I don't think it was merely because they were gay, but largely because of the historical context in which homosexuality was conflated with pedophilia, communism "mind pollution", among some things. There was a large historic context of both ignorance and scapegoating of societal problems of various minority groups.
So, them being gay wasn't the issue as much as people were made believe that "gay" meant something else. The reason why in today's society homosexuality is normalized is precisely because those cultural myths were gradually and systematically were shown false.
Pedophilia is not the same thing as homosexuality, so there isn't reasons to make educational films like "Boys beware" and call the offenders homosexuals.
I'm not sure how important these distinctions are, though they do tend to support my idea that homosexuals were discriminated against -- for whatever reason -- and so the government (at least in some cities and states, and to a limited extend on the federal level) felt the need to extend protections toward them.
It seems your also using this as an argument to claim that these protections are no longer needed, as many of these "memes" have been debunked. First, there is the issue that many still believe many of these memes -- for example, you'll find threads here where people argue the homosexuals are pedophiles meme.
But even if that wasn't the case, even if no one still believed these memes, the fact remains that we still see plenty of examples of gays being discriminated against -- and likely the vast majority go unreported, particularly in those states and localities that have no protections for gays. As other stories here show, by complaining, these gays tend to open themselves up to further harassment (particularly from people who agree with the business doing the discriminating).
Likewise, yes, private homosexuals were blackmailed by Communists into becoming spies, but it doesn't make all homosexuals Communists, etc, etc, etc.
And I find this irrelevant. You could just as easily make the argument that adulterers are all Communists but that doesn't really fit either, despite the facts that Communists would blackmail adulterers into working for them.
That's a point that abstracts the "middle of the dispute" from the "beginning of a dispute". Virtually all of the disputes begin with one group of people doing something, and the other group of people disputing the validity of that action of idea by bothering them. Thus, I don't really see that as a viable distinction.
Again, the only reason they can be barred from doing anything is if they are openly homosexual (which few people were) , if they are labelled as such in close-knit community, or if they have a criminal record in broader context of community (like sexual offenders are today). Otherwise, how can you tell apart a homosexual walking into a store? Especially if they are not openly homosexual.
These issues were complex in the past because of generic "mental illness" category in which a lot of things were thrown together indiscriminately (yes, that last word is important). Thus, there were a lot of pedophiles who were "homosexuals" who lived among homosexuals. There was a broader societal confusion on this issue, even among people who were generically labeled homosexuals and thus believed it to be an adequate label.
But, that's besides the point, because below is the main reason why it's problematic.
Except there have always been the standard "stereotypes," such as the effeminate man or the butch woman -- and people (even if not homosexual) would frequently be discriminated against because they seemed to exhibit those traits. And it ignores the idea of a homosexual couple not being able to be "together" in public.
In this context, you'd have to justify connecting setting X to setting Y. Setting X is beating and murder, and setting Y is baking a cake for a wedding. In this context you'd have to consistently show that because X is wrong, therefore Y is also wrong in context of the "floodgate principle", meaning that if we are going to make up universal rules for people to live by, these would need to be consistently applied to various categories of mistreated people, if you are going to imply that because X then Y. That's the only reason I brought up this issue.
Otherwise, we are talking about two different settings - murder and beating is clearly wrong, and refusing to sell the cake is nowhere near or related to this issue, and you'd have to show how it's wrong apart from appealing to murder and beating.
Again, we should protect people against being beaten and murdered. I totally vote YES for that. But, that's not what you are arguing against in context of equality of rights.
All of us shouldn't be murdering each other, or be murdered by someone, right?
You can argue that no one should refuse to bake cakes for anyone... and I'll be the first one knocking on your door to prove that point wrong.
You can then say, but I don't bake cakes for living, but that's the point. You can't consistently transfer "Because no-one should be murdered" and then argue "This special category was beaten and murdered, and refused hosing and sales more than everyone, therefore no one should do that". You are mixing the settings and arguments.
I agree that murder is always wrong no matter who we are murdering or the reasons we have for murder. I disagree that refusing someone to sell something is always wrong no matter who we are selling to or the reason we have for refusal. Thus, you can't mix the two claims and throw these in the same category of claims as people did, and perhaps still do with homosexuality.
OK, now you are switching the context from "beating and murder" to "friendly and kind". There's a vast in-between gap with these concepts.
And I would say you are being naive here. You are trying to claim that a group despised enough to get "beaten and murdered," with law enforcement often looking the other way, does not effect a persons, who belongs to that class, ability to live their life; that they aren't going to face a lot of other forms of discrimination in their lives?
Beyond that, I did address the idea that they did face discrimination in trying to find housing or even to buy at the retail level. Again, that is the reason that the "gay ghettos" exist today.
Likewise, you are confused as to what's Government job should be. Government job is to protect against immoral extremes. It's not there to enforce ideals. If someone is crabby hermit by nature of their existence, it's not government's job to force them to be a polite socialite.
I'd say that is your opinion as to the job of government. I would say in the US we've gotten to the point, at least back in the 1960's (with the Civil Rights Act), where the idea was that government is there to protect people, including their ability to fully participate in society. And don't bother trying to show that the government isn't perfect at it, or that it doesn't protect everyone "equally" -- the idea here is more that it is an ideal, a goal.
I think there is a debate to be had about how far these protections should extend. I mean we currently have another thread on the board where a lesbian couple was denied housing. There was one, though it was a while ago, about a gay couple denied landscaping services, you have this thread about a florist. Additionally, there is an issue with how you construct a law which protects people from discrimination, while, at the same time, not putting an undue burden on businesses.
The issue being, as soon as you start carving out exemptions, such as a businesses not being required to make items for "events" (such as weddings); history shows us that some owners will start trying to abuse that exemption, such as claiming they only bake for "events" -- even if it is just (to use the baker again) an "event" to celebrate a Monday night at home or something equally nonsensical.
The other side is, these are businesses being required to provide services. Again, an argument can be made that perhaps there should be protections for sole proprietorships or family run businesses, to protect the business owner's beliefs. But, particularly for businesses with multiple employees, we have laws to try and protect employee's beliefs -- for example, where while a business would need to bake the cake for the gay wedding, they would give the cake to an employee who doesn't feel like it violates his beliefs.
Likewise no one owes anyone "the full participation in society". I know someone who is extremely shy and insecure with the world because of restrictions, expectations of him that were placed by his parents. As a result, he never dated a woman and is terrified of failure or rejection, and is afraid of job interviews, and the guy is 40. As a result of this psychological abuse by parents, he is also unable to fully participate in society... more so than many homosexuals today.
There are plentiful cases like that, and it's not up to the government to resolve these cases.
And while sad, this seems to, again, you trying to muddy the issues. Again, Civil Rights laws are to protect groups who have traditionally faced discrimination that limit there ability to participate in society. If your fried was gay, the law would do nothing to "force" him into society, or to solve his issues, that it does today. Civil Rights laws attempt to make it so that society does not prevent, or create artificial obstacles, people being able to be able to participate in society. But the laws are from the other side -- they open up society so these people can participate -- they do not force people to participate in this society being opened to them, much less provide help or incentive to participate.
Now, if we were talking about arguments for universal healthcare, then this story would likely become relevant -- that this person you know could get the medical (psychiatric) help to enable him to help him cope (and possibly in someways heal) from the years of abuse. But it has nothing to do with the topic of this thread, at least directly.
