.

[MoonlessNight]

I think to be a private club, one has to meet certain criteria and applt, then have their application approved. That's how country clubs work. I can walk into a restaurant ooen to the public and expect service, but I can't walk into the dining room of the local country club and expect service if I'm not a member. If a dating site worked like a country club in this regard, it might be exempt from following anti discrimination laws, but if it hangs up it's shingle and welcomes all who want to spend their money, then it likely wouldn't be exempt.

You might want to investigate the history of private clubs which restricted their membership to men, and in particular the number of times that such clubs have been sued.

What you are asking for is for Christian businesses to change their method of business in a way that would probably hurt their bottom line, in the hopes that it might allow them to win court cases (it certainly won't save them from being sued and dragged into court in the first place) when cases have went against people who did exactly what you suggest.

I agree with thatbrian on a level of goals: businesses should be allowed to serve whomever they want for whatever reason they want. I agree that this certainly is not how it works now, but I think that such a situation would be preferable to the current one. The current one requires that Christian businesses jump through all sorts of hoops in order to avoid violating their consciences, and at any point they can be attacked for not really having Christian motivations (since the only reason that they seem to be allowed exemptions are feeble attempts to allow for religious freedom). But if businesses could choose to limit their services entirely for their own reasons, there would be no reason for all the extra stipulations and no risk of being ruled against afterwards anyway.

I do realize that such a world would also allow people to limit service for bad reasons, but I suspect that in today's world of organized boycotts most businesses that did something truly heinous wouldn't last for long, at least not as a major business entity. There was no law which forced Brandon Eich, for example, to step down, and he didn't do anything that a Christian would find objectionable. If a major business did start openly excluding certain races or something similar, I can't even imagine the level of customer pushback.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

You might want to investigate the history of private clubs which restricted their membership to men, and in particular the number of times that such clubs have been sued.

What you are asking for is for Christian businesses to change their method of business in a way that would probably hurt their bottom line, in the hopes that it might allow them to win court cases (it certainly won't save them from being sued and dragged into court in the first place) when cases have went against people who did exactly what you suggest.

I agree with thatbrian on a level of goals: businesses should be allowed to serve whomever they want for whatever reason they want. I agree that this certainly is not how it works now, but I think that such a situation would be preferable to the current one. The current one requires that Christian businesses jump through all sorts of hoops in order to avoid violating their consciences, and at any point they can be attacked for not really having Christian motivations (since the only reason that they seem to be allowed exemptions are feeble attempts to allow for religious freedom). But if businesses could choose to limit their services entirely for their own reasons, there would be no reason for all the extra stipulations and no risk of being ruled against afterwards anyway.

I do realize that such a world would also allow people to limit service for bad reasons, but I suspect that in today's world of organized boycotts most businesses that did something truly heinous wouldn't last for long, at least not as a major business entity. There was no law which forced Brandon Eich, for example, to step down, and he didn't do anything that a Christian would find objectionable. If a major business did start openly excluding certain races or something similar, I can't even imagine the level of customer pushback.

The problem isn't the major business, it's the small ones, especially when they are the only ones around. Its not effective to organize a boycott of say a small town auto repair shop because they refuse to serve a minority population, especially if the majority supports them or is neutral. If they are the only such shop in town, the rejected customer can't easily find another shop.

 

[MoonlessNight]

The problem isn't the major business, it's the small ones, especially when they are the only ones around. Its not effective to organize a boycott of say a small town auto repair shop because they refuse to serve a minority population, especially if the majority supports them or is neutral. If they are the only such shop in town, the rejected customer can't easily find another shop.

If they really hate minorities so much that they will not serve them in such situations, which do you think is going to be their reaction to losing a costly legal battle which forces them to serve minorities: to gladly do so, or to close their doors? Even if he does leave his business running, do you really think that he will treat his minority customers fairly? There are all sorts of ways that you can cheat people in such a business while making it hard to prove that you are cheating them.

The types of situations you allude to are regrettable, but I do not think that your approach will do much to fix them. If you really wanted to fix that situation you would have to bring in a new mechanic who would be glad to serve minorities, rather than putting a metaphorical gun to the head of a bigot and expecting him to gladly stop being bigoted. Neither of our suggestions does that, but my suggestion has the advantage of not catching faithful Christian businesses in the crossfire.

 

[ken777]

Any business should be free to withhold service to anyone it wishes, and for whatever reason it wishes.

We know that businesses use all sorts of excuses when they do not wish to accept a particular client ... the Christian is "disadvantaged" by not being able to lie about it.

I would suggest that Christian business owners state their particular beliefs concerning homosexuality and leave it up to the client to decide to do business or not. I don't think there is yet a law against flooding a customer with religious message about one's faith, is there?


...

 

[Sketcher]

The problem isn't the major business, it's the small ones, especially when they are the only ones around. Its not effective to organize a boycott of say a small town auto repair shop because they refuse to serve a minority population, especially if the majority supports them or is neutral. If they are the only such shop in town, the rejected customer can't easily find another shop.

Dating sites don't have that problem.

 

[Frisky Wren]

I wonder just how many gays are waiting to join a Christian dating service?
There in fact is the question itself. Could Christian Mingle accept gay's joining their service and then pairing them with the opposite sex and get away with it legally.

If their company dating policy is to match male with female , female with male, that could be done based on the applicant profile itself. We're a Christian site and we match this way. Exclusively.
The law says they can't forbid gays entry. But it can't say they have to match gays. It's a profile thing.

 

[MoonlessNight]

I wonder just how many gays are waiting to join a Christian dating service?
There in fact is the question itself. Could Christian Mingle accept gay's joining their service and then pairing them with the opposite sex and get away with it legally.

If their company dating policy is to match male with female , female with male, that could be done based on the applicant profile itself. We're a Christian site and we match this way. Exclusively.
The law says they can't forbid gays entry. But it can't say they have to match gays. It's a profile thing.

I find nothing wrong with your reasoning, even if we say that businesses must extend their services to everyone. By doing what you suggest they would serve homosexuals just like any other customers, and if the homosexual customers don't like how they were served that's their problem. It's the same as how when you go to a restaurant you might be able to argue that they need to serve you food, but (so far) no one expects to be able to demand a favorite dish which is not on the menu.

However if this reasoning worked in our legal system it would be okay for bakeries to refuse to cater to same-sex weddings, but only to traditional weddings, without regard for whether the person paying was homosexual or if the people getting married were closeted homosexuals or whatever. But that argument has been shot down both in courts and among defenders of same-sex marriage.

The whole purpose of the lawsuit is not to get service, but to force Christians to violate their consciences as punishment for not getting along with modern immorality by their own wills.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

In my thinking, that option would be similar to saying that your private school accepts left handed students, but only allows them the use of right handed desks and forcesthem to write right handed.

 

[MoonlessNight]

In my thinking, that option would be similar to saying that your private school accepts left handed students, but only allows them the use of right handed desks and forcesthem to write right handed.

Time for left-handed students to sue their piano teachers for not letting them play on left-handed (reverse) pianos.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

Time for left-handed students to sue their piano teachers for not letting them play on left-handed (reverse) pianos.

That would be a better argument with a violin than a piano, and involving an orchestra more than a teacher. But your analogy is closer to a short person suing the NBA. A school refusing to accept that some of its students are born left handed (and can't or don't wish to be 'retrained ' to be a non sinister right handed person) by not providing them with what they require is a closer analogy in my opinion.

 

[Frisky Wren]

In my thinking, that option would be similar to saying that your private school accepts left handed students, but only allows them the use of right handed desks and forcesthem to write right handed.

Really bad analogy if you've ever attended Catholic school.
Have you ever attended Catholic school? I know a guy who did for all his years in school. The nun's would hit students who were left handed with a ruler when she saw them writing left. That was the devil's hand they said. And with enough abuse on the top of that hand the kids all learned to use the right.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

Really bad analogy if you've ever attended Catholic school.
Have you ever attended Catholic school? I know a guy who did for all his years in school. The nun's would hit students who were left handed with a ruler when she saw them writing left. That was the devil's hand they said. And with enough abuse on the top of that hand the kids all learned to use the right.

I attended Catholic school, that's why I came up with that. I always thought that trying to convert gay people makes as little sense as trying to convert left handed people (also once seen as sinful)

 

[MoonlessNight]

That would be a better argument with a violin than a piano, and involving an orchestra more than a teacher. But your analogy is closer to a short person suing the NBA. A school refusing to accept that some of its students are born left handed (and can't or don't wish to be 'retrained ' to be a non sinister right handed person) by not providing them with what they require is a closer analogy in my opinion.

I don't see what the difference between my example and your examples.

Classical piano pieces are generally arranged with the assumption that the left hand and right hand will be skilled at doing different things. While virtuoso pieces might demand anything from either hand, in generally it is for instance more common to see complicated runs on the right hand and alternation of chords on the left hand. This is particularly true in the pieces used to teach beginning piano students, where the left hand will often consist only of held chords while the right hand alternates far more. These sorts of things are much easier for a beginning right handed player to play than a left handed player.

Now with time, practice and exercise the necessary proficiency can be gained in either hand. But you explicitly stated that schools should have to cater to the whims of left-handed students who do not wish to have their proficiency in each hand retrained.

The reason you think there is a difference is because my example is more absurd, as reversed pianos are quite rare, incredibly expensive to produce, and in practice left-handed piano students almost always learn with the same lessons as their right hand counterparts. But not too long ago websites which catered to same-sex couples were rare, and with many database architectures it might be very difficult to change an existing site to cater to them (especially if the website automatically matches for compatibility). I hardly expect you to give dating websites a pass for those reasons.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

Let me ask you then, if your left handed child came home from school and complained they were forced to write right handed, and not issued a left handed desk, would you as a parent be ok with that?

 

[MoonlessNight]

Let me ask you then, if your left handed child came home from school and complained they were forced to write right handed, and not issued a left handed desk, would you as a parent be ok with that?

I thought we were discussing what services businesses legally have to offer, not parenting.

Ideally there should be explicit, objective standards.

Is your standard for what services business simply "if I would be upset if it weren't offered they have to offer it, but if I wouldn't be upset then they don't"?

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

As for the piano, if I were a piano teacher, I'd simply get an interested student started on an electric and use software to reverse they keyboard. If they aspired to professional playing, then we could obtain a reversed piano.
It's tougher of course, with strings if the student aims to play in the symphony

 

[MoonlessNight]

As for the piano, if I were a piano teacher, I'd simply get an interested student started on an electric and use software to reverse they keyboard. If they aspired to professional playing, then we could obtain a reversed piano.
It's tougher of course, with strings if the student aims to play in the symphony

So do you think that piano teachers should be legally required to provide students with reversed pianos, or at least an electronic keyboard which has been reversed with software?

I'll be brutally honest: I don't care one bit about what you prefer, unless you think that preferences should be US law. What we are discussing here is what businesses should be legally required to provide in order to avoid lawsuits.

 

[Frisky Wren]

Does Christian Mingle state that their organization is a private club open only to Catholics looking for a heterosexual relationship? If I go there to join, will I see that disclaimer?

Christian Mingle is owned by Spark Networks. They're a niche industry that serves the demand side of marketing. This is why they produced, Christian Mingle Dating Service. An exclusive dating service for Christians committed to Biblical principles.

Likely if there was a Christian's dating service that identified as a church religious holding this wouldn't happen. Make it a members only organization. Rules for applying and agreeing to a creed. Incorporated into the language that of the Nicene.
It wouldn't be a policy that no homosexuals are allowed to apply. Rather, the policy would be that one had to affirm the creed, which would entail swearing they are Christian, and they are seeking the service of matching applicants in a heterosexual religious Christian creedal agreement.

That would win in court I think.

I'm waiting for FFRF or some other militant anti-religious group to start the next pronged attack. Suing Christian Mingle, eHarmony, and other religious dating services so that they accept atheist applicants and all religious. Same argument as the gays put out. Equality. Entitlement to entry.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

I thought we were discussing what services businesses legally have to offer, not parenting.

Ideally there should be explicit, objective standards.

Is your standard for what services business simply "if I would be upset if it weren't offered they have to offer it, but if I wouldn't be upset then they don't"?

My standard is that businesses can offer what they want, but if they offer it to the public, they have to offer it to all the public. So a violin teacher doesn't have to offer piano lessons, a vegan store doesn't have to sell meat, etc. But whatever service you offer, you should offer to all. A lunch counter shouldn't be whites only, for instance, but if they don't wish to serve tuna, they don't have to put it on their menu.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

So do you think that piano teachers should be legally required to provide students with reversed pianos, or at least an electronic keyboard which has been reversed with software?

I'll be brutally honest: I don't care one bit about what you prefer, unless you think that preferences should be US law. What we are discussing here is what businesses should be legally required to provide in order to avoid lawsuits.

I don't think left handed people are a protected class, so US Law would probably not prevent a piano teacher from refusing left handed students. Bit like I've said consistently, it's not about what services or products you offer, just that you offer them to everyone. That's why I am glad for things like the ADA. Whatever your business offers, it should be accessible to the public, all the public.