them?  Would that rise to the level of problem that we should deal with?  Or is landscaping sufficiently irrelevant to the real world that landscapers should be able to discriminate?

By the way, blacks had plenty of places to eat in the South, they were just not the same places where whites ate.  Separate but equal isn't equal.

Thalia

What if all landscapers decided that gays were icky, and refused to either train them or work for them?

I guess it would be easy to spot the house the gay guy lives in, it would be the one with the crappy garden but the spotless and fabulous, well furnished feng shui home.  

I think the ironic thing about this Thalia, is that most gay people I know would be like "I would NEVER hire that guy, he is such a homophobe, I wouldn't trust his work."  In this case, the landscaper is not suffering at all by losing the client.  He doesn't want that client.  And by not having the client he is getting more publicity and more profit, by being a homophobe.

I don't think we are really in a time where "all landscapers" would decide not to serve homosexuals.  So your what if statement rings false.  The union of landscapers disavowed this particular homophobe, right?  So he is not representative of most landscapers, and his recent success is probably because his fits into a niche, anti-gay crowd looking to rally around the sole anti-gay landscaper.  Often it is the case that the one exceptional case is suddenly thrust forward as an example of a wide spread problem that is growing.

If you ask me, there seems to be more growth on the pro-gay-rights side, than the homophobe landscaper side.  If you had some data to show this is a growing problem, whereby many businesses are suddenly refusing to service any openly gay customers, then I think you strengthen yoru what if argument.  Absent that, it is a red herring.  

Often it is the case that the one exceptional case is suddenly thrust forward as an example of a wide spread problem that is growing.

So it's a matter of numbers? Will you change your name if more landscaping companies in the area decide, for "moral" or financial reasons, to discriminate against gays?  

No.  I think that gay rights should be protected.  That there is a civil rights issue involved here and this landscaper is an ass.  But I also recognize that over-reacting could also cloud matters.  

I am in favor of gay marriage, but I recognize that there are many who disagree with that for a variety of reasons.  I don't know ho wit affects them.  But these "moralists" are not in favor of protecting equal righst for americans in my opinion.  

As for the numbers issue, I think that much of it works itself out.  Because the reality is we have on elandscaper who is publicly an ass, it is not as if the gay man in question could not hire anotehr to do his lawn work.  If all of the landscapers in Houston suddenly adopted the same policy, then we have a true civil rights crisis.  I think teh gay man in question is upset that the guy won't provide services for him because he's gay, and he's even MORE outraged that boycotting this landscaper and going public with his story has only given the landscaper more business.  He wants the landscaper punished for discrimination.  He's not suing the guy because he actually wants this landscaper to do the work.  I mean if I were that man, I would not want to hire that bigot to work for me.  

As is often the case, it is the exceptional case that often drives new legislation, and new direction and protections.  But often times I see it as fighting a battle for the sake of having a battle.  One, I do not think it is practical to "punish" all bigots, nor do I think it possible to really create change that way.  Sometimes in life we meet assholes.  The wisest of us usually just move on and avoid those assholes.  Now this IS different in the case of the 1960's civil rights movement, where institutionalized racism was MORE than just a social phenomenon.  The prejudice against gays are a religious/social bigotry but NOT one that is supported by government.  We do have gay representatives in Federal government.  We do have laws and cases where gays have been protected.  We do have a strong social awareness of gay rights.  We have many openly gay celebrities and representatives.  

The bigger question is whether this case of the bigoted landscaper is the best case for gay advocates to push their cause, or merely the most recent.  

I think that gay rights should be protected.  That there is a civil rights issue involved here and this landscaper is an ass.  But I also recognize that over-reacting could also cloud matters.  

I don't see adding Houston to the list of other localities that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation to be an overreaction at all, and I think this incident provides just the right impetus.  

<i>And, because gardening is not as important as food. </i>

So, discrimination should be considered on the basis of importance? Landscapers can discriminate but not restaurants? Say you have a car wash with a lunch counter (we have one in Chicago) it's OK not to wash the black guy's car, but he has to be served a sandwich?

I can at least understand wetkarma's idea that there should be no anti-discrimination legislation (I think that's his position). But your position makes no sense to me. Either it's OK to discriminate or it isn't. If it's not OK against blacks, I don't see why it should be OK against gays, and if it's not OK when it comes to essential services provided by private companies, then it should extend to all services provided by private companies, "important" or not.

Now with caps!

You had a bad experience with "x" company, and you don't want to deal with them anymore, fine, that makes sense.

Maybe the Garden Guys had one too many bad "experiences" with gay men and didn't want to deal with them again.

Not the same, though I expected someone to say that. Gay men are not a company, they are not a single unit, a monolith, yada yada yada. They're a bunch of guys who find other guys hot. And no matter how many "bad experiences" I have with a black guy or a Jew or an Irishman or pushy broads, I can't legally close off my business to African-Americans, Jews, the Irish, or women.

Really, I have a hard time understanding why, after all we've been through in the history of this country, we think that homophobia is something new. It's bigotry just like racism, sexism, or religious bigotry.

Now with caps!

irst of all, there's long been a difference between "doing business" as a customer or as a company. If, as a customer, I don't want to do business with any black people, then I don't have to buy anything from them, etc. Totally legal. As a business, that's plainly illegal nowadays.

Just because you refer to authority doesn't make it right, or end the argument. Personally I'm of the view that if the business in question is not supported by public funds, it should be able to discriminate in whatever manner it sees fit.

I think racial discrimination is wrong

Agreed.

 and laws against it are common sense.

Disagree.

Just because something is wrong, doesn't mean we need to pass a law forbidding it. Some things are better left to society to enforce via shunning/ostracism.

You are veering towards thought control with your appeal to passing laws for stuff that is wrong, pause before you run off the cliff.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

You are veering towards thought control with your appeal to passing laws for stuff that is wrong, pause before you run off the cliff.

I never advocated a law against anyone's thoughts. Chase employees (and their board, and their president, and whoever) can be as racist, bigoted, or stupid as they want. I think there's a good reason to not allow them to act on those thoughts in regards to the services they offer to the public. And that goes for the gardeners, too.

Now with caps!

Sorry to have to post a follow-up, but I couldn't finish my earlier.

The "common sense" argument was dumb, I'll cop to that. I actually can't believe I said it, but... Anyway, we obviously disagree about the best way to deal with certain social issues. I don't believe, as you implied, that there should be laws against everything that's "wrong." On the other hand, there are certain social ills that I feel cannot be effectively addressed by leaving it up to "market forces." Discrimination, in this case, is one of them. I don't see how a case like this is "better dealt with" "via shunning/ostracism." For example, while bus boycotts and the like had a hand in bringing about the end of racial discrimination, it was ultimately legislation that made it possible for blacks to have equal access to the services provided by private businesses. I honestly feel that, without that kind of intervention, we'd still be seeing (even more) discrimination in the distribution of goods and services than we already do.

You may wonder why that matters. Well, that's hard for me to explain, I have to admit. But generally, I feel that the whole "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" thing is meaningless when the majority is able to take those things away from any sufficiently powerless minority. And the simplest, and in my opinion most reasonable way to make sure that isn't possible, is to create laws regarding discrimination.

You may disagree with the fact that it is currently illegal for a business to discriminate against people on the basis of race, sex, or religion. But, given that it is, I see no rational reason for it to end there, and I think that making discrimination against gays illegal makes at least as much sense as making discrimination against blacks illegal (again, I realize you apparently think neither of these makes any sense at all).

Now with caps!

don't believe, as you implied, that there should be laws against everything that's "wrong." On the other hand, there are certain social ills that I feel cannot be effectively addressed by leaving it up to "market forces."

Eloquently put, I agree completely.

Discrimination, in this case, is one of them. I don't see how a case like this is "better dealt with" "via shunning/ostracism."

And here if of course where our ships diverge. I see the harm from creating a protected class based on sexual orientation greater than that of the harm caused by discrimination. There is no current legal standard that I can think of to determine someones "gayness" (gaydar jokes aside). Forbidding discrimination against gays is equivalent to forbidding -all- discrimination since everyone will get to claim protected status and there is no clear legal standard (that I know of) to determine the fakers from the rump shakers.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

Thought I'd jump in here.  This is a good thread you two have going.  Now, *that's* good discourse!

There is one sort of legal standard to determine gayness.  Of course, I'm am not a lawyer, so don't go to court with this, m'kay?

In most states now two men or two women are forbidden to marry.  The well-known motivation behind these measures was to prevent 'gay' marriage.  When any two men or two women want to get married, with all of its rights and responsibilities and baggage, that's a pretty damn good legal measure for gayness.

 I agree that sexual orientation as a protected category is pretty fraught with problems.  The ways it could be abused by amoral jerkwads (not a legal term) are many.

This is one reason why marriage equality matters.  We can't throw a legal blanket over sexual orientation.  The spectrum of sexual orientation is nearly continous and fluid.  You can't write a test to assess where you fall on the totally gay/raging hetero scale.

Marriage will not be entered into lightly by most gay couples.  Like everyone else, they view (and our laws/customs enforce) marriage as a momentous decision.  The same-sex couples waitng in line at the courthouse to enter into a legally-binding contract are pretty sure to actually BE gay.

The social and legal status afforded to married gays will lift the status of single homosexuals by association.  Very recently a majority of the United States ammended their constitutions to *explicitly exclude* homosexuals from one of the most important and universal social rituals.  That's discrimination most foul and it does the opposite of creating a protected class.  It has created an excluded class.  We have made our country less just, less free.

My point?  We have created a bizarro-world legal definition of gayness.  A gay person is a person who would get married to a person of the same sex.  Why not let them do it?

Again, my $0.02.

M

I'm not a lawyer either, but it seems to me the relevant question here is whether or not you can prove that the company in question <i>believes</i> that x person(s) is gay (or Jewish, or disabled, or a woman, or black, etc...), and is discriminating against x person(s) because of it.

Now with caps!

the relevant question here is whether or not you can prove that the company in question believes> that x person(s) is gay (or Jewish, or disabled, or a woman, or black, etc...), and is discriminating against x person(s) because of it.

I don't mean to reharp on a point already made coquito, but again -- you are heading towards the cliff of thought control as judged by the state. Pull up.

Making judgements based on what people are supposed to have believed at the time of their actions is not  a slippery slope, its the bottom of the crevasse that the slippery slope leads to. You are creating a legal standard (much like hate crime legislation) wherein the mindset of the person is actionable under the law.  

If you want to pass a law that prevents the state from discriminating against gays, fine ..I'll go along with it because I'm always for limiting state power. But preventing private citizens and businesses from doing the same is a bridge too far.

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

Wetkarma, I think (or hope) you've maybe misunderstood what I'm saying here. Kiwiana replied below with some legal terminology (really, I should know some of this better myself), but let me try a hypothetical or two. The first one I'll call the "Law & Order what if" cause it kinda reminds me of an episode. If you're dealing with a murder case, one element is intent. Let's say you have someone who really hates Britney Spears, and you believe he tried to kill a woman he mistook for Britney. Looks just like her. Proving intent is not contingent on whether or not he tried to kill Britney, but whether or not he thought the victim was Britney, and therefore tried to kill her.

Or a simpler example: say a male employer witnesses a female employee buying a Pope John Paul II t-shirt online. He's an evangelical and doesn't like Catholics, and assumes this means she is one, so he fires her (let's say, for the sake of evidence, he jots in his blog that he "got rid of that sneaky Papist trash!" or something). But it turns out she's a Coptic Christian and was buying the shirt for her good friend, who's Catholic. Should the employer be off the hook just because he was wrong about her religion?

In terms of actual discrimination, there are already a cases in the court (I think rightly) accusing real estate companies of discrimination against black people. Now, the discrimination here happened over the phone. Studies looking into the situation claim that what happened is that the real estate agencies would not call back people who "sounded black." In other words, people the real estate agents thought were black, even if they weren't. I think it's fair to say that if they did indeed not call back anyone who sounded black to them, then they were engaging in racial discrimination - even if all the affected people were white. I don't see any "control by the state" going on there.
I'm arguing the same about homosexuals. If the company can be shown to be engaging in discrimination against people it believes are gay, whether or not they are gay is beside the point. What's on trial (or should be, imo) is the alleged discrimination of the defendant, not sexual orientation of the victim.

Now with caps!

Making judgements based on what people are supposed to have believed at the time of their actions is not  a slippery slope, its the bottom of the crevasse that the slippery slope leads to.

No wetkarma, this is the judgment which judges and juries are required to make every single day.  For culpability generally you require two components - the act (what is objectively done - i.e. refusal to supply goods or services) and the intention.  Or to get latin on you - the actus reus and the mens rea or state of mind).

There is nothing exceptional about asking a jury or a judge to decide based on evidence presented whether or not a person had a particular state of mind at the time they committed certain acts.  You'll need a better argument for why outlawing discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation is a bad idea.

the only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.

I see the harm from creating a protected class based on sexual orientation greater than that of the harm caused by discrimination. There is no current legal standard that I can think of to determine someones "gayness" (gaydar jokes aside). Forbidding discrimination against gays is equivalent to forbidding -all- discrimination since everyone will get to claim protected status and there is no clear legal standard (that I know of) to determine the fakers from the rump shakers.

I don't see the creation of a "protected class" here. Forbidding discrimination (in say, hiring, rendering of services, sales of goods) based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age (with the exception of established age limits) or handicap, creates blanket protection for everyone. It doesn't protect a group of people from discrimination, so much as it forbids discrimination based on being part of a group of some arbitrary group. As for how you tell the "fakers from the rump shakers" that's simple. The same way we deal with all of these problems of distinction -- the courts. If, as an individual, you want to claim you were discriminated against for being black or jewish or gay, you're going to have to go to court and present some evidence. But really, the value of the protection here isn't that no one will ever be discriminated against. It's that it makes blanket discrimination very difficult. Maybe you have a gay customer you don't like. Fine, refuse service on the grounds he's a prick. But once you start racking up a list of gay clients you've turned down, discrimination becomes readily apparent, and companies like the Garden Guys would be running afoul of the law. This would work both ways, you know. You couldn't run a gay interior design service that won't do straight drapes, at least, not as a matter of policy. And that's the point. I don't feel it should be legal for businesses to deny service to groups of people, to effectively designate a "persecuted class," to borrow from your earlier phrase.

Now with caps!

Common sense is probably not a good enough reason to write a law dictating the legality of certain actions.  But, the reason we have anti-discrimination laws is that we decided as a society that discriminating on the basis of a number of conditions people had no control over was wrong and there should be laws to protect against it.  We also have a documented history of discriminating against minorities and people who belong to the ten other groups which are considered protected classes.  Now, unless someone wishes to declare and prove to me that homosexuals are homosexuals by choice alone, then I fail to see why sexual orientation can't be declared a protected class at the federal level.  This is why I included that one option in my poll on this matter.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

 Now, unless someone wishes to declare and prove to me that homosexuals are homosexuals by choice alone, then I fail to see why sexual orientation can't be declared a protected class at the federal level.  

Fair nuff mayorbob, and a compelling point.

So I ask you.  How does one go about "proving" sexual orientation?
My black brothers are self-evidently black - not much faking going on there.
Ms Sue and her sisters are self-evidently female -- again aside from some E. Germans in the 80s olympics, no particular questions arise.

But how does a court determine that one is homosexual and thus discriminated against because he was homosexual? For purposes of this discussion, lets say I claim to be gay and the garden guys refuse to cut my hedges. Do I qualify for protection? What if I'm only -pretending- to be gay? How do you tell the difference?

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

People choose to be Catholic, Jewish, Evangelical...whatever.  They're protected against religious discrimination.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

"But how does a court determine that one is homosexual and thus discriminated against because he was homosexual?"

How about progressing from the point where business establishments do essentially what the landscaper did and say, "no we don't serve homosexuals because we don't like the lifestyle."  You prove discrimination against a protected class by showing a track record of such discrimination.  My question is why can you discriminate against gays but not against women, minorities, members of a religious sect, or the disabled?  How are homosexuals not an identifiably group which has suffered discrimination?

Illegitimi non carborundum.

How do you prove your religion?  

What difference does it make if the person choose to be homosexual or not?  Why allow discrimination of any group, whether the person choose the group or whether they are born into it?

It ought not make any difference.  And if sexual orientation was a protected class by federal law, it wouldn't matter.  But the general definition they use is to protect against discrimination targeted against groups of people who have no choice in the matter as to whether they belong to the group being discriminated against.  My question to wet karma was aimed at finding out if he believes homosexuality is a matter of choice.  He deflected that by saying "how can we tell how many of the homosexuals are for real and how many are just faking it?"  I needed that sort of comic relief after the day I had.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

That's a funny way of putting it.  But I know people who took many years to discover for themselves whether or not they were homosexual.  It is new to have a protected class which many people may enter or leave over the course of their lifetimes.  I still think it should be a protected class.

However the laws are actually written, they should essentially mean: "People are people.  Mind your own fucking business and treat everyone the same.  Unless a particular person or persons prove, at an individual level, to be dickheads."  
 

It is new to have a protected class which many people may enter or leave over the course of their lifetimes.

Religion.  People convert... well, not frequently but it does happen, especially over marriage issues.

Humorless. Cretinous. What'd you expect?

Try booking a football party at a lesbian bar, or asking the woman above to book a bachelorette party at a gay bar, and tell me how well those requests are received.

It sounds like you had some bad experiences.  Would you care to relate to us some specifics?

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Try booking a football party at a lesbian bar, or asking the woman above to book a bachelorette party at a gay bar, and tell me how well those requests are received.

Try booking a bachelorette party at Chuck E. Cheese's or the local church and tell me how well those requests are received. There's a big difference between refusing a customer because your venue isn't appropriate for their function and refusing a customer because you don't like who they are.

We tried Chuck E. Cheese but abandoned that plan whe we found out that the banjo playin' bear don't give no lap dances.

There's a big difference between refusing a customer because your venue isn't appropriate for their function and refusing a customer because you don't like who they are.

Since I take it that we are in agreement that bars are appropriate venues for adult parties, your argument here is reduced to "straight parties don't belong in gay establishments." In other words, you condone discrimination based on sexual identity -- which makes me wonder what the problem with the homophobe gardener is.

But maybe I'm wrong in my initial assumption. Is there some other, non-sexual identity related reason why you think the examples I gave would be inappropriate venue choices?