Oh~and Youre Parents Must Be Straight...

Blind faith is sad. It's a pity watching people waste their lives worshiping their imagination.

ITT: Ignorant, hypocritical, human garbage trying to save our immortal souls.

Yes you have the right to refuse service BUT and that is a big but you can't refuse for the said reason I stated. If they had simply denied the application for any other reason then that claim would be valid, but just like all male clubs can not exclude someone applying to be a member because they are a women, and just like how the KKK can not refuse someone a membership just because they are black. FIND A LEGAL AND VALID REASON is all I'm saying.

And to the point of this being a stunt, well where I live there are plenty of progressive Catholic's that are for gay right and would take a child of gay parents, so to say that it was a stunt is un-fair, we (you, me and everyone else)doesn't know what the reasons behind them applying for their child to go to school there.

I am not trying to save anyone, I have my belief system and you have yours. I am not human garbage, I don't feel threatened and lash out at others who don't share my views. I am who I am.

Agreed, he's not pushing religion on us, merely stating his views. No need for name calling.

When trolling a forum, try not to take direct cut-and-paste jobs from other sites. I'm pretty sure the LORD does not smile upon plagiarism.

Is this thread worth reading for lulz?

Meh, not really.

I'm Agnostic.

Actually God does smile upon plagiarism, if you use scripture from the Bible you are spreading Gods word.

Nope just a bunch of guys throwing around theories.

Which are just as plausible as your scriptures.

I feel as though your avatar should say "Logic Man!" on it. He looks like he'd be a super hero.

XD

Save me Logic Man!

Thank you for doing the research, Jaerik. Explains why there's such a fuss over this event to begin with. It's funny: this makes a lot of arguments over whether the school could or could not discriminate on sexual orientation kind of moot-point now.

P.S. This whole argument over "religion vs. science" makes me think of Angels and Demons. *lol*

It makes me cry inside, knowing I was once as devout and blind as this kiddo.

Yes, you changed it! Win all over.

Kiddo? Thanks Man I needed that! And NO I'm not telling my age.

This is a very nice counterpoint. I would like to bring up the idea of a service in contrast to your dinner party.

I think by opening up a restaurant and serving members of the public it constitutes a service to the larger community does it not? Where your private dinner party does not offer that same service to the larger community. The examples are between exclusive and inclusive invitations. This is proved through all of the licensing one has to go through to provide a restaurant service to a community. Your dinner party on the other hand doesn't have to license itself.

Considering this, in my mind, a privately owned restaurant is not unlike a privately owned school. Both are providing services to the larger community. Both have to go through licensing to offer this service to the larger community. And in my opinion both should be subjected to societies questioning.

I liked your discussion about where to draw the line. This is indeed a troublesome question. On one hand we want to be as free as possible, but the closer we get to freedom the less free we actually are because "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins." to borrow from Tousou's post. Absolute freedom would be absolute anarchy, and I think mature adults can admit that that would run counter to a productive society. We acknowledge the purpose of rules and law in a developed society. On the other hand the more rules and regulations we put in place the less freedom we have, and scenes from 1984 start becoming a reality. Here too, I think mature adults can admit that that would run counter to a productive society. It is most certainly a balancing act, and I do not envy the person charged with balancing freedom and law.

Your last point seems correct on the surface. That being "They have plenty of schools to pick from if turned away from this one". My question is do we really want to view this from that angle? If an action is wrong, does it really matter how much choice is left to the wronged? You argue that you're tired of government intervention, yet implore the wronged to seek out government paid school which would not exist if not for government intervention.

I would like to mention The Valley Swim Club as a case study. It is a private business who kicked out 65 Black and Hispanic kids from the Creative Steps Day Camp. Now as you say they're a private business so they can deny access without reason, but... The Valley Swim Club
Should we sweep this wrong under the rug because the Creative Steps Day Camp can go find another swimming pool? I think no. If this private school would have done this to a certain race we would be having a different discussion here. It is high time we extend the same rights to LGBT groups as we extend to all other demographics.

He'd be better off in public school than catholic school. While it may not be right to deny him, he's far better off.

Atheism and being Agnostic are basically the same thing, atheists don't "believe" anything, that would be a complete contradiction to the term, so that picture is innacurate in that regard. The only difference in their definitions is being agnostic is "Unknowing" where as Atheism is a "theological rejection", but both in spirit are the same thing. Ask most atheists and im sure they'll tell you they don't know about the mysteries of the universe, which would push them into the agnostic category, thin line that.

yea, sorry I said that the wrong way.. what I meant was as absurd as it is Catholics are considered Christians, BUT they don't believe the EXACT same things or follow the same guidelines that other sects of Christianity do. So when discussing a matter that was caused by the decisions of a Catholic institute, we shouldn't include all Christians.

I Disagree 'till some point. I'm non-religious, (or according to some people Agnostic) and I believe in God. I just don't believe wholeheartedly that the Bible is God's word. The Human Kind is governed by free will, so it is quiet possible their free will and own opinions/rules/side of story was marked down in the Bible. I also don't believe in organized religion. Who makes any singular person qualified to "Guide us"?

Well, that's just my point, you can't lump them all together. I was simply stating their definitions, no matter where you fall into that, those are the definitions.

I think the thread ended when Jaerik posted, the skewl is in wrong. TBA Huge *** lawsuit.

I agree. In my previous post I had said that God did not write the bible with his bare hands. In turn it was written by the hands of man and with mans free will its possible many things such as laws stories and ideals were chnaged and interperted differently than what had originaly happned or had originaly been said. Humans are not perfect. We make mistakes.

If you want to argue the ideology behind how things "should" be forever, that's fine, but courts don't listen to such things. However, if you guys are interested in the actual argument from a legal side, here's a primer:

First, the school is in the wrong. State law in Colorado, where this school is located, says private institutions cannot deny service based on sexual orientation. End of discussion.

At the federal level though, there's a big open-ended question:

Because the Equal Rights Amendment was never passed, it comes down to the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, which is carved in stone above the steps of the Supreme Court:



In essence, this says the law cannot be used to discriminate against a person or group of people, or allow such a thing to happen, without a damn good reason. (In both public and private settings.) The determination of which comes down to two things:

1) Is the group in question (homosexuals) a "suspect class?"

You first must determine if homosexuals are a distinct group of people who have historically been discriminated against due purely to the thing that makes them distinct.

2) If they are a suspect class, and you still want to discriminate, does it pass the scrutiny tests for "damn good reason?"

There are three levels of scrutiny to apply to a suspect class: strict, intermediate, and everything else.

Strict:
If the class is "strict-scrutiny" (race is currently included here), it means the trait is innate, cannot be changed, and does not have any other effect on a person's capabilities or faculties. For example, you cannot discriminate on race because there is no argument that the color of one's skin -- by itself -- impacts their capabilities or character in any conceivable way.

Intermediate:
If the class is intermediate-scrutiny, (gender is currently included here), it means the trait is innate, cannot be changed, but could potentially have valid reasons to very narrowly discriminate based on those innate differences. For example, you can block women from becoming firefighters under the argument that they lack the upper body strength necessary to do the job. But you can't block them from say, voting.

Everything Else:
For everything else, you only need to argue there's a compelling state interest to discriminate. As an example, pedophiles can't live within 1000 feet of a school, convicted felons can't own guns, etc. These are technically discrimination, and arguably could be a suspect class, but the bar is quite low in arguing why the law can take away some of their rights.

So here's the $64,000 question: the Supreme Court has never ruled on either of these. There is currently no federal answer to either: are homosexuals a suspect class? And if so, what scrutiny level do laws against them need to pass?

In some states like California, it's been answered at the state level: Yes, they are. And strict scrutiny. It was this determination that first overturned the state ban on gay marriage. In other states, it's been answered the other way: No, they are not, and there is no scrutiny.

Once these cases make their way to the Supreme Court, (and the case in California against Prop 8 will likely get there within the next several years) the judges don't listen to impassioned stories or emotional pleas, they don't look at polls or voter sentiment (the Constitution is not up for a popular vote), and they certainly don't listen to Bible verses.

So if you're interested in following the argument, you'd best get very familiar with the above terminology.