Fair enough. Good week to you too.

My thoughts:

1) Emotionally invest in people. This can be the people at work, the people that you see occasionally in your community, etc. We seem to be in a point in time where we are so inundated with what is going on in everyone else's lives, we have a hard time really caring about people. Seek to share moments of joy/grief/fun/frustration with people. This is something that is rare today, and doing this will demonstrate love as well as anything else you have in your quiver. For a personal example, my wife and I have developed a relationship with the produce guy at our local Kroger's who we see every Saturday morning. We know about his story, his kids, his belated wife, etc. Has been a great opportunity to connect.

2) Serve. Get out there and do something good. Not only will the people that you help notice, but others will see you live up to your priorities. Whether it be something structured like volunteer work, or more spontaneous like helping someone stranded on the side of the road, help people.

3) Spiritual speech. There is nothing wrong with peppering your talk with spiritual speech. Replace the word lucky with blessed. Replace the word hope with faith. Talk about your church as something that is normal in people's lives. You don't have to be smothering with it, but you can be politely overt about your spirituality.

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GHL's overconfidence that he is right, we are wrong, and that it should be acceptable for him to relentlessly berate those with the 'wrong' beliefs comes off sounding outright rotten and utterly disrespectful.

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Just to be fair, this works both ways.

Not too many people that respectfully accept my belief that homosexuality is immoral and bad for society, even if I do not say anything rude about homosexual people. The very fact that I hold such a belief is considered rude, and worthy of berating.

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GHL's overconfidence that he is right, we are wrong, and that it should be acceptable for him to relentlessly berate those with the 'wrong' beliefs comes off sounding outright rotten and utterly disrespectful.

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Just to be fair, this works both ways.

Not too many people that respectfully accept my belief that homosexuality is immoral and bad for society, even if I do not say anything rude about homosexual people. The very fact that I hold such a belief is considered rude, and worthy of berating.

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Absolutely true, but if I could take some exception to your choice of words: I do not respectfully accept your belief that homosexuality is immoral or bad for society. I do respect you as an individual and I respect your right to believe homosexuality is immoral or bad for society. I think that distinction is important.

I do not believe in attacking people for their beliefs. . . . but their beliefs are fair game for doubt, criticism, condemnation, and sometimes ridicule. If I criticize of your belief or do not acceptance your belief of something, I do not feel that should be taken as a personal attack.

As an additional side note, while I do respect your right to believe that homosexuality is a sin, I do not respect your right to deny any legal rights to homosexuals. I also respect the right of the racist to hate different races, but I do not respect their right to deny rights to other races. I respect the right of the anti-semite to hate Jews, but I do not respect their right to deny rights to Jews. Denial of individual rights by one individual to another is something I believe to be immoral.

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GHL's overconfidence that he is right, we are wrong, and that it should be acceptable for him to relentlessly berate those with the 'wrong' beliefs comes off sounding outright rotten and utterly disrespectful.

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Just to be fair, this works both ways.

Not too many people that respectfully accept my belief that homosexuality is immoral and bad for society, even if I do not say anything rude about homosexual people. The very fact that I hold such a belief is considered rude, and worthy of berating.

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Absolutely true, but if I could take some exception to your choice of words: I do not respectfully accept your belief that homosexuality is immoral or bad for society. I do respect you as an individual and I respect your right to believe homosexuality is immoral or bad for society. I think that distinction is important.

I do not believe in attacking people for their beliefs. . . . but their beliefs are fair game for doubt, criticism, condemnation, and sometimes ridicule. If I criticize of your belief or do not acceptance your belief of something, I do not feel that should be taken as a personal attack.

As an additional side note, while I do respect your right to believe that homosexuality is a sin, I do not respect your right to deny any legal rights to homosexuals. I also respect the right of the racist to hate different races, but I do not respect their right to deny rights to other races. I respect the right of the anti-semite to hate Jews, but I do not respect their right to deny rights to Jews. Denial of individual rights by one individual to another is something I believe to be immoral.

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This is all non-controversial, and I agree with your point about a difference between accepting my belief and respecting me as a person.

My point that society has changed to the point where my belief is worthy of ridicule and berating is still valid. The culture has decided that I am wrong about homosexuality being immoral, and many people are very confident of that position.

I'm bad at remembering each posters positions - do you support equal rights for gays but maintain the position that it is immoral?

The human species has a bad habit of treating others poorly when they feel they have the moral high ground and the power to take action. I think it is dangerous when that morality is supposedly divine and when it's secular. I know I have a bias toward more readily calling foul on the religious for imposition of morality, but I recognize it can go both ways.

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As an additional side note, while I do respect your right to believe that homosexuality is a sin, I do not respect your right to deny any legal rights to homosexuals.

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I agree in principle. The problem is that there is far too much disagreement on what constitutes a "legal right". A wedding cake? Floral arrangements?

AggieUSMC said:

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As an additional side note, while I do respect your right to believe that homosexuality is a sin, I do not respect your right to deny any legal rights to homosexuals.

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I agree in principle. The problem is that there is far too much disagreement on what constitutes a "legal right". A wedding cake? Floral arrangements?

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Ignoring public accommodation laws for the first part of this response, because I think there is a valid argument against them, should gays have the right to get married, enjoy the same tax status, get visitation rights, etc? Or should the federal government be permitted, in your opinion, to openly discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation?

With respect to accommodation laws - I don't love them either, but it seems to me that if you truly oppose them, then you support the right of private businesses to deny service to anyone openly based on their skin color, gender, religion, heritage, eye color, alma mater, whatever. And I'm not necessarily dogging on that position, I think there is merit to it - but I think it's got to be a consistent position. It can't be legal to discriminate against gays and illegal to discriminate against someone's race.

I agree that what constitutes 'legal right' may be debatable. But, whatever we decide is a legal right has to be applied equally to everyone, no?

Is a tax break a legal right? This is dubious ground at best.

k2aggie07 said:

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Is a tax break a legal right? This is dubious ground at best.

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That's not at all my point. My point is about consistent application of 'legal right' once we determine what constitutes a legal right. . . Or legal incentive. . .

kurt vonnegut said:

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Ignoring public accommodation laws for the first part of this response, because I think there is a valid argument against them, should gays have the right to get married, enjoy the same tax status, get visitation rights, etc? Or should the federal government be permitted, in your opinion, to openly discriminate against people because of their sexual orientation?

With respect to accommodation laws - I don't love them either, but it seems to me that if you truly oppose them, then you support the right of private businesses to deny service to anyone openly based on their skin color, gender, religion, heritage, eye color, alma mater, whatever. And I'm not necessarily dogging on that position, I think there is merit to it - but I think it's got to be a consistent position. It can't be legal to discriminate against gays and illegal to discriminate against someone's race.

I agree that what constitutes 'legal right' may be debatable. But, whatever we decide is a legal right has to be applied equally to everyone, no?

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My stance on this has evolved over the last year, to where I think the more appropriate place to make a distinction is the "public accommodation" piece of the laws. If I operate a business that is open to the public to freely come and go and utilize that service, such as a restaurant, I don't get to discriminate. If however I am doing contract work, such as a florist or a wedding cake baker, that is not a public service, and I reserve the right to refuse to take a contract for any reason whatsoever. So as a baker, I can't stop someone from coming into my store and buying a cake that's sitting on the shelf, but I can refuse to make a custom cake because that is contract work and not part of my "public accommodations". I feel that this is a reasonable compromise to all parties.

As a side note though, if we are going to say that a proprietor of a "public accommodation" doesn't have full control over his establishment to tell people to leave, I don't see where we can turn around and defend their right as a private business owner to discriminate against my 2nd amendment right and my legally carried firearm. To me it seems we get into murky water when we start trying to define what someone can and cannot discriminate based on.

Man, it's pretty awesome how Locke included the right to be free from discrimination in life, liberty, and property.

maybe this is just from my ignorance of Locke, but can you explain how this applies to what I said? I don't follow what you are trying to get at.

Because you're readily willing to subordinate property rights to a vague and nebulous right to not be discriminated against. Even as an anti-modernist who more or less rejects the principles of the enlightenment (yes, this is red meat) I'm uncomfortable with this train of thought.

Put another way - if this is right and well and good to you (discrimination trumps property) then the argument is moot, null, and void regarding any other right (natural or legal). Life, liberty, property are the three foundations. Everything else comes from there.

So your stance is that all discrimination should be allowed in the case of private property?

Just want to make sure i understand you before I respond.

I'm making no stance at this point.

It's just shocking to me sometimes that the conservative movement in this country has been drug so far "progressive" from it's roots. The classical liberal mindset that so many claim to have has eroded so badly that a basic philosophical mistake is blase. I saw on AO recently a person staunchly oppose Hillary to protect "the freedoms granted to us by our constitution".

I don't really mind what position you have on public accommodation laws; I'm not sure I have a well developed stance (or that I care enough to spend the effort to do so). It's more concerning to me that I suspect you don't realize that the position you're coming from is more or less fatally flawed with regard to the founding principals that you're loosely basing your position on.

It's like watching someone play jenga, except the blocks you're pulling are foundational.

kurt vonnegut said:

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That's not at all my point. My point is about consistent application of 'legal right' once we determine what constitutes a legal right. . . Or legal incentive.

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There's no determination to be made. A legal right is any right granted by law. This is every right that is not a natural right or human right.

If this is troubling, it should be - because what it means is that any right not a natural or human right is not absolute and is therefore subject to the whims of the law. Cake, marriage, whatever you want to discuss is up for debate. Even the standard for consistent application is subjective based on law and the interpretation of the law.

That's the whole reason for the very concept of natural law. We have natural rights as humans, and therefore we can only give over to others the power which we have over ourselves (Locke's argument against contracted slavery is this - "Nobody can give more power than he has himself, and he that cannot take away his own life cannot give another power over it."). So, we have control over things, and we cede this power to society / the commonwealth by social contract.

Life, liberty, property. Everything else is negotiable for the greater good.

The argument, then, for any legal right must and always should be rooted in the common good, and must not violate the natural rights of man.

Or so the classical liberal position would say.