JKUU "The "harm" Shockadelic, is the discrimination against the customer. The 14th amendment provides "equal protection of the laws.""

This is half the problem.
Hysterical leftists redefining "harm" to mean any slight offense, inconvenience or disagreement.

If your definition is correct, then the Christian fanatic is also "harmed" if he doesn't get his "God hates gays" cake and I am "harmed" if I can't get bacon at Punchbowl KFC.

But your do-gooder "laws" are only applied in a hypocritical, lopsided manner.
Only SOME people's "rights" and liberties are validated (minorities), overruling the "rights" and liberties of others (the rest).

No "harm" came to Mr Prissy Pants.
He lost no limbs, money or reputation.
All he had to do was buy a cake somewhere else, or God-forbid, DECORATE HIS OWN DAMN CAKE!

WmTrevor "a gay cake shop owner [or more accurately the gay owner of a cake shop]"

No need for correction.
I said "gay cake shop owner" PRECISELY because it contains both meanings.

"charging a heap extra for the decoration"

Not if a sign says "We decorate your cake for $X".
Do you really think a cake shop would not specify what its charges are?

"It would be shouted from the pulpits and make headlines around the world."

Yeah, right.
No, it would make headlines if he GOT the "God hates fags" cake.
And guess WHO would get prosecuted?

"this issue is a trivial one and should have been treated as such by Asher's."

It was. They offered him nothing.
It's Mr Prissy Pants who doesn't get how trivial this is.

"I'm trying to work out why you seem to be positing every side of the arguments, Shockadelic?"

Because I'm critiquing two different things.
1. Restrictions of liberty, which only applies to non-leftist causes/groups.
2. The lopsided defence of "rights", which only applies to leftist-favoured causes/groups.

I want liberty, but for all citizens, not for some "special" people.

//To answer your 3, an anti Semite refusing to cook a kosher meal is acting because of his racial discrimination, not a conscience belief.//

I've heard those to the left of me accuse anti-Islamists of racism, and those to right of me protest that opposing a religion is not the same as opposing a race. I agree with them. Kosher dietary laws are a relgious stricture that have nothing to do with race. Nice attempt at a red herring, though.

//4 of course has gone to the absurd//

If you say so. I guess it's easier to write a question off as an absurdity rather an attempt an answer, but it won't get you many marks in a philosophy exam and it's not a convincing argument in an informal setting.

//I stated there WERE such stores.//
//There ARE KFCs that are "halal certified " and won't cook or sell bacon, whether the customer is Muslim or not.//

Thanks for the SHOUTING. I heard you the first time. Repeating bald assertions more emphatically only increases the volume, not the veracity. What helps to back up bald assertions is submitting supporting evidence, not EMPLOYING HEAVY USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS.

//Ones I'm aware of are Fawkner and Flemington in Melbourne and Punchbowl and Bankstown in Sydney.//

Thanks. You know that's all you had to say? No need for the essay. Or the shouting.

Melbourne is too far out of my way but Punchbowl and Bankstown are within reasonable travelling distance. I now have the necessary data to attempt the experiment for myself, instead of relying on your hearsay.

Dear Eric,

All the more so - if Dawkins' book is just an analogy and the genes do not actually care a thing, certainly not for you, only behave AS IF they do, then why should you care about them?

In fact, why do we give them any importance? why do we jump when they say "Hop"? They `say` "Chase this man/woman/boy/girl for us" and we respond with "Yes, Sir, how low?" and follow their dictates, even losing our head in the process.

It is not my business to defend culture (besides, the Western culture is not my own anyway), I simply state a simple fact: so long as and to the extent that we identify ourself with those genes and their sexual whims, we shall know no peace!

I really don't care what specific whims they have, be they heterosexual, homosexual and all the rest, it makes no difference - anyone who listens and pays attention to those genes, does so at their own peril, all the more so when one goes to the extreme of defining themselves according to the specific whims of their genes.

Schizophrenics get in trouble because they listen to the voices in their head - but most of us get into even bigger trouble when we listen to the voices of those genes, matters not whether they are real or otherwise, matters not which gender(s) or habit(s) they ask us to pursue.

phanto, these publicly-funded commissions only exist to pander to hysterically insecure activists.

There would be no propaganda value in only hearing serious cases.
Propaganda must be relentless and ubiquitous.
Every nook and cranny. No stone left unturned, etc, etc.

Rhrosty "But suppose that service had been a medical clinic?"

But it wasn't. And that's the point.
Mr Prissy Pants wanted a triviality. A cake decoration.
He did not *need* a life-saving *necessity*.

"Suppose treating druggies went against some so called religious belief/conviction?"

Then don't be an ambo.
(Same goes for not wanting to cook bacon. Don't apply for the job or the franchise license.)

Eric G "If we truly defined ourselves genetically or more correctly biologically, we wouldn't have races, we wouldn't limit the role of women"

Quite the opposite.
Since genes/alleles differ so little between species/sexes/races, the differences would be highlighted/amplified, not ignored/downplayed.

Racial intermixing would obliterate genetic variety like red hair and green eyes. Once it's gone, it can't come back.

Genuine genetic education among the general population may increase "racism" as more would understand how vulnerable these traits are.
Only in ignorance can people be genetically apathetic.

No two people, let alone all people, are genetically "equal".
It is political ideology, not science, that wants to ignore these differences and tell the neutrality/equality fairy tale.

Not that anyone should be aggressively "oppressed", but neither should we play phony utopian fantasy games.

Toni Lavis "Repeating bald assertions"

How many times do I have to say it: KFC do NOT publicly admit any store is halal (perhaps afraid of backlash). So how can I *officially* confirm it?

But you're on the internet: search for halal KFC.
http://www.halalsquare.com.au/sydney/search.aspx?q=kfc
http://www.halalsquare.com.au/melbourne/search.aspx?q=kfc

Make sure you go during breakfast menu.
Ask for a bacon and egg roll.

On the rare occasions that I go to McDonald's I have no problem in being served a burger without bacon; all that one needs to do is ask.
Only once did I have a problem and that was soon sorted out.
I'd asked for one without bacon and it arrived with a bit of bacon in it, on pointing out the mistake the burger was opened and the bacon removed, I then made the point that the taste of the bacon was still there and that I required a new burger; no problem.
I hate the taste of bacon (except Irish sugar cured) which stems from an initial dislike as a child reinforced by an army experience of being stuck with no food other than tinned bacon (YUK!!) for a few days.
I have noticed, particularly in India, that Muslims travelling (especially by train) have no qualms buying food from Hindu sellers; before anyone asks how does one know that a particular merchant is Hindu, the prominent tika on the forehead is as good an indication as one could get.

I'm beginning to wonder if the Ashers affair wasn't a set up, or at the least a 'testing of the waters' as it would seem that there are other convenient bakeries but not so overtly religious.

The cake shoppe took the order and accepted the money in advance!

With the pre-written and customer confirmed message written in plain black and white, there was apparently no controversy, nothing that offended so called religious conviction! At least not until Ashers had received payment in full! ACHING!

Had Ashers identified a RELIGIOUS CONVICTION problem at that point, the appellant would have been free to go elsewhere to spend their money, all while making a mental note of Ashers apparent homophobic bigotry!

Homophobic bigotry is just the start and all too often ends in some emergency ward, with an "APPARENT" Gay man struggling for every new breath; and I have seen just that and multiple times!

And of course the homophobes, with their homophobia on clear and present display, [some of them apparently medical staff,] will say, it's a non issue.

But then so was every other antisocial wedge throughout the entire course of human history!

I mean in living memory, it used to be okay to use the N word in a derogatory manner and tell nasty or calloused and or indifferent jokes about this or that ethnic minority.

It'd be different if they were at least funny!

And do we try to get away with the unacceptable by claiming they CHOSE their ethnicity?

Not too long ago it was apparently acceptable human behavior to rape an underage girl, and forever end her prospects of ever conceiving; simply because she was black?

How did some of us ever sink so low?

Religious conviction and claiming the black man was the son of the infamous Cain, who slew Able; and therefore deserved to be treated no better than a beast of burden!?

RELIGIOUS CONVICTION alone made that possible and all that sprang from that!

Yes that's a long way from a Belfast cake shoppe, a brick works, a Smiths anvil, a potter's wheel etc.

But that's where this crap starts and gradually amplifies; and only because some of us weren't man enough to say, thus far and no farther; now today!
Rhrosty.