Saturday, April 09, 2016

Do Religious Liberty Laws Give Christians a Right to Feed the Hungry, Even When It Is Against the Law?


The new religious liberty laws in the South allow people to deny service to others on the basis of the server's religious beliefs.

The laws were written so that, to take a real example, a Christian baker could refuse to make a cake for a gay wedding.

In some of the same states, laws have been passed to prevent Christians from feeding the homeless in public places.

I wonder if these religious liberty laws would also allow people to claim a legal right to serve people on the basis of the server's religious beliefs?

Wednesday, April 06, 2016

White Privilege is the Weakest Major Privilege


Privilege is an unearned advantage given to us by others.  As such, it is a condition that has to be visible to others so they can accord it to us without much knowledge about us.

The best known privileges are, therefore, male privilege and white privilege.  In this top group I would include class privilege, which most social observers can discern on sight.

Of these three, class privilege is, I believe, the one that always matters the most.  It multiplies the substantive advantages of the rich by giving them (us) the benefit of the doubt even before having to demonstrate wealth.

Male privilege is also powerful, a step down from class privilege.

White privilege, though, is mostly a sop to poor white people to keep them from uniting with poor non-white people against the rich.  It does not have nearly as many material advantages as class or male privilege, and those material advantages decline every day.  But it does work to mobilize poor white people to support rich (mostly) white people on behalf of privilege in general.