Hobby Lobby Ruling

[PLAYER57832]

Because businesses now have religious rights. You claim to support the Constitution, and yet you favor this? That is why I state fully that you, Night Strike, only want to abuse the Constitution - you don't actually believe in it except when you get your way.

That's because businesses, especially privately owned ones, are owned by individuals. There is no difference between the mom and pop store down the street and the national business of Hobby Lobby when it comes to the fact that their businesses are owned by individuals. People don't give up their religious freedoms just because they own a business of arbitrary size. We're not talking about publicly traded companies like Walmart that are owned by millions of shareholders....we're talking about individuals and families who own their own businesses. Individuals don't lose their religious freedoms just because they own and run a business, so you can't force those individuals to take actions that go against their religious freedoms. I thought all of you progressives were for "separation of church and state", so why aren't you keeping the state out of people's religious beliefs?

NO, we are talking about whether an owner's religion means he gets to restrict the employees practices.

The employer is in no way restricting what the employee can do! Why do you progressives refuse to understand this? Refusing to pay for what someone else wants to do does not mean they have placed restrictions on what the employees can do.

Low wage people need insurance to obtain medical care. But, aside from that this particularly employer is not reducing his cost at all, he is only trying to reduce the coverage employees get.. coverage that THEY pay for. They pay usually directly, but also through their work. You keep trying to pretend that insurance is not part of an employees wages, but it is. Medical insurance is a big part of why people get employment. Denying that is denying reality.

AND, like I said, this is not reducing Hobby Lobby's costs... it is just cheating employees of something they might want.

Employees can do what they want with their own money....they can't use the employer's money to go do what they want.

No. Employees can and do demand payment for work, and it must meet various minimum standards whether the employer likes it or not. This is no different. An employer may feel his religion says its OK to hire people and just give them food and a place to live, but the law dictates otherwise. Insurance is part of those dictates.

The employer cannot pay a salary and then say "oh, but you can only have this if you promise not to use it for xyz because my paying for that would violate my religion. Insurance is no different. Its not Hobby Lobby's insurance, they are just required to buy it for the employees. The USE of that insurance is up to the employee, not the boss.

The real answer, the better answer would have been to establish a system of universal individual insurance apart from employment. However, the right wing, and Republicans in particular,never had any intention of allowing such a system, precisely because it would work. They want to destroy insurance, along with most individual employee protections in favor of a new set of corporate "rights" that supercede any individual's rights.

This is just one more stone put on the backs of individuals.

[DoomYoshi]

Slightly on topic ALERT.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/laraparker/we-asked-women-why-they-take-birth-control-and-these-are

I didn't buzzfeed had so many employees. Who goes on that site and what do they do?

[tzor]

No, that is medically untrue. What is true is that some people want to claim that these birth control methods can be abortifacients.

It is medically true. The official information for the morning after pill indicates that it may prevent implantation. That''s not some right wing double speak.

Likewise there are many doctors who draw the line from contraception to abortifactants at fertilization.

Media Repeatedly Deceives Public in Hobby Lobby Coverage

Likewise, medical literature abounds with the use of both definitions. Here is just a small sample of the countless medical texts that define pregnancy as beginning at fertilization:

• Human Reproductive Biology: “In most textbooks and in legal rulings about induced abortion (see Chapter 14), pregnancy begins at fertilization: We will also use that definition in this book.”
• Medical Physiology: Principles for Clinical Medicine: “A mother is considered pregnant at the moment of fertilization—the successful union of a sperm and an egg.”
• What Every Woman Should Know about Cervical Cancer: “The pregnancy begins with the fertilization of the ovum [egg].”
• Medical Terminology Made Incredibly Easy: “Pregnancy results when a female’s egg and male’s sperm unite.”
• Placenta and Trophoblast: Methods and Protocols: “Pregnancy begins with fertilization of the ovulated oocyte by the sperm.”

THIS IS SCIENCE. It provides the scientific argument for the moral argument.

These are real medical questions,but not truly part of this lawsuit. Hobby Lobby believes it has the right to make this assessment based not upon science, but their personal religious beliefs. That is pretty scary.

Do you even know what the Hobby Lobby lawsuit was? There were plenty of contraceptives that they were perfectly comfortable. It was only a few that they believed were abortifactants that they objected to.

This is, at very best a tenuous argument. It is not a position held by any but the absolute extreme.

Cry me a river. Are you suggesting that WebMD is "extreme?"

I agree with this, but sadly these folks have no desire to make universal insurance work. Their goal is to limit ALL national requirements, effectively hamstringing our nations (while waving a patriotic flag to do it)

Universal insurance will never work. (It has something to do with the fact that logic demands that monopolies suck.) But this has nothing to do with universal insurance. It has everything to do with the ALL POWERFUL STATE forcing people to pay for thing that they believe force them to participate in a moral evil, the termination of a viable embryo.

[Metsfanmax]

Cry me a river. Are you suggesting that WebMD is "extreme?"

It's pretty fair to suggest that WebMD should not be consulted as a definitive medical resource.

And no study exists demonstrating that these particular drugs actually cause a fertilized egg to fail to implant, though the scientific jury is still out.

[tzor]

that these particular drugs actually cause a fertilized egg to fail to implant, though the scientific jury is still out.

But that's the point, the jury is still out. And since it is not definitive it is reasonable that one may choose to go with one side unless proven otherwise.

Remember the specific things in question were ...

Emergency contraceptive pills (sometimes inaccurately called "morning after" pills)

• Plan B (levonorgestrel) and its generic equivalents
• ella (ulipristal acetate)

Intrauterine devices (IUDs)

• ParaGard (copper IUD)
• Mirena and Skyla (levonorgestrel-releasing IUDs)

So we have talked about Plan B, what about ella?

US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health: Ulipristal acetate: contraceptive or contragestive?

Ulipristal acetate is the first selective progesterone receptor modulator approved for postcoital contraception in the US. It appears to be significantly more effective in inhibition of ovulation than other forms of emergency contraception. However, ulipristal acetate is structurally similar to mifepristone, and several lines of evidence suggest that a postfertilization mechanism of action is also operative. This mechanism of action is considered to be contragestive versus contraceptive. Ulipristal acetate administration is contraindicated in a known or suspected pregnancy; however, it could quite possibly be used as an effective abortifacient. Health-care providers should inform patients of the possibility of both mechanisms of action with use of this drug.

(Oh wait, these guys must be extreme as well.)

Definition time ...

con·tra·ges·tive (kntr-jstv)
adj.
Capable of preventing gestation, either by preventing implantation or by causing the uterine lining to shed after implantation.
n.
A contragestive drug or agent.

Does anyone want to argue that an IUD does not prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg on the uterine wall?

So basically we have at least three of the four methods clearly contragestive in their potential function.

But this is all about contraception ... RIGHT?

[Metsfanmax]

that these particular drugs actually cause a fertilized egg to fail to implant, though the scientific jury is still out.

But that's the point, the jury is still out. And since it is not definitive it is reasonable that one may choose to go with one side unless proven otherwise.

This isn't a game where we get to believe whatever we want simply because science hasn't yet definitively answered this question. I know that religions are fairly comfortable with making up their own facts* but that has to stop at the realm of public policy.

Does anyone want to argue that an IUD does not prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg on the uterine wall?

Uh, yes. The primary function of IUDs is to prevent fertilization, like other contraceptives. It is possible that IUDs also have the effect of preventing a fertilized egg from implanting. Again, we have the same argument -- because we don't know what the actual cause of the contraception was in every case, some people think they get to define what they do.

*I mean, where does "life begins at fertilization" appear in the Bible anyway?

[tzor]

*I mean, where does "life begins at fertilization" appear in the Bible anyway?

Who cares if it is in the Bible or not. Can you give me a rational argument for any other time?

This is THEIR BELIEF. They believe that they are cooperating with a moral evil if they pay for these things. What's next, forcing pork down a Muslim's throat because other people don't think it is immoral to do so?

They simply wish to pay for contraceptives that clearly do not cross the line into abortifacients (I really hate how Chrome can't auto-correct that word).

Yes I realize that this is one more threat to the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of People who can barely qualify as Butchers never mind Doctors with admitting privileges in hospitals to perform abortions (also known as Planned Parenthood because SPEPBQBNDDWAPH just doesn't work).

[Metsfanmax]

This is THEIR BELIEF. They believe that they are cooperating with a moral evil if they pay for these things.

Yes, but the only reason we respect their moral beliefs in this case is because it somehow relates to an invisible man in the sky. In no other circumstances does an individual's moral beliefs get to override the law that applies to the rest of society. Serial killers don't get to do their thing just because they think that killing is morally permissible, and I don't get to refuse to pay taxes even though I think consuming dairy products is ethically evil and I don't want any of my tax dollars to go to subsidies for that industry. Yet if their God tells them that this action is morally impermissible, then they get to disobey the rules that the rest of us do?

Nope.

[Phatscotty]

NO, we are talking about whether an owner's religion means he gets to restrict the employees practices.

....about whether the government can force a religious person to participate in something that goes against their religious beliefs, just because they run a business.

Their premise - "We tax it, therefore we can force them to do whatever we want"

Why you think they want to tax churches

[tzor]

Yes, but the only reason we respect their moral beliefs in this case is because it somehow relates to an invisible man in the sky. In no other circumstances does an individual's moral beliefs get to override the law that applies to the rest of society. Serial killers don't get to do their thing just because they think that killing is morally permissible, and I don't get to refuse to pay taxes even though I think consuming dairy products is ethically evil and I don't want any of my tax dollars to go to subsidies for that industry. Yet if their God tells them that this action is morally impermissible, then they get to disobey the rules that the rest of us do?

I would really like to see an atheist use the "freedom of religion" to protect a moral position he holds. It really has nothing to do with a "god." Your comparison is false on its face. The abstention of paying is a lack of action. (Or more specifically the objection of that person to having the government force him to fork over money for a specific reason.) The serial killer is performing an action, one that is objected to by the other person. That other person has the right to object to being killed. On the same hand, the person also has a right to object to the government force him to purchase for someone else something that he morally objects to.

So the proper way to see it is that the relationship here is that the serial killer and the government share the same position in the comparison. The victim and the company with the standards has the same relationship. Both are objecting to a possible transaction and both have every right to do so, even if this is based on moral beliefs held by them.

[BigBallinStalin]

crispybits, what confidence do you place in government when it comes to optimally planning the lives of 300+ million?

So, you feel that its more sensible to put it in the control of a group of people joined to together for the sole purpose of making money, often with legal imperatives to make money for other people, than to trust the conglomeration of diverse opinions and ideas voted in by the US public?

Yes.

Imagine being an artist. Now, would you rather face the market with its boogey man of profit-and-loss, or would you rather be forced by a democratically selected committee that oversees what you'll make, how you'll make it, how much you'll make, and how much it will sell for?

You are presenting an utterly false choice, as well as ignoring the fact that there are major differences in how people operate for wants versus true needs. Some people, spurred by greed, will steel/lie, etc for things like a nice painting. Most people won't.

MOST people, however, will do all of the above if that is the only way they can see to feed their kids or get them needed medical treatment.

The market works well for what it does. It does not, however, promote a better world. Democracy, along with freedom of information, does... and creates a better business climate, too boot! Unfortunately, "good overall" is not good enough for those gaining power now. For them, its all about amassing their own personal wealth.

So, none of that really addresses my point, and it's not surprising that you're unwilling to answer the question. The point is that markets grant more autonomy to buyers and sellers; whereas, the more extreme form of democracy significantly limits an individual's autonomy to the desires of some ridiculous group that controls everyone.

Say what you want about greed but recognize that greed/selfishness exists within all humans no matter the institutions--be they market, government, or the catch-all 'social' institutions. Within the market, pursuing one's self-interest leads to outcomes that tend to be socially beneficial (e.g. the baker bakes bread for cash, not love. He need not care about anyone, yet he still provides bread at the right amount through the price mechanism, which is supported by voluntary exchange).

In a world run only by love and not at all by profit, you'd have very little well-being and very much chaos. The corrective mechanism for supplying and demanding various goods would be much less efficient, and with more inefficiency you get more poverty. Imagine socialism on steroids but with humans that totally buy the Party Line. Ya still need prices and ownership to make things better--regardless of the moral incentives. You disagree on the scope of markets, but you rely on this imaginary government that'll make things optimal.

In government, pursuing self-interest tends to be disastrous because the feedback mechanisms are worse (e.g. performance is measured by money spent--not profit, but just how much you throw at problems. There's lesser accountability, greater time intervals between choosing the leader versus choosing to stop buying something now, etc.). Just look at any extreme form of government with very little feedback (autocracy). Look at any democracy with its mediocre feedback (US and its government-produced and voter-supported nonsense). Government holds the world record of biggest loser in history.


An ideal government is one where the worst rulers can do the least harm--a case which has hardly held up mostly because of people's delusion about their magically existing ideal democracy. Your ideal democracy is as unrealistic as socialism or a purely libertarian society. Say what you want about the market but comparing it to your ideal democracy is an intellectually mistaken and bankrupt approach toward understanding the world. You gotta compare the imperfect, real market with the imperfect, real government. So far, the score's been terrible for government.

[BigBallinStalin]

crispybits, what confidence do you place in government when it comes to optimally planning the lives of 300+ million?

So, you feel that its more sensible to put it in the control of a group of people joined to together for the sole purpose of making money, often with legal imperatives to make money for other people, than to trust the conglomeration of diverse opinions and ideas voted in by the US public?

Yes.

Imagine being an artist. Now, would you rather face the market with its boogey man of profit-and-loss, or would you rather be forced by a democratically selected committee that oversees what you'll make, how you'll make it, how much you'll make, and how much it will sell for?

I don't really feel it's appropriate for a person's healthcare to be subject to profit-and-loss and only-what-you-can-pay-for, no. Or were you talking about a subject other than healthcare when you posed your question...because I'm pretty sure that PLAYER was talking about healthcare.

Well, that's why we used to have mutual aid societies, which like any NGO or 'non-profit' organization do rely on profit-and-loss accounting. A shitty non-profit fails to attract revenue, goes bankrupt, and ends. Government is the only entity which doesn't have to face the problems of profit-and-loss (i.e. the problem of actually serving customers). There's a few things which may work best through an ideal government, but unfortunately many voters dump ridiculous goals that are beyond the scope of an imperfect yet real government.

There's a demand for philanthropy, and the wealth for it exists, so government provision of healthcare really isn't necessary. Your vision is constrained by your moral attitude about 'appropriateness' in relation to prices and the profit-and-loss mechanisms. Why not update your moral philosophy?

[BigBallinStalin]

Can we go back to talking about how there's not actually any real evidence for the argument that these "controversial" methods cause abortions?

Yeah, didn't think so.

People don't give up their religious freedoms just because they own a business of arbitrary size.

Please give a serious answer to this question: if a Muslim owner of a small American store requires his female employees to wear burqas while in the store with the customers, would you prefer there to be no law prohibiting this practice?

That's a fun question. I'd leave that choice to the potential customers who actually have to eat the costs in order to gain the expected benefits. When other people deem what those costs and benefits should be for others, then they really get themselves into trouble. It's the "I know what's best for others" attitude which is shared by well-intentioned voters and dictators alike. Recall the democratic reconstruction project in AFG and Iraq. Worked well, didn't it?

Imagine how poorly you'd change your behavior if 90% of the costs of your actions were felt by millions of others--instead of yourself. As one voter of millions, when you impose your ideal behavior on others, you hardly bear the costs and will hardly be held accountable for the harm you've committed. That's a messed up system which many moral philosophies fail to address while rambling on about what's best for everyone.

[BigBallinStalin]

Please give a serious answer to this question: if a Muslim owner of a small American store requires his female employees to wear burqas while in the store with the customers, would you prefer there to be no law prohibiting this practice?

I don't see what the problem is here. There shouldn't be a law prohibiting this. There are a ton of businesses that make their employees wear something in particular. If the employee doesn't want to wear what the owner says they have to wear, then the employee won't get that job, will they?

The problem is that requiring women to cover themselves in public is fairly degrading to women. I'm not talking about all employees being forced to cover their faces -- just the female ones. I'm not too fond of your stance if it is that the women who need money desperately enough will humiliate themselves this way, just to earn a living. Is that the society we want to live in, where certain employees can be denigrated in the workplace as long as the employer feels like it? The problem with your argument is that the job market doesn't just magically sort this out. When discrimination against women is widely allowed, then most employers will not be too friendly to women. History in the US bears witness to this pretty well. Burqas are an extreme example simply because Islam is a minority religion in the US, but I believe the point is valid.

How do you know the desires of women who wear a variety of clothing which you deem as humiliating?

Honestly, I would love for others to join the Free Society but only on their own terms. Imposing our dreams of the proper rules onto others has significant drawbacks which we will fail to foresee and probably won't even correct (depending on the mechanism through which the rules emerge or are imposed).

[Metsfanmax]

Please give a serious answer to this question: if a Muslim owner of a small American store requires his female employees to wear burqas while in the store with the customers, would you prefer there to be no law prohibiting this practice?

I don't see what the problem is here. There shouldn't be a law prohibiting this. There are a ton of businesses that make their employees wear something in particular. If the employee doesn't want to wear what the owner says they have to wear, then the employee won't get that job, will they?

The problem is that requiring women to cover themselves in public is fairly degrading to women. I'm not talking about all employees being forced to cover their faces -- just the female ones. I'm not too fond of your stance if it is that the women who need money desperately enough will humiliate themselves this way, just to earn a living. Is that the society we want to live in, where certain employees can be denigrated in the workplace as long as the employer feels like it? The problem with your argument is that the job market doesn't just magically sort this out. When discrimination against women is widely allowed, then most employers will not be too friendly to women. History in the US bears witness to this pretty well. Burqas are an extreme example simply because Islam is a minority religion in the US, but I believe the point is valid.

How do you know the desires of women who wear a variety of clothing which you deem as humiliating?

This is not about their individual temporal desires. Obviously their desire to earn a living overwhelms any humiliation they might feel, and I do not blame them at all for that. However, the fact that it is permissible for women to be unequally sexualized or marginalized leads to the type of cultural subjugation of women that has allowed them to remain economically unequal until now. I don't have a problem with jobs that degrade their employees as such -- I have a problem with jobs that degrade women specifically. We have to take the long view here and recognize that it is this type of treatment of women that we must reject on principle, even if it leads to short term problems. I find it perfectly reasonable that equality in job conditions, in the face of irrelevant differences like gender or race, is upheld by the force of law. I would need pretty strong evidence that this can lead to long term harms to reject that as a principle.

[BigBallinStalin]

Please give a serious answer to this question: if a Muslim owner of a small American store requires his female employees to wear burqas while in the store with the customers, would you prefer there to be no law prohibiting this practice?

I don't see what the problem is here. There shouldn't be a law prohibiting this. There are a ton of businesses that make their employees wear something in particular. If the employee doesn't want to wear what the owner says they have to wear, then the employee won't get that job, will they?

The problem is that requiring women to cover themselves in public is fairly degrading to women. I'm not talking about all employees being forced to cover their faces -- just the female ones. I'm not too fond of your stance if it is that the women who need money desperately enough will humiliate themselves this way, just to earn a living. Is that the society we want to live in, where certain employees can be denigrated in the workplace as long as the employer feels like it? The problem with your argument is that the job market doesn't just magically sort this out. When discrimination against women is widely allowed, then most employers will not be too friendly to women. History in the US bears witness to this pretty well. Burqas are an extreme example simply because Islam is a minority religion in the US, but I believe the point is valid.

How do you know the desires of women who wear a variety of clothing which you deem as humiliating?

This is not about their individual temporal desires. Obviously their desire to earn a living overwhelms any humiliation they might feel, and I do not blame them at all for that. However, the fact that it is permissible for women to be unequally sexualized or marginalized leads to the type of cultural subjugation of women that has allowed them to remain economically unequal until now. I don't have a problem with jobs that degrade their employees as such -- I have a problem with jobs that degrade women specifically. We have to take the long view here and recognize that it is this type of treatment of women that we must reject on principle, even if it leads to short term problems. I find it perfectly reasonable that equality in job conditions, in the face of irrelevant differences like gender or race, is upheld by the force of law. I would need pretty strong evidence that this can lead to long term harms to reject that as a principle.

I'm kinda looking for some empirical data to support your claims.

Have you considered that many women actually like to wear such clothing? If you reject that, then how do you know that you're right and (somehow) that they are all wrong?

I don't think it's just a basic economic calculation where benefits = wage and cost = particular clothing + marginalization.

Have you considered the constraints that various people face? Are outcomes only explained by cultural norms?

e.g. it could be the case that women in particular areas aren't given more education simply because the demand for their labor is not there. There's only so many field hands that are needed (the marginal cost of more laborers becomes greater than the marginal benefit). Also, consider opportunity cost (raising the family). Is having a high school or undergrad degree really necessary? (Consider educational substitutes like grandma's advice). If such a constraint and costs exist, then it's understandable that many women aren't educated--within their immediate environment (opening borders would open their opportunity sets, thus provide that demand for their labor but from only abroad).

If this economic answer is correct, then to what degree is marginalization occurring? Are people mistaking real constraints and the outcomes which follow as imposed marginalization 'cuz those men hate those women'?

(e.g. consider the gender-wage gap in the US. About 95% of the gap is explained by differences in age, education, child-rearing, lost time/skills during pregnancy, experience, and choices about occupation. The economic reality explains 95% of the gap. Maybe the cultural norm, i.e. guys don't like women/whatev, explains 5%. Maybe).

[Metsfanmax]

I'm kinda looking for some empirical data to support your claims.

This is about justice for me. The economic effects are secondary. If standing by this principle doesn't lead to better economic outcomes for women, I would still support criminalizing job discrimination based on gender or race or sexuality or any other irrelevant characteristic, because that principle of equality is morally important to our society.

Have you considered that many women actually like to wear such clothing?

Have you considered that many men actually like to wear such clothing? Why don't they get to?

If you reject that, then how do you know that you're right and (somehow) that they are all wrong?

This is not about them being wrong. This is about society being wrong for historically marginalizing women and placing them into distinctly sexualized roles. I don't think women should be prevented from taking these jobs; I think that these jobs should not be seen as only jobs that women can have.

e.g. it could be the case that women in particular areas aren't given more education simply because the demand for their labor is not there.

In the ideal case, women should face the same contraints from lack of education as men, so labor supply constraints should affect both genders equally.

If such a constraint and costs exist, then it's understandable that many women aren't educated--within their immediate environment (opening borders would open their opportunity sets, thus provide that demand for their labor but from only abroad).

If this economic answer is correct, then to what degree is marginalization occurring? Are people mistaking real constraints and the outcomes which follow as imposed marginalization 'cuz those men hate those women'?

(e.g. consider the gender-wage gap in the US. About 95% of the gap is explained by differences in age, education, child-rearing, lost time/skills during pregnancy, experience, and choices about occupation. The economic reality explains 95% of the gap. Maybe the cultural norm, i.e. guys don't like women/whatev, explains 5%. Maybe).

I would characterize the cultural norm as explaining the vast percentage of the gap. The fact that women don't achieve the same incomes due to taking jobs that are primarily lower earning than the type of jobs men take is almost certainly the result of a society that has traditionally expected women to be homemakers, mothers, etc. In contemporary times, since blatant discrimination (the type that causes women to earn less money than men performing the same work) does not explain the majority of the wage gap, then what else could explain it? The only alternative explanation is that women are just inherently less capable of performing jobs that men have traditionally performed, and this effect is so large as to effect a 20-30% wage gap. That is very unlikely. It is much more reasonable to characterize the difference in career choices that women make as part of a cultural norm that leads women to take certain jobs over than others. The fact that we can't just solve this by telling men to stop hating women doesn't mean it's not a cultural issue. It just means it's far more deep-seated than outright bigotry.

[BigBallinStalin]

So, without the empirical support for either side, then we'll just in moral hand-waving. But beforehand, doesn't it make sense to understand the issue before imposing one's moral beliefs? Shouldn't science be used to inform moral beliefs before they're used to justify policies?


Now the hand-waving:

How would you implement your policy?

e.g. in a particular university in the US, there's many Middle Eastern women who wear a variety of clothing that covers various portions of their body.

Would you (a) forcibly remove their headscarfs and what not before they entered? Would that make them feel less marginalized and somehow more equal? (It can be traumatic to simply force your Ideal Person on others, so how does oppressing people make them feel less oppressed?

or (b) would you forbid them from entering the university (thus denying them an education)?

[Metsfanmax]

So, without the empirical support for either side, then we'll just in moral hand-waving. But beforehand, doesn't it make sense to understand the issue before imposing one's moral beliefs?

I didn't impose any of my own moral beliefs. It is literally written into the Constitution that Americans should receive equal protection under the law, and it is written in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that discrimination on the basis of gender is illegal. Regardless of whether or not that is "morally" correct, it is the law. That being said, I do support this section of the Civil Rights Act on moral grounds.

Shouldn't science be used to inform moral beliefs before they're used to justify policies?

What science? It's not like we can do a RCT where one half of the country decides to treat women equally and the other half doesn't.

How would you implement your policy?

My policy is already implemented. See the above.

e.g. in a particular university in the US, there's many Middle Eastern women who wear a variety of clothing that covers various portions of their body.

As long as they weren't required to wear them by the university officials, then no violation of the Civil Rights Act has occurred.

[danfrank666]

Please give a serious answer to this question: if a Muslim owner of a small American store requires his female employees to wear burqas while in the store with the customers, would you prefer there to be no law prohibiting this practice?

I don't see what the problem is here. There shouldn't be a law prohibiting this. There are a ton of businesses that make their employees wear something in particular. If the employee doesn't want to wear what the owner says they have to wear, then the employee won't get that job, will they?

The problem is that requiring women to cover themselves in public is fairly degrading to women. I'm not talking about all employees being forced to cover their faces -- just the female ones. I'm not too fond of your stance if it is that the women who need money desperately enough will humiliate themselves this way, just to earn a living. Is that the society we want to live in, where certain employees can be denigrated in the workplace as long as the employer feels like it? The problem with your argument is that the job market doesn't just magically sort this out. When discrimination against women is widely allowed, then most employers will not be too friendly to women. History in the US bears witness to this pretty well. Burqas are an extreme example simply because Islam is a minority religion in the US, but I believe the point is valid.

How do you know the desires of women who wear a variety of clothing which you deem as humiliating?

Honestly, I would love for others to join the Free Society but only on their own terms. Imposing our dreams of the proper rules onto others has significant drawbacks which we will fail to foresee and probably won't even correct (depending on the mechanism through which the rules emerge or are imposed).

Thats exactly why the homeboys can still wear their pants with diapers showing.

[BigBallinStalin]

So, without the empirical support for either side, then we'll just in moral hand-waving. But beforehand, doesn't it make sense to understand the issue before imposing one's moral beliefs?

I didn't impose any of my own moral beliefs. It is literally written into the Constitution that Americans should receive equal protection under the law, and it is written in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that discrimination on the basis of gender is illegal. Regardless of whether or not that is "morally" correct, it is the law. That being said, I do support this section of the Civil Rights Act on moral grounds.

Shouldn't science be used to inform moral beliefs before they're used to justify policies?

What science? It's not like we can do a RCT where one half of the country decides to treat women equally and the other half doesn't.

How would you implement your policy?

My policy is already implemented. See the above.

e.g. in a particular university in the US, there's many Middle Eastern women who wear a variety of clothing that covers various portions of their body.

As long as they weren't required to wear them by the university officials, then no violation of the Civil Rights Act has occurred.

So, they're free to wear them?

[BigBallinStalin]

Please give a serious answer to this question: if a Muslim owner of a small American store requires his female employees to wear burqas while in the store with the customers, would you prefer there to be no law prohibiting this practice?

I don't see what the problem is here. There shouldn't be a law prohibiting this. There are a ton of businesses that make their employees wear something in particular. If the employee doesn't want to wear what the owner says they have to wear, then the employee won't get that job, will they?

The problem is that requiring women to cover themselves in public is fairly degrading to women. I'm not talking about all employees being forced to cover their faces -- just the female ones. I'm not too fond of your stance if it is that the women who need money desperately enough will humiliate themselves this way, just to earn a living. Is that the society we want to live in, where certain employees can be denigrated in the workplace as long as the employer feels like it? The problem with your argument is that the job market doesn't just magically sort this out. When discrimination against women is widely allowed, then most employers will not be too friendly to women. History in the US bears witness to this pretty well. Burqas are an extreme example simply because Islam is a minority religion in the US, but I believe the point is valid.

How do you know the desires of women who wear a variety of clothing which you deem as humiliating?

Honestly, I would love for others to join the Free Society but only on their own terms. Imposing our dreams of the proper rules onto others has significant drawbacks which we will fail to foresee and probably won't even correct (depending on the mechanism through which the rules emerge or are imposed).

Thats exactly why the homeboys can still wear their pants with diapers showing.

Cool story, bro.

[Metsfanmax]

So, without the empirical support for either side, then we'll just in moral hand-waving. But beforehand, doesn't it make sense to understand the issue before imposing one's moral beliefs?

I didn't impose any of my own moral beliefs. It is literally written into the Constitution that Americans should receive equal protection under the law, and it is written in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that discrimination on the basis of gender is illegal. Regardless of whether or not that is "morally" correct, it is the law. That being said, I do support this section of the Civil Rights Act on moral grounds.

Shouldn't science be used to inform moral beliefs before they're used to justify policies?

What science? It's not like we can do a RCT where one half of the country decides to treat women equally and the other half doesn't.

How would you implement your policy?

My policy is already implemented. See the above.

e.g. in a particular university in the US, there's many Middle Eastern women who wear a variety of clothing that covers various portions of their body.

As long as they weren't required to wear them by the university officials, then no violation of the Civil Rights Act has occurred.

So, they're free to wear them?

Of course. My point was that they should not be forced to wear them, or anything that a man would not be forced to wear.

[BigBallinStalin]

Wat? So we're in agreement here? Impossible. <scrolls up>

Oh, you're against any organization requiring women to wear particular clothing.

Yeah, I don't like those kinds of rules either, but how about this: how do you determine if women wear Whatever because (a) the government says so (obvious answer), (b) social norms deem it necessary (e.g. group pressure, threat of being ostracized), and (c) they actually want to wear that kind of clothes? (see below)

To cut to the chase, (a) is easy to oppose, and perhaps (b) is too, but isn't it difficult to determine if someone is voluntarily choosing to wear Whatever--as opposed to conforming to the group's norms? How do you disentangle the (b) from (c)? (Without being able to, we could be unintentionally violating people's... 'right to wear Whatever').

[Metsfanmax]

Yeah, I don't like those kinds of rules either, but how about this: how do you determine if women wear Whatever because (a) the government says so (obvious answer), (b) social norms deem it necessary (e.g. group pressure, threat of being ostracized), and (c) they actually want to wear that kind of clothes? (see below)

Very good questions. Let me answer this by invoking a slightly related topic. I was once talking to a friend about the research that has been done to look at whether the intelligence of women differs, on average, from that of men. This is because I care about the lack of women participating in the sciences, and I was thinking about whether there's something different about women that makes them less capable of being top scientists (I had read about a study suggesting that women are more closely huddled about the mean of intelligence, while men are more likely to be represented in the tails of the distribution -- and it is that upper tail where success in academia comes from). Now, I know that there's also lots of studies that show that math and science classrooms in secondary school tend to make women less confident in their skills because of the cultural norm that women are not as good at science and math. The point I was trying to make is that if we don't know if there's an inherent difference, then how can we ever know what our goal is supposed to be? As a scientist, I didn't feel that this was an inappropriate question to ask.

My friend responded that I was looking at this the wrong way. His argument was that until we get rid of the social stigmas that convince us that women cannot be scientists, we shouldn't even ask the question about whether women are less intelligent. Not because the question is inherently wrong -- but because it gives ammo to the people who are sexist and would use such information to continue justifying their explicit sexism*.

So it's possible that some women like wearing clothing that covers their faces in public. However, we should actively fight against social norms that require that, because those norms come from people that we know do not respect women -- this is obvious, among many other reasons, because they do not wear the burqas and are not expected to only stay indoors and raise the children. If, once we disband those social norms, women still decide to wear a burqa -- fine, that's their choice. But until we eliminate the social hierarchy that caused it, we'll never be able to answer the question, and the question is not that important.

*I'm still not completely comfortable with his answer. But my lack of comfort is not what matters.