Hate dies hard...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/20/africa/south-africa-lesbian-couple-wedding-venue/index.html

https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/another-couple-disappointed-after-beloftebos-venue-stands-firm-on-lgbtqi-weddings-policy-20200120

A same-sex couple was angered and disappointed after a wedding venue in the Western Cape declined to host their wedding – and it wasn't the first time the venue declined to host a function. A similar decision was made in 2017.

But the owners of the venue, Beloftebos, believe that they are exercising their constitutional right to freedom of belief when they refuse to host weddings for LGBTQI+ couples, a spokesperson for Freedom of Religion SA (FOR SA) said on their behalf.

"Section 9 of the Constitution states that you can't unfairly discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation; but one right does not trump another right," said Michael Swain, executive director of FOR SA.

"We, the owners of Beloftebos are Christians who seek to honour and obey God in everything we do, including the way in which we operate our business (the wedding venue). While the venue is available to people of all race[s], our Biblical conviction is that marriage is reserved for a life-long commitment between one man and one woman. This is a deeply held belief (not only for us, but for the vast majority of Christians around the world for over 2 000 years) and is a foundational part of our faith as Christians. "This belief in turn guides our venue’s policy. It is our conscience before God which prohibits us from hosting any other kind of 'marriage' on our property – not a fear or hatred of homosexual people ('homophobia') as we have unfairly been accused of. For us, to host (and thereby enable, or celebrate) a same-sex 'marriage', would be to dishonour and disobey God – potentially with eternal consequences. This is too great a cost and if forced to compromise on our faith, we would have to 'obey God rather than men' (Acts 5:29). "At the same time, we appreciate and respect that South Africa is an open and democratic society where people are free to live their lives as they choose – including the right to conclude same-sex 'marriages'. We respect this freedom of choice, and simply ask that our freedom of choice (to believe, and live our lives according to, the Bible) be respected also. Our Constitution does not require everyone to believe the same, and does not punish people for holding divergent beliefs and opinions."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/22/2020 08:11AM by anybody.

It sounds like they have a good logical defense that explains why they decline making business with a certain group. I especially like how they explain that they are not "homophobic" and how that is a bigoted term aimed at people who don't deserve that title. I wish more people would stand up to the hatred and refuse to be called by that name.

"not a fear or hatred of homosexual people ('homophobia') as we have unfairly been accused of."

It’s definitely the wrong term. The word they’re looking for is “stupid”.

"Blah, blah, babble, deny my bigotry and displace it on others. Blah."

In the U.S., the deciding matter could be something like-

Is this facility managed as a business that's available to others who conform to the rules/conditions, -or- is the greater portion of it's use operated for 'strictly' religious purposes;

kinda like a business for lodging, a restaurant, barber shop, or other facilities whose main purpose is to earn financial gain for their owners.

You are making a lot of sense there.

A business that is open to the public is just that--open to the public and about the only exclusion accepted in business is the fabled, "no shoes, no shirt" clause.

As a gay man I do business with anybody and have done business many times with the religious right who hate me but still want my product. I am open to the public.

It is the homophobic who are constantly claiming to not be homophobic and to be offended by being called that. They want their bigotry labeled as a religious right. Get it macaRomney?

I have lived it.

Done & Done Wrote:
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> Get it macaRomney?

He never will. It is like Mormons saying they don't hate or fear alcohol. They do and in their minds taking a sip is akin to alcoholism.

Loving the sinners and allowing their wedding isn't against their god. They aren't promoting or endorsing other people's behaviors. They are simply doing a job that is offered to the public.

If the Good Samaritan had to ask the orientation, beliefs, etc. of the man suffering an assault on the road, the victim of assault would also have been a victim of discrimination.

I fear macaRomney won't get the point until you can show us a dog turning into a duck.

Wow, an actual picture proving the transition from dog to duck.There you go!

macaRomney, are you convinced yet that evolution is true?

Why would you want to hold your wedding at a place which rejected you? Seriously, ladies, if that is how they feel, take your money elsewhere.

I understand your point of view on the surface, cuz, I wouldn't even consider any religious place as a venue for anything. But, some LGBTQ are religious and would like a wedding at a religious venue. More importantly, they would like to be treated the same as any one else.

And, some of us just got tired of having to be the "other." We were just done with the arrogance of rejection by those who preached love on Sundays.

That scene from Network has a special place in my heart. My TV is safe, but some other things aren't.

> "Why would you want to hold your wedding at a place which rejected you?"

The problem with this question is that it shifts the problem to the victims. You're basically saying, "Why would they want to be treated like anyone else?" Why shouldn't they want to be treated like everyone else. This is the venue's problem, not the couple's.

The same argument has been used in every civil rights movement. "Why would they want to eat at a counter where the cook will spit in their food?" "Wouldn't they just be happier being with their own kind?"

Why aren't you asking, "If the venue doesn't want to serve everyone, why did they open a business?"

Morlock Wrote:
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> Why would you want to hold your wedding at a place which rejected you?

Why would someone want to ride on a bus where they want you to sit in the back? Why would someone want to eat at a lunch counter that doesn't want your business?

Exactly.

for not allowing the "unworthy" to use their wedding venue?

I can't put myself in Done & Done's shoes. I can't imagine being in his shoes or my "husband's" shoes. I'll have to ask my "husband" what kind of prejudice he has experienced in his own words as I haven't been in his shoes. I know we have discussed it before, but my mind doesn't think as well as it used to. (I talk about my word finding difficulties on here sometimes and my therapist says he thinks it is stress. I typed up a medication I take that causes some cognitive problems last night. I never realized that might be why!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2020 11:00AM by cl2.

Don't think for a second cl2 that the shoes you were any easier to wear than ours. Talk about "taking one for the team!" You rock.

I agree. Cl2 and some of the others on this site have been dealt really tough hands and played them out wonderfully. She is surrounded by people who benefit from her strength and love.

Doing what is right in this very difficult world is what heroism is all about.

I feel lucky that I didn't have to grow up as a child or teenager dealing with being gay, listening to the things the church said and society said, knowing if I came out, there would be so much to deal with. Would my parents love me? Accept me? Kick me out? My husband's parents didn't find out he is gay until he left me. Then his mother had to call and talk to me for 8 hours about her own problems. She said she'd send me a picture of Jesus for each room in my house because she felt that might be part of the problem. My therapist told me, "You have the right to not answer the phone. Don't do it anymore." His parents were NUTS and I mean NUTS.

Dealing with those crazies must have been a choice experience. It wasn't as though you weren't already maximally stressed. Then to have someone coming up with pictures of Jesus for every room in your house and discussing her own issues ad nauseum would have been more than I could take without having resorted to the use of some very ugly vocabulary. You're a far better person than I.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2020 10:36PM by scmd1.

I do weddings
If they want to get married I will do it

You would make a terrible Mormon.

:-)

absolutely

"our Biblical conviction is that marriage is reserved for a life-long commitment between one man and one woman."

Do they refuse facility use to those who are divorced?

would make christians scream persecution, blubber about their constitutional rights being violated, and run to Fox News about the latest front in the "war on christianity."

Yes. Someday the shoe might be on the other foot.

What? This isn't about a cake?

Boy, is the bakers union going to be pissed. They thought they had a lock on silly symbolic homophobic snits.

It is simple really: a business can not deny a service they regularly perform for the public because of a customer's sexual orientation; nor can a customer demand a service that a business does not offer.

If a hall is in the business of renting their premises, then they must open the hall to anyone willing to pay their fee on dates they have scheduled for business.

If a couple wants a cake decorated with a couple of the same sex, then unless the bakery has those supplies in stock, then they do not have to provide it. You could argue that a progressive baker should be able to order such materials, but customers can not demand it.

We attended a wedding recently where the cake toppings were figures printed in the likeness of the couple. In that case, that bakery would have to print a likeness of any two people because that is a service they offer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2020 11:37AM by idleswell.

I don't have a temple recommend. What if I want to buy Mormon underwear. Is the church supposed to sell it to me?

No, the LDS church is essentially a "club". They do not sell garments to the public at large, they only sell to their members.

If wedding cake makers and/or wedding venue locations wanted to openly discriminate, they could easily do so by creating a "club" and only providing services to their membership. They have to prove that it's a specific club, not a general "Christianity" club and they have to show that they only provide services to that specific group of people.

The downside to this is, of coarse, it dramatically limits the people who can use their services, and their business can't usually support that. Cutting out a minority group is one thing, but cutting out everyone but a specific small group is another entirely.

This really is a case where they want to have their cake and eat it too.

Finally Free! Wrote:
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> This really is a case where they want to have
> their cake and eat it too.

Yep, they don't want provide a service to a wedding they wouldn't want to be invited to.

It is a problem in the business world. You have to sell yourself to people you would want to hang out with on a regular basis.

This situation is taking place in South Africa--a country which is still actively working to heal itself internally from the tragedies of the centuries of apartheid which are the foundation of South Africa's modern [definition: past five centuries] history....in addition to the problems still existing in the legal system, which is primarily based on "Roman Dutch" law, with some additional admixture from western Europe (the U.K., the Netherlands, etc.), and a--smaller but still important--admixture from indigenous law.

["Black" South Africans are currently 76.4% of the South African population, plus there is a legally defined group of "Coloured" South Africans (this is a specifically defined group of mixed-race South Africans) which are 8.9% of the current population, which equals over 85% of South Africans, and contribute to the way South African law has evolved.]

By American standards, GLBT citizens should have equal rights in every level of American society.

By South African standards, there are more important issues at stake right now: children, functioning as surrogate parents,
"raising," somehow their younger siblings, following the deaths of their parents from HIV-AIDS and other, Third World-type problems, front and foremost--followed, immediately behind, by the omnipresent necessity to somehow get the school fees, school uniforms, and menstrual supplies which are necessary if the present, pre-adult generations, are to be educated to at least, what we would consider, high school graduation standards.

South Africa has over five centuries of cruel, and frequently inhumane, history to overcome and they're doing a better job of it that I (or most anyone else) was able to predict in 1994, when apartheid was abolished.

South Africa still has enormous internal problems, but seen within the arc of global history, the country is actually moving forward fairly swiftly--though NEVER as swiftly as most anyone would prefer.

I do not agree with laws which mandate, or allow, GLBT discrimination--but there are priorities involved in the re-invention of South Africa as a nonracial state where every South African citizen is legally equal to any other citizen.

South Africans are doing pretty well overall, and they will get around to the GLBT issues at some point--just not, perhaps, right now. It is good that members of the GLBT community can get married at all in South Africa, but relative frivolities like legally-mandated access to specific wedding venues comes way behind the issues which are far more pressing, such as
five-year-olds trying as hard as they are able to be surrogate
"parents," and raise the babies and toddlers left behind after both of their biological parents have died.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2020 05:24PM by Tevai.

I have difficulty accepting this. A society cannot teach, or enforce, equality while encouraging or tolerating discrimination against certain groups.

The principle of equality is neither partial nor sequential. Humans are either sacred or they are not.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> I have difficulty accepting this. A society
> cannot teach, or enforce, equality while
> encouraging or tolerating discrimination against
> certain groups.

A society, and most especially a society built upon a predatory economic system which must be changed (necessarily, over time), cannot do everything all at once. Even really excellent societies (as I consider the USA to be), cannot do this. [Consider the similar-to-South-Africa realities which exist for the estimated one million Native Americans who live, right now, on reservations--or the markedly poverty-stricken Americans who live in many American urban areas, or in scattered rural areas throughout Appalachia and the Deep South, where even clean drinking water may be, as a practical matter, unobtainable, let alone a safe, warm, water resistant place to live, with at least minimal decent food to eat, and minimal decent bedding and clean clothes to wear, available to everyone.]

No society can do everything simultaneously. The best that can be done is to create a generally accepted priority list--and then actually DO what is necessary to bring people within a decent living standard.


> The principle of equality is neither partial nor
> sequential. Humans are either sacred or they are
> not.

I agree with you. In our First World countries, I think we ought to get to work to put these principles into three-dimensional existence. Just getting decent quality water to every American human being would be a HUGE step forward for the United States, and I am all in favor of starting immediately.

Yeah, I fundamentally disagree. You cannot say that everyone is equal but we are going to discriminate against groups based on some artificial timetable.

Prejudice against Native Americans and against African-Americans and against non-cis Americans is the same thing. If you make an exception for one group, you are legitimizing discrimination against all groups.

As an OT unrelated topic, did anyone notice that the Utah representative to the Miss USA is transgender?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/01/23/rachel-slawson-utah-miss-usa-bisexual-beauty-queen/4560459002/