Eagle, you have made many sexist comments in many different threads. Most seem to derive from a paternalistic attitude toward women that likely comes from your upbringing. I don't hold that against you. I also don't think you mean to be sexist. But I have most definitely noted statements that I would interpret that way.

Kaitlyn, I actually disagree with you on this as well. While I agree that marriage protects women from being abandoned by deadbeats in the situations you describe, I'm not sure that it should be the role of government to protect women in this way. I think if women did not have the protection of marriage to fall back on more of them might make better choices in their mates. We are still a little backwards in this country. In many other countries men share far more equally in the parenting and in staying home with kids and the protection is just as likely to apply to men.

Far from being sexist, I make this comment because I think women are 100% equal to men and fully capable of protecting themselves from the bad situation with the government's help.

Please clarify. Do you mean women and men are equally important...men to lead and take care of women while women have the babies and respond to posts in an emotional sense?

BTW, saying the women are generally more nurturing than men is a sexist statement by the very definition of the term. It exhibits an attitude derived from a traditional stereotype of gender roles.

I'm experiencing an internal conflict here. This is obviously a logical fallacy. Do I engage this statement with another logical fallacy? If I do, will I wind up on Bichon Frise's list of logical fallacies on GRS? And what if I do? Should I care? Will Eagle come after me for going off on a tangent?

Oh heck. I might as well. The line to too good to pass up.


We may be nuts but at least we still have an auto industry!

Why? This is not Vegas. Let's not disavow the things we've said because a thread was closed. I specifically opened up a couple of new threads so that conversations that started off there as a tangent could be further discussed in a more focused environment. Closing the original Obamacare thread was a good thing because so many completely different conversations were flying around and it was hard to keep up. But let's not pretend that we never said certain things just because a thread was closed.

reductio ad veritatem!

Vah! Denuone latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.

Parum. Gratis Google. Te ineptum? Non putant!

Thanks. Actually I meant to say, "Silly me."

While there are clearly differences in the specific facts, I see some parallels as well that are noteworthy.

First off, Woolworths was discriminating, but such discrimination was entirely legal. The business was exercising its "rights" consistent with the law at the time. Eliminating discrimination at Woolworths did not involve a change in the law. It was an economic action against an intolerable policy based upon an intolerable point of view of the owners or managers of Woolworths store. Did those idiots have the legal right to discriminate and to hold racist views? Yes. And the remedy was for the public to punish them for their beliefs/policy.

With CFA, the management clearly has the right to hold opinions of hate and indeed to financially support hate groups as they do. But any customer of CFA should know that a portion of what they spend goes to support these hate groups. And the public has the right to make this known, to protest it, and to inflict economic penalties on it.

I would also note that, while many are quick to condemn the mayors for their statements and proclaim that threatening the business or banning it would be illegal, I'm not convinced that is the case. Many cities have adopted anti-hate policies that go beyond Federal limits. My city, for example, bans big box stores, discrimination based on sexual orientation, has banned employees from cooperating in state immigration enforcement, and done numerous other things that I consider stupid. But, those resolutions are the policy of the City until struck down. The mayor and all other city officials are bound by law to implement those policies.

If we had a policy against issuing permits to companies known to support groups that advocate discrimination against homosexuals then CFA would be out of luck until it spent the time and money to challenge the law in court. I concede it would probably win but it would be costly and the discovery process could prove to be embarrassing.

This topic is supposed to be about Chick-fil-a and the so-called appreciation day that some tried to create to whitewash the embarrassment created by the executive's statement. Eagle even tried to further the Republican agenda (which has been well-publicized) to try to cast this as a free-speech issue so that they do not have to confront the marriage-rights issue directly (because public opinion is against them...or at least a minefield). They also want to vilify the mayors because they are all open-minded liberals.

But, this is not a free-speech issue. The owners have the right to say anything and the public has the right to be offended by their views and their use of company revenue to support those views and punish them for it economically with a boycott or other legal actions. To the extent that many cities have passed ordinances opposing the presence of organizations advocating hate, the statements of those mayors might not only be legal, they might even be statements of official city regulations!

In Dan Cathy's interview with the Baptist Press he acknowledged the company supports the anti-gay-marriage agenda. The company has also admitted donating money to anti-gay groups.

The FBI defines a hate group as one which animosity, malice, or hostility against personal belonging to a race...sexual orientation...which differs from the members of the organization.

One of the groups the CFA (not just the family personally) supports (and admits to supporting) is the innocuously named "Family Research Council." This group has been identified as a hate group under the FBI definition.

Many communities have ordinances authorizing exclusion of hate groups and/or taking other sanctions. Hate groups and their supporters sometimes can be required to obtain special permits and face speech restrictions. Restrictions on hate speech have often, but not always been overturned by the courts. The FBI recognizes 7 levels for hate groups. At the extreme end the distinction between hate groups and terrorist organizations blurs. Donating money to a terrorist organization is a crime.

Generally, free speech is not an absolute Constitutional right when it impacts a class of people or interferes with another person's rights. I think Cathy has the right to think or say anything for himself. But he overtly spoke for the company. And when he did that he subjected the company to thousands of community ordinances across the country that allow communities to restrict the activities of hate groups and their supporters.

I don't disagree with the parallels, but the big distinction is the absence of a policy or practice.

I also agree that people (i.e. the public) has every right to not support any business, organization, etc. that they do not agree with and every right to protest those businesses if they want to. I have the right to point out that their intolerance of anyone who disagrees with them is hypocritical.

The government, however, doesn't have the right to ban a company for the viewpoints of its owners/executives (in the absence of them acting on those view points). That is a textbook case of stifling free speech.

Finally, IMO your attempt define the anti-gay marriage groups as terrorist groups is laughable and actually detrimental to cause.

By that rationale, the DOMA is the policy of the United States until it is struck down (hopefully soon), and the mayors and other city officials, if they are attempting to ban CFA (I haven't seen anything other than speeches, which I have no problem with), are in conflict with Federal Law, and at least in the case of Chicago's mayor, in conflict with Illinois law. Illinois doesn't yet recognize same-sex marriage*, just civil unions.

*So I don't pull an Eagle, I'm actually not certain whether Illinois recognizes same sex marriages performed in other states as marriages or treats them as civil unions.

Other countries also have far more generous maternal and paternal leave. A full year PAID after giving birth, depending on the country, for both men and women, or just parental leave that can be divided at will. I was reading recently that ... Sweden? .. is contemplating mandatory 2 year paternal leave. In the US, you get 12 weeks unpaid with the promise that you can have your job back. I'm under the impression childcare is also more affordable and higher quality.

It's also not necessarily just protection against deadbeats. I'll use my parents as an example. My mom was a SAHM until my youngest sister entered kindergarten. That was roughly 10 years for 3 kids. After we got older and left the nest, my parents had the very common problem of discovering they had grown apart, which eventually lead to divorce. Mom was back at work, but nothing can replace that lost earning power. Without alimony, my mom would be entirely lost for retirement or depending on my dad being generous with his pension. Having the legal framework already set to accommodate this situation makes everything smoother, so that, in this case, my mom didn't have to go begging my dad for money. I sincerely doubt that my dad would have denied her money, but in other cases? Bitterness over divorce is ugly, even when the divorce is relatively blame free.

I used the more traditional roles of SAHM and working dad, but it does apply the opposite way. Like I said, we're planning on having H be SAHD.

I maintain that the overarching role of government is to maintain a stable society. It's in society's best interest to a) have children be raised well and b) prevent the elderly from starving in the streets. Protecting a SAHS does both. I already know your feelings on relying on children to take care of the elderly.

I still want to know where I attacked your wife? The only way what I said could be offensive is if your wife is MTF trans, at which point, I would sincerely apologize as I am aware that reproductive organs are not what make one a woman.