Furry ban in Cologne cathedral

Actually, God decided... ten commandments and all that... although I don't recall "Thou shalt not be a furry" anywhere in there.

WHOA, Im glad I dont go to the places you do.

cept for those Golden Calf Furries.

WHAT? No churchmice?!

*snork*

Not all of us believe in God. Some of us believe the whole god thing is just as made up and arbitrary as any other human invention. But, if there is a God, and he's omnipotent, he could have made any rules he wanted, so when he creates a specific set of rules they're just as arbitrary as if they were a human invention. In fact, they're even more arbitrary, since he could have set any conditions at all, not limited by the laws of nature.

Please accept this flower as a gift from the Church of Pie. Would you care to make a small donation?

Elaborate prim hair causes viewer lag, and in crowded events and clubs it's not uncommon for people to be asked to use default avatar hair instead of prim hair. Is that discriminatory?

Finally someone came up with this. You say: Banning black avatars is no discrimination at all, because a black user could just switch to a white avatar, right? Noone is actually discriminated at because avatars are not us, but just pixels. Look at this statement. Even if avatars are just pixels we are depicting acts of discrimination agains virtual races if we let that happen. Since furries are also virtual races or species, the same logic applies to banning furries.

You cannot have it both ways - either banning ANY form of av is a discriminatory act or it isn't.

Thou shalt not steal thy neighbor's anthropomorphic leopard avatar for a night out, verily.

No, that's practical. There's a clear cause-and-effect reason for it.

whereas "no furries in our church" sounds arbitrary. Maybe they're worried about shedding?

They're not. They're just guys in suits pretending to be animals. This is a dress code, nothing more.

Thank god for atheism

FWIW, I don't do 'human' in SL. I'm totally happy with my dragon avatars. Any place that won't accept me as I am is immediately struck off my list and I don't even waste time looking back.

As I said in that post, that would be a lot closer to real world discrimination, and being upset by it would be far more justifiable. I would personally find it very offensive. I don't find a request that people not use furry avatars in certain places to be offensive at all. Not even slightly. There are no talking animals in the real world, and if someone is trying to create a replica of a real world place and they want to maintain a realistic atmosphere appropriate to that real world place, then asking people to confine themselves to appearances that fit in with that is entirely reasonable. Being offended by it is not.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Koeln/128/8/37

Scripts are on so you can follow the discussion with a translator.
Tehre are english speakers here as well.

True. It is arbitrary. And discriminatory. And stupid. And within their rights as the sim owners. if you ask me.

me too....... never leave home without hair!

BTW i go to some very busy - and desparately laggy (no not just on my side) - music venues almost every day, have never ever once been asked to change my hairdo. Have tried wearing simpler hair to see if it made a difference ..... never does. I can however tell the difference between 70 and 40 people in a sim.


I did notice someone suggesting earlier in the thread that these rules could be some sort of aesthetic issue, if that's the case maybe the owners could also provide some sort of guidelines as to what they believe is aesthetically pleasing and in keeping with the environment. Beauty-police anyone?

Anything beyond the basic 'Ruth' avatar in SL is 'dressing up' in a technical sense. Church of Ruth perhaps?

Meh, furs should just boycott the place. We've got enough top-notch builders in our ranks to knock up something better in half the time. At a push we ought to be able to sling together the Notre Dame in an afternoon. So there, ner.

Let me ask a hypothetical here that has very real world implications to me, because it will have great bearing on some potential SL plans of mine... if I were to create a sci fi sim based on an original work of fiction, and in keeping with that I wanted visitors to use avatars that fit the specific alien races in the fiction, am I going to get protested against? Are furries going to be up in arms? Are the residents of Caledon going to protest because victorian garb would be wholly innappropriate there? The place would be intended as a work of art, in which the back story, location, and avatars would all be a integral part of that art, and the whole thing would only work if people are willing to be participants in it. I ask that very seriously, because if people can't be arsed to play along and maintain the illusion and atmosphere then there really would be little point in doing the project at all.

Of course folks are gonna complain. (Though you're bright enough not to single anyone out unessesarily, so the reaction like we're seeing here is far less likely.)

Many Gors require a totally human av to visit thier sims. I mean you must not deviate from the norm in any significant way. Even folks with super-pale skins get asked to change in some sims. They get lots of folks bitching (then being kicked) but plenty of traffic from folks in regular human garb too.

Honetly I think most folks would see your project as something of a chance to get a kewl new av and a fun place to wear it. =^.^=

Precisely! In a world where anyone can change their appearance instantly at the click of a button there is no such thing as race or species - everything is just clothes. Would you go to a restaurant in just your underpants? No. So why go to a church dressed as a giant fox?

Actually, I've gone to church dressed as a fox. Ears, tail, whole and complete fursuit. Even the preist thought it was most adorable.


Then again, I was only about five years old.


Besides, this issue isn't so much about changing one's appearance than it is the totally stupid move of singling furrs out whene there is a whole class of avs that don't fit under the mask rule for churches.

Thanks, Jillian. That would certainly be my hope. I have yet to decide if I'm going to do it or not since it would almost certainly operate at a loss. Anyway, I think you're right on the money that the Cathedral folks could have avoided most (if not all) of the controversy by simply choosing better wording for their request.

Yeah, but furries are the weirdest. They can start on the lesser freaks a few at a time

Now we know where Dan L went to work.......

Discriminatory to tell me to go bald!??!!! OMG yes it is. Wow. Leave my hair alone. I almost have it the way I want it.