Asolutely, I've witnessed this more myself over the last four years with regards to myself. I've offended lots of people in my life by doing things they don't want me to do. Also, by doing things they think I can't do. People hate to be proven wrong about things.

The people that defended and enabled Sandusky were not as far as I know public or private supporters of gay marriage.

Some elements of the Catholic Church have protected and hidden pedophiles for decades. Again, these were not by and large gay marriage partisans.

And the Brooklyn Haredim who oppose reporting pedophilia in their community to the authorities and have gone so far as to claim that the rabbis should decide if a child sex crime is worthy of reporting and/or punishment are also as far as I know, fiercely opposed to gay marriage.

In short, pedophilia is a disgusting crime which doesn't have anything to do with gay marriage, gay acceptance or whether sexual orientation should be considered among the elements which would indicate a federal hate crime.

There are ways to argue against gay marriage or elevated level of scrutiny in hate crimes that don't require making the abuse of children analogous to consensual adult relationships.

The "pedophile-is-the-norm" argument actually was used in court last week by a local lawyer trying to reduce his client's sentence:

http://prescottdailycourier.com/main.asp...ID=1086&S=1

What was that I was saying about defense attorneys?

Pedophilia and gay marriage do have something in common. Both are evidence of the continuing decline of society. It just so happens that one is gaining more support at the moment.

And when your time comes, you'll wish you had a defense lawyer.

According to the US Constitution? What rights are we discussing?

And why the narrow focus on pedophiles who strictly chase after boys? Pedophiles have crossed gender of their victims and there are many pedophiles who go primarily after children of the opposite sex.

Rights. That damn Constitution!

Massachusetts has had gay marriage for a few years now. How has that fact affected marriage as a whole? What condition was marriage in before the gays ruined it?

I am in agreement. A few years ago, I would have said it was all right. I am from small town, and was more liberal before coming to big city for college. Between what I see at my university, and what I see on news and in New York City, I have changed my views drastically on the issue. Gays said they only wanted equality, but it seems they try to push to see how offensive they can behave without getting reprimanded by anyone. Pedophilia is worse than two people of same sex hooking, but point of what they are doing to society is valid one, in my opinion.

Normally people from a small town go into the big city and learn about diversity. Maybe you're in a different NYC than I'm used to??

No, I'm in Rego Park Queens, nice area, a diverse area, and have not said I had problem with diversity. I work and go to school with many different people, have no problem due to race or sexual orientations, it is when they go overboard, or try to push it to point where they seem to want someone to challenge them. Example: I am waitress. Group of women come in, I get their table. They seem to be lesbians, and turn out to be that. Fine, but then they talk filthy every time I am serving table, ask me personal questions, and one, older than my mothers, starts flirting openly. I am straight, say I have boyfriend just to be left alone, she says obnoxious things anyway. I complain to manger. Useless. He is more afraid of them being offended, gives me diversity lecture. What did I do? As if i was in wrong for being offended? If group of men had hit on me, and it has happened, we are allowed to ask for someone else to take over out table if it goes too far. I asked, he said no, he became red in face, and seemed scared and angry art same time.

I am not against gay unions, even after the above experience, since not all are people of a group are same. Gay adoption I am against, all the way. Yet if I speak up, as I did in one class where we were asked to speak freely, professors get angry, and steer other students into going agaisnt you. I am in New York for over one year, and spent close to a year in Miami. I have seen that big city people are not all that they are cracked up to be as far as independent thought, diversity of opinion, and open mindedness. Small town I am from, and the surrounding areas, were more of those than New York.

While I do underand what you're saying, and where you're coming from, the whole "Pedophilia and gay marriage do have something in common" thing that you just agreed to was a bit off-putting, to be honest.

Sure, SOME people are assholes. Doesn't matter if they're Black/White, Straight/Gay, This/that/or the other thing. But if you're a waitress, sadly, your job is to serve with a smile. Even if they're assholes.

You have a right to have an opinion against gay adoptions -- and I haven't heard WHY you're against it, yet -- but I'd like to. Even tho I disagree with you.

PS - But the flirting thing is difficult I suppose. If you're straight, and two gay people try hitting on you, I can see that as being a little difficult. At the same time, so can a straight couple hitting on a gay waiter/waitress. Or basically any customer being inappropriate with a server. You can't blame all gays for one bad experience, anymore than you can blame all straight people for sending their food back and complaining a lot.

You have 2 choices: You either suck it up with a smile (or condescending giggle, in your case lol), or, you quit and move on to another job. That's basically it.

Yes, this is true, we have all seen it many times over. Played the same way by many groups who felt that they hadn't gotten a fair shake in the past...or it is NOW their time to shine in the spotlight. Remember how it was when Obama won? How many people were jumping up and down yelling it is now our chance to be in control, Ect.....the "happy days are here again" music playing in the background

I guess you have to add the "Gay Card" to the deck, along with the "Race Card", the "I'm Poor Card", the "I Am Women Card", the "Yes- BUT Card" and the "Suck It Up Card". With these and so many other cards in the deck of life, you now know why people get so sick of all the crap and get hard core against things or people.


And by the way...Your manager is wrong and should have done something about your concerns...No matter what the concern was, he should have address it at the time, taken you away from the problem.... then talked about it with you after... It is his job if you feel that there is a problem.

Even a "waitress" doesn't have to 'Suck it up' and listen to filthy talk in a public work place. Any family with little kids will tell you that.

More then once I have told other people to watch their talk while eating with my parents and grandparents who don't need to put up with hearing that crap.

You can't smoke in public places for a reason also.
Then again your can't always fix "STUPID" as they say.

It never fails to amaze me that despite the lessons of history and what life teaches us, we still have people who have not learned from racial, ethnic, religious and gender prejudices. Now we add to the panoply of such prejudices a new one: sexual orientation.

Of course, the rationale for these prejudices is quite discernable and immature. All one does is cite one or more objectional behaviors that someone manifests and then accrues it to an entire race, ethnicity, gender, or sect to which that someone belongs. An example of such turned up on the Board recently when lawyers became the object of a Board member's prejudice. It is so unintelligent.

Geoff just tell them to hold DeMeo

Unfortunately, that's the cold hard truth when you deal with the public. Yes, your manager should have said something, or put a different server on their table. Nobody should be treated like that in the workplace. However, when you deal with the public, you're going to deal with idiots of all kinds. You either have to learn to handle them, or get a job that doesn't involve dealing with the public.

The manager was cowardly, and I can see why. He could have also lost his job, or bought a protest down on restaurant if he had gotten into confrontation that went too far with them. If two years ago I was watching television, and a story of lesbians or gay males having rights violated in any establishment came on, I would have felt that they were victims, and place was discriminatory. If that had happened in my recent situation, and it made local paper, or tv news story, many would have felt same, and sided with customers. Gay groups are very organized. To fight discrimination that is good thing, to push people around is wrong. They have crossed over from having righteous cause to being bullies.

It was no this one incident that got to me, it is seeing something like this once a week. Classroom discussions taken over by someone with story of discrimination having nothing to do with course, and professors afraid to do anything for fear of being called homophobic, or racist in other instances. When I told some fellow student where I was from someone called me a a hick, and later heard a hillbilly joke, I laughed it off, thought I was making friends. Yet I now see that any thing said in any joking manner on gays, minorities, or certain religious groups are punishable offenses. There should be one standard for everyone.

If they were straight, It would have been dealt with. I mentioned that, we have anti-harressment policy towards employees. In this case, there was fear of them using discrimination as an excuse to create a problem. I don't believe it is isolated incident.

Lately, there's been more moaning on this Board than usual. You have added to it. Instead of moaning, why not seek remedies at law? If you are as agrieved as you represent in your post, why not seek legal counsel? I suggest that you start reading US Codes; start with US Codes 29 and 42 and also read your state's statutes on the subject you are moaning about. Before doing all of that, you might throughly read your employer's employment policies and applicable state employment law.

I would also suggest that you reread your posts which reveal a substantive and primitive discriminatory streak in you. As someone posted above, either quit or suck it up and move on. To that I would add taking legal action.

What is your problem? I am not here to argue or fight. You are calling me primitive and discriminatory, for what reason ? Plus you are saying I should sue, I think there are enough lawsuits out there already.

I don't see anything discriminatory in what Jace said. There is no reason to be rude. If those people are homosexuals, it doesn't justify their behavior, as it wouldn't be justified if they were straight. There is nothing discriminatory about saying that. Equality is fine, but here we are talking about some people wanting to be more equal than others.

Simply Stated.

This entire thread is one of the most ridiculous ones I have ever seen on this board.

In all do respect Professor Esq. Olivant how can an individual stand up against their employer with complex state employment laws that the common person isn't educated enough. Even if you retain counsel it doesn't guarantee anything, Bosses stealing from their employees is a growing a problem and no one can do anything to prevent it. " A paycheck is better not having a paycheck at all."
http://www.citypaper.net/cover_story/2012-08-09-the-crime-that-pays.html

All Pedophiles should be strung up and left to hang in pain, they shouldn't get rights..

+1 all pedophiles should be killed, to hell with there rights.....................soliai

They should cut their thing off and make them eat it

You should watch the movie "American Psycho," with Christian Bale I think you'd really like it!