Censorship

I would say I can infucence people, but not control them...but we're getting into semantics here

 

Yeah, a private bookstore can carry whatever they want. A public library can make considerations based on space and other practical considerations, but they're not supposed to reject a book based on subject matter (except in the case of obscenity, where they can do it). Even in the case of school libraries (also public), the Supreme Court has ruled that the 1st Amendment applies and limits the abilities of the school libraries to remove books based on subject matter.

 

People censure themselves based on who they are around. No one believes in disliking censorship in all cases.

If someone took a violent element in my book and did it themselves, I'd like to meet them and ask them how the hell they did that.

My book is urban fantasy. Any violence has a hint of fantasy to it more than reality.

 

All my below statements are intended with due respect and not meant to offend anyone.

I am neither a homophobe nor a racist.

However, I also believe firmly in individual rights for ALL people involved, not just for certain groups.

People of all different races, sexual orientations and religions are allowed to be themselves in our society and live as they want (for the most part), as it should be. I also believe that such rights should extend to the owners of Peerie Pict's exemplified hotel.

The entire point of business and economics is *voluntary* exchange. If we were talking about a government agency or a space on a park or sidewalk, of course no one should be able to exclude others from coming in. However, the fact here is that this is a PRIVATE enterprise.

When you walk into a business, no one is (or should be) forcing you to do anything. You aren't checking your rights at the door. It is 100 percent voluntary. Business is run by mutual consent, so business conflicts should be handled without government getting involved.

No matter how much I might disagree with someone barring someone else from using their hotel over personal differences, as long as the couple runs the business, it's their right.

Business works according to the laws of supply and demand. If word gets out that the hotel owners are discriminatory or bigoted, people will protest. People will find other places to stay. Word will get out.

This -- the natural free market solution -- will fix the problem. A damaged reputation will harm their business. It's a consequence of their actions. We shouldn't cry running to the government asking them to punish the hotel owners.

Again, I'm not discriminatory in any way I can think of. I just advocate for natural consequences via reputation and business effects, not government intervention.

 

Totally agree with that.

But I don't think anyone should feel the need to explain, almost apologise for what they are about to say. I know why you did. There is reverse discrimination now where if you don't toe the line and fall in with the most liberal of views, you are out of line.

And that is censorship.

 

^^^

That's all very noble Mallory and I respect what you say as it works splendidly in theory but think about it from the perspective of legislators. How are we supposed to legislate anti-discrimination laws for government and large organisations and at the same time allow opt outs for everyone else? In a perfect world anyone would be able to reject anyone for being gay, right? Or for example, to ban wheelchair users for making their establishment 'look bad' or because they think disabled people 'scare customers'. Believe me, that excuse has been made in the real world and I think it's incredibly naive to think that these laws are the heavy hand of state intervention. They are designed to address widespread and decisive inequality caused by actual evidence of discrimination. If you need evidence that discrimination exists I can give you sources that would put it beyond doubt for you. Perhaps you guys need to spend a bit more time talking to people who have actually been on the receiving end of discriminatory and unjust policies. Without laws to address this, society would regress back 50 years, where excluding people based on sexuality, race, gender - would have been widely accepted. Even with The Equal Pay Act - in the UK women are paid on average 15-20% less for the same job as a man.

If you let a hotel owner ban a couple based on their sexuality, you set a precedent for huge orgs like Starbucks (for example) being able to reject people for some other arbitrary reason. Just because the hotel owners are small fry doesn't mean they get away with breaking the law.

Evelon if you think people like me are responsible for others feeling like they have to 'self censor' in order to get their views across, I think you are mistaken. Like Mallory, I'm talking about something I feel very passionate about as I do believe in equality. I also think equality isn't achieved from resting on our laurels and thinking the market economy will help us achieve it. Look where the unbridled and unregulated market got our economies.

This isn't liberal nonsense, it's practical and fair regulation of provision of services to try and ensure the most people in society can participate as widely as possible. Where's the problem?? I have a genuinely hard time understanding people who don't like this verdict, although I know they are in the minority. Still, it's no less baffling.

As for censorship of literature which might be used as a manifesto for violence, I don't think there's any case for it.

 

I think a lot of people forget that free speech is a two-way street. Of course people should be allowed to express themselves, speak freely, criticise governments; but they also have to accept that they may be the target of that same open criticism. I loathe the Westboro baptists, but the law they rushed through banning protests near burials is tantamount to censorship, and not thought through at all. If we're to tolerate progressive free speech, we have to be willing to accept that there will be bigoted free speech too. Silencing these voices with acts of censorship isn't a viable answer.

Of course, legitimate hate speech is something else entirely. Saying 'homosexuality is immoral' is (IMO) bigoted, but people are entitled to these kinds of opinions. Saying 'homosexuals should be killed' is hate speech, and should be abolished by any means necessary.

 

The reason I tend to think it is bigoted is because I'm not a Christian. It's not because I'm anti-Christian at all. It's a genuine inability to feel any affinity to it.

The only thing that matters for me is inequality. It probably matters more to me than God does to a lot of 'Christians' - My ideology/beliefs are outraged by people being excluded on the basis of something that is very much outwith their control. Just as much as a Christian might think it's immoral to be gay. The fact that it's Christians doing the excluding is irrelevant. It could just as easily be the BNP, a racist organisation, any large organisation/any small business.

I think it's a shame to have this decisive argument because not all Christians would seek to exclude homosexuals. Even the Church is moving on and trying to be more inclusive. I think it does Christians a disservice thinking they are all like the B&B owners.

What bothers me is when Christians bring their belief system into the public domain and tell people how to live their lives. That's my take on the B&B exclusion - they were on a crusade to make their views known publicly. Nobody is saying that Christians shouldn't be able to think homosexuality is immoral. We're saying that the laws of discrimination apply to them too.

 

I can call it bigoted; what I can't, and shouldn't be able to do is stop them from saying it just because I feel that way. I would fight tooth and nail for their right to believe whatever they want to believe, whether or not it agrees with what I believe. That's why I'm opposed to censorship. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear in the original post.

 

I wasn't banging the drum for Christians. And don't think it's only Christians who have the opinions that homosexuality is wrong. I know a few, not many, but enough people who are not Christians, but share that same opinion. And I know a lot of Christians who are welcoming of all people and all ways of life.

Yes, I agree with you that some Christians try to force religion onto people.

You may be right about the B&B couple being on a crusade. I don't know. But I back their if not legal, at least moral right to stand up for what they believe in.

Please don't come back at me with 'what about if they had been black' that's a totally different scenario. Totally different circumstances.

 

I wasn't going to come back with anything but since you brought it up, I'm curious to know what you think the difference is.

 

You can call it bigoted, I never said you couldn't. I said that to call one opinion bigoted because it didn't agree with yours, is in itself bigoted.

And I agree with what you say. Freedom is freedom for everyone, regardless of their views being different from the majority.

 

This is, quite frankly, ridiculous. If we don't admit of a universal (or at least cultural) moral standard, then there is no basis for moral judgements of any kind. I believe that labelling homosexuality immoral (and other discriminatory beliefs) are bigoted because they are contrary to what I believe are the dominant moral principles in our society. It's not bigoted because I disagree with it, it's bigoted because it runs contrary to social morality, not to mention common sense.

Morality is best thought of as a set of facts relating to the welfare of a society; in this way, there can be absolute, though not necessarily exclusive, moral truths. Since there is no scenario I can imagine, supportable by any kind of actual evidence, where homosexuality is damaging to the morality of a society, I must inevitably find that belief to be ignorant of moral truth, and thus bigoted. The same would not be true, for instance, of a difference of opinion over, say, political affiliation. Just because someone doesn't share my left-leaning viewpoint, doesn't necessarily mean they are bigoted. The accusation of bigotry isn't based merely on a difference of individual opinion but of an appraisal of objective social morality and the belief's relation to it.

 

Historically coloured people have been judged by the colour of the skin. Without any credence or consideration given to their beliefs, their character, their way of life, their abilities.

A snap judgment made by colour alone. It's been a case of excluding black people because they are black.

The B&B couple didn't make a judgement on appearance, but on lifestyle, sexual preferences. What they may actually be doing while they were under their roof.

Homosexuality may not be a choice any more than a black man chooses to be black. But they are a known. The couple knew something about them, if it was only to do with their sex life. They didn't make a decision based on nothing more than outward appearance.

I'm sorry if you don't see the difference.

 

It is no different. Think about it.

The dominant moral principles in our (in a) society do not equate with a universal moral standard. Which is to say, that if you were having this argument eighty years ago - by this reckoning - you would not have been justified in calling homophobes, 'bigots'.

This is difficult territory. I would not have liked to have been the judge on this matter. But what is clear, is that if you follow any set of principles in a dogmatic and rigid fashion you will likely often find yourself coutenancing things against which your heart screams 'no.'

 

An aversion to anal sex is not the reason homosexuals are discriminated against, especially not by Christians. It's the same arbitrary, misinformed hatred that was expressed against Black people, women, communists, virtually any minority group imaginable. Different=wrong. It's bull****, indefensible and totally immoral.

 

For sure, but that also presumes that all moralities are equal. I think most people would agree that our society today is a more moral, just and fair one than the society of eighty years ago, where women, blacks and gays were all oppressed. If you humour me and go along with the view that morality can be viewed as an objective set of facts, then it's clear that morality can move towards a certain ideal, or move away from it. Cultural morality does not necessarily reflect this objective morality, I'm sorry if it seemed I was suggesting that, I simply included (at least) cultural morality to show that there has to be a standard with which to make moral judgements.

The fact that the bible condemns homosexuality throws up a whole raft of other, more intricate (and probably not suitable for these peaceful forums) questions about whether or not religious beliefs should always be arbitrarily respected.

 

Heh, some people may actually favour a restaurant with a sign like that.

I think discrimination is often a result of the wish to preserve a certain order to one's life. Women start working outside the home - the lives of traditional men, where they are the sole family provider, get upset. Black people move in to a rich neighbourhood - people get afraid that their own social status will be diminished. Communists start waving their pamplets - people get afraid that their property will be confiscated. Homosexuals start becoming publicly visible - traditional Christians become afraid that the holy institution of marriage will be weakened. A pedophile moves into the neighbourhood - people get afraid she will start raping their children.

The thoroughly racist South Africa didn't try to exterminate or expel the black population - it was perfectly happy to let them work as janitors and housecleaners for the white middle class. They didn't have anything against black people as long as they provided cheap labour and didn't try to mix with the white population - i.e, as long as they didn't upset the comfortable and simple order the white population was used to.

 

This absolutely extraordinary and I feel completely vindicated regarding my views on widespread prejudice. Evelon you don't even seem like a particularly bad person and you're taking large leaps to try to have a coherent world view which seeks to include some in your moral 'code' yet exclude others. Spot the difference:

"Historically coloured people have been judged by the colour of the skin. Without any credence or consideration given to their beliefs, their character, their way of life, their abilities."

AND

"Historically homosexuals people have been judged by their sexuality. Without any credence or consideration given to their beliefs, their character, their way of life, their abilities."

Talking about moral equivalency - how can you take two morally identical situations and distinguish them? Because the Bible tells you to?

My sister is a teacher of 11 - 17 year olds in a subject called Modern Studies. She teaches citizenry, politics and sociology. She'd be shocked even for a child to come into her class with these prehistoric views.

 

This is veering towards potentially dangerous territory. This is a divisive issue, and peoples thoughts are potentially going to cause offence to others of different views. Without wishing to favour any particular side, I'd ask that you take your time replying to posts, and please be careful in your use of language.


I don't really want to, but I will shut this thread down if it starts to explode.

 

There is a difference between judging someone on looks alone, and judging them by the way they live their lives. As far as I know, homosexuals are not judged by their abilities or their characters - and they shouldn't be.

If you judge homosexuality as wrong, you do so because you don't believe in that way of life - o.k. it's not 'whole life' but it's an aspect of life.

The Bible doesn't tell me anything. I don't read it. I have never classed myself as a Christian. I am not homophobic - or any other phobic. But I stand by the rights of people, whether Christians or not, to defend their of morals.

I hope that your sister also teaches the children in her charge to appreciate that everyone has views and most of them should be respected.

My grandchildren are teenagers. They too are tolerant of all aspects of society - because, as a family we all are. Most teachings come from the home, not from the classroom.

 

Sorry Banzai. I am having a really tough time here keeping a lid on it. Nothing I said here is intended to be inflammatory.

I think I'll go out for some fresh air. This is stifling.

 

This is precisely what we're getting at. What is the difference, in your view, between a homosexual and a heterosexual person? Because, by definition, there's only one, and it's as superficial as the colour of someone's skin.