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.

​

 

[pdmiller]

By that logic...

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

Absolutely, GenCon has that right. Everyone has the right to participate, or not, in a transaction. This is how it should work.

 

[pdmiller]

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.

When you start talking about classes, I get very disheartened.

I believe the goal for our culture should be to have no classes. Equal opportunity (not outcomes) should be guaranteed for everyone. That includes the opportunity to determine which transactions you wish to participate in. The more you start building rules and laws around classes, the more permanent the divisions become.

Identity politics and collectivism perpetuate conflict and division.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

When you start talking about classes, I get very disheartened.

I believe the goal for our culture should be to have no classes. Equal opportunity (not outcomes) should be guaranteed for everyone. That includes the opportunity to determine which transactions you wish to participate in. The more you start building rules and laws around classes, the more permanent the divisions become.

Identity politics and collectivism perpetuate conflict and division.

The problem with that is that in that sort of system, the majority and/or the powerful are more "equal" than everyone else. The tyranny of the majority allows them to push out anyone not like them. History is full of this sort of thing. Protected classes are protected because history has shown that if they aren't, they are discriminated against and victimized. As LGBTQ people are being right this very moment.

 

[pdmiller]

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?

I don't care whether you want to sell to nazis or not. Your decision.
I don't care if someone is a nazi as long as they do not act in such a way as to impinge upon another person's rights. Note that no-one has a right to not be offended.

If you change that there will be despotism. Seemingly benign, unless you hold unpopular views. All you are doing by creating "protected classes" is creating different rules for different people, and that never ends well.

 

[JasonZZ]

But that stand is demanding that the business should not be allowed to make a choice on whether or not they will be part of a transaction. Why should anybody be forced to do business with you if they don't want to?

Why should anybody be forced to move to another city/state/country if they want to buy groceries?

 

[Zaruthustran]

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.

I've seen a couple call-outs to the utopia of the free market. The problem with that is that "the market" is never truly free.

In the example, the business decides to refuse service to the "transexual or whatever." You posit that the market will see that unmet need (a transexual in need of housing) and generate a new business set up to service that client. This might happen in a free market.

But what if the other businesses agree, together, that such a new business shouldn't be allowed to exist? What if that new business does exist, but that industry's suppliers decide not to take on a client that services that particular kind of customer? Maybe one supplier decides to go rogue and supply the new business. But that supplier's other clients--the businesses that refused service to the person in the first place--see this, and threaten to bail. This market isn't so free.

The other problem is that the "free market" is increasingly consolidated, concentrating tremendous influence in a small number of corporations, administered by a small number of humans. I'd prefer a world where the collective will of individual members/society, as expressed through a representative government, has more influence than a small oligarchy of corporations and their tenders.

Which brings up the last problem: these laws all address how a *business* acts. And they're needed, because businesses are inhuman. Businesses do not--some would argue can not--care about human concerns. They act in ways that most benefit the business, rather than in ways that most benefit humanity. That's why we need the Civil Rights Act, OSHA, the EPA, EEOC, and other controls over corporate behavior. Because without these controls, corporations would seriously degrade human quality of life in pursuit of an amoral free market ideal.

tl;dr: the needs of the many (everyone else) outweigh the needs of the few (businesses). An individual human's concerns should trump an individual business's concerns.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

I don't care whether you want to sell to nazis or not. Your decision.
I don't care if someone is a nazi as long as they do not act in such a way as to impinge upon another person's rights. Note that no-one has a right to not be offended.

If you change that there will be despotism. Seemingly benign, unless you hold unpopular views. All you are doing by creating "protected classes" is creating different rules for different people, and that never ends well.

Its already done, in the U.S., and has been for decades. There is no despotism. The only thing you are arguing against here is LGBTQ folks. That's all. Because we are the only ones who are fair game for discrimination. We are the only ones who aren't already a protected class.

 

[Hussar]

Good on Gen Con for this. Well done them.

 

[Waller]

When you start talking about classes, I get very disheartened.

I believe the goal for our culture should be to have no classes. Equal opportunity (not outcomes) should be guaranteed for everyone. That includes the opportunity to determine which transactions you wish to participate in. The more you start building rules and laws around classes, the more permanent the divisions become.

Identity politics and collectivism perpetuate conflict and division.

Your social hypothesis is incorrect. That's not what happens, as history keeps proving over and over.

What happens when social and legal movements such as those engaged in by MLK or by the suffragettes is that laws change to prevent discriminatiin against those classes, and things become more equal.

Much as you might want to, you can't refuse service to somebody on the basis of their skin color. That is a criminal act. That is the law, right now, most everywhere in the western world.

And now it's the turn of the folks asking for gender preference equality. And like every time efore it, whether it was skin color or gender, a core group of people who are notable for not being part of that class push back against it. And, like every time before, it'll be in vain.

And then it'll be somebody else's turn. Then somebody else's. And eventually, things will be equal for everybody.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

This is for [MENTION=91165]Fergurg[/MENTION] ...

I think what you are overlooking is, I don't know how to put it...lets call it "expectation of service". If you walk into a restaurant to order some lunch, you are "expecting" to be served. That's the *entire* purpose of the restaurant...to serve food to people who then pay them money for the food and service. If I was dressed up in drag and walked into a restaurant for lunch, I'd expect to be served simply because the purpose of the business it to serve lunch to those willing to pay.

What you seem to be saying is that nobody should ever "expect" what a business is providing. By your logic, anyone stopping at a gas station in my Honda, filling up, and then walking to the counter to pay shouldn't expect to be able to do so. They should keep in mind that the owner of the gas station could just say "Nope. Not serving your kind...only owners of American built cars are served here! Hold on while I call the police on you for stealing my gasoline"...and, if there was such a law that said 'yeah, a business can discriminate against a class of people if it wants to', well, you're screwed. You're honestly cool with that? *shudder*

Bottom line: A business should be able to say "No" to someone if they have a reason that is non-class-of-people based. But people...ANY person...should expect a business to provide what the business sells unless they have reason to believe otherwise.

PS: I'm all for a nice, but sign being required to say "We don't serve [whatever]", as well as a law that requires a business to state the same thing on all advertising (web site, commercial's, print advertisements, etc). At least then, if the law goes through, I would know what businesses I could expect or not expect to do business with (re: booking a hotel room or rental car, for example).

^_^

Paul L. Ming