Conservatives generally want the bakery to be able to refuse to bake the cake. Why aren't they also in favor of the ISP refusing to offer service, or the host refusing to offer use of their servers?
Do you believe a baker ought to be able to refuse service to someone over religion? If so, do you believe a baker whose beliefs condemn homosexuality should be able to refuse a same-sex couple? Do you believe a baker whose religion condemns Christianity should be able to refuse Christians?
If so, do you have a problem with a hosting service cutting off a site of which it disapproves?
> Conservatives generally want the bakery to be able to refuse to bake the cake. Why aren't they also in favor of the ISP refusing to offer service, or the host refusing to offer use of their servers?
It’s a very different scenario.
It’s more like people are hiring private investigators to follow gay people around and get a list of businesses they frequent and then organising harassment of those businesses until they refuse to do business with the homosexuals.
There's a line in one of Terry Pratchett's books where Sam Vimes (commander of the City Watch) muses that what he's doing isn't really secret surveillance because he has to stand back a bit to avoid being deafened by how loudly some guy is yelling his jingoistic crap in a public place.
Gab isn't some stealthy hidden dark-web thing that you can only access from behind seven proxies after a thirty-step initiation process. Same with Alex Jones. Nobody's breaking into their homes and secretly recording statements they'd never ever make in public; these folks are getting up on soapboxes and gleefully shouting at the top of their lungs in the explicit hope that as many people as possible will hear and know about them.
So, yeah, it's 100% fair for people to point to the person standing on a soapbox in the public square who's screaming at the top of his lungs, and say "I don't want to be associated with him, or with anyone who supports him". That's freedom, and the guy doing the screaming has no grounds to try to forbid that; that would be censorship of others' opinions.
I think any business should have the freedom to refuse to trade with anyone they dislike, however irrational or bigoted their decision may be. I also think everybody else can denounce, ostracize, or boycott them for similar, or rational and non-bigoted, inclinations.
Nowadays I do wonder about how much integrity is involved in our post-modern social strife. While I like to think I'd sell on principle my bread to anyone, regardless of behaviour or creed -- there are some awful people with whom I think, honestly, I'd rather have nothing to do with if I know what they've done (a child murderer or holocaust-supporter or rapist, or someone who defends them, to go to extremes).
Banishment is a social tool that has been in use for a long time (forever?), sometimes with very good reasons, probably as a last recourse; I'll feel better when we have deliberate and explicit criteria for this method.
ps: I'm neither a "conservative" nor a "progressive" -- though I uphold thoughts that may be labelled by others as one or the other.
Do you believe a baker ought to be able to refuse service to someone over religion? If so, do you believe a baker whose beliefs condemn homosexuality should be able to refuse a same-sex couple? Do you believe a baker whose religion condemns Christianity should be able to refuse Christians?
If so, do you have a problem with a hosting service cutting off a site of which it disapproves?