At risk of having my D-WA avatar revoked and my moderate hero card restored, I completely understand why Ernest is uncomfortable with government legislation on this sort of thing. As much as I think these people's views are distasteful and wrong, I'm not sure about popular, representative government dictating what are reasonable grounds to engage in consensual economic activities and what aren't.
I understand there are issues with this at extremes, and I'm not comfortable with them either, but this isn't an easy issue for me.
You're more of a pretentious f**k than a moderate hero.
Who pissed in your cereal this morning? There is nothing pretentious about my argument. I don't like the idea of government deciding what is a reasonable preference when hiring and firing someone, or other consensual private conduct. Imagine that we had popular referendums on private conduct. Imagine 51% of the populace made a habit of going "well, your moral beliefs on this are stupid, so you have to employ people [or whatever] based on mine." Besides the fact that it involves another person (by that person's consent), how is employment different than any other private conduct? There are distinctions, yes, but is the difference between employment and, say, social interaction, so absolutely clear that you're comfortable forcing people's hand in one situation, but not another?
I would think, being a vegan, you'd have heard "omg pretentious" whining so much about your own beliefs, that you'd think twice before being an abrasive dick about other people's. Evidently not.
