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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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27 minutes ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

Nope...it was California. Yes, the liberal paradise twice voted to ban gay marriage. 

Dude, I live in Alabama. You can talk all the shit you want about California. California ain’t got nothing on Alabama when it comes to being awful.

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30 minutes ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

It may not move as fast as you want but it does work.

Ask your trans friends or your gay friends why they are so impatient about waiting on the courts to deliver justice.

That’s not even snark. I promise you they can answer that question a lot better than I can.

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43 minutes ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

Do you care to ask the biological women what they think of biological men using their restroom?

This is actually a good point. It illustrates that a lot of these anti-trans bathroom laws are unenforceable (because who is inspecting genitals in a public restroom?) and are just on the books to bully trans people. The cruelty is the point.

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7 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

Ask your trans friends or your gay friends why they are so impatient about waiting on the courts to deliver justice.

That’s not even snark. I promise you they can answer that question a lot better than I can.

I must admit that it isn't generally my "gay or trans friends" that are complaining most of the time. It is usually the straight white liberal (man or woman) who is doing the complaining for them; often at awkward times that makes the gay/trans person visibly uncomfortable when they just want to fit in but are reminded constantly, even by their well meaning liberal friends, that they are different and how different they are. 

15 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

Dude, I live in Alabama. You can talk all the shit you want about California. California ain’t got nothing on Alabama when it comes to being awful.

Oh, I know Alabama's reputation. I was pointing out that these debates are not always drawn along ideological lines. There was something about gay marriage that didn't sit well initially amongst even some liberals. TL;DR: People aren't inherently bad just for taking a certain position. Life is far more complex and intricate than most like to admit.

10 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

This is actually a good point. It illustrates that a lot of these anti-trans bathroom laws are unenforceable (because who is inspecting genitals in a public restroom?) and are just on the books to bully trans people. The cruelty is the point.

Of course people aren't inspecting genitals. And Blaire White (YouTuber) did a humorous test of going into a male bathroom (Blaire is trans female if you don't know who she is) and was told to leave by an employee because "women aren't permitted in the men's bathroom". However, Blaire White is not a typical trans-female. Pretty much no one would see her and suspect that she was born a man.

I think that the level of "stealth" a trans person can pull off has a lot to do with how they are perceived. There is a world of difference from someone like Blaire walking into a women's bathroom vs someone like myself in the early stages of transition (I'm 6'0, 185 lbs, broad back, prominent Adam's apple, etc). No one is tripping if Blaire goes into their bathroom. Someone like me though would be a legitimate concern for ladies and I cannot blame them if they were terrified.

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48 minutes ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

Life is far more complex and intricate than most like to admit.

Or it’s just that people like to make themselves (or their constituents, if they’re a politician) feel better by bullying a marginalized group... immigrants, people of color, women, gay people, trans people, etc. It’s been that way for thousands of years.

But no, you’re probably right, everything is cool now and nobody wants to bully anybody, it is just that life is real complex and intricate and whatnot.

Sigh. But seriously, there are several replies in this thread expressing the classic centrist argument “the past is past, get over it.”

If that’s true, please let us know the date (or at least the year) that justice finally arrived in the U.S. and mistreatment due to gender, race, or sexuality was done away with once and for all.

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3 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

Or it’s just that people like to make themselves (or their constituents, if they’re a politician) feel better by bullying a marginalized group... immigrants, people of color, women, gay people, trans people, etc. It’s been that way for thousands of years.

You have the right to your opinion. I don't believe there is some grand conspiracy to bully people in this country. I tend to view these issues as the struggles that a society grows through with rapidly evolving social norms. People tend to change slowly but the agenda of the progressive left have been moving quite fast. Cut people a little slack instead of always assuming the worst of them. Even positive changes take some adjustment and some people are more conservative than others. Does that make them bad?

Hell, even on this forum, there are some that do not want to adjust to the rise of digital as the dominant acquisition medium. This is a relatively small matter in the scope of the problems of the Universe but you still see the passion involved. Imagine challenging people's ideas of ethics, morality, religion, fairness, etc and you are bound to set off a sh*tstorm.

3 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

But no, you’re probably right, everything is cool now and nobody wants to bully anybody, it is just that life is real complex and intricate and whatnot.

I never said "everything is cool now". I hope you are intelligent enough to recognize that there will never be a time in history where everything is cool. If that is what you are expecting, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Therefore, the best we can do is fix problems as we spot them in the best way we can, balance the rights of everyone; not just a niche group, but sometimes take stock of how far we have came (and give credit where it is due). I find that many people of the SJW variety always have a new complaint but seldom give a pat on the back to their country for coming as far as it has. I believe that the modern free nations (USA, UK, Australia, etc) are among the most fair and just nations in the history of the world. Things are getting better overall and if you disagree, consider that it wasn't even 100 years ago that we had a tyrannical madman in a first world European country that believed genocide was an appropriate discourse.

3 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

Sigh. But seriously, there are several replies in this thread expressing the classic centrist argument “the past is past, get over it.”

I agree with that "classic centrist argument". Why? Because what else are you going to do? Keep moaning over things that have already been fixed? Like I said, if you have an issue, try to fix it. If it was already fixed, shut up about it.

3 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

If that’s true, please let us know the date (or at least the year) that justice finally arrived in the U.S. and mistreatment due to gender, race, or sexuality was done away with once and for all.

The USA has always been an experimental government. We aren't completely unique (as many aspects of our structure were borrowed from predecessors) but the exact way we do things is largely an experiment. With any experiment, there is a chance for great success but an equal chance for terrible failure. I admit that I don't have it all figured out. But if you would be honest, either do you. Also consider that most things in life have a tradeoff so what solves one problem might create another. Therefore, we will never reach political Nirvana.

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6 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

There were problems with social injustice in the past, but that was all cleared up after they started letting gay people get married half a decade ago.

In a desperate attempt to bring this to some sort of worthwhile conclusion:

Chance, I don't think anyone here wants anybody to be treated unfairly, or for anyone to be unpleasant to anyone else. The reason this stuff starts to lose its audience, though, and I suspect the reason you're finding a slightly tough crowd here, is that you're using an example of someone losing a court case as evidence of some grand conspiracy within society to support that person's position, whereas in reality it's evidence of exactly the opposite.

You risk giving the impression that you're expecting the rate of prejudice and bigotry in society to be zero. It's obvious that no such society has ever existed and none ever will, and the fact that we don't live in that society is no evidence of a shadowy movement to disadvantage certain groups of people.

We push for utopia in all kinds of ways; by inventing things, by building things, by making art, by exchanging ideas. We do that, though, in the knowledge that it will forever remain an unscratchable itch. We may approach it, like a spider climbing a well which advances only half the distance to the top every day, but if the court case described in this thread is evidence of conspiracy to you, you're going to spend the rest of your life tilting at windmills.

- Phil

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43 minutes ago, Phil Rhodes said:

but if the court case described in this thread is evidence of conspiracy to you, you're going to spend the rest of your life tilting at windmills.

Phil, to be fair, it is Daniel's headline that is implying a conspiracy in regards to this court case (Someday you may be forced to do film work that you don't want to do). Clever fear-mongering since there is no such thing. He has given himself a way out in the first post and has since not contributed, which I find interesting. It did the trick. 134 responses (this one included). Signing off and see you on another thread about Cinematography.

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7 hours ago, Chance Shirley said:

Since things are so great nowadays, somebody should probably let the ACLU know so they can shut down their website.

https://www.aclu.org

That begs the question. I'm not saying anything about the ACLU, I'm just saying that their existence isn't evidence of anything. IOW, it's not an argument. 

2 hours ago, Brian Drysdale said:

There was a legal case in the UK involving a bakery which covered a similar situation. You should read the detail, since it appears to be key to the final decision.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-45789759

Wow, I had no idea about this case. I wonder, though... was the plaintiff in this case lawsuit shopping, do you think? It looks like it. Either way I think the Supreme Court ruled on common sense. It should not have needed to go that far though.

The victory was important because it upheld the principle that a person may withhold their labour. The actual decision was for other reasons, but I'm surprised that they didn't go further. Then again, maybe the bakers' lawyer mentioned the principle that I am holding to. That principle is, as far as I'm concerned, the whole premise of this thread.

Footnote: there is no such thing as gay marriage, there is only same-sex marriage. This means that I can marry another straight man purely for tax purposes. Actually that would have been a fantastic premise for a Seinfeld episode...

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14 hours ago, Dennis Toeppen said:

I think this would be a good thread for finally deciding which is better, film or digital.

I think it is best to keep any extremely political and religious matters like FILM vs DIGITAL out of this thread ? someone will get seriously offended, especially if the others will mock their prophets (Yedlin, Deakins, Nolan, etc.) starting a full scale trash fire ?

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4 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

The victory was important because it upheld the principle that a person may withhold their labour. The actual decision was for other reasons, but I'm surprised that they didn't go further. Then again, maybe the bakers' lawyer mentioned the principle that I am holding to. That principle is, as far as I'm concerned, the whole premise of this thread.

It's rather more complex than this, since it was a ruling that was based on the baker's rights regarding the actual message on the cake, which went against their religious beliefs, and they weren't discriminating against an existing customer because they were gay.

You can read the full judgement here: https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2017-0020-judgment.pdf

The BBC's legal correspondent adds these thoughts:

 

Quote

 

The ruling now poses the question whether it would be lawful, for instance, for a bakery to refuse to make a bar mitzvah cake because the bakers' owners disagreed with ideas at the heart of the Jewish religion? What about a cake promoting "the glory of Brexit", "support fox hunting", or "support veganism"?

 

As a result of Wednesday's ruling, there are likely to be further cases in which services are refused on the basis of beliefs held by the service providers, adds our correspondent.

 

 
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What's the average age of the posters in here? Like 40 or 50? I guess gay marriage was a hot debate when you guys were in high school but people under 30 just talk about transgender rights at this point. I thought the 2004 archive posts were a time capsule but you're all really impressing me here.

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22 minutes ago, Max Field said:

What's the average age of the posters in here? Like 40 or 50? I guess gay marriage was a hot debate when you guys were in high school but people under 30 just talk about transgender rights at this point. I thought the 2004 archive posts were a time capsule but you're all really impressing me here.

I think you're a couple decades off there, not with age estimates, but with timing of social evolution...but maybe also the age estimates.

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16 hours ago, Phil Rhodes said:

You risk giving the impression that you're expecting the rate of prejudice and bigotry in society to be zero.

I am pretty sure I have mentioned in one of the millions of posts in this thread (you might have missed it, fair enough) that prejudice or bigotry is not my concern. My concern is bigots using the power of the state/legal system to bully people. There is currently a “religious freedom” movement in the U.S. that seems more concerned with harassing gay people than it is with any recognizable tenets of religion. The photographer tried it and lost, some baker won the right to discriminate against gay people at the Supreme Court. So I guess the court decisions are mixed, but they are certainly not decisively striking a blow for gay people's freedoms.

It would seem the next step is maybe a white supremacist restaurant owner can claim “religious freedom” and refuse to serve diners of color, and then we’re back to segregated lunch counters. A slippery slope, as it were.

But I am just a guy tilting at windmills, so what do I know.

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17 hours ago, Matthew W. Phillips said:

I agree with that "classic centrist argument". Why? Because what else are you going to do? Keep moaning over things that have already been fixed? Like I said, if you have an issue, try to fix it. If it was already fixed, shut up about it.

People aren’t moaning over things that have already been fixed. They’re reminding you that (1) the injustices of the past still affect people today and (2) if we aren’t mindful of the injustices of the past they might return. The past is indeed past, but the present does not exist in a vacuum. And it is foolish to look at current events and not at least consider how they might mirror historical precedents.

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8 minutes ago, Chance Shirley said:

People aren’t moaning over things that have already been fixed. They’re reminding you that (1) the injustices of the past still affect people today and (2) if we aren’t mindful of the injustices of the past they might return. The past is indeed past, but the present does not exist in a vacuum. And it is foolish to look at current events and not at least consider how they might mirror historical precedents.

At this point, I believe you just want the last word so I will give it to you. Have at it!

Cheers,

Matthew

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14 hours ago, Karim D. Ghantous said:

That begs the question. I'm not saying anything about the ACLU, I'm just saying that their existence isn't evidence of anything. IOW, it's not an argument. 

I mean, there’s a long list of active civil liberty issues that the ACLU is currently working on, so it’s an argument that not all of our social injustice ills are past us.

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