@nooneinparticular Said
Does it fall under a hate crime for a protected class? If so then the group can still choose to publicly shame two homosexual men, but they might be charged as a result. So the buck stops at the law. If it doesn't fall under that, then while publicly shaming them might be socially unacceptable in some circles, nothings stopping them from doing it. As long as they accept that some people might view the group as homophobic a*****es as a result.
By your rules though, it doesn't matter if it falls under a hate crime. By the rules you set, whatever they intended is not important. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that the end result was someone getting offended and that makes the outcome just as bad and just as subject to recourse as a hate crime. I'm putting the rules you stated into play.
You can't say that intent or lack of intent is irrelevant and then invoke the law as your parameter when the law itself is
very clear that intent or lack of intent absolutely matters.
Because if someone is accused of a hate crime and can reasonably show he did not intend a statement or action as an act of racism or whatever other hate crime he is accused of, he does not suffer legal recourse because he actually hasn't violated the law.
Lets play this out though. A gay man is told by a shop owner he is not going to serve him because he's gay. Believe it or not, in a lot of places in America....this is not a hate crime. The gay community is not a protected class under Federal law. My personal opinion is that it should be, but it's not.
But...even if it was...trying to publicly shame two gay men for kissing in public isn't illegal anywhere in the united states. It's totally within the law to state a backwards, bigoted, stupid opinion that "them gays shouldn't be kissin in the park and oughta be shamed uh themsleves." That's not what protected classes are protected from. A person can legally shout from the rooftops that he thinks all blacks are lazy and dishonest and use as many slurs as his empty, f***ed up little head desires. So I fail to see how the law even would factor in there. A group shaming men for kissing each other would not face charges at all. I'd think they were horrible people, but they wouldn't be doing anything illegal.
Your initial posts seem to suggest to me that in your mind, people have some kind of moral duty to publicly shame people who are perceived as racist. Not after they are sure a person is racist...just if they do something that seems racist, even if they aren't aware they are being seen as such. My question is, does that just apply to racism and if so, why just racism and not other kinds of offense? And if it does apply to others, is there a reasonable litmus on which kinds of offenses should be shamed and which shouldn't?
I understand people offended for other reasons are "free to" publicly call out and shame those who offend them, I am asking if you think they should the way you seem to think they should for perceived racism, and if not, why shouldn't they while certain other types of offended people should?
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As to the two homosexual men's shame, that's something they should decide for themselves. If they believe they did nothing wrong then that's their decision to make. There's a difference between saying someone has the right to publicly shame another and saying the recipient has to feel ashamed from it. Trump proves that every day in office. He seemingly feels no shame from all the public shaming he's gone through, as is his right, and the public gets to judge him for it, as is theirs.
Okay, but that isn't at all what you suggested when you said:
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I should be very ashamed of my mistakes. They are mistakes after all, and the only way I will learn from them is if I take those mistakes to heart as mistakes, feel shame for having done them, and endeavor to do better in the future. We learn from our mistakes by examining them honestly, not by downplaying their significance.
Own your actions as your own and either stand by your statements or endeavor to do better. Don't downplay them as things done in ignorance. I still did them. The fact that it was in ignorance does not change that.
You suggest here that people
should be ashamed when they cause offense in others and that if it's done in ignorance, the fact that it was done so doesn't matter. All that matters is that they caused someone else to be offended, and if they aren't ashamed of that, they won't learn not to do it. Shame is the only way you learn not to hurt others? Really?