[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Edward64

There are many incidents like you quoted. No doubt.

Question is do they rise to the scale and degree/severity of the Jews in the 1930's? Or put in another way, do you expect these incidents to eventually create a Kristallnacht climatic event (Hitler came to power in 1933 and Kristallnacht was 1938).

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/conte.../kristallnacht

No they do not. They do rise to the scale and degree/severity of the attacks of the 1920's by the Nazi party as I showed earlier. That leads me nicely into answering your second question. IMO, the attacks of the 1920s and the public's response or lack thereof to those attacks set the stage for the attacks of the 1930's including those that happened prior to Hitler coming to power. Once Hitler did come to power, the country then had a leader that was sympathetic and even encouraging of those attacks and the general public did not and eventually could do anything about it. So if the current attacks continue both physically and legislatively, then the country elects a leader to power who is sympathetic and even encouraging of those attacks and the general public does not anything about it, I see no reason why we could not have our own version of Kristallnacht some five after that leader comes to power.

Differences that I see:

1) There is not a US government implicit/explicit support for your examples vs Nazi Germany. You can bring up some MAGA politicians but do you believe, deep down, that our Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches will allow something like Kristallnacht to happen in current day?

The Executive, Judicial and Legislative branches across many states are already providing support for my examples. That is why they are occurring. If the same people take over those branches at the federal level, why would they change?

2) As mentioned previously, there has been growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ (exception of T as that is still relatively new (?) issues brought forth with MSM) in the US. I think there are many polls/surveys show that although still not perfect, good progress has been made here.

And those examples were still allowed to happen and are justified. Rinse, repeat.

Pressing on to the next post

I will also say that I understand individual teachers may fear reprisals. I would think the ACLU and activist LGBTQ+ would be able to find some teachers willing to challenge "Don't Say Gay". And hence my comment below specifically about ACLU and activist LGBTQ+ groups.

Are you demanding the ACLU force teachers to subject themselves to reprisals to file lawsuits? If you understand why individual teachers may fear reprisals, I don't understand why you don't understand why the ACLU and activist LGBTQ+ groups may not be able to find teachers willing to expose themselves and their families to everything that would come with filing a lawsuit. This is especially the case when they have options similar to this one right here.

Instead, I would hope that I would have seen the writing on the wall and left the country sometime 1933-1938.

I admire anyone who takes up a cause that may make them a martyr. I refuse to demand such a thing of anyone.

The environment then, with the Nazi Party, Germany's equivalent of our Exec/Judicial/Legislative branch (?), bent on prosecution of Jews seemed evident. Lost cause. Not so with current day US where we have our, imperfect as it is, still great checks & balances as a whole.

You believe that despite everything that you have seen become law in the state level over the last two plus years?

EDIT: Submitted too fast.

I will ignore A. I am not educated enough on all religious doctrine to speak with any authority on A. Don't really see the difference between a big or small business. I do know about this one though.

If it's a small business (wedding cake for a believer and a non believer hetero couple), I am unsure. I can see "both sides" of the issue.

Do you still see both sides of the issue? All Christians on the board may correct me if I am wrong but I believe that is also forbidden.

I am unsure what you mean by "extreme economic steps" or "cue to harass"?

Members of the Nazi party wanted to the Jews to suffer economically. It was something that was written in the Nazi Party platform. The boycott is believed to be the first step to accomplishing that. "Cue To Harass" could be as simple as Jews are destroying our country and corrupting our children in the 1930 or LGTBQ are destroying our country and corrupting our children in 2023. Both seem to result in the same types of attacks IMO.

For C, it depends on the specific "customs & traditions" being done/displayed in public life re: removing them from society. I started typing a couple examples and came to the conclusion its better for you to provide me specific examples. My examples are probably not what you were thinking.

I am actually interested in what you come up with. It could be something as simple as the Star of David for the Jews and Pride symbols for the LGBTQ community being allowed publicly in a positive sense not as a mark of scorn as the Nazis intended.

I do know there are book banning in specific situations (school libraries) but those books can still be bought on Amazon or B&N so I definitely do not put those on the same "scale or degree/severity" as what the Jews went through.

The books were removed from public places. The Jews could have also bought the books from Jewish bookstores that were still open at the time as well, no? You are not saying that made the burning the books that were in a public space okay?

There may be some outliers but I believe LGBTQ+ can do civil unions pretty much anywhere. It may not be the same as a Catholic or Muslim "marriage" but I'm okay just as long as they both have the same privileges under US laws.

But they can marry now. The law say so now. Why are you restricting them to something other than marriage? If a religious entity is okay with them getting married, why do you get to overrule that entity. If the government allows an Elvis impersonator to MARRY two people and it be considered legal, why must anyone much less LGBTQ be limited to civil unions. If the laws changed that civil unions got all the same privileges, then we can let everyone have a civil union and let that be the binding agreement in the eyes of the government and if you want to get married, by all means find the religious institution that will marry you in the eyes of your spiritual entity. I fail to see the need to place a divide in a place that is not currently there and does not seem to bother anyone except those that want the divide?

I'm not sure what you mean by "back then" and if it references something I said (which I don't think I did). I did say that I've seen great strides in acceptance for LGB vs 20 or 40 years ago.

No, what I meant is that when we do reach that magical point of acceptance of the LGBT community, I mean when those that demand the divide now reach the magical point of acceptance, we are going to react as it is some sort of great break through and will say many of those things. You know kind of like we do when we accepted other groups that we've discriminated against in our history.

#1. Do you believe that acceptance of LGB has increased significantly over the years and great progress has been made in most/all areas of society as compared to 20 or 40 years ago?

Absolutely. But 2-3 years ago, teachers having rainbow flags in their classroom and students had access to books that represent them so we have made less progress in the last 2-3 years than we had in the previous 17-18 or the previous 37-38. I don't feel I should wait for 10 more years of regression before I say something. I am sure that Jews in Nazi Germany would have wanted their fellow citizens to do the same.

#2. Regarding Transgender, what is your take on transgender Lia Thomas swimming against non-trans women?

Kind of off topic but I guess we are here. You'll appreciate this. Depends on which definition of women we are working with. Let's consult good old Webster.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woman

Here are the two definitions I think are relevant.

an adult female person

Adult? I assume 18 is the legal age of adulthood so check.
Female? That one is going to be a bit problematic, so let see how they defiine female

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/female

a) I don't know if she can produce eggs or not. Possible hysterectomy will complicate things more.
b) She is claiming a female identity
c) she seems to have all the characteristic of girls, women, or the female sex : exhibiting
d) I don't know if she has any qualities (such as small size or delicacy of sound) sometimes associated with the female sex. She definitely not small size.

Based on those definitions, I am going to say check on her being female.
Person? check

The second definition I think is relevant.

distinctively feminine nature

Yeah, no question, she is distinctively feminine nature. According to both of the definitions, she is a woman.

I jest of course but I think the exercise is fruitful. From what I understand the NCAA actually did say she was a woman based on whatever their definition is, so for that competition she is a woman. The easy solution IMO is to make the distinction between males and female competitors instead of men and women and competitors can declare whether they are male or female. Checks can be done at a similar time as they do the drug testing. That is not nearly as complicated as determining gender and more in line with what all of us are actually thinking when discussing this topic. If you have a male sex organ, you compete with the males and if you have a female sex organ, you compete with the females. The trans debate never comes up because the gender debate never comes up.

For a small Wedding Cake business who has history of strong religious affiliation. Should that small business have to create a wedding cake for LGBTQ+ couple?

What is the religious belief that prevent them from making the cake? As I addressed earlier, 2 Corinthians 6:14 says that a Christian should not marry a non-Christian. There was a time that people thought that Deuteronomy 7:1-6 which tells the Israelites to destroy all the inhabitants of the Canaan land and not to intermarry with them because they would "turn your sons away from following Me, that they may serve other gods." was proof that God disapproved of interracial marriage. That last one is the reason why someone did not go to my wedding. Would they be allowed to not create my wedding cake based on their beliefs in these passages? Can they have strong religious beliefs and be racists and/or homophobic? Does one supersede the other? I honestly don't know.