The Glade 4.0

http://www.polygon.com/2015/3/24/828528 ... r-indianas

A gaming institution says "Screw you, we're moving."

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Holy shitsnacks!

Meh.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I'll attend when it goes back to Lake Geneva.

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This cold and dark tormented hell
Is all I`ll ever know
So when you get to heaven
May the devil be the judge

Most such contracts include stipulations that allow them to be broken without penalty if major legal changes impact the event.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That's true but it would be a pretty hard sell in court since the legal effect doesn't directly impact the event. The legislation doesn't require that GenCon discriminate in any way; it just raises the possibility that other local establishments could do so.

I'm sort of having trouble imagining how they could really actually do this. Most of the places GenCon attendees would frequent would be restaurants, bars, and hotels. How would they actually know if anyone was a gay couple? If you just start turning away any pair of same-sex people that come in you're going to turn away a lot of business coming from relatives and friends of the same sex. If you start turning away significant business, pretty soon you won't have a business. Then the entire problem solves itself!

It seems like any time this has actually happened, it's pertained to wedding cakes. I dub this the "Wedding Cake Law"; in the words of Justice Stewart an "uncommonly silly law."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It's actually pretty easy to tell when people are a couple. Holding hands, a quick peck on the lips, an arm around the waist, a soft touch on the shoulder...there are a thousand little signs of affection that straight couples routinely engage in that gay couples have to refrain from if they want to fly under the radar. It's not a minor imposition. That said, I'm basically in favor of the right to discriminate unless there's an overwhelming culture of discrimination that needs to be broken, and that's fortunately not the case anymore. Still, it's important not to minimize the impact on the people being discriminated against.

I doubt very many hotels and restaurants are going to be throwing out the Gencon gays if this comes to pass. The law would be unnecessary if people BOTH SIDES would be respectful of other peoples differences.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

There are two sides, indeed.

The side of two people just wanting to live their lives the way they want with no outside influence

and

The bigots.

Substitute "black" for "gay" and see where that takes you. Its a similar thing.

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Holy shitsnacks!

I find it pretty difficult to believe that many establishments will actually waste employee time and effort on having someone looking to see if pairs of people of the same sex are exhibiting any subtle signs of affection. On top of that, mistaking a pair of people for a gay couple when they actually aren't has the potential to be pretty costly in terms of business. I don't think, furthermore, that any service business that wants the average host/hostess/clerk trying to guess if people are gay and then turning them away based on his or her evaluation is really going to be in business that long - I mean, have you seen the average person doing this sort of work? This just does not sound very feasible.

The reason wedding cake places object is because when they make the cake it (often) includes in the cake making some overt declaration of the relationship and obviously when you order the cake for a couple you make an overt declaration in the process.

It's furthermore very important to minimize discrimination because when we don't someone invariably uses it as a baseball bat to get special privileges. This case is amusing because it's an example of everyone blowing it out of proportion. Anti discrimination legislation is a bad idea in the first place, the Indiana legislature is potentially compounding it with an even worse idea that is really just about a few specific businesses getting their feelings hurt and then GenCon wants to pretend this will actually matter to their attendees.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Except, it actually does matter to their attendees. Being forward thinkers, gamers, and generally good people.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Except for the fact that dating and having sex are behaviors whereas being black is not a behavior. Also, it's a lot easier to tell if someone is black just by looking at them.

The real problem is that we have antidiscrimination laws at all. If people want to turn away perfectly good money, let them. This is the same reason we don't ban Nazi rallies like the idiot Euros do. It's better to let the stupid suffer the consequences of its stupidity than shield it by forcing it to not be stupid.

If you let a business discriminate, then you call attention to the discrimination and fix it by having a protest on the sidewalk in front of them. It's better to shame people into tolerance and acceptance than force them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Gamers are not any more forward thinking or better than anyone else - and if you're going to a game convention for the social justice aspects, you've got serious problems with the concept of "relevance".

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Ah. Here's the disconnect. "Gay" isn't a behavior. Its innate. People don't "choose" gayness. They are gay. Its intrinsic to them.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Even if homosexuality was a choice, this would still be hypocritical as hell.

The "religious freedom" bullshit justification for this crap is what annoys me the most. If someone were to refuse to sell a wedding cake to an interfaith couple or a couple of a different religion, absolutely no one would stand for it, despite that falling under religious freedom just as much as this does.

I didn't say that. I said having sex with or a relationship with or otherwise expressing affection towards another person is a behavior - which it is. I did not say that anyone chose to be gay, and pointing out that gay people tend to engage (surprise) in affectionate behavior with the same sex does not imply that being gay is a choice. You can stop pretending you're pointing out that it's not a choice right now, because no one was either unaware of that or implying that it was.

As to the bill, whether it ever comes into law or not you can't tell if someone is gay unless they tell you. You CAN tell if someone is ordering a cake for a same-sex wedding. You can, with dubious reliability guess if a pair of people in front of you are a same-sex couple or just associates of some sort that are of the same sex. The latter is the only situation likely to apply to Gen Con, and I find it highly unlikely any business Gen Con participants are likely to frequent would feasibly be able to do this.

Hence, this is the Wedding Cake Law. It is a silly law that remedies one highly situational problem by creating a "solution" that's even more situational, and both are equally foolish.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Wouldn't they? How do you know this?

It's really just that religion annoys you, period.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So gay people can just not show any outward signs of affection while in public. That seems fair.
Compare:
"So you'll be staying the weekend?"
"Yes, we just got married" they hug.
"Aww, isn't that sweet! Congratulations! Room 1234 check out is at 11. Here's your key."

To:
"So you'll be staying the weekend?"
"Yes, we just got married" they hug.
"Ooh. We don't provide services to gay people. This is a Christian establishment!"

To:
"So you'll be staying the weekend?"
"Yes, we just got married" they hug.
"Ooh. We don't provide service to interracial couples. This is not that kind of establishment!"

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Holy shitsnacks!

Because clearly the "it's impractical for a business to actually do this, and doing so will cost them money and customers for no gain" equals "gay people can just not show affection in public".

This is a pretty blatant straw man. If one establishment won't take someone's money, the next one will be more than happy to take it instead and frankly, if someone doesn't want my money because of who I am I'd much rather them turn me away so I can spend it at some place that's more deserving of my business.

As for your comparison, I don't really see why we should provide protection to interracial couples either. If someone really wants to turn away customers, let them lose the money and let the protests ensue.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Because the South.

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Holy shitsnacks!

The problem is businesses in a lot of areas actually have "legitimate" reasons to refuse service to black people, or more specifically young black males. Statistically, they are far more likely to cheat you, rob/assault you, or otherwise steal from you, so you have a pretty good business incentive to simply blanket refuse service to avoid having to deal with the problems. The result is the honest black individuals that don't fit the thug stereotype get unjustly excluded from everywhere simply because of their skin color.

So your counterargument is your own form of bigoted stereotyping?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Very few businesses would actually do this; blacks would certainly not be excluded from anything even close to "everywhere". Any fool can see that you'd make more money accepting business from black people and accepting the risk of maybe possibly getting robbed than you would save by turning away blacks in general.

And when someone does, you get people to go protest.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You deny that racism still exists in the South?

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Holy shitsnacks!

You deny that racism still exists in the West? North?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Absolutely, there are two sides.

The side of people trying to live their lives (i.e. run their businesses) the way they want with no outside influence

and

The SJW's.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko