How does this happen? Chick-fil-A branded as anti-gay?

[giblets]

Oh no, half a cent from my purchase of a chicken sandwich may get donated to a quixotic effort to stop an already-largely-achieved attempt to legalize and normalize gay marriage. What shall I do? I know, I'll eat a chicken sandwich.

It's too bad "Chick-fil-A" has a monopoly on the chicken sandwich.

[Hauldren Collider]

Can someone explain to Elok that giving gay people equal marriage rights does not force churches to marry gay couples?

Can someone explain to you that this has nothing to do with the issue actually being discussed, you ****ing moron?

[Asher]

We enshrine some rights (speech) and leave others subject to balancing tests of various strengths (constructing buildings).

But you have tons of laws restricting speech. How can you have free speech if I'm not allowed to say what I want, when I want, how I want?

This is perfectly reasonable because some rights are genuinely more important than others.

Says who?

The right to marry your loved one and make medical decisions for them if they're incapacitated is far more important to me than the right for Chick-fil-A to sell **** in Boston.

1) The distinction is peculiar to the particular legal rights enshrined in our Constitution as inviolate. I don't have any particular objection to enshrining this one, either, but it isn't there right now and so it would be inconsistent with democracy for our judiciary to invent one.

This is pretty much exactly my point.

Americans conflate freedom with constitutional rights.

[Hauldren Collider]

The right to marry your loved one and make medical decisions for them if they're incapacitated is far more important to me than the right for Chick-fil-A to sell **** in Boston.

Noted: Asher would rather live in a dictatorship than a jurisdiction without gay marriage.

Or at least, he would rather strip away any semblance of free speech, just to have the courts sign off on some ****ing property rights.

[Asher]

Noted: Asher would rather live in a dictatorship than a jurisdiction without gay marriage.

I'm sad, HC. You still do not understand the argument.

But this is quite typical of debating with Americans about freedom. "If you're not aligned with our current constitutional laws, you support communism/dictatorships/etc".

Regulating who I can marry is far more of a potential example of a dictatorship than regulating where businesses operate is. I hold individual, personal rights as far more sacred than the rights to businesses.

We already regulate where businesses operate. I suppose any city which outlaws brothels are dictatorships, too.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Noted: Asher would rather live in a dictatorship than a jurisdiction without gay marriage.

HC would rather live in a dictatorship than a jurisdiction where a business can't set up shot whereever it pleases [/Asher]

Sounds about right either way.

[Hauldren Collider]

I'm sad, HC. You still do not understand the argument.

But this is quite typical of debating with Americans about freedom. "If you're not aligned with our current constitutional laws, you support communism/dictatorships/etc".

No, saying you oppose free speech means you support dictatorship.

Regulating who I can marry is far more of a potential example of a dictatorship than regulating where businesses operate is.

It's not regulating business, it's regulating speech. Chicago's actions are directly punitive to Chick Fil A, expressly for the reason that it says things that make them sad. That is not regulating business.

We already regulate where businesses operate. I suppose any city which outlaws brothels are dictatorships, too.

That's entirely different than selectively saying who can operate where based on their political leanings. We outlaw ALL brothels, not just the ones that support Barack Obama.

[MrFun]

Can someone explain to you that this has nothing to do with the issue actually being discussed, you ****ing moron?

Elok was the one who brought that bit up in his last post.

[Kuciwalker]

But you have tons of laws restricting speech. How can you have free speech if I'm not allowed to say what I want, when I want, how I want?

Many of those laws are of dubious constitutionality and I oppose them (because they are unconstitutional AND because I disagree with them). In other cases those laws don't actually impede speech in any meaningful way.

Says who?

Um, everyone? Do you really think that every single "right" I could write down is equally valuable?

The right to marry your loved one and make medical decisions for them if they're incapacitated is far more important to me than the right for Chick-fil-A to sell **** in Boston.

The latter speaks to a much more general right - the right to say what I believe even if it's unpopular.

More importantly, I didn't claim speech was less important than marriage. I claimed speech was less important than the right to construct buildings.

This is pretty much exactly my point.

Americans conflate freedom with constitutional rights.

Occasionally, but that's because the rights granted by our Constitution are generally the most important ones. For all of its flaws, our Constitution gets a lot of things right; it gets so many of them right that "unconstitutional" has become a watchword for bad policy.

[Asher]

No, saying you oppose free speech means you support dictatorship.

Since when did I say I oppose free speech? You're conflating the right for a city to regulate business with the right to freedom of speech.

Did I say the owners of Chick-fil-A should never be allowed to talk or something?

It's not regulating business, it's regulating speech. Chicago's actions are directly punitive to Chick Fil A, expressly for the reason that it says things that make them sad. That is not regulating business.

Yes, it is regulating business. Regulating speech would be the city forbidding the owners to espouse their Christian views. No one is stopping them.

People can say what they want, I can do what I want. If you come into my shop and tell me I'm going to hell because I'm gay, I'm going to kick you out. I'm not restricting your freedom of speech, I'm exercising my freedom to restrict who can be on my property.

[MrFun]

Since when did I say I oppose free speech?

(devil's advocate) In other past threads, you have expressed full support for Canada's laws suppressing hate speech.

[Asher]

The latter speaks to a much more general right - the right to say what I believe even if it's unpopular.

No one is stopping them from saying what they want to say.

Why is it an example of freedom to be able to say what they want to say, but not an example of freedom to react to what they say?

If somebody comes on your property and insults you endlessly, are you not infringing on his freedom of speech if you kick him off for it?

[MrFun]

CFA executives have the freedom to say whatever they want and publicly declare whatever they want. But practicing that right is not without positive or negative consequences.

[Asher]

(devil's advocate) In other past threads, you have expressed full support for Canada's laws suppressing hate speech.

No one supports true "free speech" except for extremists. There are tons of free speech limits in the US and Canada.

Canada happens to have one where inciting violence against an identifiable minority group is not permitted. I do support that.

I also support slander, libel, public-panic, etc laws. So do most Americans. Most Americans, therefore, oppose free speech. Right?

[MrFun]

I'm agreeing with you on your distinctions in regard to different forms of free speech. I just thought I'd play devil's advocate, since I thought someone else was bound to bring it up anyway.