Leah dreams of electric house keepers, while Ryan dreams of a world in which gamers lead by tolerant examples.
Featuring Leah DeFalco.
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Rosie becomes reality.
What does GenCon think of Indianapolis’ SB 101?
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What started as one gamer wanting to talk about his love of a game grew into a podcast network. Ryan founded what would become the Know Direction Podcast network with Jason "Jay" Dubsky, his friend and fellow 3.5 enthusiast. They and their game group moved on to Pathfinder, and the Know Direction podcast network was born.
Now married and a father, Ryan continues to serve the network as the director of logistics and co-host of Upshift podcast, dedicated to the Essence20 RPG system he writes for and helped design.
You can find out more about Ryan and the history of the network in this episode of Presenting: http://knowdirectionpodcast.com/2021/01/presenting-ryan-costello/
Hi Ryan & Leah,
Here’s my opposing viewpoint on SB101.
Firstly, the law is not about kicking homosexuals out of restaurants. The prevailing situation that law addresses is allowing bakers and photographers who don’t agree with homosexual marriage to not participate in homosexual weddings. (As an aside I wouldn’t want people opposed to my marriage to bake a cake or take pictures of wedding for fear of them doing allowing their prejudices to produce a sub-standard job). People should have a right not to serve you and you are better served by someone who doesn’t resent you. Assuming I were a Westboro Baptist and you were baker, and I wanted to hire you to bake a cake for my Westboro Baptist function (Westboro Easter! Why not, it’s timely), and I wanted you to bake a cake that said God Hates Fags on it. You should the right of refusal. If I were a raunchy frat boy who wanted my stripper laden bacchanalia documented and you were a feminist videographer (videographer is so a word! Grrrr) who thinks that stripping is demeaning to women, you should have the right to not take my money to film strippers. Free speech is stupid speech, free religion is stupid religion, free press is stupid press, free association is stupid association. You could be conformist as all get out, but there is something about you that the government or the majority thinks is stupid or jerkful. The price you pay for being allowed by society to engage in something that Leviathan thinks makes you a stupid jerk is that you must extend that same courtesy to others.
Secondly, if you extend a boycott over this issue to the entire state of Indiana then you have to ignore that similar exist in over 30 other states and have since Clinton was in office. I haven’t heard about homosexuals getting kicked out restaurants there in the last 20 years and I doubt you have either. Please correct me if I’m mistaken. It’s akin to the voter ID laws being considered racist. Voter ID is a bare minimum standard for preventing voter fraud and as such 30 states already had it on the books for decades and only when a few new states decided to harmonize with the majority did it become an issue of prejudice.
Thirdly, if you want serious theological discussion point by point on which rules are considered valid and why then I would happily geek out over it with you but this already too long for a blog comment. Homosexuality is listed in a couple of Paul’s laundry lists of sins to be abstained from but not defined and I am of the old school that believes having a list of sins that have to explored and thought reasons for extension is more generally useful than the current translational trend to lump them all in as immorality. Again I have a long-winded digression on how/why homosexually as practiced in Ancient Greece is so substantially different from how it is practiced in the free & modern anglosphere that conflations of the two are equivocations and not equalities.
Fourthly, absolutely children who disrespect their parents should be ejected from restaurants. One of the many joys of not having children is not having to deal with disrespectful children. Ban them all, mwahahahahahaha!
Ryan,
Love your work and I said hi to you at the 2014 GENCON. Leah nice to hear your newer voice (at least new for me) in the podcast. I was disappointed that as a role-players you were unable to put yourselves in the other person’s shoes. I respect and understand your side of this issue and the arguments. I feel you are obligated to do the same. Especially before making the points in a public forum. I do acknowledge the format is off the cuff. Several items were mischaracterized and ALLAN did an excellent job of explaining that.
My biggest argument on this topic is that the midwest is one of the most friendly and tolerant areas of the USA (I live in Cleveland, OH and traveled extensively). These laws don’t affect that. They do give people legal standing in court to defend their position that doing business with a given person under the circumstances is an undue burden to their religious rights.
Last thought is the Bible is a rule book with billions of followers and thousands of years of study. There are some troubling statements in the good book, but they are well studied, debated and explained from several points of view. Sadly this is not taught in public education and leave the non-religious vulnerable to much misguided rhetoric.
I will continue to enjoy your work and I wish you well. Enjoy GENCON!! (sadly I am unable to go this year)
Comments! Yay! Discussions, double yay!
Okies, hmm. As a roleplayer, I do try to put myself into other people’s shoes, but I think I am a shitty roleplayer for the most part because it’s really hard for me to act in a way that is unnatural to my personality. For example, I’m playing DA:Inquisition to death these days, and am on my 3rd playthrough (Go Go Gadget Nightmare level), and each time I try to pick a different type of character and make different choices to keep the game fresh, but even so, I generally end up falling into the helpful/kind personality type even if I have chosen to play the asshole. All this to say that I can get why people who have strong personal beliefs would prefer not to have to engage in activities that would go against said beliefs. It’s something that is a fundamental part of your character.
But here’s the difference. I am a private citizen exercising my beliefs in my own private life. If you run for office, or have a business which serves the public, this is where your beliefs end. There is a reason why the seperation of church and state is such an incredibly important part of the modern political process. This is because personal opinions have very limited applicability when providing services that apply to a wide range of people. There is always going to be someone that some other people don’t like; and to deny a service, or to create a law, which unfairly targets or victimizes a particular group without cause is tyranny.
In your private life, you can say what you like up, although not necessarily without consequences, but in your public dealings, my opinion is that you need to suck it up, or don’t run a business and/or choose a job wherein you serve the public.
Leah,
Nice to see your reply. I feel the need to correct your understanding of “the separation of church and state” (this statement does not exist in any founding documents) in the US we have only a requirement that the national government not establish a national religion such as the Anglican church. The States, however can and did so at one time. This concept has been perverted to mean far more these days. A business owner has the right to reject service for example “no shirt, no shoes, not service”. This refusal of service is based on behavior. If a person is respectful (gay or otherwise) and causes no harm they should always be welcome and to do otherwise is bad business. What is being argued is the right of a person and their business to refrain from participating in an activity they do not want to (making and setting up a wedding cake for a gay couple). BTW the same bakery sold the couple items several times before, just not their wedding cake.
When it come to the marriage issue this become more obvious. A marriage licence is an endorsement by the State, Like a driver license is an endorsement. As a mater of fact you can get a motorcycle endorsement added to your license. Which should underscore my point.
With the recent tyranny of the SCOTUS ordering all States to issue licenses this argument seems now to be pointless. In general this proves we live in an age of feelings and logic be damned. – Thank you for your attention and thought.