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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Religious freedom v. the freedom to discriminate
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
The governor of Indiana has signed the "Religious Freedom' bill into law.
quote:
Three of the lobbyists who pushed hardest for last year's gay marriage ban — Micah Clark of the American Family Association of Indiana, Curt Smith of the Indiana Family Institute and Eric Miller of Advance America — were among the 70 to 80 guests invited to the private bill signing.
"It is vitally important to protect religious freedom in Indiana," Miller said in a statement after the bill signing. "It was therefore important to pass Senate Bill 101 in 2015 in order to help protect churches, Christian businesses and individuals from those who want to punish them because of their Biblical beliefs!"
IStM, the only thing "under attack" is religion's ability to discriminate.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I've no problem with allowing religions to descriminate, providing it doesn't affect other people.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Well, I'm not ok with it. I mean, yes, even bastards like the Phelps are allowed their opinions, and I'm not advocating changing that. But people who preach discriminatory messages influence and support those who actively discriminate.
So a measure of free speech is necessary in a free society, but I would not go as far as to say I'm ok with it. I tolerate them, I simply wish they would return the courtesy.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
Was this really in a private bill signing?
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
One of the basic problems with allowing people to discriminate on the basis of a religious belief is that it can become impossible to tell it apart from any other belief.
I mean, most discrimination stems from a belief of some kind. Is there really a difference between saying "I believe this is right" and saying "my God believes this is right"?
Especially in the many cases where someone else with the exact same God believes the exact opposite?
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Fool
Apprentice
# 18359
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Posted
Its always difficult when one set of rights comes into conflict with another set of rights. In the case of homosexuality and religion I would say that homosexuality is a reality and religion is a lifestyle choice and therefore the former trumps the latter. I do however think that churches should not be forced by law to marry homosexuals if it is against their beliefs.
The thing that interests me is that it seems to fly in the face of their religion. If god created people as homosexuals surly that is what they are meant to be. Or did god make a mistake? Or as the old nasty joke had it did he want to make their lives difficult because he hates 'poofs' too?
Posts: 16 | From: United Kingdom | Registered: Mar 2015
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Can't reply on this thread to everything you said, Fool as it is in Dead Horse territory.
But this isn't truly about the same rights. One group wants the right to be treated equally, the other wishes the right to treat others unequally.
Otherwise there would be no conflict.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
quote:
Originally posted by Fool:
If god created people as homosexuals surly that is what they are meant to be. Or did god make a mistake? Or as the old nasty joke had it did he want to make their lives difficult because he hates 'poofs' too?
Hi Fool, nice to see you posting again. Please take a moment to check out our homegrown policy on Dead Horses and feel free to wade in on those issues on the board lilbuddha has linked to in the post above.
If you have any questions about what a Dead Horse is around here and why, feel free to ask your question in the Styx.
/hosting
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Egeria
Shipmate
# 4517
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Posted
This argument reminds me of those used to support racial discrimination during the 1960s. "The landlord has a right to refuse to rent to African-American tenants." "The restaurant owner can refuse to serve anyone (because it's his effing property ." "The football team can refuse to play an African-American quarterback (because the white players won't accept his leadership)."
These creeps who yap that treating other people like human beings violates their right to freedom of religion are defaming their religion.
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"Sound bodies lined / with a sound mind / do here pursue with might / grace, honor, praise, delight."--Rabelais
Posts: 314 | From: Berkeley, CA | Registered: May 2003
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
My reading of the law the governor signed allows me to hang my confederate flag outside the store I (hypothetically) own and discriminate against people of color because they offend my belief system.
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
I can't even begin to describe how much I would enjoy putting a "No Bigoted Christians" sign on my place of business, if I had one in Indiana. ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif) Goose, gander, sauce.
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"You come with me to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean." -- Tony Kushner, "Angels in America"
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
I can't even begin to describe how much I would enjoy putting a "No Bigoted Christians" sign on my place of business, if I had one in Indiana. Goose, gander, sauce.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
I would be happy to go halfsies with you on a whole case to give away to like-minded business owners.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
Alas, the main author of Indiana's RFRA law is my so-called "representative." ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
Many people (including all 4 members of the Democratic caucus in the State Senate) do not feel the fix goes far enough and want a repeal RFRA or want Indiana to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Civil Rights Code of the state.
Unfortunately, the GOP members of the legislature will not commit to a hearing on such a bill.
Meanwhile, the tide of people/businesses who are boycotting has diminished but not stopped.
sabine
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
My reading of the law the governor signed allows me to hang my confederate flag outside the store I (hypothetically) own ...
Is it illegal to hang a confederate flag outside one's premises in the US? It would be difficult to imagine this. The General Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard had one on its roof.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
My reading of the law the governor signed allows me to hang my confederate flag outside the store I (hypothetically) own ...
Is it illegal to hang a confederate flag outside one's premises in the US? It would be difficult to imagine this. The General Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard had one on its roof.
Not at all - although it may get you some disapproving looks, to say the least, depending on where the premises in question might be...
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
Part of me really wants to be sympathetic to conservative Christians who sincerely feel that they are being victimised by our modern attempts to bring in more equal treatment for historically marginalised groups.
However, I really do struggle with the idea that there is any infringement of Relgious Freedom here. No one has told anyone they can't attend a church or belong to a particular denomination. No one is trying to make Christianity illegal or to actively stamp it out (no matter how hysterically some may claim that this is what is happening).
All that people are being asked to do is to treat people with basic courtesy and respect in the public sphere and to treat them as they would like to be treated (sound familiar?). There are so may straw men being thrown around about how its okay to refuse to bake a cake for Hitler's birthday but not for a gay wedding that it's almost like a Wizard of Oz convention.
Wedding cakes are just the beginning. If you want to talk about having a legal right to avoid endorsing lifestyles and actions that you disagree with then its a fast track to the disintegration of society. Do people really want to live in a world where people live in fear of other people finding out their sexuality or their religious or political beliefs just in case it spells ruin or violence for them?
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
However, I really do struggle with the idea that there is any infringement of Relgious Freedom here. No one has told anyone they can't attend a church or belong to a particular denomination. No one is trying to make Christianity illegal or to actively stamp it out...
I agree.
They have total freedom to practice their religion. I would like them to explain why they think it's OK to force those beliefs on others. I expect fear is at the bottom of it, fear of being forced to accept the 'unacceptable' (in their eyes).
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
Do people really want to live in a world where people live in fear of other people finding out their sexuality or their religious or political beliefs just in case it spells ruin or violence for them?
An excellent point.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I would like them to explain why they think it's OK to force those beliefs on others. I expect fear is at the bottom of it, fear of being forced to accept the 'unacceptable' (in their eyes).
I think some of them genuinely don't see the double standard, or if they do see it just don't want to acknowledge it. We are all very good at confirmation bias and blindness to that which contradicts our fundamental beliefs after all.
The other sort of people, in my mind the far more dangerous sort, feel that their beliefs are more valid than those of other people with other G/gods or none. This sort of person will believe that their perception of reality is TRUE and should therefore be enforced in law to punish or oppress others who do not share their belief. You more commonly see this expressed in what ISIS are doing but there's a flavor of it in some of the more fundamentalist sectors of the Christian faith.
I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with believing that your version of reality is TRUE mind you, that's what people of religious faith generally believe. I do have a serious problem when, upon failing to convince others by way of love or reason that this reality should be adopted, they then turn to hatred and violence to achieve the same goal.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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Macrina
Shipmate
# 8807
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Posted
Double post alert.
I'm reading over my own post and thinking yes but am I expecting people who don't agree with my view that *DEAD HORSE* is acceptable to adopt my view or be silent and does that make me no better than those people.
So to myself I say: This isn't about whether an issue is morally right or morally wrong in the eyes of a specific religious faith. I guess it's more of a church and state question in that sense. I think that religious groups and people who sign up to them should be free to set and enforce moral standards for the membership of that group - that's important. I just don't think that if a person is not and does not wish to be a member of that group that the group should have the power via the state to compel them to submit to those moral standards anyway.
A society that contains multiple religions and multiple political viewpoints must be able to operate on this principle.
Posts: 535 | From: Christchurch, New Zealand | Registered: Nov 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
I'm wondering...are there currently any laws (enforced or not) about hoteliers having to put 2 unmarried persons in a one-bed room?
Some people would have a problem with that, whatever the orientation of the couple. Not saying they *should* have a problem with it. But some people have religious or moral objections against any sexual activity that isn't between a woman and man who are married to each other.
Just thinking that might come under the Indiana and Arizona laws.
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Blessed Gator, pray for us!
--"Oh bat bladders, do you have to bring common sense into this?" (Dragon, "Jane & the Dragon")
--"Oh, Peace Train, save this country!" (Yusuf/Cat Stevens, "Peace Train")
Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Bliss Big Sis. The trouble is that would bar the door on three out of four Anglican congos I have been part of ... four out of four really, all ironically 'free' churches bar one I had the privilege of attending yesterday and of course, de jure, all RC & BIG O churches.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Macrina:
Do people really want to live in a world where people live in fear of other people finding out their sexuality or their religious or political beliefs just in case it spells ruin or violence for them?
Yes. Some people do, as long as it is other people.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
And the definition of 'religion' is very loosey goosey in the US. This entire area of law started out because Native Americans wanted to use peyote in their religious services and fell afoul of the drug enforcement people.
If I start a religion tomorrow with a tenet that paying my grocery bill is a sin, what would happen? If I point to the Old Testament and refuse to go to my job when I am menstruating, could they fire me?
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
And the definition of 'religion' is very loosey goosey in the US. This entire area of law started out because Native Americans wanted to use peyote in their religious services and fell afoul of the drug enforcement people.
If I start a religion tomorrow with a tenet that paying my grocery bill is a sin, what would happen? If I point to the Old Testament and refuse to go to my job when I am menstruating, could they fire me?
Dirty heathens don't count.
Just don't start a religion which avoids tax.
And what is a woman doing working in the first place?
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Macrina: quote:
I'm reading over my own post and thinking yes but am I expecting people who don't agree with my view that *DEAD HORSE* is acceptable to adopt my view or be silent and does that make me no better than those people.
I don't think they have to be silent. They just have to not discriminate in services offered and rendered. Say, a couple comes into a bakery for a wedding cake, and the proprietor doesn't like the couple's ethnicity. The baker may tell them plainly s/he doesn't really like having to serve them. If the couple still wants to do business with them, they still get their cake- that's the law. Unpleasant, but free speech and non-discrimination are technically preserved.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
I think there's a difference to be made between toleration and endorsement. I think it is acceptable to require conservative Christians to tolerate for example homosexuality, in a secular society. I think it is not acceptable to make them endorse homosexuality. There is a difference between denying a gay couple service in a restaurant, and denying them a wedding ceremony in church. People eat. Gay people eat, too. There's hence nothing in serving gay people food as such that endorses homosexuality, it is simple toleration. The state can demand that justly IMHO. Whereas the state forcing a church to marry a gay couple with their religious ceremonies would be forcing an endorsement out of them. Churches appreciate and support marriages, indeed, consider them key to the general life of faith. That's why the celebrations are attached to them. The state should not try to tell churches, or believing people, what they must appreciate and support.
The case of the marriage cake falls somewhere between these two clear-cut cases. But in my opinion, a wedding cake is not an ordinary cake, but part of the celebration of marriage, and hence part of an explicit endorsement. And nobody should be forced to endorse what they do not like, even by proxy of being a supplier of goods. So I think it was wrong to force the shop keeper to do that, or face ruin. Whereas the case would have been different if it was about an ordinary cake, or a birthday cake. Supplying that has nothing to do with the sexuality of the customer, hence supplying ordinary cake to a gay couple is simple toleration. That can be justly demanded in a secular society.
I'm not saying that this principle is foolproof, or will solve all difficult cases, but it is a start. Essentially, toleration is not approval, and people should remain free to express that difference in thought, word and deed. And yes, this principle can and should be applied "the other way around" as well, e.g., an atheist should be required to tolerate believers, but not to the point where he is forced into action or speech that appears to support their religion.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The case of the marriage cake falls somewhere between these two clear-cut cases. But in my opinion, a wedding cake is not an ordinary cake, but part of the celebration of marriage, and hence part of an explicit endorsement.
Seems more like an implicit endorsement. Reading meaning into cakes requires a lot of assumptions.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
And nobody should be forced to endorse what they do not like, even by proxy of being a supplier of goods. So I think it was wrong to force the shop keeper to do that, or face ruin.
This position would seem to make it impossible to enforce any kind of generally applicable law if a religious exemption could always be claimed. To take an example that should be familiar to you, an employer who is an adherent of the Roman Catholic faith could argue, under your reasoning, that he should not be forced to endorse remarriage after divorce by covering such couples under the company insurance plan in the same manner as other legally married couples, despite employment laws and insurance regulations saying othewise.
I'm also not sure that treating religious belief simply as a handy end-run around laws you don't want to obey does any great favors to religion in the long run. It seems like the kind of thing designed to encourage bad faith arguments. Can an employer claim that his religious faith opposes minimum wage laws? Or pollution standards? I'm not sure there would be a good way to separate claimed exemptions based on blatant self-interest from those based on sincere belief, and setting up the state as the judge of doctrine seems like an exceedingly bad idea.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
A fair statement, IngoB. Except the part about the wedding cake. A wedding cake is part of the wedding celebration, the baker is not. Just as the tables are part, for the duration of the celebration, but the supplier of those tables is not.
A wedding cake is seen as an extension of the couple, not its maker. As is the dress, the suit/tuxedo, the flowers, etc.
Just as a business which must, by law, serve black people. Endorsement of being is not required or even considered unless service is denied.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Gramps49:
My reading of the law the governor signed allows me to hang my confederate flag outside the store I (hypothetically) own ...
Is it illegal to hang a confederate flag outside one's premises in the US? It would be difficult to imagine this. The General Lee in the Dukes of Hazzard had one on its roof.
No it's not illegal. There's a case now where a group in Texas wants to compel the State of Texas to put a confederate flag on their vanity license plates.
A number of southern states, under pressure from Black citizens have ramped back on flying confederate flags at state events. That's recent and incomplete.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
To take an example that should be familiar to you, an employer who is an adherent of the Roman Catholic faith could argue, under your reasoning, that he should not be forced to endorse remarriage after divorce by covering such couples under the company insurance plan in the same manner as other legally married couples, despite employment laws and insurance regulations saying othewise.
It is not an example I am particularly familiar with. I am from Europe, and all countries I have lived in had universal health care (either directly from the state, or through state-controlled insurance companies). Most problems Americans seems to have with this seem mildly insane to me, frankly.
As it is, this is a borderline case for me. The problem is the close association of a perk (less payments to receive a certain insurance) with a state (being married). One could argue that providing a perk for a state is then automatically an endorsement of that state. In which case I think it is not fair to force an employer to provide such an endorsement, if they can successfully argue that this is against their (corporate?) faith. (They would still have to insure these couples - toleration - but not at the reduced price - endorsement.) The solution in my mind would be to stop the nonsense of making employers health providers. At the very least, everybody should have a chance of getting an equivalent insurance elsewhere that has no such conditions attached. And this is why it is a borderline case for me. As long as there is no alternative provisions available, one can to the contrary argue that this introduces unjust disparity at a level that is intolerant rather than merely non-endorsing. It really depends on the detail. My main solution would be to have a less stupid health care system...
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm also not sure that treating religious belief simply as a handy end-run around laws you don't want to obey does any great favors to religion in the long run.
This discussion will go nowhere unless there is a basic respect for all involved parties. Facile accusations of bad faith and ulterior motives provide heat, not light.
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
A wedding cake is part of the wedding celebration, the baker is not. Just as the tables are part, for the duration of the celebration, but the supplier of those tables is not.
The baker is not being asked to simply supply some cake, which just happens to be eaten at a wedding, but rather to supply a specific cake that explicitly celebrates this wedding. This implicates the baker in the celebration, and hence in my opinion cannot justly be required of him. The equivalent in a party organiser would not be to supply simply tables, but tables with some fancy design wishing the couple luck in their marriage. I also think that a party supplier cannot be asked to do so, if he does not believe that this marriage is worthy of celebration.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
IThe case of the marriage cake falls somewhere between these two clear-cut cases. But in my opinion, a wedding cake is not an ordinary cake, but part of the celebration of marriage, and hence part of an explicit endorsement. And nobody should be forced to endorse what they do not like, even by proxy of being a supplier of goods. So I think it was wrong to force the shop keeper to do that, or face ruin. Whereas the case would have been different if it was about an ordinary cake, or a birthday cake. Supplying that has nothing to do with the sexuality of the customer, hence supplying ordinary cake to a gay couple is simple toleration. That can be justly demanded in a secular society.
I'm not saying that this principle is foolproof, or will solve all difficult cases, but it is a start. Essentially, toleration is not approval, and people should remain free to express that difference in thought, word and deed. And yes, this principle can and should be applied "the other way around" as well, e.g., an atheist should be required to tolerate believers, but not to the point where he is forced into action or speech that appears to support their religion.
No one is talking about making a church marry people who they disapprove of. However providing a cake is a service not an endorsement. You're allowed to disapprove of inter-racial marriage and not perform them in your church. If a bakery refuses to provide a cake to an inter-racial wedding, they will suffer the penalties of anti-discrimination law.
The complicating factor is the current attempt to masquerade business discrimination as religious practice, as in Hobby Lobby. Demanding your business be treated as a religious entity is going to end up trimming the balance between the religious freedom of church and the requirement to not discriminate against the public in the marketplace. The trimming is not likely to go as the religious would want as is being demonstrated in Indiana.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
ETA: response to IngoB and partial x-post
But that is ridiculous. A baker does not interview the couple to ascertain their compliance with all their religion's marriage requirements.
Do Catholics only go to Catholic bakers?
The supplying of a service is not an endorsement of the event.
Would a baker who believed inter-racial marriage was wrong be OK in refusing to provide a cake for such an event?
[ 06. April 2015, 18:20: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
To take an example that should be familiar to you, an employer who is an adherent of the Roman Catholic faith could argue, under your reasoning, that he should not be forced to endorse remarriage after divorce by covering such couples under the company insurance plan in the same manner as other legally married couples, despite employment laws and insurance regulations saying otherwise.
It is not an example I am particularly familiar with. I am from Europe, and all countries I have lived in had universal health care (either directly from the state, or through state-controlled insurance companies). Most problems Americans seems to have with this seem mildly insane to me, frankly.
I never indicated that the insurance offered was medical coverage. One could just as easily stipulate a company-provided life insurance policy, or insurance against work-related injury. The main question is whether an employer can claim religion as an excuse to do things which would otherwise a violation of employment law or insurance regulation. For instance paying a death benefit to a worker's first wife (widow?) rather than the woman indicated on his policy and acknowledged by the state as his current spouse. Or (more likely) arguing that the marriage wasn't valid under the employers faith so there is no qualifying beneficiary listed. It seems naïve to simply assume no business would do such a thing if it were a legally allowed way to renege on money owed.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm also not sure that treating religious belief simply as a handy end-run around laws you don't want to obey does any great favors to religion in the long run. It seems like the kind of thing designed to encourage bad faith arguments.
This discussion will go nowhere unless there is a basic respect for all involved parties. Facile accusations of bad faith and ulterior motives provide heat, not light.
I restored the bit you decided to edit out. My argument isn't a "[f]acile accusation[] of bad faith", I'm noting that a system exempting those claiming religious belief from obeying generally applicable laws is one that provides a perverse incentive to make bad faith arguments for ulterior reasons.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The baker is not being asked to simply supply some cake, which just happens to be eaten at a wedding, but rather to supply a specific cake that explicitly celebrates this wedding. This implicates the baker in the celebration, and hence in my opinion cannot justly be required of him.
That seems pretty tenuous. Does anyone really believe that a cake proclaiming Joan to be "The World's Best Mom" represents some kind of endorsement of Joan's parenting ability by the baker who prepared it? If the same baker later prepares a cake proclaiming Elaine to be "The World's Best Mom", does this count as defaming Joan, whose parenting abilities have allegedly slipped? Going back to weddings, if the marriage later turns out to be an abusive nightmare, does the abused spouse have recourse to recovering damages from the baker who "endorsed" the match by preparing a cake? If not, why doesn't this endorsement count?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I can't imagine an average, within a couple of standard deviations on the one side, decent, polite European RC baker discriminating this way.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
Participants are reminded that homosexuality as such (including approval/disapproval/endorsement of homosexuality) is a Dead Horse, and there are existing threads in Dead Horses where the Baker's Dilemma can be (and has been) discussed at length.
Eliab
Purgatory host
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
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Posted
quote:
If god created people as homosexuals surly that is what they are meant to be.
I'm a very happy lesbian, thank you very much! Now, some homosexuals ARE surly but that might be because their shoes are too tight or they weren't able to purchase that faaaaaaabulous dress they were going to wear to the drag show... ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
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God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I guess the practice in any given jurisdiction is based on what are prohibited grounds for discrimination. It is clear in Canada that churches may do whatever they like re marriage, including refuse to marry any two people for whatever religious reason. There is no compulsion for a church to do anything.
Businesses offering services to the public may not decide only to offer services to certain people, if the grounds of discrimination are prohibited. Sexual orientation is one of those, as is race, religion, culture. The starting point is to avoid discrimination, not to support the beliefs of any particular group or to avoid causing them offence.
I certainly could not see that it would be supportable to consider that my business would refuse to provide services to people I might deem to have deviant lifestyles, say fundamentalist Moslems or Christians, or bald people.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
No one is talking about making a church marry people who they disapprove of. However providing a cake is a service not an endorsement. You're allowed to disapprove of inter-racial marriage and not perform them in your church. If a bakery refuses to provide a cake to an inter-racial wedding, they will suffer the penalties of anti-discrimination law.
I think these distinctions are very tenuous. Why not consider a wedding ceremony as simply a service as well? If we can force a baker to create a cake that clearly celebrates a marriage he disapproves of, why can we not force a clergyman to perform a ceremony that clearly celebrates a marriage he disapproves of?
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
But that is ridiculous. A baker does not interview the couple to ascertain their compliance with all their religion's marriage requirements.
Do Catholics only go to Catholic bakers?
The supplying of a service is not an endorsement of the event.
Would a baker who believed inter-racial marriage was wrong be OK in refusing to provide a cake for such an event?
It is true that the baker is more removed from the event, so that he can potentially bake a wedding cake for a wedding he would disapprove of, without knowing this. Whereas a clergyman directly involved in the process invariably knows if the marriage is not licit according his belief. However, that doesn't really change anything. If the baker knows, he is still in a position of choice.
It is also probably true that most bakers are less concerned about fine details of faith than most clergymen. But that does devalue the details of their faith that they are concerned about. Finally, it is probably true that many bakers couldn't care less who munches their produce. But that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about whether a baker who does care has the right to withhold his services.
And the comparison between race and homosexuality, which I consider simply inappropriate, is appropriate in this sense: if this comparison was accurate, then obviously the state and society have to be coming for those who still believe that homosexuality is immoral. I'm amazed to hear that apparently in the USA a church could get away with denying interracial marriages (really?). But this then surely would be kind of moral reservation within which the last troglodytes are allowed to die out.
This common comparison, which I consider false, signals of course nothing less but the move to a policy of intolerance, namely against those who maintain that homosexual activity is immoral. It is not just that there is a disagreement on morals, and a kind of ceasefire brokered by secular society, with boundaries that preserve a uneasy peace. Rather it will not be allowed any longer to maintain the dissenting morals in any meaningful way under the watchful gaze of the state and society. The only place for it will be mutterings in the privacy of one's own home. That after all is exactly what happened in the case of racism.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It seems naïve to simply assume no business would do such a thing if it were a legally allowed way to renege on money owed.
Once more, I consider these concerns to be basically misplaced. They do not point to a problem with religious convictions, rather they point to some idiotic regulations. If somebody can be tricked into accepting an insurance policy that can be denied on such grounds, or if such a denial can be imposed retroactively on existing contracts that do not speak of it, then that needs to be fixed by law. That's simply lack of proper process: the buyer has a right to know what he is buying. And if somehow the market cannot provide alternative products, that provide what the buyer wishes, in spite of there being considerable demand, then that also points to bad regulations - namely of the marketplace. That needs to be fixed then, if necessary by state intervention. If however you sign up by your own free and informed choice with a RC supplier who makes no secret of enforcing RC standards on the contracts it offers, then there's exactly nothing wrong with that supplier enforcing those standards on you.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm noting that a system exempting those claiming religious belief from obeying generally applicable laws is one that provides a perverse incentive to make bad faith arguments for ulterior reasons.
Every law has problems in its application, otherwise we would need neither lawyers nor judges. All the more important to say clearly where is acceptable, and what is not. You seem to think that no exceptions for religious reasons are acceptable. I disagree.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Does anyone really believe that a cake proclaiming Joan to be "The World's Best Mom" represents some kind of endorsement of Joan's parenting ability by the baker who prepared it?
If the baker knows that Joan is a terrible and abusive mother, then I think he should have a right to reject that order.
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Going back to weddings, if the marriage later turns out to be an abusive nightmare, does the abused spouse have recourse to recovering damages from the baker who "endorsed" the match by preparing a cake? If not, why doesn't this endorsement count?
Why would it? You are now making up rules that exist nowhere else. If I make a public toast to the success of your company at the founding party, you cannot later sue me for damages when you go broke. If at all, I can feel slightly aggrieved that you've disappointed my good expectations with your subsequent actions.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I suspect from the assiduousness of this discussion that you haven't run a business.
Most of us disagree with our customers or clients on many things and might consider refusing them service. But what we do, and most successful business people do, is to try to practice some other principles, and consider that Jesus associated with all sorts of disagreeable people, stinky folk who fished for a living to start with.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Well, pecunia non olet (money does not stink) is not necessarily a Christian motto. But I'm not handing out any advice here on how people should run their businesses, including bakeries. I'm merely discussing to what extent the state should be allowed to force one's hand in running one's business.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Probably we would agree on freedom to destroy as well as build business.
In this case, gov't is interfering to harm business in general in their jurisdiction. I would thus agree that gov'ts should not do what this one has done.
Parallel which occurs: would/ should a professor decide not to supervise the research project of a grad student because of a religious belief regarding the grad student's life?
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Net Spinster
Shipmate
# 16058
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Posted
One difference between clergy performing a wedding ceremony and a baker baking a cake it that clergy are already restricting their services. They are not involved in selling their services to the general public (or if they are by perhaps running a wedding chapel as a for-profit business perhaps they should not be allowed to discriminate against legally protected classes). On the other hand if the bakery is also serving only a restricted clientele (perhaps a convent that bakes items only for church related events, including weddings, approved by a parish priest), they are allowed to discriminate against legally protected classes.
And then we get the odd case when clergy are employed by the government as military chaplains. In such cases they are allowed to decide which weddings and other religious ceremonies they will perform (e.g., Catholic chaplains will only perform Catholic weddings) but they are required as part of their secular duties to support all those in the service regardless of faith. In other words they must help a divorced soldier marry (though not in a Catholic service) even if though it means finding another chaplain to do the work and allowing the use of the base chapel.
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spinner of webs
Posts: 1093 | From: San Francisco Bay area | Registered: Dec 2010
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
In this case, gov't is interfering to harm business in general in their jurisdiction. I would thus agree that gov'ts should not do what this one has done.
I think I might be missing your argument here. As best as I can make out, you are arguing:
1. Indiana has passed their "right to post `No Gays' sign" law.
2. This is in general bad for businesses in Indiana, because it will lead to the boycotting of Indiana by people who oppose discrimination, and will thus cause economic harm to Indiana businesses.
3. Therefore doing (1) was bad.
Did I miss some subtlety in your argument, because this isn't a very strong one...
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Why not consider a wedding ceremony as simply a service as well?
Um, it issimply a service. Legally. It is the state that issues the permission. One can add the religious trappings if one desires.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
If we can force a baker to create a cake that clearly celebrates a marriage he disapproves of, why can we not force a clergyman to perform a ceremony that clearly celebrates a marriage he disapproves of?
The clergyperson is an employee of an organisation which has been given dispensation to discriminate.
A baker is not. A baker is a member of a group which is overseen by a civil code and is obligated to adhere to that code.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
But this then surely would be kind of moral reservation within which the last troglodytes are allowed to die out.
We agree on this, though I might apply it more broadly.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This common comparison, which I consider false, signals of course nothing less but the move to a policy of intolerance,
Intolerance is what the laws being discussed are protecting. You may revel in your intolerance within the walls of your cathedrals, we are saying do not extend it into the public sphere.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The only place for it will be mutterings in the privacy of one's own home. That after all is exactly what happened in the case of racism.
Manifestly untrue.
From Part 3A of the Public Order Act 1986:
quote:
Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.
[ 07. April 2015, 03:08: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fool:
I would say that homosexuality is a reality and religion is a lifestyle choice
Religious practice and homosexual practice are both choices.
quote:
If god created people as homosexuals surly that is what they are meant to be. Or did god make a mistake?
Christian theology has never taught that any and every human inclination is indicative of what God "meant" that person to be.
It teaches human freedom and the fall, as well as divine creation.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
This common comparison, which I consider false, signals of course nothing less but the move to a policy of intolerance,
Intolerance is what the laws being discussed are protecting. You may revel in your intolerance within the walls of your cathedrals, we are saying do not extend it into the public sphere.
Or at least not into the commercial sphere.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I think these distinctions are very tenuous. Why not consider a wedding ceremony as simply a service as well? If we can force a baker to create a cake that clearly celebrates a marriage he disapproves of, why can we not force a clergyman to perform a ceremony that clearly celebrates a marriage he disapproves of?
As has been pointed out by others, a religious organization is not considered a public accommodation in most jurisdictions. Legally it more closely resembles a private club which serves only its own members. This is a well known feature of most discrimination law. It's why Rabbi Cohen can refuse to marry non-Jews despite laws forbidding discrimination based on ethnicity, but Izzy Cohen can't have a "Jews Only" deli. It's why the Catholic Church can refuse communion to non-Catholics, but a Catholic running an accounting firm can't require his employees to be Catholics. It's why Reverend Cletus of the Christian Identity Church can have a whites only congregation but Mr. Cletus can't have a whites only apartment complex. But for some reason people who are perfectly well aware that the Catholic Church has never been forced to marry a previously divorced person forget all this when it comes to discriminating against queers.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I'm amazed to hear that apparently in the USA a church could get away with denying interracial marriages (really?). But this then surely would be kind of moral reservation within which the last troglodytes are allowed to die out.
Why, exactly, is this so amazing? Doesn't it fall exactly in line with your stated ideal: that discrimination is permissible if there is some religious fig-leaf placed over it? Is there any substantive distinction between someone wanting to operate a "No Queers" bakery and someone desiring a "Whites Only" lunch counter? I mean, aside from the fact that the latter offends your personal morality in a way the former does not? I'm not getting any sense of a driving principle beyond "discrimination which I approve of should be legal, but laws against other forms of discrimination are okay".
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It seems naïve to simply assume no business would do such a thing if it were a legally allowed way to renege on money owed.
Once more, I consider these concerns to be basically misplaced. They do not point to a problem with religious convictions, rather they point to some idiotic regulations. If somebody can be tricked into accepting an insurance policy that can be denied on such grounds, or if such a denial can be imposed retroactively on existing contracts that do not speak of it, then that needs to be fixed by law.
Fixing something by law would seem impossible under your standard exempting those claiming religion from the rule of law. Why wouldn't any legal fix be similarly subject to your rule that anyone claiming religious conviction can be exempted from the requirements of the law?
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB: quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
Going back to weddings, if the marriage later turns out to be an abusive nightmare, does the abused spouse have recourse to recovering damages from the baker who "endorsed" the match by preparing a cake? If not, why doesn't this endorsement count?
Why would it? You are now making up rules that exist nowhere else.
Not at all. You're arguing that a baker providing a cake is a form of substantive endorsement. That makes it akin to a doctor recommending a course of treatment or an engineer approving a certain type of structural steel. There most certainly are rules governing endorsements in those contexts.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Do tell more about the ritual status of wedding cake. I thought the tradition smashing wedding cake in the face was a folk custom, but now you're telling me wedding cake has a theological ritual importance. Do tell more about the theology. If a wedding is cancelled is there a special ritual for disposing of it or can it just be fed to the pigs?
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Fool:
I would say that homosexuality is a reality and religion is a lifestyle choice
Religious practice and homosexual practice are both choices.
Can't answer this incorrect comparison here. But if you would like to step over to Dead Horses, I will.
[code]
[ 07. April 2015, 06:56: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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