[Edward64]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

I’m a professor and the ‘stop woke’ act creates a climate of fear for Florida educators | Column

My question was below. Your articles above were HB7 and the "Woke Act" and although I was not explicit in my prior post, the discussion was on the "Don't Say Gay" bill re: lack of lawsuits.

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.

Question - do you have an article or link that supports your supposition its because there is fear of reprisals by organizations like ACLU, activist LGBTQ+ etc. groups

And yes, lawsuits are being filed because...

Florida Educators and Students File Lawsuit Challenging “Stop W.O.K.E.� Censorship Law | American Civil Liberties Union

Specific to the link you found above re: ACLU challenging the "Woke Act". Good. I've not studied it thoroughly but I read enough to know there are some things I do not support.

And the courts are where to fight it out, fine tune, and remove any ambiguities.

As per both our sources, Jews in Germany at that time also feared reprisals. (A) So I ask again, would you have advised the Jews to flood the system with a bunch of lawsuits challenging the laws that were on the books and with the court system filled with supporters of the government as you do with the LGBT community. The actions back then were well within the law of the day. Do you believe the Jews felt they did not have valid grounds to contest?

I actually didn't think you asked that question A previously (if I'm wrong, let me know). You asked the below question B in a previous post. Your above question A was "would I advise the Jews to file lawsuits" back then. Your orig question B below was (my rewording) "would I advise LGBTQ+ to file lawsuits" now.

Unsurprisingly, no one questions why the Jews in Germany during this time did not file a lawsuit to get these policies reversed. (B) I am not sure why you would expect a ton of lawsuits from a community under similar attack now.

I answered your orig. question B with below. To be explicit, the answer is yes. In current day US, we are lawsuit happy. If my rights were violated or "Don't Say Gay" wasn't applied equally, I would speak to ACLU or LGBTQ+ group and get help.

And that's the point, the LGBTQ+ community is not under near similar attack (per my article). What's to stop ACLU, LGBTQ+ groups in California, New York etc. helping out? We are lawsuit happy in the US.

IMO the Occam's Razor are lawsuits are in the works but not yet filed/publicized, or they've not found the valid grounds to contest (e.g. unequal treatment, unconstitutional or whatever). This is much more reasonable IMO than the ACLU, activist LGBTQ+ etc. groups fearing reprisals.

Getting back to your question A, no I would not advise Jews back in the 1930s to file lawsuits. Instead, I would hope that I would have seen the writing on the wall and left the country sometime 1933-1938. (But we know hindsight is 20-20)

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.

Would you call refusing to provide services against LGBTQ+ folks and invoking religious freedom widespread? Do you think that may be described as extreme economic steps or serve as a cue to harass?

Above was in reference to below statement. I'll organized my answer into 3 parts.

If it is a religious institution and their long stated beliefs are not to provide services (aka marry) LGBTQ+ couple, I'm okay with that.

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

If it's a big business, no services should be refused.

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

Specific to "a general boycott", I don't see it. I can easily see some calls to discriminate like the LGBTQ+ equivalent of CFA but #4 description indicates a much more widespread thing.

Before I do so, I have a statement and I have a question because. First, don't forget that last part of #5. That is kind of important.

Now the question. C. Do you believe that passing laws that made it illegal to practice the customs and traditions of a group of people in their public life amount to removing those people from the society? D. Not allowing them to practice behind closed doors or in hidden places. Practice in the same way that you and I are allowed to practice our customs and traditions in our public life. If you believe that, then I can provide you dozens of laws that have already been passed preventing LGBT folks from practicing their customs and traditions in a public way. To me, banning LGBT folks from being LGBT folks in the public eye is the same as the Nazis banning Jews from being Jewish in the public eye.

Above was in reference to below quoted statement.

I tend to be a literal person. Your above question to my statement below re: purge civil service of Jews/LGBTQ+ folks is confusing with your "customs & traditions". I read it #5 as literally kicking out anyone that is a Jew/LGBTQ+ from government employment.

When you stated "from other areas", I was thinking like Healthcare industry, or Hospitality sector etc. So no, I do not believe your "customs & traditions" applies specifically to my #5.

There has not been specific legislation to purge the civil service of LGBT folks. There has been specific legislation to purge them from other areas though.

The bolded section is interesting and I was not aware of this. I assume you mean "proposed legislation" (from wackos, no chance in passing) and not actually passed legislation. But if I'm wrong can you provide links? Unless this is widespread, I don't see it.

However, your "customs & traditions" question is still valid. Let me try answer. I lettered C and D in your paragraph above.

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.

For D, as long as it does not hurt, endanger anyone else, I think one can do whatever "customs & traditions" in private. I would add "not illegal" also but not in the context of sodomy being illegal (which I think still is "officially" in some books).

Are banning access to books really that much different to book burnings and excluding the books' authors or topics?

In general, it is the same. But I reserve the right to change this answer to your specific scenario as I know there are several versions of the "Woke Act", so link the one you wish to discuss. 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.

I don't know if it has to be that complicated. The laws are what they are now. Any change in law that restricts who the LGBT folks can wed whether it is in accordance with any religion or under the law because they are is no different IMO.

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.

And this may be the easiest one to address though not in law as of today.

Access Denied

Easy enough for me. Let me know when you think there is enough votes to pass this bill. And then we'll see how SCOTUS rules. Until then, I file it under wackos with no threat to our US republic.

So by my count, I have addressed more than half of your check points. As I said, I don't think we are there. I don't think we will ever getting there but the fact we turned down that street is shameful. The idea that we are not following the Nazis script word for word so it is not that bad is a troubling way to defend what is currently going on.

I've address this in my prior post above.

The idea that we are intentionally doing the things we are doing but it's okay because we have not reached the yellow stage of on the Nazi Germany scale is weird.

If something is Green, I don't worry about it in my projects. Why worry about something until it gets to Yellow (or Red) or near Yellow?

Your point may be that we are getting near to Yellow. I'm more we are solidly in Green right now. Or in your words, you believe "we turned down that street" and I believe we haven't hit that corner to turn down that street yet.

The idea that that LGBT folks should face what they are facing now in many ways because they somehow "strove to challenge the “correct” world" is disgusting IMO.

The saddest part is when the acceptance does come about, we all of a sudden will paint it as people were just uneducated "back then". We will say that people just misinterpreted the Word to mean something that it did not "back then". Finally, we will admit that the LGBT community should not have been treated in this way but we should not have to be held responsible for what those people did "back then" even if we were also around "back then".

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.

Here are some questions for you.

#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?

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

#3. 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?