One thing’s for sure: if I were learning Turkish and if I lived in Berlin, I would be that Bakery’s best customer! 
I go into a lot of immigrant shops here in the US. They usually do look at you strange, but they are happy to be getting your money.
The strangest experience I’ve had was in an Arab grocery store. The guys were following me with their eyes the whole time I was there. Finally one of them asked me if I was Russian. I don’t know what was going on there…
I’ve yet to go to a gay bar. I’d imagine that it’d be OK, particularly during the day when it’s just guys chilling out. Might be a nice place to get a quiet drink? If I’m not actively talking about how straight I am, I don’t see how they could sense my straightness.
Lovelanguages:
"I know what you mean. But while I can take off my hat, tell my kids to be silent or refrain from using my cellphone, I can’t change my sexual orientation. "
Absolutely. The point I am trying to get across is that we should let the individual decide how to run their business. Society itself will react. If I refuse to service a gay person, I am not just offending the gays, I am offending everyone who supports the gay. I wouldn’t just lose that one customer, I would lose many customers. By having these laws preventing this type of behavior, I feel, protects the business owner much more than it protects the individual.
“People can be so ignorant. It is really sad. Personally, I would never spend my money in any place where people act like that whether it is a bar, a store etc. I don’t intend to fund bigotry.”
BINGO!
Yes, I am currently in Taiwan, Tainan City
Hey now, we’re a tolerant country. Very tolerant. Like to a dangerous point. 18% of gays have HIV if I’m reading cdc.gov correctly and that disease is only minority to others like syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. Forget hiring them to babysit or prepare food or cavity search men behind locked doors in the TSA office or perform open heart surgery. If one refuses to serve them at the bar it’s because they don’t want their herpes smeared on the glass mugs, after all ONLY 18% HAVE HIV!!!, instead of dealing with the situation themselves they should be calling the animal control as if they had rabies, or the CDC on account of being under serious biological threat. After millennia of burning them at the stake we stopped thanks to civil rights…and then AIDS sprung to the scene, coincidence? Most americans, even alot of “christians” here believe it’s okay to be gay, but all know it’s bad to smoke crack…in reality smoking crack is a vegetable diet in comparison to anal sex but hey that would be bigotry to say that. Does the 1st amendment mean anything to anybody anymore? Is there nothing sacred left? Can’t we learn to be more discriminatory? ATLEAST to the extent that lady gaga sings her ‘born this way’ garbage there will still be the influence of madness in this world, a notion that you can discard as it is unusual for identical twins to be both gay (that is in cases where at least one is gay) which is a radically antagonistic contestation to the common mythos perpetuated and utilized to perpetuate the aggressive terrorist tactics of the GBLTs. I live in a world of science, not hippy mythology.
Well, I’d say this thread has wandered a little. But even still, I’d like to say something about the conception of ‘freedom’ or ‘freedom of speech’ in this country. I guess that in terms of the conception of freedom in general, Stephen’s right, but keep in mind this is a country of 315 million people, and at times can be quite regional. In Vermont, people support a much more European style government than people in Texas.
I’ve come to realize that the U.S. at the federal level is corrupt. Our campaigns are privately funded and any billionaire can donate as much as he wants to the candidate of his choice, and now they don’t even need to disclose their contributions. You’ll notice a pattern in our foreign affairs, we generally meddle in places where we have interests or are seeking to gain influence in, with the exception of relief missions. Even well known facts, like how 90% of the investors who so obviously committed horrendous crimes on Wall Street sending the world to fire and brimstone economically haven’t been prosecuted, should easily illustrate something fishy going on there.
So, how do they get away with it? We’re told we’re number one! We’re exceptional! We’re free!
But, we’re 38th in health care according to the WHO, somewhere in the 30’s usually in education, sometimes I’m kept wondering how we rank with European countries in terms of standard of living. I think it’s because of capitalism. There’s a good amount of filthy rich people here, and I think somehow a lot of the private sector is subordinate to them. They’re sitting at the top of the hierarchy, and it descends to the average worker, kept happy by a first-world standard salary. This, to me, is not a 21st century economy. But I think that mass group thinking, fed by an unreliable media, is perhaps more to blame. There’s a lot of stories about terrorist attacks, general fear mongering, election predictions 3 years early, etc. Nothing of any relevance. Just popular rhetoric and things which should make you feel like what our government is doing is justified or normal.
This, is why, people can have a skewed conception of freedom.
I still think everything Stephen said is right, a respectable position. There sure are a lot of respectable positions in the American discourse, but it’s dominated by, well, what I said above. Weird things happen.
This is basically a rant about the government. Not about American people.
A restaurant, like a store, is a public place in my view and has not the right to refuse service based on whether the owners like the customer, or based on the customer’s sexual orientation or ethnicity.
Hiring, or renting a room, or membership in a club is different. I would not hire a person with a nose ring for example, and probably wouldn’t want to rent a room to such a person. Once you accept that you may not hire or rent based on whether you like a person, the reasons for disliking someone could be many, including race or sexual orientation.
ad David: (…) The strangest experience I’ve had was in an Arab grocery store. The guys were following me with their eyes the whole time I was there. Finally one of them asked me if I was Russian. I don’t know what was going on there…(…)
It just shows that people never run out of stereotypes. They might have had a bad experience with a Russian guy and now generalize or they might just have “heard” something bad about Russians …
(…)
I’ve yet to go to a gay bar. I’d imagine that it’d be OK, particularly during the day when it’s just guys chilling out. Might be a nice place to get a quiet drink? If I’m not actively talking about how straight I am, I don’t see how they could sense my straightness. (…)
There are nice bars and not so nice ones. It all depends on the people in the bar, I guess. There is nothing intrinsically sleazy or bad or disgusting about such places. It is just like with any other bar, restaurant etc.
If I feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, I leave. I don’t specifically look out for them, but if I happen to end up in one and it is a nice place, I’ll stay. If it is not, I’ll be out very quickly.
Some of the best and nicest restaurants in Taipei for example are in the “gay area”. I wouldn’t have been able to tell where I was if it had not been for some local friends. Lots of straight people there simply enjoying good food. Nothing flamboyant, just a nice area to spend your afternoon or evening.
I guess the bottom line is that obnoxious people come in all colours, sexual orientations, ethnicities…and I prefer being around people that are able and willing to see further than the end of their nose.
From my dealings with Austrians I never noticed a great cultural difference or any fundamental difference in the understanding of freedom. I’m a little bit surprised you would think differently.
That being said, the people of U.S. had a historical distrust of government that to some respect is still reflected today. So many people would rather rely on the power of common human decency than to have it jammed down their throat by the government. This of course is an over simplification because there are tons of anti-discrimination laws in this country.
The reason this law is being reported is because it’s the exception and the media wants to bring it to the attention of the general public to create momentum against it (it still needs to be signed by the governor to become law). The authors of this article are both American by the way, and judging by the tone of the article (every single paragraph is a point against the bill), I’d guess their idea of freedom is in line with yours.
As far as the concluding questions you asked about society dividing and turning back time and whatnot; you couldn’t possibly be more wrong. The overall direction (at least here in America), is much more accepting of differences. Even within the last few years I’ve noticed a huge difference in terms of people’s opinions about homosexuality. I think many people are guilty of constantly thinking the world is getting worst, while in many ways its really getting much better. Try to look beyond these one off sensational events and take a look a the bigger picture, and I think you will be a lot more optimistic.
sgilpin80:
“… From my dealings with Austrians I never noticed a great cultural difference or any fundamental difference in the understanding of freedom. I’m a little bit surprised you would think differently…”
If someone stands in a town square in America handing out leaflets saying “the Holocaust didn’t happen” he or she will be ignored or ridiculed by most people - but they would have a constitutional right to state their opinion.
Do that in Austria and you will be jailed.
Do it twice and you may very well be jailed for longer than most rapists or murderers.
(NB I am emphatically not implying any personal support or approval for Holocaust denial. As with the previous issue I’m interested in the principle of freedom. If it means anything at all, it has to extend to people saying things which most people don’t like, IMO.)
Spritsmulger:
Good point. That kind of law is a bit shocking to me, because it shows a lack of respect for free speech, and my guess is has the opposite effect as intended (some people tend to get stubborn, when they are told what they cannot do). But back in school we would have discussions about whether or not “hate speech” should be illegal, and generally a good portion of the class (less than half) would say yes.
ad Jay: (…) …I am emphatically not implying any personal support or approval for Holocaust denial. (…)
You keep saying that, yet every time we talk about freedom of speech you come up with examples of people denying the holocaust.
Your German is excellent. Read our Verbotsgesetz and you may understand why we have such a law and what it is really about.
I’ve said it (almost) a thousand times here on these forums and if necessary I’ll repeat it again and again. You may disagree, but denying the holocaust is not just an expression of a private opinion.
I doubt you are not aware of the bigger agenda behind the activities of these people. While you keep saying that you don’t agree with them, you seem to be extremely lenient when it comes to prosecuting these people. You will never convince me and others supporting our Verbotsgesetz (including our Constitutional Court) that people handing out those leaflets are simply doing so because they wish to express their private opinion on a historical fact.
Either you have had very little contact with these people or you are extremely naive.
(…) Do it twice and you may very well be jailed for longer than most rapists or murderers. (…)
This is simply not true. If you had followed any of our latest court cases you would know that. Yes, we have a specific statutory range of punishment for the offence of publicly denying the holocaust and promoting nazism, but very few have been sentenced to the kind of imprisonment you are suggesting. The only person having originally been sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment was Gottfried Küssel. Google him and you’ll see what that man did - he was not just handing out leaflets. He was released prematurely after five years for good conduct.
He is now in prison again because of his involvement in a neo-nazi website (hosted in the US, by the way) and other criminal offences.
You are such a fervent opponent of the EU, constantly complaining about how Brussels mettles with the sovereignty of the UK. Yet, you seem to find it very hard to come to terms with the fact that there are countries and societies where the motto “anything goes” is not part of the legislation when it comes to free speech.
(…) If it means anything at all, it has to extend to people saying things which most people don’t like, IMO (…)
You are constantly and repeatingly playing down what these people do. Nazism (including the holocaust; I have yet to see anybody denying the holocaust who is not a devout nazi) is not a philosophy or ideology but a system that is inherently bad and whose only aim is destruction and mass murder.
It’s not about “not liking” the idea of concentration camps, it is about human decency. We’ll never agree on that and I’d be very disappointed at myself if I ever did.
You can now tell me again that I have no idea what freedom of speech is all about 
I prefer living with this kind of ignorance than giving any leeway whatsoever to those criminals.
ad sgilpin80: (…) …and my guess is has the opposite effect as intended (some people tend to get stubborn, when they are told what they cannot do) (…)
I don’t think it has. By the way, this is the kind of people we are talking about here: http://www.thelocal.de/20130917/51943
And those “innocuous” people handing out leaflets are supporting exactly this kind of behaviour and inciting to violence. There is nothing else to their “ideology”.
ad Jay: I also remember you harshly criticizing people making disrespectful remarks after Thatcher had died (you were not just shrugging off their comments or ridiculing them as you seemingly would with people denying the holocaust). You were very outspoken then and I’d hope you would find similarly harsh words for neo-nazis. I’m sure the victims of the holocaust deserve just as much respect as the late “Iron Lady”.
@Robert: “…You keep saying that, yet every time we talk about freedom of speech you come up with examples of people denying the holocaust…”
That might (possibly?) be because that is the precise issue at hand in Austria - the very opinion for which people get jailed?
Or are you imlying something else here, Robert?
@Robert: “…you seem to find it very hard to come to terms with the fact that there are countries and societies where the motto “anything goes” is not part of the legislation when it comes to free speech…”
I don’t know why I would “seem to find it hard” - I am quite certain that I have never suggested that Austrians don’t have a right to make their own laws. Commenting or criticising Austria is not the same thing as calling into question Austrian national sovereignty.
@Robert: “…You are constantly and repeatingly playing down what these people do. Nazism (including the holocaust; I have yet to see anybody denying the holocaust who is not a devout nazi) is not a philosophy or ideology but a system that is inherently bad and whose only aim is destruction and mass murder…”
That is a fairly disgraceful insinuation. It does, however, serve as an excellent illustration of why one needs to be so specific about not agreeing with people whose freedoms one is defending. Unfortunately there are all too many people who will reach for a cheap smear rather than arguing the point.
@Robert
So you´re basically saying, that freedom of speech does not include denying the holocaust because holocaust deniers are evil?
I’d like to point out that I am not by any means an absolutist on free speech - I don’t believe people should be allowed to incite violence, for example.
Should they be able to deny the fact of the Holocaust? Yes, I think they should.
Does that mean (as Robert apparently thinks?) that I am some kind of secret Nazi? No. I have always clearly said that I don’t agree with these people.
But what I think or agree with is wholly irrelevant. What would “freedom of speech” be worth if it only applied to reasonable points of view with which I happen to agree??
Based on his comments, I don’t think Robert thinks you are some kind of secret Nazi.
@Colin
Well, I would certainly hope not. But it is, in my opinion, pretty unreasonable (and wholly untrue) to say that I am “continually and repeatedly downplaying” Nazis.
Just how am I supposed to understand this? 
I guess he thinks you don’t understand the subject very well. Remember, he did write
"Either you have had very little contact with these people or you are extremely naive. "
@Colin
He is fully entitled to think that. (Albeit that I wouldn’t agree.)
But again: where is the evidence that I am “continually and repeatedly downplaying” Holocaust denial and/or Neo-Nazis?
And if this accusation were true, what would it say about me…?