Hi, Neocon. I was just scanning the argument here. It sure is heated. There are hundreds and hundreds of posts, and I've only read a handful of them, so these thoughts are undoubtedly ones that have already been expressed; but I feel like sharing some thoughts, redundant or not, so here they are.
In the case of public services, like restaurants, apartment buildings, racial segregation and discrimination is not only unkind, but probably not good for the republic, imo.
I see a stream of argument here about "conscience" as the justifying excuse for refusal, for example, to massage certain individuals.
My reaction when I saw that was that talk about "conscience" in such matters seems so futile. What may feel like conscience to the person who doesn't want to massage certain persons may feel to a rejectee like an insult, or a manifestation of an untoward implication, or a reflection of ugly preconceptions, or something quite different from conscientious objection. And the citing of conscience as a reason for the refusal can add insult to injury.
Looking across the fence from one culture to another can produce really weird feelings. When I was in my 20's and knew nothing about Orthodox Judaism I used to take books to an orthodox Jewish bookbinder for repair. His shop was in the basement of his home. I would go down there, and noticed after a couple of visits that shortly after I did, his wife and children would show up. I soon realized that even though it was a commercial establishment, my presence there as a customer violated a religious commandment of some sort, if we were alone in the room together. His "conscience," I guess, made him summon (in some way I didn't see), chaperones. Well, in the moment I realized what was happening -- that my being in the shop, an event that could not have been less sexual, was being, by his behavior, defined as sexual or potentially sexual -- I had this feeling... like... UGH, what a perv. That was my visceral reaction.
I wasn't very sophisticated about various customs. But it is an illustration of how cultural customs don't translate well. He was being "conscientious." I felt him to be "dirty-minded."
I think I posted a while back that when my grandparents rented out an apartment in the upstairs of their house, the rule was that they could choose anyone they wanted, because it was their home and they lived in it.
That seems correct to me. Not perfect, but more correct than the alternative. To force someone to share their home with someone they don't want to, or massage anyone they don't want to for any reason, however personal or arbitrary or irrational or nuts, feels to me... well, just too personally intrusive.
There are all sorts of phobias; maybe the homeowner, or the masseuse, has a phobia. I'm suggesting that maybe requiring answers to the question of whether it's a phobia, or just a silly notion, or bigotry, or "conscience" seems ... inappropriate to me. Almost the way some guy telling a woman she can't take the morning after pill because it violates his conscience feels to me.
"It's MY body, I'll massage whom I want to with it." "It's MY home, I'll share my roof with whom I want." "It's MY body, I'll decide whether I gestate a fertilized egg in it or not." Those statements have something in common. They aren't the same; but they have something in common.
I think maybe that, to me, "a man's [sic] home is his castle so he can share or not share it with anybody he wants to for any reason, however noble or ignoble others may feel that reason is" is too basic a principle, or even human right, for the state to legislate against; and the idea of making someone use their hands in a small, private room to massage the near-naked body of someone whom they don't want to massage gives me a similarly weird feeling. I'm not sure it's not just too much a violation of some principle of self-determination in intimate matters for others to say to someone with a phobia or principle or neurotic aversion, "Put your hands on him! Rub his legs! Rub his back! Rub his toes!"
I do see the downside of not making people in a democratic society share their a roof with someone for reasons we think misguided or mean spirited, or for not making them massage someone for similarly (in the majority opinion) misguided reasons.
But... no solution to conflicting impulses is perfect.
(I'm assuming that there are providers of the services in question who don't feel either nutty aversions or pricks of conscience, btw.)
Actually, if I heard a masseuse was refusing to massage people of a certain religion, or race, or gays, I'd not go to that person for a massage myself, and would no doubt suggest to my friends that they get a new masseuse, too. But I wouldn't force anyone by legislation to rub someone's body they didn't want to.
The discussion may have passed this point, or covered my points already. I just felt like saying this, though. No need to reply. |
