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.

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[Dannyalcatraz]

I understand the appeal of small gov't/free market solutions such as are enshrined in economic theory by no lesser light than Adam Smith in his "Invisible Hand" doctrine in Wealth of Nations. However, even he recognized that the invisible hand, while preferred, was not efficient nor universally effective in all cases.

Which is why the US constitution and the court decisions that have flowed therefrom have slowly- and sometimes inconsistently- trended towards limiting legal discriminatory practices.

 

[Fergurg]

That, however, conflates the idea of being forced to provide a service (e.g. being forced to clean houses) with being forced to provide a service to a class you dislike (e.g. a maid being prohibited from not cleaning Catholic houses).

If you are willing to provide the service to an anonymous client, being prohibited from refusing the service to a specific client of a class you detest isn't "slavery". You're not doing something you didn't want to do, you're just doing it for someone you didn't want to serve. The verb isn't being forced, just the object.

Isn't that, literally, what rape is? Being forced to service someone you don't want to service?

I'm not talking hyperbole; literally, the only difference between rape and consensual sex is the other party.

 

[pdmiller]

Businesses hold all the cards in this case. If I go to Gen Con with this law in effect, I could be refused a place to stay, food to eat, or over the counter medicines. As a customer, my refusing to do business with a company is a choice on my part, sometimes a political statement, sometimes just a personal decision. As a business, refusing service to a group of people is discrimination. It is, simply put, bigotry. There are no nice words for it. There are no capitalist justifications.

Look it's simple - each side in a business transaction should have the freedom to commit to the transaction or not.

Personally, I think they are stupid if they decide not to take your money because you are transexual or whatever. And these days it is likely to reflect poorly on them and cost them business as a result.

But you cannot compel someone to participate in a transaction and call yourself a free society. It may not be nice, but nice should not be mandated.

Your point about not being able to find a place to stay only holds true if EVERY business takes the decision to discriminate. Which is highly unlikely in a free market.

 

[uriel222]

You confusion is that you are confusing negative rights with positive rights. The Constitution protects negative rights, not positive ones.

If a business decides to not serve you because you are transsexual, you did not lose any rights, because the right to force others to accept you never existed. The business does not have the right to force you to do business with them. You are not required to patronize them. If I wanted to try to tell you that what you're doing is morally wrong, you have no obligation to listen, or to even be around me. In many businesses, they would even be within their rights to remove me because while the right to speak cannot be taken from me, I do not have the right to your attention.

So, really, when people are arguing for "inclusion" it sounds like more of an argument of taking rights away from people that don't want to include you.

You are, I believe, right in the sense that the specific U.S. Constitution doesn't cover rights of this nature, but that does ignore the larger ethical question.

This is a hypothetical, and a bold-faced strawman at that, but bear with me if you would:

Suppose you lived in the centre of the United States, and, all at once, everyone in the country, all 319 million of them, spontaneously decided to have no business with you, whatsoever. No one would sell you food, or fuel, or transport. Nothing.

How long would you survive? What would the quality of your life be? If not a death sentence (which, if you required medical care, it would certainly be), it would certainly be harsh indeed. Every one of those people could honestly say "I'm doing nothing to harm you", yet, by their actions (or wilful lack thereof), they are indeed, collectively, harming you.

A baker refusing to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple may be considered a small harm by comparison, true. But, while small, it is a harm. Where is the actual harm to a baker is only prohibited from denying a service to a class? What harm to the baker?

 

[God]

Come on dude. Now you're comparing a prohibition on discrimination to rape? What cliche comes next?

Also, good on Gen Con. Discrimination's for dicks, and thou shalt not be a dick.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

Look it's simple - each side in a business transaction should have the freedom to commit to the transaction or not.

Personally, I think they are stupid if they decide not to take your money because you are transexual or whatever. And these days it is likely to reflect poorly on them and cost them business as a result.

But you cannot compel someone to participate in a transaction and call yourself a free society. It may not be nice, but nice should not be mandated.

Your point about not being able to find a place to stay only holds true if EVERY business takes the decision to discriminate. Which is highly unlikely in a free market.

By that logic...

Gen Con has the right to not do business with Indiana. And they have stated their intent and their reasoning.

 

[Waller]

Look it's simple - each side in a business transaction should have the freedom to commit to the transaction or not.

But they don't have that freedom. U.S. law and laws around the globe all acknowledge a concept known as a protected class. If you refuse service to someone because they are a member of a protected class, your are committing a criminal offence. These include things like disability, gender, ethnicity, and so on.

This is the law. It has been for a long time.

The only difference here is that folks are saying they don't think that gay people should be one of those protected classes. Which in my view is patently absurd. Of course they should be.

But you cannot compel someone to participate in a transaction and call yourself a free society. It may not be nice, but nice should not be mandated.

We don't live in a free society. We live in one which restricts our behaviours with the use of laws.

Your point about not being able to find a place to stay only holds true if EVERY business takes the decision to discriminate. Which is highly unlikely in a free market.

And yet historically it has been shown that absent these laws, such things do happen. That's why these laws have come about.

 

[uriel222]

Isn't that, literally, what rape is? Being forced to service someone you don't want to service?

I'm not talking hyperbole; literally, the only difference between rape and consensual sex is the other party.

Again, the discussion is about denying service to classes, not individuals.

In your examples, as with someone who chooses a sex partner, discrimination to an individual is fine. No one is arguing that. And, in most cases, sex isn't generally defined as a business (admittedly, a legal prostitute who refused service to Jews is a sticky ethical question, but one which goes to the larger discussion of prostitution).

The distinction between individuals and classes is, literally, the definition of prejudice.

 

[pdmiller]

I still find it hard to believe that a person can go from being seen as a 'first class citizen' to a 'second class citizen' simply because somebody is a transgender person (which I am) or somebody wants to be in a same-sex relationship... I mean, how in the world did this happen, in a country where our very own constitution is all about freedom for all people, regardless of race, creed, religion, sex, gender, etc... I mean doesn't that honestly cover everybody when it focuses on ALL PEOPLE? That encompasses...well, everybody born within the US.

It's truly unfathomable to me that there is support for anything that can end up discriminating against anybody else, for any reason, because to me that's just barbaric.

So I am a 'second class citizen' simply because I was born a male and I identify as female, and I take measures to change my own personal body to go with how I feel and that takes me down a notch and I actually lose rights I was born in this country to automatically get??? How does my choice of what I do with my own body allow others to then discriminate against me, or belittle me, or treat me like crap when I was born here? Did I really lose any rights because of this or is this just a bad misconception of our nation and our culture that individuals feel they have to have their own paragraphs specifically stated to gain rights they feel they are missing out on despite the fact our constitution already gives us these rights due to the fact we are born here?

As for Gen Con... it's already breaking Indianapolis and I mean this is that the convention is starting to burst by how fast its grown in the last four years. Since this year GenCon had to actually refund people because they couldn't get hotel rooms I think GenCon should move anyways to a city that can handle a larger convention. It's only going to grow.

Putting the shoe on the other foot, I would defend your right, as a shop-owner, not to serve nazis or anyone else that you thought poorly of. The fact is, you can't make everyone like you. You can't compel everyone to pretend to like you. You can't make everyone sell you something if they don't want to, even if you are somehow able to prove their motive for not doing so. In the end, such a move has very bad consequences.

In a free society, people are allowed to not like you, and even say so - hurt feelings or not. Change that and you are going down a very dangerous road.

 

[uriel222]

Putting the shoe on the other foot, I would defend your right, as a shop-owner, not to serve nazis or anyone else that you thought poorly of. The fact is, you can't make everyone like you. You can't compel everyone to pretend to like you. You can't make everyone sell you something if they don't want to, even if you are somehow able to prove their motive for not doing so. In the end, such a move has very bad consequences.

In a free society, people are allowed to not like you, and even say so - hurt feelings or not. Change that and you are going down a very dangerous road.

Your argument would be strengthened if you were to describe what, precisely, would be the "very bad consequences" or the expected end of the "very dangerous road". What exactly is the harm in protecting a discriminated class? That a Nazi might be able to purchase goods and services?