Quote:
Originally Posted by Julie in the rv mirror
Andrew, you state that you "can't stand" religion, which is your right; the Mississippi law allows businesses to deny services based on religious grounds. As such, opposition of the law seems in line with your own views (IMO).
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Just because I don't like religion doesn't mean to say I would want to see all
Christian owners of B&Bs in Mississippi be forced to burn their bibles and forced to have transgenders run naked through their toilets as punishment. There was a guy in the 1930s who started a quick movement against a religion over here in Europe and blamed its believers for everything wrong in society. That didn't end so well for everyone.
The truth of the matter is transgenderism, religion, laws about toilets and laws in general and their interpretation are immensely complicated. Whether the NC law was written up with real malicious intent I do not know. I think again media tries to paint a skewed picture of that. One will say it is good and the other will say it is the worst thing in the history of the USA. Promoting nuclear family is not wrong either, in fact evolution shows that it helped mankind tremendously. So there are a lot of things covered in the bill, the reaction to it, the supporters and the protests that won't simply change through the abolition of the bill itself I reckon. I can sympathise with the against camp if one is a member of the LGBT community this law perhaps marginalises him/her in specific ways. I can also sympathise with some of the law support camp who say they wouldn't want a man go into the women's toilets when your 10 year old daughter is in there just because he feels like he a woman that day. I know this is an extreme scenario but I have no idea what toilet rape statistics are etc. I'm just saying there is something there that the bill seems to cover so makes sense to me, also the example of a Christian B&B owner perhaps having to put up with (what they would perceive as) abuse just because the law allows a potential transgender festival to take over the hotel for a while doesn't seem 100% right either. You get my drift I hope...
The media (and some on the left) treat this as like the broadcast of the X Factor auditions. It tries to force us to make a quick judgement whether something is absolutely right or absolutely wrong. So on the X Factor they will show all the atrocious singing auditions and the ones who can sing like angels and leave out around 90-95% of the normal, average, decent stuff.
Society is nothing like the X Factor auditions with binary qualities in my opinion. It's an organic, ever changing thing. Having said that the best thing for the USA would be to not introduce any further laws on top of the constitution and bill of rights at all. Who needs a flipping law for carrying an ice cream cone in your back pocket? I guess this would put a lot of people out of a job and that is sad too... Jeez... Changing a contract mid way through a job isn't fair either. As long as the original laws do not discriminate and are not open to abuse the less there are laws the better probably.
The issues (including transgenderism) are complex. Doing people out of their weekend concert travel plans and any associated costs isn't going to fix it. Sure you may conclude it's better than nothing but I'm convinced I would never buy a ticket again for a Bruce show if it happened to the one I was going to (fingers crossed it doesn't). Sickness is very different than a silent protest for a concert cancellation reason.
If Bruce, Bryan, Stevie etc all want to start boycotting their shows for reasons to get a movement going I personally would rather see them do so for the more extreme areas where LGBT people are treated badly.
The NC law (which I agree with you is completely unenforceable) is like a teddy bear with a nasty smell whereas anti LGBT laws in areas such as Saudi Arabia are like self detonating barbed wired monsters. Any change in these areas would probably be better than small token, principled changes over here in the west.
Anyway these are my opinions and everyone else can disagree. But starting to talk about this and being made out for a racist or a bigot (as I was done immediately on another forum) is absolutely mental...
Again I think people judge too quickly.
Mostly though I think 90-95% of society mean others no harm and that includes transgenders, those who practice a religion, Bruce & the band, their fans and non fans and even those who were involved in probably setting up this law. Just because the latter see things differently or are possibly afraid or do not know etc doesn't mean they deserve a whole tirade of hate / abuse just like Bruce doesn't (the hateful messages on his FB are absolutely insane, one even wished for the rape of Bruce's wife!). NC even losing out on jobs (PayPal) seems a bit wrong to me but we will see if they overturn the bill I guess because of this pressure.
The first thing I reckon that will come out of this is an optional LGBT law related cancellation insurance charge TicketMaster will probably try to add to ticket sales soon....!