Great way to lose customers

Somewhere in St George's Chapel, Windsor, George III is now thanking his lucky stars that he lost America.

Tolerance of prejudice is not tolerance. In such cases, refusing to shake someone's hand, whilst not others, is prejudicial and nothing more and acquiescing to that is to agree with the prejudice. If someone wants to wear a cross or a turban etc. that is an individual's free expression and not aimed at diminishing any other individual. The pork/alcohol issue could be seen to be more akin to that but it depends on the circumstance.

Intellectually I totally understand the not shaking hands with the opposite sex thing and am completely supportive of it. In practice, when someone shakes hands with most other people in the meeting and then declines to do so with you (however charmingly) as though you've got cooties, it isn't very nice. Even though you know it's not personal, it's hard not to feel like it is.

If I'm in a shop, I also expect whoever is working there to sell me what they're selling and not make a fuss about it. I'm not asking anyone to approve of my excessive, borderline-dependent alcohol habit.

In the same way, I was perfectly happy to serve eggs and bacon to people when I worked in a greasy spoon, despite not eating bacon. Smelled bloody lovely, as well.

It's wrong how this is being reported. The Supreme Court did not rule for the baker. They ruled that the "Colorado Civil Rights Commission mishandled Phillips' claim. The court did not rule that the Constitution grants the right to discriminate but maintained the longstanding principle that business owners cannot deny equal access to goods and services."

And it was a very narrow ruling. Basically the the CO Civil Rights Commission bungled how they came to the ruling they did. If they would have just kept their mouths shut and not made discriminatory remarks during their ruling about the bakers religious beliefs and if they were even sincere, and made the same ruling, it would have been upheld.

Oh come now - just because someone pays you to print something on a cake does not mean that you are personally forced to support the statement, any more than proboards support the statements of any of us when they publish our words on this forum.

The point is that they did not wish to assist in supporting that particular political view - just as the Guardian wouldn’t run a paid advert supporting Donald Trump and the NRA.

It’s prejudice no matter what country you are in or whatever your faith is. Stopping women from driving was unacceptably prejudicial in Saudi, same as it would be here. Not shaking someone’s hand because of their gender is the same. Borders or beliefs are no excuse to deny the equal treatment of human beings. Would I go to Saudi? No, as I disagree with the state’s views, same as I wouldn’t go to other countries which have a similar position. In the UK we have gender equality legally enshrined so there’s a clear difference.

The Supreme Court hasn't ruled on this case yet - it only heard the arguments a couple of weeks ago so it'll be months before the judgment.

Simply because Australian News like the ABC does not report it. There is a actually a word I used to know . Its one of these bias.https://medium.com/@choongchingteo/cognitive-biases-you-need-to-be-familiar-with-as-a-researcher-c482c9ee1d49 .



But simply because I thought Germany did not have those issues. And thought Northern Ireland and Poland was 'backward'  in those regards. I can be naive.

I always feel USA should know better as a leader nation

I feel this case will split down the middle. Some of us like me saying the guy should have to do it and get fined for not doing it . And some saying freedom of speech

Re: the handshake thing, absolutely fascinating the way everyone in this thread who has commented on it seems to be looking at it from the male perspective. It ain't just men who have religious objections to shaking hands with women, you need look no further than the exact same religion to find women who have religious objections to shaking hands with men. Religion or not though, if someone doesn't want to make physical contact with you, they are not obliged to, whether it's something as common (to you) as a handshake, or as friendly as a hug, or whatever. Bit weird to start hollering about prejudice in this particular instance...

It’s interesting you say that because I was going to add (but didn’t because it felt a bit personal for the web but what the hey) that in my religious days I used to be one of those women who didn’t have physical contact with men I wasn’t related to, including hand-shaking – not because I felt a particular sensitivity to it in all honesty but because it was standard for my community. So that’s why I said that theoretically I sympathise – because I’ve experienced it from both sides.



However I do think there’s a nuance between the male and female position. Men are required not to touch women and not to look at ‘immodest’ women lest they be led astray by their desires. Women are required to not touch men and to dress modestly so as not to lead men astray – in both cases the woman is objectified. If you live in that environment all the time, you can end up feeling that there is something intrinsically to be ashamed of and literally to be covered up about being female (my experience only, of course).



But there’s further nuance – my experience was that the people who really got exercised about and policed the way women dress, behaved, etc, and the ones who objected if it was suggested that a barrier in a room segregating the sexes could come down in some circumstances - were far more likely to be women. In the end I couldn’t see a future for myself in that environment, but there are many women who find highly gendered societies comfortable and would roll their eyes at what I’m saying; most, I think, are in the middle and have mixed, complicated feelings about it all. Again, only my experience.



So there’s complexity upon complexity but I guess basically what I’m saying is – a woman not shaking the hand of a man isn’t necessarily the equivalent of a man not shaking the hand of a woman. They’re called patriarchal religions for a reason…



(By the way in Judaism embarrassing someone is held to be the equivalent of murder and many rabbis advise that you should just shake the hand of the opposite sex if there’s no way to avoid it wihout making them feel awkward).