@LasMa Most restrooms do indeed have private stalls, but there have been efforts to require locker and dressing rooms to admit anyone who happens to “identify” as that sex on any particular day. Locker rooms do have limited privacy, and absent the NC law any male student could use a female locker room, wave his genitals around and ogle the girls, and be guilty of no crime. Most people don’t want this, which is why these laws were passed. Most girls not employed at strip clubs don’t want to get naked with some guy around looking at them.
"Rather, the better argument is that it would violate the baker’s free speech rights to require her to transmit a message with which she disagrees. "
Yes. This is exactly what all of you who were conflating “discrimination against gays” with refusing to put a message on the cake were missing. The baker who doesn’t want to put Happy Wedding Day Mary and Sue when Mary comes in the shop also doesn’t want to put that message on when Mary’s straight sister Mimi walks in the door because she’s been put in charge of the cake buying for Mary and Sue’s event. Just like in my hypothetical bakery I ain’t ever putting a swastika or Confederate flag on a cake.
Hunt, is it a normal thing there for guys to be checking out other guys’ junk?
Imagine this hypothetical: An African-American person comes into a bakery, and asks for a cake that says “Black Lives Matter” to be shared at a meeting. The baker says, “I don’t agree with that message. I will make you a cake that says “All Lives Matter,” or I will sell you a blank cake and icing.” Has the baker discriminated against the customer on the basis of race? If you think this is an easy case, think some more.
Today I learned that because some guys can’t keep their eyes to themselves, trans people should be forced to go into a bathroom they’re not comfortable with. 8-|
This has been the legal situation for years. It is interesting that this law is suddenly necessary now, when transgender people have suddenly become of point of national discussion. It seems deeply disturbing that this clearly widespread and harrowing situation has been ignored for years.
'I agree with the result in the Colorado case, but not with the reasoning. “Derogatory” is a pretty vague term. Rather, the better argument is that it would violate the baker’s free speech rights to require her to transmit a message with which she disagrees. What if the guy goes in next week and asks for a cake that says, “Marriage should be between one man and one woman.” Is that “derogatory?”"
Perhaps they didn’t need to use that reasoning in this case since it was quite cut and dried, IMO.
I doubt your example would have the same ruling and I would expect a baker to have to inscribe a cake with “Marriage should be between two people of any gender.”
We all know that what people who were born with male genitals but identify as female are just dying to do is head into the ladies locker room and wave their junk around.
Sheesh…
Not comfortable with? Because they find the other one icky?
In prior years, it would have been dealt with by the people involved (or their dads).
Are you ok with “have to?”
A baker could certainly make it a policy not to inscribe any political messages on cakes.
No one without a penis is going to use those, though, and little girls won’t be exposed to anything in a men’s room because they won’t be in there.
"Are you ok with “have to?”
Yes I am.
Personally, I would not want to see nude women in the men’s locker room at my gym. I would be very embarrassed, and I wouldn’t want to undress in front of them. Would their presence be “harm” to me? I think so, because I have an expectation of a certain kind of privacy in the locker room. Now, is the situation different if there is a nude person in the men’s locker room who appears to be a woman, but is actually a man? Perhaps it is, if I know in advance that this individual is a man.
But let’s face it: this is much more about the presence of male anatomy in women’s bathrooms, or even more, in women’s locker rooms. Let’s say everybody accepts, at least for the sake of argument, that some women have penises. Does anybody have a privacy right to be protected from seeing those penises? I would argue that at least in our culture, a reasonable expectation of privacy in a locker room designated for women would be that one would not see penises. So, this is why I think the compromise mentioned above is reasonable:
Are there people here who think a compromise of this sort is unreasonable? If so, why?
I completely respect your honesty.
I’m not comfortable with force.
I think the problem here (pivoting away from Emilybee to just making a comment) is that both “sides” are so ideologically committed for various reasons that even reasonable compromise isn’t possible, and I would argue that each end of the spectrum is the religion of its holder. The people who don’t want to reasonably accommodate those who hold different views are doing several things, including virtue signaling and attempting to impose their will upon those whom they despise. Some of it is sincerely held belief, but by absolutely no means all. I think it’s hard to get to a workable solution from there. When your position is “my way or I will grind you into the dust” or “because I hate you and am better than you,” there isn’t much room for solving any problem.
Why do so many on theirs thread keep creating narrative that fits your agenda, instead of dealing with the issue at hand? Quite fascinating to see, which tells me you see the flaw in your augments because you refuse the address the most vexing issue for what it is.
The simple fact is the vast majority of locker rooms are not age-limited. Young boys are not adults, and this idea that just guys cannot keep their eyes to themselves is a silly adult argument pertaining only to an adult situation because young girls cannot keep their eyes to themselves either. What some want to happen here is any adult can be nude in any locker room facility regardless of the age and sex of the occupants involved. Deal with that issue which is what many parents see as the socially damaging aspect to this.
As one Dad to the manager of the facility I mentioned earlier, which was the turning point to change the policy, was this (paraphrased), “For my young daughter to be in the locker room and turn around and be presented with an adult penis in her face is obscene. Hey, [blank] head, she is 6 years-old for God’s sake.” That is all it took for the manager to realize that what happened was just a bridge too far for many people. (I add, the same would go for young boys exposed to full grown female body parts as well).
If people want to expose their minors to such things, they can - have bathrooms and facilities where hey can do as much. However, forcing other people’s kids to be exposed to such things is the problem. I know if I had young girls that I would not allow them in a locker room with full grown anatomical males, much less nude ones. You are free to choose differently, but to try and force my young girls to live by your beliefs is where it ends.
I have been in hundreds of lockers rooms and most lockers rooms at gyms and schools and colleges and YMCAs etc. are rather open facilities with communal showers, and the area to change ones clothes next to the lockers are wide open for all to see everyone with lockers adjacent to each other. No private area anywhere in sight, except the bathroom stalls. Not sure why the fact is being skirted here as well.
I’m sure the people who ordered a cake that says God hates gays where not harmed by not getting a cake, but wedding cakes are expected as part of a wedding. If I live in a rural community and the only baker willing to make my cake is 100 miles away, this inconvenience is undue harm.
Because. Religion.
Because the real issue isn’t trans people. They are the most respectful and sensitive people to others. The issue is the pervs and creeps who use the genuine needs of trans people to weasel in and misbehave. It’s an unintended consequence that would require thoughtful honesty and compromise on both sides, and that ain’t happening!
The question is who gets to decide who is harmed and who isn’t.
@Sue22 The problem is that perverts can do this and on arrest claim that they identified as a woman that day. It makes them absolutely immune from prosecution. Perverts do want to go in the ladies room and wave their genitals around.
Well, I’m not OK with laws that compel expression. Just because you make your services available to the public doesn’t mean you lose all claim on private moral reasoning – not that I think there is anything particularly moral about bigotry against gays.
Just because I agree to make custom cakes, cards, or portraits shouldn’t mean I have to accept every commission. Since wedding cakes don’t generally involve written messages – and even if they did it would be a real stretch to read “Congrats Jane and Mary” as an expressive act – I actually do think the baker should be required to make the cake for the gay couple. But even if gays are universally treated as a protected class (and I think they should be), I don’t think that overrides the vendors’ freedom in every single case.
Again, the difference between this and Jim Crow segregation comes down, to me, to the scope. Pre civil-rights era Segregation was rampant and pervasive, affecting practically every aspect of African-Americans daily lives. That strikes me as a compelling enough reason to override a business owner’s ordinary expectation of relative autonomy in his or her own premises. Today,even most people making religious freedom claims aren’t arguing that owners should be able to refuse service to a gay couple that comes into their restaurant or hotel, or tell them they can’t buy milk at the local convenience store. They are saying that in a few very specific circumstances, they won’t participate in an activity that they see (not entirely unreasonably) as a compelled endorsement of gay rights more generally.
Private rights should only be abrogated in the case of a compelling government interest. Ensuring that a class of people cannot be made second-class citizens is a compelling government interest. Ensuring that gay people can have their pick of wedding caterers and portrait painters is not, no matter how hurtful a denial of service might be. There are plenty of intensely hurtful things that have no legal remedy.