Kitchener

That's not what you said; "moot" does not mean "impossible to discuss". But never mind; let's go with what you're saying now. If your claim above were true, all that would follow from it is that if zygotes, morulae, blastulae, etc, do not have a right to life, then there's no point to discussing what other rights they could have (since they don't). It wouldn't follow that they actually have a right to life. But not only would your claim here fail to support your conclusion even if the claim were true -- it's false in any case, at first blush. As a counterexample: many people who do not take animals to have a right to life nevertheless reasonably hold that animals have other rights or moral status. Hence, they hold, it's permissible to kill animals, but not okay to torture them. So not having a right to life does not entail having no rights whatever. No. Obviously not. For one thing, it could only be hypocrisy if they thought that zygotes and the rest were relevantly similar to them, and yet refused to grant them the same rights -- in short, if they insisted on different treatment for things they recognized as the same. Treating different things differently is not hypocrisy. Moreover, it's simply unclear that granting fetuses a right to life means that abortion is impermissible; that is, you have no shown that supporters of the availability of legal abortions must deny that fetuses have a right to life. As J.J. Thomson argued in a famous paper, there is no moral or legal obligation for you to donate the use of your body to sustain the life of someone else -- even if that person would die without your body, and even if they have a right to life. In short, all you're doing is projecting your view of the issue, on which blastulae (inter alia) apparently count as "unborn children", onto those who disagree with you, mistakenly concluding that only a hypocrite could regard them as you do without granting them rights to life, and blindly deciding that only such hypocrisy could underlie a support for the legality of abortion. That's not an argument; it's mere laziness, unreflectiveness, and lack of intellectual seriousness. Not only is it premised on false and dubious claims, but the inferences from those claims fail to support your conclusion several times over.

Interesting. Could you try putting that in the form of an actual argument? I.e., premises, conclusion, valid form, and all that? I think you'll be struck by the results of your attempt.

The point was the combination of ignorance and confidence in your posts. The fact that you can't even bother to Google an easily accessible bit of data after your error has been pointed out says it all. Since approximately Plato's day there has been no intellectual consensus in a flat earth; and indeed has been a consistent consensus for a spherical earth. Many ancients employed metrically approximate but geometrically correct methods of measuring the Earth's circumference. But do continue with your words of wisdom.

At no time did "the best minds" agree that the Earth was flat. Shoring up one's ignorance about evolution by means of one's ignorance about the history of science is a dead end. As for the era during which the best minds of science formed a consensus on shopping bag materials... well, there's a rich vein of sharkmanian insight for you. I've always been a big fan of Einstein's famous posthumous letters on paper v. plastic, and am delighted to see that the overlooked work of Bohr, Hilbert, Fisher, Crick and Watson on proper shopping bag construction is finally getting the attention it deserves. I find these sorts of thoughtful, informed discussions in which everyone's views are called religions are much better than the ones where people just make up some shit about history, science, and scientists, and pretend they have a clue.

Ironically, the only reason anyone even noticed that Bush had burped out these incoherent mumblings about appeasement is because Obama responded to them. It was probably a tactical mistake for Obama to have done so. It speaks ill of his political judgement, that he treats a hammer like Bush seriously. When you have a mendacious walking disaster like Bush stacked up against someone who correctly saw (and said) from the outset that the war in Iraq was a bad idea, Obama has no need to defend his foreign policy acumen. From here on out, Bush should stick to lying about why he quit golf.

n/m Against stupidity even the gods struggle in vain.

Indeed. The latter description is accurate: that's what they are. They are a special-needs provider with a few unusual hiring practices irrelevant to their primary aim. If they want to minister to the handicapped, they can start a dedicated ministry. Of course this wouldn't get millions in funding, so they're not interested. But if they want to offer care -- then offer care. Good grief, yet another ride on the Chicken Little express. Read carefully: They are not "cut out of the picture". Things that you imagine are not data. But suppose we indulge Bryan and Argus's pants-wetting panic fantasy for a moment. What if Christian Horizons was just so heartbroken by their inability to dictate sexual orientation that they stopped caring for the handicapped; suppose they really were that shallow. Who then would pick up the slack? Who else would be interested in $60 million in government money? I prescribe a day's bedrest and a large dose of Give Your Head A Shake.

Who is being "forced not to pray"? Not officially endorsing prayer is very different from forbidding it. Silent prayers, private prayers at lunch or recess, you name it... all these things are permitted. So far as I can tell -- given that it's clearly false -- the idea that prayer has somehow been banned from schools circulates merely because it feeds the persecution complex of a certain (primarily fundamentalist) demographic.

Obviously there is an enormous difference, which I already explained rather clearly. Repeating your now-debunked claims won't make them any better. Once again, the Code in question reads: 24. (1) The right under section 5 to equal treatment with respect to employment is not infringed where, (a) a religious, philanthropic, educational, fraternal or social institution or organization that is primarily engaged in serving the interests of persons identified by their race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, creed, sex, age, marital status or disability employs only, or gives preference in employment to, persons similarly identified if the qualification is a reasonable and bona fide qualification because of the nature of the employment; This sets a double-bar for exempting an institution from discriminatory employment practices regarding categories like race, ethnicity, and creed. (1) The primary aim of the institution must be to address the interests of persons in some category-relevant fashion; and (2) membership in such a category must be a genuine qualification for employees. Now, in the case of religious education, (1) the institution is "primarily engaged" in serving the interests of people in getting a specifically religious education; and (2) the employee's being of that religion (and overtly so; hence comporting with explicitly stated principles) can reasonably be seen as a bona fide qualification for providing that education. (Of course it might not be, in some circumstances, but it could be.) Handicapped services, on the other hand, (1) are "primarily engaged" in serving the interests of the handicapped identified by their need for special care, and by not some fictional interests of not having a gay person work for the company that provides their care; and (2) being straight is not "a reasonable and bona fide qualification" for providing that care. The point is not a difficult one to grasp, with a little effort.

We are discussing many things, but primarily whether it was wrong to fire her. The fact that it was inconsistent with a democratically and legally sound human rights code is probably the fundamental consideration -- though one could also argue that the code itself is illegitimate. (Nobody so far has given any such actual reasoning, however.) This case does not actually raise that question directly. It raises the question of whether the State can regulate how employers fire employees. Are you seriously wondering why the State should get involved if, say, black people were told they can't eat in restaurants, ride the bus, or join the Scouts? First thing: because employers are responsible for what their employees do on company time. That's why employers can legitimately fire employees for all manner of work-related reasons, right? So when one employee torments another one on company time, in such a way that the employer knew or ought to have known, the employer is on the hook. Second thing: it's actually false that the employees cannot be "singled out". It's just that focusing on the employer respects the responsibility that employers have over their employees -- responsibility that they are not reluctant to exercise in most circumstances. Getting government funding is not particularly relevant, I agree. The point is that the firing was contrary to the Human Rights Code. These rights do not apply preferentially to those who work on the government nickel, even indirectly. They apply to everyone. Ah. Would you mind putting his "argument" in the form of premises and conclusion, just so we can see exactly what it looks like? Of course Argus has given no reason to believe this remarkable statement, nor have you. Indeed, he hasn't even made that particular claim; he's made radically stronger claims than your sanitized version: that handicapped people will be sitting in the own feces because of this nasty lesbian and the human rights tribunal. Since that has essentially zero to do with this case, it's hard to see why you'd mention it. Nothing has happened to Christian Horizons specifically on account of they "happen to have beliefs contrary to what is politically correct" -- whatever you might mean by the infinitely flexible term "politically correct" (typical translation: "stuff I don't like"). So it's an absurd misdescription to claim this. Rather, they just can't fire someone for the job-irrelevant property of being gay.

Is it remotely possible that Argus will at some point figure out Google, read some actual stories about this case*, and discover that Christian Horizons has shown no signs of having its funding removed or ceasing to care for the handicapped? Or would that just make it too difficult to sustain the pointless, groundless, clueless babbling about how the handicapped will suffer because of this decision? *I hope this doesn't require a subscription.

Since they have as now ceased employing the morals pledge, and there is so far no sign of their finding it somehow impossible to care for the handicapped, it's even harder than usual to understand what you are burbling about.

Ah, so subtle. Grow a spine! Have the stones to come out and make your clumsy, boring, wholly confabulated ad hominems explicit!

And there's the trouble with relying on reductio ad absurdum to refute someone's ridiculous view. Every once in a while, someone will embrace the still more ridiculous/stupid/morally degenerate absurd consequence you used in the reductio. Then, instead of being able to show that they're inconsistent, you have to settle for having shown that they're a wingnut.

Don't be daft. From the available news reports, including in their home-base of Kitchener, Christian Horizons has continued to function, and will continue to function. They continue to receive public funding, and may well be using that funding to support its continued appeals against elements of the HRTO ruling. Why not get at least a slender grip on the most basic facts before wetting your pants in public? By the way, I ("not you of course") worked for several years doing personal care for the handicapped, with both children and adults. I understand the job far better than you, judging by your pious mouthing of ill-informed but conveniently anti-gay foolishness on the topic. The people at my workplace know that I'm straight, that I'm married. Does that mean I've somehow "flaunted" the fact? Or does it suggest that we are, you know, human beings -- who occasionally chat, socialize, put pictures on our desks, pass the time of day, show a collegial interest in one another... act friendly? Oops, except for gay people, who can't do what practically every working straight person does in the workplace for fear of offending the hysterical homophobes by (as it suddenly becomes) "flaunting" their sexual preference. I mean, stop and think for a quarter of a second before posting.

And if they'd had a policy against hiring Jews, it would be the "outed" Jew's fault that handicapped people had to find service elsewhere when the organization had its funding cut off. Right? Your homophobia is doing all your thinking for you. Change the minority designation to a different (and similarly irrelevant) one and the vacuity and foolishness of your position should be obvious. Even to you.

Well, making things up isn't going to advance the discussion. A far less wild conjecture is this: A commitment to the rule of law is probably the most fundamental thing differentiating us from societies like Afghanistan, where tribalism and corruption are the order of the day. Why is it so hard to inculcate in a society? Because it requires one to recognize the broader necessity of locally unpleasant outcomes -- to get past small-minded outrage over the occasional problematic result. If you think that we -- cops, judges, politicians, citizens -- should follow (overall reasonable) laws except in the handful of cases where following the rules creates outcomes we don't like... then you don't believe in the rule of law. If you think that your gut feelings (or that other word for them, "common sense") should trump an adherence to the law and legal procedures, then you don't believe in the rule of law. That doesn't make you particularly unusual. It's a fair bet that most people on this planet don't. Also, most people on this planet do not live in relatively just, relatively low-crime, relatively safe societies like ours. You want a broken justice system? Just keep ranting and campaigning to have the rule of law overturned in favour of common sense, gut feelings, and whatever the police can dig up, irrespective of the methods. You too can have an Afghanistan! Right here in Canada, if you work at it.

Indeed. On its face, this heavily qualified proviso seems to fail twice over to apply to the situation at hand: the organization is "primarily engaged" in serving people identified by their needs as handicapped persons, not their needs as homophobes. And being straight is not "a reasonable and bona fide qualification because of the nature of the employment".

That's the most precise description of your confusion? Was "WTF" your considered legal analysis? You seem surprised that people who appear guilty -- heck, who appear to be real scumbags -- sometimes go free on technicalities when the police don't follow the law very carefully. But that's what the rules are there for. Those technicalities are actually manifestations of the rights that protect all of us from unreasonable and unjust application of the law, and that allow us to be confident that the system has worked when people are convicted. If you were ever accused of a crime you didn't commit, or prosecuted for a minor crime with a greatly overblown charge, I guarantee you that (1) you would be lobbying hard for the full respect of your Charter rights, even though you had been charged with a crime; and (2) the rest of the Outraged Pants-Wetting Congregation here would be citing news reports about your case as yet more evidence that lousy three-time losers were being coddled by the system.

In English, "whine" does not mean "clearly point out sharkman's slimy defense of violent rhetoric about a woman". If you can't handle having your creepy behaviour spotlit, I suggest you exercise some judgement before you act -- rather than falling back on the dumbest of the dumb evasions and prevarications afterward. This really does deserve a replay: "I say we break the lesbian's legs and run her out of town in a wheelchair" "I'm in ... REAL women probably are tying the noose" "Count me in."

I can't explain why you're confused? Yes, so far that's true. Nolo contendere. Please frame your problem in the most legally precise way you can manage, and we'll see where the discussion goes. Hyperventilating on the basis of axe-grinding, inexpert descriptions of cases is a poor way of understanding them, or the legal system more generally -- as both I and FTALawyer have noted more than once already on this thread.

What, exactly, is confusing you?

Get a clue. "I say we break the lesbian's legs and run her out of town in a wheelchair" "I'm in ... REAL women probably are tying the noose" "Count me in." Off colour? Okay, get half a clue. Even you don't believe for an instant that this is "off-colour". Don't be dumber than you absolutely must. I'm usually the source of the off-colour humor in the locker room. And yet it somehow never seems to involve knee-slapping, gut-busting material like, "Let's go break a lesbian's legs and send her home in a wheelchair!" Like I said: Disgusting. And your incandescently stupid defense of it is more disgusting still -- not having the excuse of thoughtlessness.

Even if sort-of in jest -- which is far from clear -- the violent hatred voiced towards the woman in question on this thread is disgusting. It is utterly beyond the pale for people who consider themselves on the moral high ground, or indeed for people aiming to be basically decent.

Sorry, which crime is homosexuality? Please explain in full.