A. I’m sorry, this cake conflicts with my own personal convictions. I’m afraid I must refuse.
Q. That’s very intolerant of you. I’m suing.
Judge: Guilty!
One year later.
One year later.
Q. I wish for you to make me this cake. The design is very specific.
A. I’m sorry, I don’t have the necessary materials to make this specific design.
Q. Well, your failure to even try must come from a place of intolerance. I’m suing.
Judge: Guilty!
One year later.
One year later.
Q. I wish for you to make me this cake. The design is very specific.
A. I’m sorry, we don’t actually make cakes. This is a hardware store.
Judge: Guilty!
Lawmakers: Hey, I've got, like, a radical idea! Why don't we just, you know, criminalise intolerance!
Public: Yay! Criminalised intolerance! (But is it enough? Perhaps stores should be required to proactively stock a range of cakes to cater to every sentiment so that there's a greater choice. There's so far yet to go. To the placard shed! Bring brownies!)
Q. Success! Now, at last, every place of business here in Germany is required by law to make me my Nazi flag “Heil Hitler, Gas the Jewz” cake! All is well with the world.
A: Yes, the cake in question was sympathetic to an ideology you probably disagree with. Such is the double edged sword. To use the expression so popular on The Facebook and The Twitter, "the cake was a lie".
Q. But the Neo Nazis are a hate movement. That's, like, a false equivalence. It's totally different from a movement that's all about acceptance.
A. A double edged sword still cuts both ways, even if only one side is serrated.
Now, let me posit this. I, a hypothetical person, am a visible minority in my town. You can count us all on three fingers (there are seven of us in total). Now in this town, there is a lot of hostility towards us. All of the local shops have signs in their windows saying that we won't be served, and the shopkeepers mean it. None of the businesses will give us work. When people see us in the streets, they cross the road to avoid us. Kids point at us and giggle.
It's not that they're bad people. It's just that the town had been exclusively one way for a very long time, and they're not really open to change. They tolerate our being there, as in they don't go out of their way to cause us actual harm, but it's clear that we are not welcome.
Then, a young lawmaker who's spent a few years living in California sneaks in a local ordinance outlawing discriminatory practices in businesses. Consequently, the signs have to come down, and the businesses have to serve/employ us, on pain of fines and other legal sanctions.
Q1. Would this measure make us more welcome in that town, or less welcome?
Q2. Would the business owners' attitudes towards us be affected in a positive or negative way, if we continued to shop and work outside town as an act of defiance towards an 'unjust' law?
Q3. Would the business owners' attitudes towards us be affected in a positive or negative way, if we continued to shop and work outside town as an act of defiance towards the business owners (if they don't want our custom, we don't want to give them our money)?
A: Yes, the cake in question was sympathetic to an ideology you probably disagree with. Such is the double edged sword. To use the expression so popular on The Facebook and The Twitter, "the cake was a lie".
Q. But the Neo Nazis are a hate movement. That's, like, a false equivalence. It's totally different from a movement that's all about acceptance.
A. A double edged sword still cuts both ways, even if only one side is serrated.
Now, let me posit this. I, a hypothetical person, am a visible minority in my town. You can count us all on three fingers (there are seven of us in total). Now in this town, there is a lot of hostility towards us. All of the local shops have signs in their windows saying that we won't be served, and the shopkeepers mean it. None of the businesses will give us work. When people see us in the streets, they cross the road to avoid us. Kids point at us and giggle.
It's not that they're bad people. It's just that the town had been exclusively one way for a very long time, and they're not really open to change. They tolerate our being there, as in they don't go out of their way to cause us actual harm, but it's clear that we are not welcome.
Then, a young lawmaker who's spent a few years living in California sneaks in a local ordinance outlawing discriminatory practices in businesses. Consequently, the signs have to come down, and the businesses have to serve/employ us, on pain of fines and other legal sanctions.
Q1. Would this measure make us more welcome in that town, or less welcome?
Q2. Would the business owners' attitudes towards us be affected in a positive or negative way, if we continued to shop and work outside town as an act of defiance towards an 'unjust' law?
Q3. Would the business owners' attitudes towards us be affected in a positive or negative way, if we continued to shop and work outside town as an act of defiance towards the business owners (if they don't want our custom, we don't want to give them our money)?
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