Execution, Prison, Marriage, and other Trivial Moral Stuff :D

In other words, political correctness and people being offended on behalf of others who aren't actually offended.

I've been thinking on this and have come to the conclusion tha the logic to all this gay banter (pun intended) is this:

Being allowed to refuse service to a gay person or couple based on personal beliefs (religious or otherwise) can easily become on par with denying anyone else service for the same reason. Problem is, it's not permissable or even socially acceptable in a lot of other cases.

Say you were brought up in a community where you were taught that black people have an express ticket to hell just for being born black. They're inferior human beings, they're created by the devil, they're wrong in their very nature and if you ever assist them in procreating, you're getting a seat right next to them on that train to hell.

This is a religious core belief for you. You were brought up to believe that this is true and you have no reason to believe otherwise, because come on... Why would your parents and your entire community lie to you, right?

If a business owner of any sort, based on his or her religious beliefs, is allowed to refuse service to a gay person or couple when they want to get married, why shouldn't you also be allowed to refuse service to black people on the same basis? After all, black marriage leads to black procreation, so aiding them in getting married will get you sent straight to hell, right? If, by law, it's wrong for you to refuse service to a black couple based on your religious beliefs, why should anyone else be allowed to refuse service to a gay couple for the same reason? Why should their religious beliefs be more valid than yours? That's hardly fair, is it?

Now look at it from the gay perspective. If, by law, it's wrong for ANYONE to refuse service to a black couple on religious (or any other) grounds, why should it be okay for anyone to refuse service to a gay couple for the same reason? Why are religious beliefs about gay people more valid than religious beliefs about black people? Why is it okay to say, "I'm against gay weddings, so I won't provide you any service," but it's not okay to say, "I'm against black weddings, so I won't provide you any service"?

I realize this goes against what I've said earlier, but I've gained some perspective on it since then. And just to be clear, I haven't been "convinced" by anyone. This is entirely a product of my own thought process.

I think it all comes down to one critical expression that I used earlier. What's "socially acceptable".

60 years ago it was perfectly acceptable for a white person to refuse a black person service of any kind (at least in the US and in South Africa). They didn't even need a reason beyond, "because you're black". Not only was it acceptable to do that, but in some places you would actually be frowned upon or even excluded from the community if you didn't do it. If you helped black people in any way, it wouldn't at all be out of order for someone to place a burning cross on your front lawn, paint "N**GER-LOVER" on your car and instruct their kids to stay away from your kids.

The civil rights movement changed all that. Today, if you do any of those things, you're an inbred, white supremacist redneck bigot who barely has a right to tread on the same ground as the rest of us. Religion and other factors in your upbringing be damned. You're in the wrong and not only that, you're either balancing on the verge of or actually committing "hate crimes", depending on how far you take it.

I wonder if, 60 years from now, we'll all feel the same about people who hate homosexuals? Will we all be looking back on all this insanity and - quite frankly, stupidity - and say, "What the hell were we thinking?"

if a black couple wanted a grand poobah of the KKK to officiate at their wedding, I would wonder if they have holes in their heads - and I would feel it was the poohbah's right to decline the request to officiate. however, if a black couple wanted to buy a loaf of bread at his grocery store, I would rule he did not have the right to refuse.

it is a tricky balancing act - setting a line between one person's right to live their life as they choose and another person's right to live THEIR life as they choose. where is the point where one person imposes on another?

Some friends of mine had their wedding rehearsal dinner at a local pizza place, because it was where they went for their first date. But that was a special situation.

Considering how expensive wedding gowns are, and how expensive wedding gown cleaning can be, I'd have to wonder about any bride who picks something as potentially messy as pizza for the reception.

Reddit CEO Ellen Pao has implemented a new policy to supposedly help the company curb gender pay inequality.

Nobody will be able to negotiate pay raises. Your rate of pay will be fixed upon hiring, and you can't negotiate any higher.

The way she sees it, it's to protect women since women usually don't fare as well in salary negotiations.

The way most people with sense see it, she's declaring that women cannot handle negotiations on their own and interviewers can't be trusted to be gender-neutral.

Yeah - I'm done with Reddit until she's gone.

I think you need to read that again...

Nobody will be able to negotiate starting pay. The article says nothing about raises later on.

If you read the first study they link to in the article, you will see that women suffer a significantly higher social penalty if they ask for better compensation in a job interview situation than men do, meaning that if women try to negotiate their starting salary, they're less likely to be hired than men. Well, at least if the interviewer is male. The study seems to indicate that female interviewers are generally more resistant to hiring someone who asks for a higher starting salary/perks, regardless of the candidate's gender.

The study seems to indicate that, at least for men, our stereotypical views on how women should be can make us unwilling to hire an otherwise competent woman, simply because she asks for better compensation, while being perfectly willing to hire a man who asks for the exact same thing in the exact same way. If a man asks, he's just acting like we expect a man to act. If a woman asks, she's not acting like we expect a woman to act and is therefore seen as demanding and not a person we want to work with.

Setting the starting salary and making it known at or before the beginning of the interview that it's non-negotiable removes that disadvantage for women if the interviewer is male and at the same time ensures that men don't get a better starting salary, just because it's more socially acceptable for them to ask for it. In other words: You're paid what the job is worth, regardless of your gender.

If the interviewer is female, it removes that disadvantage for applicants of both sexes and, as a side bonus for the hiring company, it also quickly gets rid of the candidates who are not really interested in the job, but only in the salary (applicants who ask for better compensation, even though they've been told that starting salary is non-negotiable and applicants who feel the most important bit of information they can get out of the interview is when a raise can be expected after they've been hired).

Frankly, I don't see a problem with it. I've had plenty of jobs where the starting salary was non-negotiable, because the hiring company wanted to see results before throwing excessive amounts of money at new employees. What's wrong with earning your raises based on your work rather than your reputation? Also, if the guy (or gal) working next to me makes more money than I do, I'd feel a lot better about that if I know it's because he's good at his job and not just because he's a better negotiator than me.

Regardless of the cargo, does the company have any contingency plans in the case that a driver is overtaken by thieves, pirates, or terrorists? In some cases, it doesn't matter what you're hauling, all that matters is that the offending party sees that you come from a foreign country and they feel that gives them justifcation to stop your truck & do as they wish.

Does the company ever survey or recon potentially hazardous routes? Going from Turkey to Syria with the volatile climate of that region definitely poses certain risks regardless of who you are or what you're doing.

A little closer to home, cabdrivers in Chicago were refusing to service some areas of the city because robberies and murders of cabdrivers were extremely high in those areas. The city insisted that if the cabbies wouldn't service all areas of the city, they would lose their licenses. The cabbies responded that they would gladly service all areas of the city, but only if they had police escort in the high crime areas. The city won.

or deducted the cost of having an armed guard for those areas from their license fee...