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Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

If a bakery's not allowed to refuse cake-baking services because the cake is going to a gay couple getting married, Mastercard shouldn't be allowed to refuse payment services to a political speaker because the speaker says that Islam is bad.

Either allow them both, or forbid them both. If you allow one, but forbid the other, your policies are nothing more than thinly disguised attempts to use the law to attack people with different political beliefs.

Arguably, a tougher standard should be applied to decide to whom Mastercard is allowed to refuse service, because there are a lot fewer alternatives to Mastercard than there are to the corner cake shop.

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agree

it has to go both ways, otherwise you are playing a game of slippery slope where you start blocking “those you don’t agree with”...

what happens when leftist parties start to become more resurgent in eurozone (for example podemos)... do we block them too because they are calling for a changes that may threaten the economic systems that support these companies?

what happens when you are labeled “far right” or “far left” and the “committee” thinks so too... is that enough reason to literally cut-off your access to money? just because a committee said so?

these things are not the purview of for-profit corporations... this is for democracies to decide (e.g free speech, free association, etc)

[edit] just to clarify

my point isn’t to support these groups, but that corporations shouldn’t be doing the blocking, if any, instead democratically elected governments should be doing so after going through a judicial process (iow democratic peer-review)... at least then he public saw the decision process, that it was transparent, and it was “fair” and can have a process for appeal etc; corporate committees have none of this.

You've hit the nail on the head. Whenever this type of practice is used to fight against the extreme right (in theory), it inevitably ends up being employed far more often against the left, and not just the "extreme" left. Environmentalists, civil rights activists, anti-racists, economic leftists, and others get caught up in these nets while somehow the stated targets on the right tend to get a slap on the wrist.

The organized left has always been more of a threat to the establishment than the far right. Nominally leftist activists who push this sort of tactic would do well to realize this and resist the urge to encourage and allow this behavior from corporations, and especially corporations as powerful as Mastercard.

Firstly, on the facts: The bakery that refused the gay couple actually won the supreme court case.

Secondly, in your example you're comparing a protected class with a non-protected class.

Thirdly, let's do away with the idea that government is apolitical. There are things that the government makes value judgements about, that's not a bad thing. The government can decide that some groups deserve protection more than others - for example, that being Gay is a part of who you are, whereas voicing particular political views is a choice.

> The government can decide that some groups deserve protection more than others - for example, that being Gay is a part of who you are, whereas voicing particular political views is a choice.

Indeed, a government could in theory do this. A government could refuse to take action when banks refuse to accept customers with particular political views. A government could allow "redlining" housing practices against people with particular political views. A government could cut off police services to people with particular political views. Barring legal and constitutional restrictions (which these days are very "fluid") a government can do almost whatever it wants to do until it meets pushback from its power brokers.

Just because this could happen, doesn't mean it should. Modern civil society is based on the notion that non-criminals are entitled to some degree of participation in society, even if they are disliked. If you take away that foundation, society will quickly become paralyzed by violence. I personally would like to live at least a few more decades, so I'm not too eager to see where that road takes us.

"Indeed, a government could in theory do this. A government could refuse to take action when banks refuse to accept customers with particular political views. A government could allow "redlining" housing practices against people with particular political views. A government could cut off police services to people with particular political views."

Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people perceive the complainants here as being the sort of people who like to call this the free market when it happens to others.

“Gay is a part of who you are, whereas voicing particular political views is a choice.”

Can you prove either one of those statements?

Thirdly, let's do away with the idea that government is apolitical.

There’s also no fighting in the war room!

You have conflated a shareholder vote with a statutory requirement here. This is a decision driven by the shareholders and not a governing body. I agree that the statutes should be equitably applied across all businesses, but it is a non-sequitur in this case since this seems to be an internal business matter.

I think you're wrong on the bakery case, they eventually won in the Supreme Court.

All due respect, it seems you completely misunderstood the baker case. I’m very much a supporter of the LGBTQ community, but that particular case was decided correctly. The couple was not refused service outright. The owner only refused a custom cake with imagery that went against his personal beliefs.

Analogous, if a Jewish baker refused to serve a Nazi, that would be wrong. But the Jewish baker should not be forced to draw swastikas on a Nazi-themed cake.

Had the court case gone the other way, it would have set a dangerous precedent.

Notwithstanding your tone of reasonability, you are equating "being a Nazi" with "being gay", despite the countless times people have explained why it is different, including in this thread and why one of them is a protected class and the other is not.

So, should a devout Muslim baker be forced to bake a custom cake with the message “Jesus Christ Is The Lord Our God”?

“Protected class” is a distinction that is one “human rights committee” decision away from changing

What a ridiculous comment. In no way did I equate being a Nazi with being gay. I used an analogy to illustrate the scenario in a context that might aid people in understanding the nature of the events that took place. For you to draw equivalents to the people in the analogy can only be the result of willful ignorance, and not worth engaging further.

Also, the protected class of the people isn't a factor in this case (or the analogy), because, again, they were not refused service outright and the baker never discriminated against them based on their sexuality. The baker was asked create a custom cake depicting a ceremony that ran counter to his personal beliefs. The argument before the court was that forcing the baker to make this cake would force him to participate in a ceremony that ran counter to his beliefs.

> Waggoner (the attorney) said Phillips is willing to sell ready-made products to anyone who enters his store. But, "he simply declines to express messages or celebrate events that violate his deeply held beliefs," she said.

Moreover, the ACLU, which represented the couple, said it was pleased the court did not endorse a broad religion-based exemption from anti-discrimination laws, and stated ...

> "The court reversed the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision based on concerns unique to the case but reaffirmed its longstanding rule that states can prevent the harms of discrimination in the marketplace, including against LGBT people."

   - Louise Melling, the ACLU's deputy legal director

So the analogy is very applicable. A Jewish baker should not be permitted to refuse service outright to a person just because that person holds beliefs that run counter to his own. But if the customer - a Nazi in this analogy - requests a custom-made cake depicting symbols or imagery that the baker finds offensive or runs counter to their beliefs, it seems fair to me (and SCOTUS and the ACLU) that he not be forced to make that cake.

If it makes you feel any better, you can extend the analogy to, let's say, a baker who just doesn't like public education and therefore refuses to make a custom cake with the logo of any public school, but still permits them to purchase any pre-made cake. The class, protected or otherwise, of the baker and customer simply don't play a role here.

"In no way did I equate being a Nazi with being gay. I used an analogy to illustrate the scenario"

You didn't call gay people Nazis, but that's not what I said you said. You equated them in the specific aspects that were being discussed, and ignored the aspects in which they differ that I and other people think are salient.

Are you saying you think legally, Jews must serve Nazis under the present regime, or are you saying morally, under a just regime, they should be forced to?

There is a significant argument for the list of traits that are protected from discrimination being restricted to only those that are inborn or innate, such as race, gender expression (as distinct from biological sex), sexual orientation, skin color, body size, physical features, et c.

Many things in our society operate better when we are permitted to discourage or encourage interaction with people or groups based on non-innate traits, such as choices made voluntarily as an adult.

Protected classes should be limited to innate traits only. Discriminating against people based on the decisions they undertake (e.g. going or not going to university, joining or not joining the KKK, donating or not donating to anti-gay-rights organizations, et c) is not only valid, it is actively beneficial to our society.

No employer should be forced to offer equal opportunity to an applicant that believes, for example, that that employer should be denied life or other rights based on the color of their skin. Mutual consent depends upon mutual respect for the basic and fundamental rights of the counterparty.

This is a totally broken framework, because while a few things are clearly "innate" (eg skin color), mostly it will just end up functioning as a cover for politicization. For example even if we agree that gay desires are an innate quality, men who have sex with men are still choosing to do that behavior. So then is it okay to discriminate if it is framed in terms of the latter?

This is a direct implication of what you have said. And many of the things you've declared as "innate" aren't even obviously such, so at best we end up with a politicization/corruption of science trying to claim theories as indisputable facts. Couching an argument in progressive-sounding terms may make it sound like a good idea, when it is actually a naive setup for the pendulum to swing hard the other way.

The general principle is live and let live. The whole "protected classes" thing was really just an imperfect approach to pushing back against the glaring worst of identity politics that was causing ongoing direct harm, because the general principle is impossible to codify just like Free speech itself.

But please Mastercard and shareholders, go ahead and cut off your own leg. The more demand created for Free payments, the better.

> And many of the things you've declared as "innate" aren't even obviously such

I think your argument against my claim hinges on this belief, and I think it is pretty plainly incorrect.

If you have specific arguments against any of the things I have listed being innate, let’s have them. Otherwise, without that lynchpin, the argument against the discrimination boundary of innate/chosen falls apart.

My argument hinges on the belief that people in general are going to hold on to a plurality of opinions, and tend to backfit facts based on those opinions.

What you are attempting to do is tie the definition of acceptable to "impartial" science. This is tempting because it's authoritative and currently lines up with what you want. But it is a dangerous path because while the scientific process itself is impartial, the focus and interpretation of it is certainly not! Much oppression has been justified by pointing to some groups "innate qualities" and then asserting they need to be "helped".

It's also insulting the various struggles that have gotten us to this point, and shirking the current struggles. Did slavery end because some scientist finally got around to discovering that by-gosh Black people are actually the same species, and then everything just fell out? Or was it generations of iterated struggle to both self-organize and wrest acceptance from wider society, which is still going on?

I did state something very plainly that is not innate - men having sex with men. The desire may be innate, but the action is not. And sure, you can respond well that's just a proxy for an innate quality of gayness. But I'm not asking you to address this argument as if I'm making it right here, but rather to think about it if it was being made by someone in power to justify ongoing persecution of gays. "Being (innately) gay is fine, just don't put it in our faces". If you think society only moves forward, I'd call that a massive blindspot.

Even if something is not innate, path dependence can make it effectively so (eg living in a trailer). Ultimately, the scourge of identity politics doesn't care whether something is innate or not, but whether it can be used to sow divisions and divide people into ingroups and outgroups. And that's the real root of hate.

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