Business as Usual

Sarcastic title again, my sweets, because of this piece of "writing".

I do understand that the situation is different in Northern Ireland*, but... the arguments in this piece are just too angering (and so, I get to growl here, because a tweet wouldn't be enough to make me feel better).

So many things are being mixed up and misrepresented in this paper that it's annoying.

First, either people are in business or they're in religion, but since there are sooooooooooo many varieties of superstitions religions, no one's allowed to say "Mine is the true one. The only one!". Of course, people say that, and believe it, but it's wrong - and Zeus will want to have a word with you if you disagree that it's wrong.
[Checks to see that the Sarc font is on.
It is.
Firmly.]

I'll blame my reaction on my education (that was extremely open-minded and tolerant) and on my addictions to science fiction (where there can be a better, more tolerant and loving world in the future).

If your job is to make cakes... you make cakes. I'm not even going to attempt to dive into the local laws around the globe and what they say in each "village" or even on each "street".

If you make a living selling cakes, you take an order, you make the cake, you get the money, and you give your customer the cake with a smile. You can rant and growl in the kitchen, at the pub, at home, on Fakebook (sic), Twatbook (sic, coz I haven't recovered from the Twitter profile fiasco) or any Yahellgroup or whatever, but you do your job. Full stop.

Being religious doesn't give anyone the right to get some special treatment - all the more if the exception you want for yourself is causing another human being to be treated differently.

It's not about a business and its right to be religious at work. It's all about bigots wanting to get a free pass to tell another human being "Sorry, Cupcake, you're not like us. You're inferior. You're barely human according to my book, and I feel that I have the right to treat you like a second class citizen. If people don't look too closely, I'll even try to treat you like shit because you're not like me.".

The person who wrote that paper uses the example of feminists being forced to make a cake for anti-choice people. Fine.

I'm a feminist. I would cuff the first anti-choice wanker who'd tell me how to live my life. However... if I were a baker and anti-choice patrons came to my shop, I'd take care of them just like any customers..............

Well, okay... almost. I can well picture myself telling them that their "theme" isn't something that I've ever made (and that would be true!), and I'd propose to charge them a bit more - let's say 10% (truly, without any hidden agenda on my part, I feel that if you make something that's not on your usual list of activities, but you agree to give it a try, you deserve a bonus).

If they agreed to the extra and I agreed to the order, I'd make them any kind of cake (no funny trick or anything - just doing my job).

I'll go a step farther, if the anti-choice people gave me a slice of their cake, I'd eat it. The same goes for neo-Nazis (and Merlin knows they make me sick).

Incidentally, I mention Nazis because some NI politicos have been comparing the people who wanted the "gay" cake and the ones who support them as Nazis or the PC Gestapo [We need to make these plonkers understand that the first to mention the Nazis loses the right to add anything to the debate and is kindly invited to go take roots on the Naughty Step].

It's not about politics, equality or being in 2014 in a country that's NOT a theocracy.

It's always about bullying.

The bullies want a free pass to be nasty, but they don't want anyone to tell them that they're being mediaeval, intolerant, bigoted, petty, mean and cruel. If you do point the finger to show the world that they're bullies, they'll point back at you and yell that you're being intolerant (that's still Bullying 101).

The last paragraph of the paper shows it well: 'Seeking to compel others to conform to approved cultural values is a totalitarian impulse. And it derives from a smug, corpulent complacency that assumes the right to have your cake, whatever the chosen topping, and eat it.'

"Totalitarian"? What about the people who refused WORK? How open-minded are they? 

"Smug"? Bloody hell, we're talking about a cake with Sesame Street characters on top: how is that a problem? Oh, yes! There's the idea that these (imaginary!) characters stand for a non-heterosexual couple. And there's the text "Support Gay Marriage"... Why shouldn't a marriage be gay? Oh! You mean that adjective not as "joyful", but as "non-heterosexual" again... Oh, yes, love is such an awful thing! Perhaps we should go back to things as they were when parents decided who their children would marry. Or even better, decide who can get married and that exclusively in an heterosexual relationship (if we push that a tad farther, people who can't have children aren't needed in the gene pool and should be disposed of, as they've got no slaves nothing to give to the Church [Winning denomination to be announced after a Crusade - or to be just the highest bidder]. Oddly, that solution reminds me of something... about seventy years ago, I think. Not giving any name. Nope.

Human rights aren't privileges to be given to a chosen few. It's a right for all.

No baker has the right to tell a patron 'You're not human in my book, off you fuck.'.

What's next? A chemist telling a woman he doesn't want to sell her a box of Plan B? Oops. My bad!

*: I do understand that things are different in Northern Ireland, but from outside, it looks as if they're sometimes trying to outdo their brothers in the south in the Bigotry Department. I must say that I was shocked that the local politicos didn't vote to allow equal marriage. This really reeks of Rome somehow.