Indiana Gay Rights Update

[eredien]

The Indianapolis Farmers' Market vendor "Just Cookies" just won't make cookies for gay IU students. Fun fact: the cookie order was eventually placed with the "Flying Cupcake" bakery on, get this, Massachusetts Ave.

I would have volunteered to make them cookies. In fact, here, here's two cookies. Pass them around, folks:









Quote from the article by the local Fox affilate: IUPUI's spokesperson said the school has no formal complaint against the bakery and added embracing diversity means allowing the business owners the right to their opinion and the right to choose how to serve its customers, as long as those customers are not discriminated against.

I think this is an interesting question. When you are running a food-related business and choose not to serve someone because, "We have our values, and you know, some things ... for instance, if someone wants a cookie with an obscenity, well, we're not going to do that," when does choosing not to serve someone because you disagree with who the person is once they have told you become discrimination, and when does that become a business owner simply turning away a customer? Can it, legally, be treated as discrimination? I mean, it seems to me like the customers are being discriminated against by the act of not being served, because they likely would have been served if they had not identified themselves as queer, or had lied and said they wanted the cookies for some other event. Any lawyers want to clear this up?

I wonder how many queer students Just Cookies unknowingly served because they didn't know they were gay; there's evidence they served at least one queer student previously (unknown to them). I bet they won't get many now.

Oh, and Indiana was one of the states to file an amicus brief against same-sex marriage in the prop 8 appeal in CA.

...I can't believe I still want to move back.

Comments

[navrins]

I think the best part of this is that when I clicked on your link, Firefox told me it was "Waiting for gayrights.change.org..."

Yes, well, lots of people are, aren't they?

[eredien]

Wow. That's amazing.

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

Things like this are why I don't understand people voluntarily moving to non-costal states.

[eredien]

Okay. You know I love you, hon, but here's why comments like that bug me:

they play directly into the myth that non-normative people should not go to where they want to go, and should not do what they want to do, unless the normative people there already approve of their existence. If we wait for that universal approval, we'll be waiting forever. If we go and do what we need to do with our lives, despite our fears and despite normativity, we might be able to have a life to live. (Which presents the possibility of letting us change at least ourselves.)

Normative cultural myth contributes to normative cultural reality (now, and in the past and future). One of the ways in which that normative cultural myth is currently contributing to cultural reality in "non-coastal states" is the state of queer folks in those states: they aren't going to have a lot of really important rights. Those problems are very real, extant, and serious.

But I feel that when somebody says, "only normative people can be happy/respected in [place x]," that's outright repeating the pre-existing cultural normative myth--which reinforces the destructive *reality* of normativity that that myth creates. It's the same as saying "non-normative people can't be happy/respected there," which erases the actual experiences of non-normative people who already live happily there. It makes the already-difficult work of those working to change cultural perceptions and actuality of uniform normalcy even harder ("you only get to have a Gay-Straight Alliance if you call it Diversity Club, because we don't want trouble.")

Some non-normative people may choose to live in places where their personal rights are restricted explicitly so that they can help change the perceptions of what normalcy is in that place.

Don't you think that the first step in choosing to live in a place with such normative realities is coming to peace with the idea that those realities exist, that you personally will be fighting a battle against them, and that that's more than ok, but may be in fact part of what you want to do with your life in that place?

All I'm saying is: people who live in "non-coastal states" aren't unaware of the legal, moral, or ethical problems, either their extent or their seriousness. They have time to think about them and research the issues before moving to such places (and if they're from there, they understand the issues by being immersed in them). And it seems like some people choose to move to places like Indiana anyway.

The people who live in such places plan on being happy, but your words imply that there is no possible way that this choice that they have made could let them do that. When you say that, you are not only reinforcing the idea that no one who is non-normative could possibly be happy in a "non-coastal state" (an assertion that real people would disagree with), but reinforcing the idea that non-normative people shouldn't ever want to be happy in that space, and must be mad for thinking that they had a shot at being happy there--that it's a total write-off.

That, of course, is exactly what the normative people who are trying to kick folks like you and I out of these "non-coastal states" want us to think--that we have no ability, and certainly shouldn't have the desire, to be happy living our lives anywhere we please. I'm not going to let a bunch of close-minded bigots tell you, me and my friends that we shouldn't have the ability, right, or desire to make medical decisions, share property, have custody, get married, or even buy cookies ALSO tell us that we don't have the ability, right or desire to be happy anywhere we damn well please. If I'm not letting the bigots tell me that, I'm sure as hell not letting my friends tell me that.

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with the notion that queer, trans, kinky, "weird" people should have the right to live and work wherever they want to. And that bigotry doesn't change by people accepting it.

My comment was actually mostly a comment made as an east-coast liberal elite: I can't understand wanting (even as a person who appears to be pretty freaking normal) to live in a "flyover" state. I understand that there are plenty of people who do, and that they are of all different races and genders and creeds and orientations, and that's fine, and I will support their right to live there and to be treated as free and equal citizens, to worship and marry as they see fit, etc etc.

But I'm a girl who's unhappy because she currently lives in the northern Virginia suburbs, rather than within walking distance of the Capitol building. And yes, some of that's because I prefer the politics of DC to the politics of VA (I can marry another woman in DC, but not in VA, if I were so inclined), but it's also just my desire for an urban lifestyle. I'm not sure I'd want to live in Indiana (or Iowa or Idaho or Illinois or anywhere) even if it were a model of diversity and acceptance. Utah could legalize polygamy and same-sex marriage and marijuana and a whole bunch of other things I'm in favor of legalizing tomorrow, and I probably still wouldn't want to move to Utah. I'd rather fight for those rights in the place I'd prefer to live.

And yes, my comment implied that it's only the discrimination that makes me prefer coastal states, but there are a lot of other things as well.

[eredien]

Ah...I think I would have understood your comment better if you'd originally said, "a higher incidence of legalized discrimination is only one reason among many why I wouldn't voluntarily move to a non-coastal state--though I understand that other people might want to be there, even if I can't understand why they'd want to be there, personally."

But it was totally unclear to me that when you said, "I don't understand why people would want to live there," that what you actually meant was "I wouldn't want to live there, because it doesn't have what I look for when I think about the kind of place I want to live, but I guess it must hold some appeal that I don't understand for other kinds of people who aren't me."

One of the things that I found pleasant about the midwest is that Bloomington, at least, was a lot more urban as a town, at least in the city center around the University, than I thought it would be. Same thing with the little that I saw of Indianapolis.

I think we all are probably best at fighting for our rights in the places we'd prefer to live ourselves, because we care about the places where we ourselves want to live. :)

[mithent.livejournal.com]

I have no idea about the law in the US (unfortunately, I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's legal), but it's very explicitly illegal to refuse service in the UK, per the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007:

For the purposes of these Regulations, a person (“A”) discriminates against another (“B”) if, on grounds of the sexual orientation of B or any other person except A, A treats B less favourably than he treats or would treat others (in cases where there is no material difference in the relevant circumstances).

It is unlawful for a person (“A”) concerned with the provision to the public or a section of the public of goods, facilities or services to discriminate against a person (“B”) who seeks to obtain or to use those goods, facilities or services—

(a)by refusing to provide B with goods, facilities or services,

(b)by refusing to provide B with goods, facilities or services of a quality which is the same as or similar to the quality of goods, facilities or services that A normally provides to—
 (i)the public, or
 (ii)a section of the public to which B belongs,

(c)by refusing to provide B with goods, facilities or services in a manner which is the same as or similar to that in which A normally provides goods, facilities or services to—
 (i)the public, or
 (ii)a section of the public to which B belongs, or

(d)by refusing to provide B with goods, facilities or services on terms which are the same as or similar to the terms on which A normally provides goods, facilities or services to—
 (i)the public, or
 (ii)a section of the public to which B belongs.

It really is bad that it's taken until 2007 for us to have that law here, and worse that it's not the case everywhere. Incidentally, that I wouldn't be able to bring my partner with me limits my ability to work in the US, too (working abroad is far from uncommon in science, and naturally the US is a major destination).

[eredien]

Mithent, what kind of science do you do?

Yeah, the spouse-immigration laws are hellish. That's one reason my sister decided to stay with her husband in Belgium rather than trying to live with him in the US, even though all her relatives are in the States.

In regard to that law, yeah, we've really got nothing like that. There's a similar case where a photographer denied services to a lesbian couple and I think we're going to see more and more of these kinds of things as time goes on. I'm not sure, legally, what can be done about them, because businesses have the right to refuse service, as I understand it, to anyone, but if it can be proved it's animus against a protected class you then have a case for discrimination suits. But queer people are not a protected class in American law, and in fact there are a lot of people fighting really hard to make sure that we should never be a protected class. That's a large part of why the Prop 8 case findings and its current subsequent appeal is so important; this case in large part is going to determine if queer people are a protected class under the law or if they are not.

For some reading on the American law debate surrounding the idea of protected classes of minorities with immutable characteristics vs. the idea of minorities as a class of people with a shared non-protected, mutable culture, see Kenji Yoshino's "Covering."

[mithent.livejournal.com]

I'm a molecular biologist, vaguely - working towards my PhD at the moment (though I'm considering getting into bioinformatics, if I can).

It would seem to me that it should be classed as discrimination to refuse to provide anyone with a service without a specific and objective reason; "I'm not going to give you a loan because you've defaulted on one before" is fair enough, of course, but not "because you're gay" or "because you're black", "because you're Jewish" or even "because you're wearing a biker jacket and have a shaved head". But I'm sure that such a regulation would still be a legal minefield.

The issue which comes to mind here connected with the legislation I quoted, incidentally, is the challenge raised by a Catholic adoption agency who believed they should be allowed to limit adoptions they managed to heterosexual couples on religious grounds. That was refused.

[eredien]

Oh, I didn't realize there was a similar case in the UK pending!

In the US, similar cases with Catholic Charities (which runs Catholic adoption and foster parent services in various places across the US):

In Boston, Catholic Charities stopped offering its adoption and foster parent services in Boston, MA after antidiscrimination laws passed by the state legislature would have required them to consider GLBT couples as adoptive parents.

In Washington, DC the city council ruled that,in order for Catholic Charities to continue as city contractors and receive associated public funding, their foster placement program would have to abide by the new city anti-discrimination policies re queer people. Catholic Charities wasn't willing to allow queer families to adopt or foster children, so they shut those programs down in DC rather than opting to expand their services to include queer people. In a related move, eventually they also stopped offering spousal benefits to all married employees rather than offer benefits to all spouses of married employees, gay and straight. (Washington, DC is not a state, and does not have the same kind of legislative representation in the House & Senate that states do, for complicated and antiquated reasons.)

Mithent, do you know what the Catholic agencies are going to do now that their claim has been refused?

[mithent.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, the case seems to have come to a conclusion now: After being told to reconsider its ruling that Catholic charity could not discriminate against gay prospective parents, regulator reaffirms original decision.

I didn't know there was a similar case in the US; here, it seems they were trying to change their constitution to seek an exemption, initially with some legal success, but the Charity Commission prevented it. The ruling here only came out last month, and it doesn't seem that they've done much about it yet.

It seems rather vindictive that Catholic Charities went as far as withdrawing all spousal benefits to try to get around the law! I read that they transferred at least some of their services to the National Center for Children and Families?

[eredien]

It seems rather vindictive that Catholic Charities went as far as withdrawing all spousal benefits to try to get around the law! I read that they transferred at least some of their services to the National Center for Children and Families?

This is correct; I believe the Nat'l Center for Children and Families is located in Maryland.

I wouldn't actually interpret their actions re: withdrawl of all spousal benefits as "getting around the law," since as an employer they do have the option not to offer spousal health benefits (just like any other employer would; welcome to the current state of US healthcare). However, it is vindictive and mean-spirited, and I think it's fitting that the lack of spousal benefits makes them a less-desireable employer. They'll have a harder time attracting employees to their organization--especially the very straight married employees with children that their organization wants to promote as the godly ideal--and I think that's absolutely right, absoultely poetic justice. In their very zeal to deny rights to LGBTQ people, they've proved exactly our point--that harming queer people harms us all. They sure harmed a lot of people in agitating against some of them, though, and I wish they could see that.

In regard to the UK Catholic Care article you linked to, I was just stunned by the Catholic Care statement (though I hardly know why these things stun me anymore): "The charity is very disappointed with this decision as in the view of the charity this will reduce the number of people recruited as adoptive parents."

I mean, if they'd been able to bar gay people from adopting, they would have reduced the number of adoptive parents recruited deliberately! They believe it's ok to reduce the number of adoptive parents when the church says it's ok to reduce recruitment of those parents, but it's not fair when the state asks them to increase the pool of adopted parents, they refuse to comply, and their refusal to comply might reduce the number of these adoptive parents recruited? It's a hypocritical double-standard, and absurd.

I feel like if they're worried that they might not be able to recruit enough of what they consider to be the "right kind" of people, they should get out there and recruit more.

Why the hell do straight people continue to hold queer people accountable for the failures of their own desires and actions surrounding marriage, reproduction, and family life? Queer people do not exist to act as a counterweight, complement, or ballast to straight people's desires and actions; queer people are not responsible for managing the desires of straight people.

The fact that institutions like the Catholic church insist on portraying straight people and their sexuality as "whole," "life-giving," "natural," and "healthy," but queer people and their sexuality as "incomplete," "sterile," "disordered," and "sick" reminds me of nothing so much as the Aristotelian concept of men as having all the "vital principle" and women as possessing nothing necessary for creation or generation, inert and passive in and of themselves. I really feel like we're living in the very dawn of the age of thought on some of these topics, some days; and then I go read Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick or Kenji Yoshino and realize that people have just realized that these institutions have simply realized that if they don't acknowledge Darwin and Galileo's existence, they won't have to acknowledge or wrestle with their theories either.

[thoughtsdriftby.livejournal.com]

I think it was more not creating a particular product rather than refusing to serve but I think it was good that the owner of Just Cookies is effectively outed as having such a narrow view of the world and that Flying Cupcake is open to fulfilling simple custom baked goods orders. I now know a proffered bakery in the area to support and one to refuse business from.

I wonder how many My Little Pony themed parties will have to move over to Flying Cupcake now.

[eredien]

- Well, as I understand it, first they asked for cupcakes and were turned down because the bakery only does cookies, which is a reasonable reason.
- And then they were turned down for cookies because the bakery didn't have enough food coloring to do rainbow cookies, which is a reasonable reason.
- And then the bakery owner went on television as saying that they didn't want to make the cookies because they thought such cookies were as obscene as cookies with, for instance, swear words on them.

So, the bakery acknowledges that the students tried to place a cookie order, and the bakery acknowledges the order was turned down because they thought making the rainbow cookies was as obscene as making cookies with obscenities written on them.

And then cited how he had to protect his two young, impressionable daughters (who are 17 and 20, respectively).

The confusion came because the students:
- Originally asked for cupcakes before asking for cookies
- Were originally told that the cookies could not be made because of lack of food coloring.

[lotusbiosm.livejournal.com]

It's entirely possible to tell someone you're refusing them service for what seems like a reasonable reason (lack of food coloring) and really be refusing for other reasons (because they're queer).

[eredien]

I agree wholeheartedly that it's possible, and then some. In fact, I think that "lying plausibly in order to avoid doing something you think is distateful because you don't want to reveal that you think it's distasteful" is the scenario most likely to happen. It is exactly, as far as I can tell, what happened here.

But if you go with the "lie about your distaste" scenario, and then decide to reveal your true motivations on record to a reporter at a later date, it is stupid to think that people won't be pissed off at you for first lying to them about that distaste, then deciding to reveal it.

[emerald-scales.livejournal.com]

Here's a group I belong to on FB:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Durham-United-Kingdom/Wipeout-Homophobia-on-Facebook/ Though it seems to be down right now.

Here is their main site:
http://www.whof.net/

[emerald-scales.livejournal.com]

You now what's really funny? Mormon's use a rainbow as well... just different colors. heeheehee!

[eredien]

I've been reading about how there is a special "god" rainbow that fundamentalist Christians supposedly use to differentiate "their" rainbow from a "gay rainbow."

I don't even know what to think about that.