Gen Con Takes Stand For Inclusiveness

This rather breaks all my rules, in that I'm reporting on politics, and regional politics at that. That said, Gen Con, the hobby's largest American convention, intersects with this particular example, so it's hard to ignore; and this is an RPG news blog, after all. Plus, I agree with the sentiment, even if I'm doubtful about its actual effectiveness given the current contract. Gen Con has written to the local politician in its home city of Indianapolis, USA, threatening (kind of - they're contracted to stay there for five more years whether they like it or not) to consider moving elsewhere if a local law relating to businesses being able to refuse custom to same-sex couples is passed.

With multiple recent articles in just the last week (Monte Cook Games & Thunderplains, Green Ronin's Blue Rose), the subject of inclusiveness is not one that anybody can afford to ignore. However, the vitriolic comments these topics give rise to make discussion on them difficult at best.

Here's the letter they wrote.

​

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

they are still losing their freedom of association.

No, they're not.

Freedom of association (FoA) is a right to join groups, not to decide who comes into your place of business. IOW, it is a privacy right; it is about there being no way for the government to force you to include others or prevent you from joining with others in private.

As soon as you move into the public sphere, FoA essentially disappears.

A classic example occurred in New Orleans. Many of the Krewes that put on the famous Mardi Gras parades were segregated until the 1990s, when one person sued for the right to join one. The decision of the court was that- because they operated in the public sphere, the segregated Krewes either had to integrate their membership or they could not have parades anymore.

So many Krewes opted to maintain their FoA, it almost killed NOLA's Mardi Gras. But guys like Harry Connick, Jr. stepped up and formed new, integrated Krewes.

Similar rulings also opened up membership in many golf clubs to minorities and women- part of the rationale was that so much business was being done on the links that they had moved out of FoA issues and into the public sphere. The clubs were forced to choose between integration or closing. To do otherwise would have permitted white males (not vilifying, just observing that that was the nearly universal club limitation) to have an unjust advantage in business affairs.

IOW, if you want to discriminate against having gays or minorities in your house of worship because of religious beliefs, fine. But once you open a business to the public, you open it to ALL of the public.

 

[Farland]

GenCon did great.

 

[Mikaze]

That is one plausible story. There is another.

Gen Con may realize that they have many attendees for whom this law is relevant. They may quite rightly choose to not attend the Con if it is in a place with such a law. And those attendees have friends, who may also choose not to attend because of the law.

Thus, Gen Con may see decreased sales - this law gets in the way of Gen Con serving its customer base. That leaves Gen Con with three choices: Just suck up the loss, move, or announce that they may have to move so that the local government and businesses can make a rational decision before doing this.

I'm told Gen Con brings about $50 million to the area each year. It seems to me that the third option is the most polite and professional they could be about it.

So, you may choose your narrative, if you wish. But it seems unsubstantiated. Mine at least has a vague business case behind it. You want businesses to be allowed to do what makes sense for them? Gen Con seems to be doing just that. I can't see how you can complain about it.

This, with a side dish of "GenCon isn't the one that's hurting people".

 

[Mikaze]

I think the largest problem with moving it is the lack of connected hotels, there are few other convention areas that are uniquely suited for how GenCon works.

Oh God, the benefits of those skywalks are going to be one of the hardest things to let go.

Especially for those lugging and/or wearing heavy, unwieldy stuff, like a cart full of board games or a Pyramid Head costume + ridiculously oversized knife.

 

[Mikaze]

Gen Con should have stayed out of religion and politics.
En-World should stay out of religion and politics.

Religion* and politics are the ones that came to GenCon, not the other way around.

This is a situation where choosing to say or do nothing would have hurt people. If you want to blame someone, pin it on those that are pushing an unjust, harmful bill. GenCon is looking out for the people that attend in this case.

*Or rather the abuse of religion as a bludgeon to hurt others. People of all faiths are welcome at GenCon, and Gamers for Jesus has been a thing for a while now. And they coexist peacefully with the Gaymers stuff. Some people even get t-shirts from both.

 

[tomBitonti]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that a good attorney could get GenCon out of that 5 year contract on the grounds of something like Force Majeur: "we can't fulfill our side of the contract because the laws of the state create an insurmountable barrier to our ability to run our business profitably." Or some such.

Would it be as simple as that? If I were entertaining that argument, I'd want some actual evidence of the loss of profitability. Also, "insurmountable" seems rather strong, and would seem to attract a rebuttal.

Not that a more detailed (and likely more persuasive) argument couldn't be made: Some numbers on the attendance and distribution of attendees across the affected groups and cases of actual hardship the affected attendees would likely encounter would go a long way to make the argument.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Nylanfs]

Oh God, the benefits of those skywalks are going to be one of the hardest things to let go.

Yep, remember when it was in Milwaukee? I never got a hotel anywhere close and most times had to stay at the University.

 

[tomBitonti]

I'm finding all sorts of careful delineations which need to be made when addressing the questions posed here.

For example, I imagine that a Baker could decide to not make wedding cakes (for any religion, or for a civil ceremony), on either the basis that they weren't that good at making wedding cakes, or because they don't like to make wedding cakes, or because they had a bad divorce and wanted nothing to do with weddings, or because they don't like religion. That seems to be discrimination against making wedding cakes, not against a particular religion.

Or, if the reason was based on disaffection for religion as a whole, would the decision be prohibited?

Would it matter if there were many vendors which were not exclusive, and a handful which were? I understand this is a tricky question, since the many vendors today might become few in the future, and the measure of "many" and "few" are rather imprecise. But as a practical matter, the difference between "many" and "few" can be used to estimate the hardship endured by an affected attendee.

Also, there is close case law, for example, as discussed here:

http://corporate.findlaw.com/busine...-laws-applicable-to-private-clubs-or-not.html

I'm thinking we will need to review the case law to understand legally how the issue is approached.

Thx!

TomB

 

[tomBitonti]

Gen Con may realize that they have many attendees for whom this law is relevant. They may quite rightly choose to not attend the Con if it is in a place with such a law. And those attendees have friends, who may also choose not to attend because of the law.

Additional text omitted.

This makes me wonder if we can know GenCon's motivation in sending their letter.

The motivation may have little to do with their actual stance on the matter outside of a narrow business sense: The law would impact their profitability by impacting attendance; Sending a letter is of small cost; Sending a letter will help to put the organization on the good side of affected attendees. (Also, sending a letter might get the ball rolling for justifying breaking their contract. The issue might be a cover for breaking a contract which they already want to break because the venue cannot handle the number of attendees.)

I imagine the folks who run the convention would rather this weren't an issue, and they really don't care one way or another outside of their focus on running a convention.

Thx!

TomB

 

[Umbran]

Would it be as simple as that? If I were entertaining that argument, I'd want some actual evidence of the loss of profitability.

Well, of course, if you were taking it to court to get out of a contract, you'd have to have some numbers. So, let's scotch some up, for the idea...

The percentage of the adult american population that is gay is often estimated to be about 4%. With its tendency to collect those who are not accepted in the rest of society, gaming may well run higher than that. We can also expect that for each person impacted, there's probably a friend who would stand in solidarity. This might then quickly ramp up to, say, 10% of the GenCon ticket sales in question over the matter. I think it reasonable to think that the vendors might see similar numbers of losses, so those fees drop as well.

What kind of profit margin does GenCon operate under? We don't know. But, many businesses run around 10%. A sudden loss of 10% of revenues could wipe out profitability.

These numbers are made up, of course, but as a back-of-an-envelope estimate, it doesn't sound outright impossible.