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Someday you may be forced to do film work you don't want to do.


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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12 minutes ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

I propose that there is a difference between products offered and requests for special products.

This is what Chance doesn't seem to get. When I was a teenager, I worked at McDonalds. We had this 39 cent cheeseburger day and we would offset the cost of the cheap cheeseburgers by making them up in huge batches when things were slow so we could quickly get them out when things were busy.

Some savvy customers figured out that the cheeseburgers were not "made to order" and started to request special orders to get fresh ones made. Things like cheeseburger with no cheese, or no onions were common. Thing is, the manager said "no, we wont do that." Customers were angry as though they had a right to exactly what they wanted. That is when the manager said "this isn't Burger King; you don't get it your way. You take the cheeseburger as we made it or you go somewhere else"

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8 minutes ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

I propose that there is a difference between products offered and requests for special products. I don't have to make you a cake. But if I do make one that is offered to the public, I certainly should not have the right to refuse you that cake. Your $10 is as green as the next man's.

I have photos on Unsplash, for example. Anyone can use them. Private citizens or billion dollar corporations can take them and use them as they please. (In fact, one billion dollar corporation did use one of my photos, and it made my day!) It would be illegal and immoral to refuse someone that licence for any reason. However, if you asked me to take a photo of a cupcake with a candle on it, I could legally and morally refuse, and I don't have to give you a reason.

That's a fair example.

However, it is a more fuzzy area in the wedding case because the photographer is basically saying they will photograph any and all weddings unless the people getting married are gay.

Could the same exclusion be applied if the people getting married are Catholic? Or if it is an interracial couple? Or whatever other exclusion the photographer might want to make due to “religion”?

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7 minutes ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

This is what Chance doesn't seem to get.

I get it. The product in this case is “pictures of a wedding.” The photographer is taking pictures of a wedding. Unless that wedding is for a gay couple. Sale of the product is denied to gay people.

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3 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

I get it. The product in this case is “pictures of a wedding.” The photographer is taking pictures of a wedding. Unless that wedding is for a gay couple. Sale of the product is denied to gay people.

Maybe if you go into a store and see "Wedding" on the menu. But I assumed most businesses of this nature tend to contract by job? If so, the idea is pitched to the photographer and they decided whether to take it or not. Just like Karim said about the cake. If you have a cake that says "Happy Birthday" sitting in your bakery, sure, you must sell it to whomever comes through the door. But if you are asking someone for a custom job, I cannot imagine that they are legally required to honor your request.

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Obviously, the easiest way around this is to not offer blanket types of work and negotiate everything by job. The photographer should ask first about the nature of the job and, instead of declining outright, ask about when they need it done. If they don't want to do the work, play coy and say "sorry, I am booked up at that time."

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5 minutes ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

But I assumed most businesses of this nature tend to contract by job?

Yeah, I think this is the legal crux of the question — is the photography business more like a restaurant selling food to any and all paying customers, or is it more of a commissioned art kind of situation?

Obviously I can’t demand that an artist paint something for me for a price that I choose — there is going to be some negotiating to determine subject and cost.

But it would also be discriminatory for said artist to turn down a customer because of race, religion, etc. Yes, the artist could just say he is too busy for the job. But if he actually explains/admits to the customer that he is discriminating... I dunno, maybe that opens up a legal can of worms.

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4 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

But it would also be discriminatory for said artist to turn down a customer because of race, religion, etc. Yes, the artist could just say he is too busy for the job. But if he actually explains/admits to the customer that he is discriminating... I dunno, maybe that opens up a legal can of worms.

Maybe it will be like this legally. That should terrify people though. Discrimination is just a negative take on the word "discernment". If people in service jobs aren't allowed to discern the work they take then I worry that we will end up with a talent shortage in said fields.

I see a talent shortage already happening in academia due to too much regulation by government. People will opt out of certain fields if they believe the government is getting in their business too much. This hurts the economy as a whole. Not sure how things are where you are at but where I am at (Northern California), we have such a shortage of labor willing to take work that some businesses are shutting down just because they cannot find employees to do it. Not sure how they are supporting themselves but I admire anyone who will not be bullied into taking work they don't want.

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1 hour ago, Chance Shirley said:

Could the same exclusion be applied if the people getting married are Catholic? Or if it is an interracial couple? Or whatever other exclusion the photographer might want to make due to “religion”?

Yes, but as far as I can understand, legitimate discrimination goes in one direction only. I can't discriminate against you for your faith, but I can for the sake of mine, so to speak.

One of Jehovah's Witnesses can refuse to make you a custom birthday cake, because Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in birthdays, as they see it as an artefact of paganism (but then, much of the world is, so what can you do). But they can't refuse to sell you a can of beans if they were a cashier at a supermarket if you were openly pagan.

At the end of the day, free market economics makes all this redundant, and provides a bottom-up solution. If one baker won't bake you a cake, another one will, and they will probably get free and positive publicity for it. My personal take is for people to stop making themselves victims. Of course now I'm going beyond the OP.

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15 minutes ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

Yes, but as far as I can understand, legitimate discrimination goes in one direction only. I can't discriminate against you for your faith, but I can for the sake of mine, so to speak.

One of Jehovah's Witnesses can refuse to make you a custom birthday cake, because Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in birthdays, as they see it as an artefact of paganism (but then, much of the world is, so what can you do). But they can't refuse to sell you a can of beans if they were a cashier at a supermarket if you were openly pagan.

At the end of the day, free market economics makes all this redundant, and provides a bottom-up solution. If one baker won't bake you a cake, another one will, and they will probably get free and positive publicity for it. My personal take is for people to stop making themselves victims. Of course now I'm going beyond the OP.

I agree with your post but I think (I dont want to misquote so correct me if I am wrong) that Chance, Phil, and Uli are implying is that religion is a "cop out" or a way to legally justify bigotry. I am not sure how they come to this conclusion since the tenets of the major religions are widely available for all to view on the interwebs and these tenets largely predate modern institutions like photography, legalized gay weddings, or even the United States of America. But I cannot begrudge a person of the right to their opinion.

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26 minutes ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

I agree with your post but I think (I dont want to misquote so correct me if I am wrong) that Chance, Phil, and Uli are implying is that religion is a "cop out" or a way to legally justify bigotry.

I can’t speak for Phil or Uli, but yes I am saying using religion to justify bigotry is a cop out.

And if you don’t think that people will just make up a religion to justify bigotry, you should read up on the origin of the Southern Baptists in America.

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48 minutes ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

At the end of the day, free market economics makes all this redundant, and provides a bottom-up solution.

Sorry, but this just isn’t true. Unrestrained free market economics is how you end up with hazardous work situations and companies dumping poisonous waste into rivers and oceans. Heck, even with the government oversight we do have now, a lot of people are still stuck working hazardous jobs, and some companies are still improperly disposing of dangerous waste.

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58 minutes ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

My personal take is for people to stop making themselves victims. Of course now I'm going beyond the OP.

If a group of people is actually being denied their rights (even if it is something simple like getting photos of their wedding), expecting them to just shut up about it is unrealistic. It’s also bad for society. Gay people are dealing with even bigger discrimination than a-hole wedding photographers — in several U.S. states they can still be fired from a job just for being gay.

 

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51 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

I can’t speak for Phil or Uli, but yes I am saying using religion to justify bigotry is a cop out.

And if you don’t think that people will just make up a religion to justify bigotry, you should read up on the origin of the Southern Baptists in America.

Thank you for your honestly. In this case, I will just agree to disagree with you.

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40 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

I'm gonna assume Matthew hasn’t read up on the origin of the Southern Baptists in America.

Even if that were true, that is a ridiculously simplistic argument. "Because (member of set) X was formed due to Y, (every member of) X is always formed based on Y."

Logic not even once. Learn how logic is formulated before you resort to rudimentary rhetoric.

Edited by Matthew W. Phillips
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37 minutes ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

Even if that were true, that is a ridiculously simplistic argument. "Because (member of set) X was formed due to Y, (every member of) X is always formed based on Y."

Logic not even once. Learn how logic is formulated before you resort to rudimentary rhetoric.

1. It is true. Google it. Or go read about it at your local library.

2. I never said all religion was created as an excuse to oppress groups of people. But religion is literally used every day to oppress groups of people all over the world. You’ve heard about countries where women aren’t allowed to drive or go to school, right? The justification for that oppression is religion.

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28 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

2. I never said all religion was created as an excuse to oppress groups of people. But religion is literally used every day to oppress groups of people all over the world. You’ve heard about countries where women aren’t allowed to drive or go to school, right? The justification for that oppression is religion.

You do realize that using isolated incidence of truth is how prejudice happens, right? The irony of your logic is that it is the same logic that leads to the type of bigotry that you claim to be against.

Let me give you another example that I have heard that uses your logic: "Black people make up 50% of the prison population despite being only 13-14% of the population. Therefore, black people are criminals". I hope now that you can see the flaw in your reasoning?

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4 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

Unrestrained free market economics

Hold up. Hold up. I didn't say "unrestrained". I said, "free market economics". Everything works better with at least some boundaries. Those boundaries prevent extremes. This is about choice, not chaos. Let's not get nuts here.

4 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

If a group of people is actually being denied their rights (even if it is something simple like getting photos of their wedding), expecting them to just shut up about it is unrealistic. 

You should not shut up about injustice. But you should never allow yourself to be a victim.

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10 hours ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

You do realize that using isolated incidence of truth is how prejudice happens, right? The irony of your logic is that it is the same logic that leads to the type of bigotry that you claim to be against.

Let me give you another example that I have heard that uses your logic: "Black people make up 50% of the prison population despite being only 13-14% of the population. Therefore, black people are criminals". I hope now that you can see the flaw in your reasoning?

Look, dude. I am not here to abolish your religion, whatever it might be.

I’m just saying if a religion discriminates against gay people or women or people of color or whatever, then it is a bullshit religion.

And the laws in a country (that prides itself on separation of church and state) should protect people from being discriminated against by bullshit religions.

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7 hours ago, Max Field said:

THEY COULDN'T JUST LIE AND PRETEND THEY WERE TOO BUSY TO DO THE SHOOT????

Apparently some photographers think it is more important to tout their religion and harass gay people than it is to just professionally and politely turn down work.

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9 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

You should not shut up about injustice. But you should never allow yourself to be a victim.

Uh... I’m not sure how a victimized group is supposed to change that without first explaining “we are victims of injustice.”

And I don’t recall the free market doing much to solve social injustices of the past. One could argue that the big injustices (slavery, obviously, plus segregation later on) were caused by the free market. But hey, maybe I’m forgetting some example where the free market rushed in and saved the day.

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2 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

Apparently some photographers think it is more important to tout their religion and harass gay people than it is to just professionally and politely turn down work.

The problem there is if one has already accepted a job before finding something out about it that one does not like, which I suspect is something we've all hit, albeit in very different circumstances. Perhaps one could retroactively make some sort of excuse; depends on the circumstances.

From the other perspective, I can't say that I would have bothered to bring a court case about it. We've had several people turn up to this very forum looking to hire people based on their gender, which is illegal in a large majority of the places both the poster and anyone reading the post are likely to be. I can't say it ever occurred to me to instruct a solicitor, for the very good reason that doing so is not likely to change anyone's views and quite likely to entrench them. It's also a spectacular waste of the court's and my time and money under circumstances where what's really happened is that someone's been impolite to someone else - someone I've now no interest in dealing with anyway.

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