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David Knowles reports at Bloomberg that former Hewlett-Packard CEO and potential 2016 presidential candidate Carly Fiorina called out Apple CEO Tim Cook as a hypocrite for criticizing Indiana and Arkansas over their Religious Freedom Restoration Acts while at the same time doing business in countries where gay rights are non-existent. “When Tim Cook is upset about all the places that he does business because of the way they treat gays and women, he needs to withdraw from 90% of the markets that he’s in, including China and Saudi Arabia,” Fiorina said. “But I don’t hear him being upset about that.”
In similar criticism of Hillary Clinton on the Fox News program Hannity, Fiorina argued that Clinton's advocacy on behalf of women was tarnished by donations made to the Clinton Foundation from foreign governments where women's rights are not on par with those in America. ""I must say as a woman, I find it offensive that Hillary Clinton travels the Silicon Valley, a place where I worked for a long time, and lectures Silicon Valley companies on women's rights in technology, and yet sees nothing wrong with taking money from the Algerian government, which really denies women the most basic human rights. This is called, Sean, hypocrisy." While Hillary Clinton hasn't directly addressed Fiorina's criticisms, her husband has. “You’ve got to decide, when you do this work, whether it will do more good than harm if someone helps you from another country,” former president Bill Clinton said in March. “And I believe we have done a lot more good than harm. And I believe this is a good thing.”
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @01:00PM
If I, as an atheist who is part of no religion, doesn't want to treat a gay couple the same as a heterosexual couple, can I do that? If not, why not? Why should religious people get special rights over me just because I choose not to be part of a certain religion? You can believe whatever nonsense you want, but you don't get special rights over me. Either everyone can reject things they find objectionable, or no one can. Choose.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Monday April 06 2015, @01:35PM
+1 Probing question
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1) by Rickter on Monday April 06 2015, @02:57PM
Can you articulate your moral reasoning for having the view you do? Then you would have just as much right under rational atheism to participate under the first amendment as any Christian. I don't see your problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @03:15PM
Can you articulate your moral reasoning for having the view you do?
I don't have such a view. But I'm saying that religious people shouldn't get special rights like they do now (e.g. with hats and such in schools, and these laws mentioning only religious discrimination). Someone shouldn't need to explain themselves, either.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday April 06 2015, @04:25PM
No, you miss the point. This law treats people differently based on religion (specifically, an atheist is not protected from his bigotry but a Christian/Muslim is). That should make it unconstitutional (reality check -- don't expect much from our dog and pony Supreme Court).
(Score: 1) by Rickter on Monday April 06 2015, @05:28PM
Hasn't the Supreme Court already recognized that atheists have the same rights as Christians as pertains to the Constitution and government, at least in some cases? Why wouldn't you be able to express your reservation using reason, and express that you have a moral reason for the government to keep it's hands off?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday April 06 2015, @06:43PM
The law is specifically for religious reasons, not for a lack of religious reasons.
Secondly, unlike religion, logic or reason are terribly poor bases from which to espouse bigotry. Sure -- people try from time to time, but they end up being debunked as being rooted in prejudice and emotion.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Rickter on Monday April 06 2015, @07:31PM
So, you couldn't create a reasoned justification to refuse business to a bigot that you didn't agree with in order to justify turning their business away? And you think somebody else who can shouldn't be able to do so because you can't think logically enough to provide a rational explanation?
This is especially rich when you think about the issue at hand. Homosexuals are people who have an emotional need that they are lacking, so they demand that that need be met by others catering to their emotions, and pretending that what they do in a homosexual relationship is as equally important to the maintaining of civilization as what heterosexual citizen creating couples do when they create children.
You see, I don't see people who are demanding validation of their emotions of attraction as important as the actual creation and raising of the next generation of citizens. I see the latter as securing the creation of future leaders and citizens who understand what civilization is about. Pandering to the emotions of homosexuals is not necessarily beneficial to the continuation of a stable civilization since we managed to get this far without it.
Do not misunderstand me, I definitely think we must treat homosexuals as having all the rights and responsibilities that the rest of us get as individuals, but we continue to reserve marriage to heterosexual relationships, which they can choose to participate in or not. If they don't want a marriage, then let them go create some other legal situation that allows them to have the rights and responsibilities they feel they need.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday April 06 2015, @07:38PM
That was sort of incomprehensible. What I gather you are saying is that only straight married couples raise kids well. Looking at how many straight married couples have fucked up relationships, that seems rather dubious.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @09:33PM
So, you couldn't create a reasoned justification to refuse business to a bigot that you didn't agree with in order to justify turning their business away?
Would the law accept that? And religious people don't have to do that. They're just part of some illogical religion. Why would you burden someone to provide some silly rationalization when religions people don't have to do even that? Sounds like the religious have special rights to me.
and pretending that what they do in a homosexual relationship is as equally important to the maintaining of civilization as what heterosexual citizen creating couples do when they create children.
There are over 7 billion people. We don't need more, and in fact, we need less mindless breeding. Homosexuality will not be the death of civilization. And what is and is not important is utterly subjective.
Do not misunderstand me, I definitely think we must treat homosexuals as having all the rights and responsibilities that the rest of us get as individuals, but we continue to reserve marriage to heterosexual relationships
Why? What the fuck does it matter to you if they can get married or not? It doesn't hurt you one bit.
which they can choose to participate in or not.
So you're one of those 'Everyone has the same rights because they can always marry someone of the opposite sex!' people, are you? But they can't marry someone of the sex that they're actually attracted to, so no.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @10:07PM
Wat. The rest of your paragraph, based on this ridiculous assumption, is at best a straw man.
Who is demanding that? Again, straw man.
Apparently not. This also falls along the lines of, "You know somebody is a bigot if they preface their statement with 'Now, I'm not a bigot, but...'".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:04PM
If your only reason for refusing them is that they're not straight, you're a bigot. Society has decided that everyone should have equal opportunities, which means discriminating against people for things that are outside of everyone's control is not allowed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:26PM
You missed the point of my comment, which isn't that I think this discrimination is okay, but that religious people shouldn't get special rights. Either the right to discriminate applies to *everyone* or no one. You don't get to discriminate against people (e.g. gay people) just because you're part of religion X.
which means discriminating against people for things that are outside of everyone's control is not allowed.
So if homosexuality *were* a choice (it isn't), it would be okay to discriminate? I think not. It would be a harmless choice.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @10:24PM
If it were a choice (its not), it would be about the same as not wanting to associate with somebody because you don't like their mate, like kicking your daughter out of the house because she hooked up with some thieving scumbag.
So long as people aren't denied opportunities because of factors outside their control, I don't feel its necessary for society to intervene. That is, its fine for somebody to refuse you service because you wore a red shirt today, but not because you were born with red hair. You could always go change your shirt and go back or go to a different service provider, so you're inconvenienced more than denied opportunities (factors outside control, like there only being one service provider, can change "inconvenienced" to "denied opportunities"). Whether or not the choice is harmful is tangential to the matter; how would discriminating against harmful choices be different, who defines what's "harmful", and "harmful" against who?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @11:42PM
So long as people aren't denied opportunities because of factors outside their control, I don't feel its necessary for society to intervene.
Harmless choices shouldn't result in you being refused. That is shallow and harmful to society as a whole, and only serves to isolate people. It can be used to oppress people who belong to a certain culture and make them feel as if they have to abandon their culture if they want to do something as simple as conduct business with others.
how would discriminating against harmful choices be different
I would say harmful choices would result in the business being financially harmed in some way just by dealing with the individual.
who defines what's "harmful", and "harmful" against who?
Almost nothing would be actually harmful. But there is no rational reason to oppose homosexuality; it's completely harmless. It's irrational intolerance.