Chance Shirley

And there is literally nobody who is going to use a “religious” legal loophole to deny any goods or services to a straight white dude. It’s all well and good to say “I don’t fear being mistreated like a member of a marginalized group” when you are not a member of a marginalized group.

To point out a huge and obvious example, did you ever hear about slavery in the United States? Black people during those days didn’t have any legal protections or any kind. Women couldn’t vote in the U.S. until 1920. Apartheid in South Africa marginalized Black people until the 1990s. Trans people (and gay people, obviously) in America have less legal protections than other groups of people today. Women can’t be priests in the Catholic Church. (Assuming you agree Catholicism is a big enough religion to be considered part of society.) If any of these few examples are not facts, please let me know.

Good plan. Film is better if you can afford it. But I can’t afford film, so digital is better for me. (And even if you’re rich, digital can offer some low-light advantages.)

This is a relatively recent development, but yes they can. And yet people are still using, or at least trying to use, legal “religious” loopholes to further marginalize gay people. I know that not being able to get a cake from your local baker isn’t as egregious as not being able to get married, but it is still someone using the power of the state to bully a marginalized group of people.

Dude. There are literally a bunch of new anti-trans laws on the books as of last year. https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/15/politics/anti-transgender-legislation-2021/index.html And of course, this thread was started because people are trying to use a legal “religion” loophole to deny service to gay people. These aren’t generalizations.

And for the tenth time, I am not concerned about your religion. I am concerned about the people who are bullying marginalized people and using their “religion” to justify that.

To just pick a random example... I guess drunk driving is fine because all of those mothers who were campaigning against it were too emotionally invested? Or women shouldn’t be able to vote because the women who fought for that right were too emotionally invested? Pretty sure the reason a lot of people get involved in social causes is emotional investment.

In fairness, I’m looking more at American history, so I can’t speak for the whole world. But agree or not, justice in the U.S. is definitely not distributed evenly among all races, religions, genders, and sexualities. There have been several examples of such targeted injustice in this thread already.

The more we discuss this, the more I think this is the important point. The photographer could have politely and professionally turned down the job. They did not. Because the photographer was not interested in being polite and professional. The photographer just wanted to use “religion” as an excuse to bully a marginalized group of people. And there ain’t much I hate more than a bully.

This is just nonsense. I cited a recent example where a gay couple sued so they could get married. They won and now gay people in America can get married. Now, does this mean people are less bigoted toward gay people than they were before? I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter because that’s not the point. The point is that gay people’s legal right to marry was codified.

Well, yeah. But that injustice is distributed very unevenly based on people’s race, religion, gender, and sexuality.

Reminder: when you’re complaining about expletives, you’ve lost the argument.

I’m not going to file a lawsuit against somebody who refuses to do business with me. But I’m a straight white male, and as such my civil rights have been well established in the U.S. for many years. One of the big reasons that a member of a marginalized group (gay people in this case) might file a lawsuit in a situation like this is to improve the civil rights of other people in that marginalized group in the future. For example, a gay couple successfully won a Supreme Court case (in the U.S.) that affirmed their right to marry — this happened just a few years ago. But that court victory also affirmed the rights of millions of other gay Americans to get married.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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”?

Except in modern-day America, at least, a customer is legally entitled to service from a business regardless of the customer’s race, religion, etc. So (again) a “whites-only” restaurant is not legal anymore. So (again) what we are talking about is (1) whether a photographer is a business or a worker-for-hire and (2) whether discrimination against gay people is more legally acceptable than discrimination against non-white people. I guess one could make a libertarian-ish argument that a business owner can discriminate against whoever they damn well please, but that’s one reason why libertarian-ish arguments are generally shit.