Social Justice, Political Correctness, and the Left

Agreed! If a store is going to deny someone service based on their personal beliefs, then that store needs to have a sign clearly stating that.....then I can boycott that store.

... and campaign to get others to as well

We live in the era of political correctness . That era will come to an end when the politically correct people become a minority of the population , and that will happen because the politically correct advanced people don't seem to be interested in producing much children .

Just like the Roman empire reached a high point in civilisation but was later over run by barbarians , so we have reached the highest point in civilisation . From here it's all going to be downhill .

Due to popular demand, I'll talk about homosexuality.

Everything you do is a choice. If there is an action, then there is a choice. If I raise my right hand, I make a choice to do so. If someone has sex with someone else, choice is a factor. Not everyone has homosexual inclinations. But not everyone who has them acts on them either. Sin is any thought, word, or deed that is contrary to God’s moral law. An inclination is not a conscious thought of your own, but something that occurs to you. If you entertain an inclination in an immoral way, then that is considered a sin. Where Christians are often hypocritical is when they consider homosexuality worse than other sins like selfishness, pride, arrogance, or heterosexual lust. Watching pornography, masturbating, having sex outside of marriage, and even so much as entertaining sexual thoughts about anyone who isn’t your spouse and of the opposite gender is considered a sin according to what the Bible teaches. For those who think that there is nothing wrong with homosexuality, the issue is a moral issue, not a factor of choice. I don’t think a person is a homosexual just because they have homosexual inclinations. A person isn’t anything just because they have inclinations. It is your actions that define you. A person is a cop if they enroll and are accepted onto the force, not just because they feel they were born to protect and serve. A person is a thief if they steal, not if they think of stealing but don’t actually go through with it.

So, should the government make a list of things you can and can’t choose to be okay with putting on a cake, or should the baker be allowed to make their own decision about it? I personally would prefer less government involvement. If someone won’t put what you want on a cake then go to another bakery. If you want a swastika on your cake and no one will do it for you, then do it yourself and bake your own cake at home. I think it’s really messed up that someone can go to the government and ruin your business just because you won’t put something on a cake that goes against your beliefs.

People are bound to attribute a lack or refusal of service to discrimination. If the government is involved what will happen? A taxi driver will be forced to give a ride to an abusive client if they belong to a minority, because even if they do get acquitted of discrimination their life could be ruined by a mere false accusation. Legal fees can easily bankrupt a small business, and most people can’t afford a lawyer or bail. So if someone falsely accuses you of discrimination, and the judge sides with them, then you get a fine and go bankrupt trying to fight it in court. If you pay the fine then that’s essentially an admission of guilt. Although many people will plead guilty to get a slap on the wrist and move on with their life sooner, the next time they get charged with a crime it will be much more difficult to get acquitted.

I completely agree with this. I mean just think about the nature of owning a business or providing a service. Where does this sense of entitlement that some people have come from, that just because someone decides to open a business they have to serve anyone and everyone who comes in the door? If you’re an employee and you don’t serve a customer and they complain, your boss can fire you or he could be totally fine with it if you give a satisfactory explanation. But if you’re the boss you can do whatever you want, you can just say no to a customer without a reason. It’s you’re shop, you can do what you want. At the end of the day customer service is about building customer loyalty because that’s just good business. You serve people because you want their business, not because you have to. How can there be laws that force you to serve people just because you have a business? Imagine if an artist was obliged to do every commission requested just because he advertised that he does commissions. Can’t an artist say no to any commission he doesn’t feel like doing without needing to give a reason that the government is okay with?

Somehow I don’t think “No LGBTQ” on the front of shops will go over too well with the LGBTQ community. Or do you think people should have to post a list of everything they aren’t willing to do? If so, what are the odds anyone is going to be able to think of everything in advance? No, I think having to put up a sign is absurd. Not to mention having a sign to point to when someone asks for what you’re not willing to do won’t somehow make things go over any smoother. I worked in retail for 8 years. People don’t read signs.

yeah. it doesn't have to be like NO GAYS ALLOWED but something stating what their beliefs are and that anything falling in conflict with that they won't be doing.

if i baked cakes for a living, i'd probably put up a sign somewhere stating something, like "any requests made that are transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic in nature or promote ableism, racism, body shaming, or other discriminatory behavior will be refused service." that should cover everything, so i wouldn't have to "think of everything.""

see? that wasn't so hard.

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letterboxd

Do you feel you make a choice to be heterosexual? Do you make a choice to be male (assuming you're a guy)?

Do you believe sexuality is determined by who you choose to have sex with?

Do you eat pork or shellfish? Are you clean shaven? Do you have pets? Do you work on Sunday? All are sins according to the Bible.

Please know that I'm not trying to poke holes in your faith. I wouldn't do that. I'm merely challenging the way some modern Christians seem to view the Bible. Because the Bible is often self-contradictory, I think people tend to pick what they like and ignore the parts they don't. (I grew up Catholic and there are whole passages of the Bible that I've never heard spoken in any service ever.)

But I think it's hypocritical when those same people wave the Bible around like an infallible book of laws. That's cool, but if you're going to put the Bible on that pedestal, you better be prepared to defend all of it.

I don't think you mean "inclination." According to the OED, an inclination is "a natural tendency or urge to act or feel in a particular way." So if you're "inclined" to do something, you're already entertaining it. (Also, please note my emphasis on the word "natural.")

What you're describing, I think, is an idea. Or perhaps you mean desire. Either way, I understand your meaning, and this is where I begin to differ with those who view homosexuality as a sin. You assume that homosexual behavior begins as a deviant thought, a selfish urge, no different than stealing or considering sex outside of one's marriage. After all, if the Bible condemns homosexuality, it must be so.

But I believe that view overlooks the root of a person's sexuality, which I explain more below:

Sexual identity is not a vocation. As I've said, it runs deeper than that. Much deeper. It's a condition of the self, an innate condition of being human. Somehow, we simply know who and what we are. We just know. You don't choose your sexuality anymore than you choose to have 10 fingers and 10 toes.

And I do believe sexuality and love are deeply entwined. Emotions are powerful and defining. Some are fleeting, but most are like weights, deeply entrenched, ancient. They're honest. What's truly heartbreaking is that so many in the LGBTQ community have struggled with the magnetic pull between cultural and religious norms (i.e. heterosexuality, marriage between man and woman) and their own natural, honest, feelings; and have, in turn, suppressed those feelings, which I can imagine would be indistinguishable from the way I feel about the opposite sex. Why, then, are they wrong and I'm right?

No, our hearts, I believe, beat as one. Humans have marked homosexuality as an abomination for many reasons over these thousands of years—it's uncommon, it doesn't permit procreation, it's just plain icky—but there are plenty of examples in history where humans got it wrong.

But there are different standards for morality, aren't there? In some cultures, it's immoral for a woman to argue with a man, or to marry someone who doesn't meet the approval of her family. Not that long ago, servitude was widely considered a moral punishment for someone who could not pay his debts.

We can tumble pretty far down the rabbit hole on the question of morality. And, to be fair, we could probably shake hands on some pretty common sense standards. But my point is to suggest that as we come to understand more about each other as human beings, we have the opportunity (and, in some cases, the responsibility) to reevaluate our own moral principles.

Excellent post Sleezy. Eloquently stated...and in a kind manner. Well said.

After nuclear war, three things will remain: cockroaches, Nuka-Cola, and people reeling off lists from Leviticus in Internet arguments.

As a former Catholic, I find it hard to imagine you don't already know what I'm about to say, but for anyone who doesn't, The New Testament represents a new covenant that is generally taken to mean that most of those edicts no longer apply. I'm being necessarily glib in my summary because I don't think anyone's interested in delving into this much, but a lot of this stuff gets repeated unchallenged and unqualified, and people should at least know that it isn't what Christians generally teach or believe. At worst, it's an issue of contention.

Anyway, I doubt you have to convince Zotis that he sins, so I'm not sure how this would demonstrate hypocrisy even without the supersession thing. And even if it did, wouldn't that just be an ad hominem attack?

This question isn't exclusive to Christians talking about homosexuality: it applies to anyone who regards anything as unnatural, or indicative of mental illness, or just generally bad. Imagine any condition you regard that way (even one everyone here would agree on), then imagine someone who suffers from it telling you it's actually natural and good. From what basis can you contradict them?

Oh, come on. There are plenty of fundamentalist Christians out there cherry-picking Leviticus to condemn homosexuality, so why isn't it fair game to throw the book right back at them?

I'm not sure how you could view this as an ad hominem attack, unless you thought I was pointing my finger and yelling, "But you're a sinner too!" That interpretation is extremely off-target from the views I'm trying to express here.

As I clearly said, my point was to challenge how some Christians selectively interpret the Bible. I wasn't even suggesting that Zotis is one of them. If anything, I was trying to be informative; it's been my experience that a lot of people don't even know that stuff is in there.

Sure, but I think it goes without saying that homosexuality is a far cry from things like pedophilia, pederasty, necrophilia, bestiality, etc. That doesn't stop people from lumping it in, though. I think it's pretty obvious that the distinction lies in mutual adult consent, which can be given in one but not the others. Things like polygamy and polyamory muddy the waters a bit, but I'm still inclined to hold the line of adult consent on those matters.

"There are plenty" of [members of any group] doing [whatever]. Unless you're accusing Zotis of being one of them, I'm not sure why that would be relevant.

And whether or not it's "fair game" depends on the game, yeah? Is the topic the Bible, or is it the personal shortcomings of some non-specific group of Christians? Because it's only a comment on the latter.

Honestly, I don't see the distinction. Calling someone a hypocrite is an ad hominem attack because the merits of an argument are unrelated to the arguer's intellectual consistency in applying it. It may be relevant if you're contending someone doesn't really believe what they're saying, but even that is ultimately a different contention.

And that's without even getting into the added complication that you're asking a specific person, who you're not accusing of this, to defend how "some Christians" think. To what end? Let's say he agrees that some Christians are hypocrites: then what? What question about this debate has been answered?

That's not quite what I'm thinking of, since those can be dismissed through the way they affect others. What would you say to someone with Body integrity identity disorder? What would you say to someone Disassociative identity disorder, or certain forms of Obsessive-compulsive disorder?

Basically, what would you say to someone who tells you something they do is good and natural, even if you think it isn't? What is your process for determining what is normal and healthy?

This debate is much bigger than I, or Zotis, or any argument any of us will ever have in this room. Words have power. All it takes is the condemnation of some politician on TV, or some conversion therapist, or some 10th-grade bully, or some Westboro followers holding "God hates fags" signs outside a university (or, worse yet, one's own family members) to lead someone who identifies as LGBTQ to run away from home, self-harm, or commit suicide. And, very often, the ammunition for these condemnations is the word of God.

That's the relevance. I'm not asking Zotis to speak for any of these kinds of people I've mentioned above, but it feels a bit silly to refrain from addressing that those views are out there and having a very real impact. If anything, I'm inviting Zotis to share his own perspective on it.

I get what you're saying. If I speak out against plagiarism but routinely plagiarize other writings, that only makes me a hypocrite; it doesn't make me wrong. Still, that destroys any credibility I have in making that argument.

For me, questions of morality make hypocrisy even more relevant. If someone doesn't practice what they (literally) preach, especially those who claim to be the more strict adherents of scripture, their voices are completely without merit. And if everything in the Bible is supposed to be the word of God, how are these moral questions rectified? Who gets to decide what's still a sin and what isn't?

I didn't ask him to defend anything. That's an assumption. I introduced those perspectives because, as I said, they're inseparable from the larger debate. I was hoping Zotis would comment on them and, if he wanted, maybe share his own personal interpretations and practices. If he felt compelled to defend those views, he could. If he agrees that some Christians are hypocrites, then fine. Does a question need to be answered? Does each point need to be "won"?

This feels very red herring-ish. Are you now suggesting that clinically diagnosed psychological disorders should be argued in comparison to homosexuality? Because if you are, that's way off base and I'm not falling into that trap. The American Psychological Association currently holds that "the research and clinical literature demonstrate that same-sex sexual and romantic attractions, feelings, and behaviors are normal and positive variations of human sexuality..." You will not find any major medical organization who regards homosexuality as a disease or disorder.

I think we need to make a distinction between "relevance" and "importance." Lots of things related to this topic are important, but not necessarily relevant. Everything you just said is deathly serious and very important. Christians being persecuted in third world countries is serious, too, but there's a reason I haven't replied to anything you've said by talking about it: because it isn't really relevant, even though it's sort of related.

I don't really know what that last part means: if you say it doesn't make them wrong, then what kind of credibility is being "destroyed"?

I realize lots of people think this way, in that they often disregard arguments coming from hypocrites. But I don't know what the intellectual justification is supposed to be.

Why? Same question as above, basically.

With moral standards, I'd say there's even less reason to think this, because failure to adhere to one's own moral standard is inevitable in the very act of having a moral standard. If we could already live up to our ideals, they would not be necessary.

Hey, you know me: I'm more than happy to delve into a headier discussion of theology and exegesis. But I'm not asking you to accept anyone's answer to those questions: I'm just saying you can't make an argument that doesn't even acknowledge them.

Well, tell me honestly: how would you take it if I quoted you, disagreed with you, and then asked you a bunch of probing questions about your personal shortcomings while talking about how "some non-Christians" fail to adhere to their own standards? Would that feel like an "invitation," or more like an accusation?

I'm honestly not trying to scold you for saying any of this, even if that's how it sounds. I'm just pointing out that it doesn't have any bearing on what he said. Doesn't mean you can't talk about it anyway, but I think it's misleading (unintentionally: I don't question your general good faith in the argument) to do that alongside the substantive objections to it, as if they were part of them.

No, but I'd say each point should probably be relevant to whatever the disagreement is about.

I have no idea how it would be a trap or a red herring. In your first reply you said things like this:

I'm assuming these claims aren't just arbitrary, yeah? You have some rationale underlying them. So I'm asking: what's that rationale, and why doesn't it apply to these other examples? Assuming there are cases where you're willing to contradict someone who tells you their orientation (sexual or otherwise) is innate and healthy and all that, what makes those cases different?

Respectfully, this doesn't answer the question at all, particularly given that part of your initial argument was about how people get it wrong all the time, and the APA obviously did once regard it as a mental illness. I'm asking for your own moral reasoning.

The US has a problem with a 2-party duopoly in politics, one bad thing about it is that it creates hatred of one team against the other (the blue versus the red, just like the soccer teams in my state in Brazil). Another bad thing is that if someone hijacks one of the parties to run for president he can actually win with good odds without being qualified to be president.

Other democracies usually have a large number of parties active in congress and that higher diversity is better in terms of disallowing extreme polarization and also make it harder for some individual to interfere in politics alone.

Some people say that what happened to Rome was due to special circumstances of having only ONE government in the entire "civilized" world. We have 190 countries in the world today so even if one country really f*cks up (like Venezuela is doing) the rest of the world is still improving.

While countries can observe what other countries are doing and mimic the good policies and not do the bad policies (the USSR was a learning experiment: after it collapsed the rest of the world learned from it: India for example enacted liberalizing policies and started growing at 7% a year). So I think the world today is in a very robust position to continue to improve.

The US is probably going to continue to decline relative to the rest of the world which is natural since the US was in a very special position back around the year 2000 when it was the sole superpower with almost 30% of the world's GDP, as the rest of the world learns how to do decent econ policies they will improve (like China and India are doing now, or Korea and Japan did in the recent past). Trump might accelerate the US relative economic decline considering he plans to reduce the labor supply (anti-immigration policies) and isolate the US economy from the world economy. I talk about relative because the US today is much better off in economic terms than 50 years ago even if 50 years ago in the 1960's it was considered a "golden age" and in 20 years the US will be better off than now as well. Just that the rest of the world is improving at a much faster pace.

I think that for the world as a whole the improvement of the level of civilization for the next decades will be enormous. Specially in countries in Africa, Brazil, India and Bangladesh. I am very optimistic about Brazil as well since we destroyed the evil Labor Party now, the corruption scandals are cleansing the whole political arena while econ policies will improve a lot since the extreme (marxist socialist) left has finally been obliterated from mainstream politics in 2016.

Some say the major threat to our globalized world civilization now is global warming but even if Co2 emissions continue to increase the worst it can happen is a decrease of a few percentage points of global GDP by 2100 versus a situation without global warming.

What does the sign solve?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the point of your example was to illustrate how easy it is to come up with a sign that covers everything you aren't okay with. But do you think that if someone doesn't have that sign then they should be forced to serve any and every customer even if their behavior is discriminatory?

I think there's a double standard in place here.

What if the gay couple owned the bakery and the religious couple wanted a homophobic slogan on their cake. Would you be okay with the gay couple refusing to serve the religious couple? How would you feel if a religious couple sued a gay couple's bakery and put them out of business for not being willing to put Leviticus 18:22 on a cake?

Why should the government get involved at all?

I choose to be heterosexual. It’s called sexual orientation. At any time I could choose to explore homosexuality if I wanted to. I do not choose to be male. I was born with a penis. If I wanted to I could claim to be a woman on the inside, but I think that sort of thing is nonsense. I could also choose to cut my penis off and get hormonal treatment and plastic surgery to look like a woman and then call myself a woman, but I believe there is more to actually being a woman than that. I choose to identify as a male, but I don’t believe that how someone identifies their self necessarily has any impact on their actual identity. However, these kinds of choices are never merely one-time occurrences. They are ongoing, and they are lifestyles.
I believe it is determined by more than just who you have sex with. It is determined by countless thoughts and actions. That may be why it appears to you to be a state of being, because there are so many choices involved and many of them are subconscious. Overtime it becomes second nature, which could also explain why people think it’s “natural.”
This is a simple issue of context and the nature of rules and laws. The Bible does not say that it is a sin to eat pork, or those other things you mentioned. I’ll just stick to pork since it’s the most prominent example and this can be applied to the rest of the list. Abstaining from pork was a law that God gave the Israelites. God’s law was always written on men’s hearts, but he gave it to Moses in writing when he established the nation of Israel as a people for himself to live by his laws. God is not legalistic. You can not interpret something literalistically out of context and say that it is contradicting itself. Look at human laws. It is a crime to commit murder. By murdering someone you are breaking the law, generally speaking. However, there are many circumstances in which a person would not only go unpunished for murdering someone, but be rewarded by the courts and the government. For example, someone who murders criminals to save innocent lives could be rewarded if they can demonstrate in court that he had reasonable cause to believe that innocent lives were in immediate danger if he had not acted by killing the criminals. Laws should not be governed legalistically without considering the circumstances, general principles in the Bible should not be interpreted as absolute statements, and the Bible does not present God as legalistic.
Consider these verses and how they expand the context of the Old Testament laws:
Acts 10:15a
“What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.”
Colossians 2:16-17
“Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day—things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”
Hebrews 7:18-19
“For, on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness (for the Law made nothing perfect), and on the other hand there is a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.”

I am a reformed Baptist, a Calvanist. I believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God. That God spoke through the prophets and inspired them to write His very Word. I believe there are no contradictions in Scripture, and that every apparent contradiction can be explained and reconciled by a deeper understanding of their context and intended meaning. However, the original manuscripts which are considered to have been without error were long since destroyed. What we have are excellent copies with only minor errors, the science of textual criticism, and careful experts cooperating with God’s Spirit to produce reliable translations.

That's as much as I can respond to at the moment, I'll respond to the rest when I can.

This entire Thread is very interesting - for me personally - to take a look at some of your thought process.

i will not contribute to it, but I'll be reading it with enthusiasm.

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Move over, Dev. I'll sit in the corner with you.

The pendulum is already swinging back against political correctness and social "justice." The progressive crowd has become a parody of itself and alienated more sane liberals in the process, pushing them to the center. They use loaded language against anyone they disagree with. Bigot, racist, misogynist, sexist, fascist, -phobic, these terms have lost all power now that they are used so frequently and carelessly.

It won't last though. They've proven time and time again that they eat their own, engaging in a never-ending competition of who is more oppressed and marginalized, and therefore more virtuous. Like a pack of starved animals, they turn on their allies the moment they slip up and say something even slightly flippant or "incorrect." Also, like another poster pointed out, these people are not having many children. Furthermore, the new Generation Z has been shown to be the most conservative cohort since WW2.

COFFEE!!!!