by KateWild 176 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Its interesting that 'ex-Jws,' agree that its OK for Christians to discriminate against people whose lives are not in harmony with their 'rules,' and yet protest when the organisation of the JWs, discriminate against them and refuse 'religious' service and more.
Sounds like 'double standards' to me.
Homey,
It wouldn't be time wasted. I already knew you to be a right wing reactionary from your very first comment. Every comment since then has only confirmed. John Galt is simply more of the same. Hate is hate, regardless of how you cloak it. The Tea Party and those like them aren't islands unto themselves, and their 15 minutes of fame are fast fleeting. And there isn't a chance in hell you really have friends as you describe. They would see through your shallowness immediately.
Trying to link inclusiveness and an end to bigotry, prejudice and hatred with entrepreneurialship and freedom of expression and inventiveness is probably the most ridiculous thing you have inferred. And you have said a lot of stupid crap.
I want to respond to mrhhome's comment about having black friends and his reaction to the discrimination they faced. I believe that his beliefs are a good example of the cognizant dissonance that we so often associate with Jehovah's Witnesses: the holding of two beliefs that are contradictory. I don't expect mrhhome to agree with my finding, but that is how I see it. What is also clear to me is that mrhhome is a hard libertarian who believes that government influence in daily life should be pared down to an absolute minimum. That view has been around since the establishment of the American republic and has always had its supporters. I do not agree with this philosophy because I believe that it is a great enabler of evil. It promotes the idea that minorities should not be cared for and about unless they can secure political power for themselves. I am grateful that this is a minority view in this country.
Quendi
DJS Non-gay unmarried couples were refused a double room by the Guest House owners too. They weren't just 'singling out' gay couples only. Their reasons for refusal were 'religious grounds' in both situations. The gay couple were told all this and still sued them. Everyone else just found somewhere more 'liberal' to stay I suppose.
My point was indeed that 'religious convictions' cannot now be used as a defense in such cases. Serious life/career-changing stuff.
I love it when people say `some of my best friends are black `or `some of my best friends are gay` but then do not promote equality in various forms. I don’t want to get your back up Mrhome but I think Coftys question deserves an answer:
Should a shop have the right to put a "No blacks" sign in their window?
Abbas,
Thanks for the clarification. It isn't really a complicated issue. Governments and individuals/businesses have equal parts to play in a successful society. One shouldn't dominate the other, but inclusiveness has been proven best for a community, a nation and the planet. Exclusiveness, prejudice and hatred have proven very bad for our planet. If we are to thrive or even survive as a species, inclusiveness and an end to prejudice, hatred, and egoist behaviors has to occur. Llike it or not we are all in this together. In theory I am a Libertarian. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all do what we wanted. In reality nearly everything I do affects you and vice versa. To think otherwise is naive. None of that (end to prejudice, hatred, bigotry) has anything to do with individual rights, creativity, expression or entrepreurialship. They are mutually exclusve. The right wing reactionaries who act like they are linked insult all of us.
Another perspective on this thread, is that the homophobic attitudes of some is a mirror image of the rigid unthinking of some elders. They are incapable of independent thought (Yes, I know independent thinkers usually get kicked out of that organisation - been there, experienced that).
Even the Orthodox churches can demonstrate more crerative thinking than some posters here. Among the revered orthodox Christian figures of the past is a certain Theodore of Sykeon. Here's an extract from an essay I wrote on women in Byzantium, that deals with Theodore's family background. A certain poster here, seemingly would have this man's mother expelled from the church, and the boy shunned.
At a somewhat higher social level one woman, who seems to have been able to find space for independent action, was the mother of Theodore of Sykeon. Hegoumenos (Abbot) George, a near contemporary, wrote Theodore’s biography as a typical Byzantine hagiography, but provided an invaluable insight into the lives of ordinary Byzantine people, that may give reliable insights into the life of this family, as George does not bother to disguise the sex-for-sale activities of the women who owned this small inn. [1] Theodore was raised in this family of three women. His mother, Mary, her sister, Despoinia, and their mother Elpidia, all of them lived and worked together in the inn which was located on a busy highway running through a village named Sykeon. Their work included servicing their customer’s sexual needs, and one particular customer at the inn, a ‘well-known’ man named Cosmas, took a fancy to Mary and slept with her. A pregnancy resulted, accompanied, George explains, by divine signs and divinations indicating that the child would be a special one in the service of God. The resulting child is became the Christian Saint, Theodore.
We see in this text a mother’s hopes for her son, hoping that he may be able to gain entry into the Imperial administration. That goal meant that over the previous six years, Mary had been able to save enough money to buy the required special golden belt and expensive clothing to enable the lad to look the part. Divine intervention is described as intervening to stop that goal, and setting an alternative goal for the youngster in Christian service. But for Mary to afford a golden belt and special clothing, meant that the inn that provided the three women’s income must have prospered in the previous six years. Unmarried though they may have been, these women were industriousness and surely fitted the description of ‘excellent women’ in the view of King Lemuel. With this new goal of divine service for her son, Mary now set out to pay for an education for her son. [2]
Without a male head for their family, the women demonstrated that they could thrive, creating a space to achieve their own goals, and leaving the religious aspects to one side, we see a family of strong women, building their own prosperity, even if some of the income was from unconventional sources, from a moralistic viewpoint. Males may have had the final authority in Byzantine society, but these women were able to carve out their own space in which to live a moderately prosperous life, pursuing their own goals. [3]
It’s also interesting that in the highly religious Byzantine society when many of their contemporaries were seeking a life of sexual abstinence, these women were able to lead sexually active lives.
[1] Baynes, N.H., Ed. Three Byzantine Saints: Contemporary Biographies of St. Daniel the Stylite, St. Theodore of Sykeon and St. John the Almsgiver, trans. Elizabeth Dawes. Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University Website: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/theodore-sykeon.asp . Last accessed 27-10-2013.
[2] Ibid, section 6
[3] Cameron,A., The Byzantines, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, p.121
Moral self-righteousness is not an attractive quality.
mrhome wrote:
It is very disturbing that the courts are saying that one's sex life is more important than (a) the right to trade (or not) and (b) the freedom to act on your religious beliefs. ????
Given the choice between an individual's right over a business's right, I choose individuals. The supreme court has given too much power to corporations as it is. To where they can influence the political landscape to make things better for them, damn the people. Fear the corporations more than the government!
Furthermore, what if your religious beliefs say "kill the unbeliever"? Should people have the freedom to act on those beliefs? Or are other laws more important? Or is it only freedom to act on the same religious beliefs you value?
mrhome also wrote:
There was an interesting article published approximately one month ago. It showed that the number of new businesses in this country have been cut in half over the last 30 years. The more rules you impose on new businesses (especially one dictating who they need to serve and requiring that they ignore their religious beliefs), the more that they are going to stop serving the public.
There are several reasons for this having nothing to do with who they have to serve. First of all, that makes no sense. These business aren't starting because they might have to serve more people than they want to and make, (shudder) more profit?!? The audacity! How dare the government force us to make more money!
If you want to look at what is probably a primary reason for the lack of new businesses, look at the rise of super-stores like Walmart. They routinely put small businesses out of business when they roll into a town and make it hard for new businesses to start and/or compete. Perhaps if those large corporations were regulated better, they wouldn't threaten everybody else.
The reason business start or don't start is typically based on whether they can maintain a profit. In this case, a woman is refusing customers, which means refusing profit. It's also in the UK, not in the US, so talk of our laws and constitutional rights does not apply here.
mrhome wrote:
Once again, go ahead and cheer. You reap what you sow. What you are sowing is anarchy and tyrrany.
That's the same type of thing racists said when black people got equal rights.
Anarchy and tyranny because businesses that are open to the public must serve everyone, even *gasp* gay people? That is laughable.
The world will not end because society now accepts that some people are gay, and they have just as much right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as anyone else. What if the owner of the only grocery store in your town decided they couldn't serve right wing Christians? You would not think that right or fair, and rightly so, but you are OK with discrimination as long as it's someone that you don't like.
Gay people just want the same rights as everyone else, no more, no less. You don't have to like their life choices, just as they don't have to like yours, you just have to accept that they do have a right to make those choices.
jws and LisaRose,
Very good analysis. MrHome sounds like a shrieker, less sane version of the FoxNews talking heads. First the LGBT community is stalking him and now it is tyranny and anarchy because a business has to open itself up to more customers rather than fewer. I think it is time for me to end my participation in this discussion lest I violate one of my prime directives. Good luck to the rest of you; the discussion is clearly in capable hands. MrHomes is entrenched and irrational. But as Cofty has reminded me, lots of lurkers are benefitting from the discussion, so perhaps it hasn't been a waste of time. And Kate, thanks for starting this and then sitting and watching the conflagration. LOL. Brat. I hope you enjoyed the popcorn.
