Thread: How far to accommodate religious belief? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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Earlier in 2014 there was a situation at a university where a student said he would not be attending a required student project group because his religion (not specified, but we can probably guess) forbids him from being with women in public. The Canadian university told the professor to accommodate, but the prof decided not to, and the student attended. It raised the question of how far to accommodate.
I heard a radio program yesterday where additional questions in this direction were posed. Like a pharmacist who might not want to dispense the "morning after pill" because of belief about abortion, a photographer who refused to do wedding photos for a same sex marriage, a doctor who refuses to dispense birth control pills with patients, students who wish to avoid lectures about evolution. On some of these in Canada, there has been attempts to accommodate the beliefs, and on others, not.
I am coming down on the side that if anyone offers any services or products to the public they mustn't have their religious beliefs impose on others. That religion has no place in some discussions or undertakings, like biology classes or medical consultations offices. I was persuaded because of the argument put forward that it is all discrimination and therefore not appropriate.
Is it okay to have your or anyone's religious belief be a reason to refuse to provide a service or product? Where might the limits be? Why would a limit be okay in some situations but not in another?
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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It is a purer and easier discussion when you talk about something simpler, like baked goods. Is it OK, if you believe that gay marriage is sinful, to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple?
This one is relatively easier. Plenty of people attending birthday parties are sinners as well; do you have to assess the morality of all your customers? And then there is the flip side, that customers have a choice too. I might well refuse to patronize a baker who discriminates against my friends and neighbors, and if enough people feel that way your business goes belly up.
Universities, more difficult. If the student knew about the requirements of the class, he should've made this decision before ever signing up.
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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Why should we treat 'religious' beliefs differently from other beliefs?
What if I have a firm belief that coal miners are destroying the planet? Can I refuse to allow them to purchase units in my ethical investment trust?
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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I think in university, it depends on the purpose of the class and the assignment. If there is another way to achieve the same learning outcome, then I think that accommodation should be made, even if it means some extra work for the prof.
But if the assignment is integral to the stated purpose of the class, then the student bears the responsibility for having signed up for a class he reasonably should have realized would entail that conflict. e.g. if the class was "contemporary women's studies" or some such thing, and the assignment was to interview, say, a woman. It would be like an Orthodox Jew signing up for a course in culinary school entitled, "cooking with bacon".
[ 08. October 2014, 00:05: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
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And then there was that charmer the other day, the very conservative Jew who did not want to sit on an airplane next to one of those eewy women.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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There is a difference between people who perform essential services, like medical or pharmaceutical workers (or police or firemen) and people who, say, sell party favors. We may have a bit of difficulty deciding who is who, but the group providing essential services presumably do not get to choose to withhold their professional services for ideological reasons. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
There is a difference between people who perform essential services, like medical or pharmaceutical workers (or police or firemen) and people who, say, sell party favors. We may have a bit of difficulty deciding who is who, but the group providing essential services presumably do not get to choose to withhold their professional services for ideological reasons. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
I'm not sure you can even draw that line. In the American South under Jim Crow it wasn't just essential services that were denied or limited for African Americans. They also were denied service at restaurants, hotels, all sorts of other private businesses that are non-essential. But the sheer volume of the exclusion was such that it effectively limited the free movement and particularly ability to engage in commerce of Southern African Americans, which is why it ultimately was outlawed under the Civil Rights Act. I see a very similar dynamic at play with, for example, professional bakers or photographers who refuse to provide services for gay weddings.
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
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Thank you, cliffdweller. I was getting all tangled trying to say what you just said very neatly.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm not sure you can even draw that line. In the American South under Jim Crow it wasn't just essential services that were denied or limited for African Americans. They also were denied service at restaurants, hotels, all sorts of other private businesses that are non-essential. But the sheer volume of the exclusion was such that it effectively limited the free movement and particularly ability to engage in commerce of Southern African Americans, which is why it ultimately was outlawed under the Civil Rights Act. I see a very similar dynamic at play with, for example, professional bakers or photographers who refuse to provide services for gay weddings.
If it were to be so widespread that normal life were inhibited, as was the case in the Jim Crow South, you would have a point. But I am far from convinced that there is a comparable situation with same-sex discrimination any more. Perhaps there is a mass issue in some parts of the country, but for the most part it does not seem to be the case. One should be as concerned about the freedoms of people that we don't share views with as we are for those whose views we find congenial. There is really something a tad off about needlessly foisting your views on someone else in the name of freedom -- there needs to be a pretty compelling reason to force others to tow your line. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
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quote:
no prophet: Earlier in 2014 there was a situation at a university where a student said he would not be attending a required student project group because his religion (not specified, but we can probably guess) forbids him from being with women in public.
My position usually is to be rather accomodating, but I think I draw the line when someone refuses to communicate with large swaths of society because of his/her beliefs.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
I'm not sure you can even draw that line. In the American South under Jim Crow it wasn't just essential services that were denied or limited for African Americans. They also were denied service at restaurants, hotels, all sorts of other private businesses that are non-essential. But the sheer volume of the exclusion was such that it effectively limited the free movement and particularly ability to engage in commerce of Southern African Americans, which is why it ultimately was outlawed under the Civil Rights Act. I see a very similar dynamic at play with, for example, professional bakers or photographers who refuse to provide services for gay weddings.
If it were to be so widespread that normal life were inhibited, as was the case in the Jim Crow South, you would have a point. But I am far from convinced that there is a comparable situation with same-sex discrimination any more. Perhaps there is a mass issue in some parts of the country, but for the most part it does not seem to be the case. One should be as concerned about the freedoms of people that we don't share views with as we are for those whose views we find congenial. There is really something a tad off about needlessly foisting your views on someone else in the name of freedom -- there needs to be a pretty compelling reason to force others to tow your line. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
I imagine you're right about the availability of services in big urban areas-- NYC, LA, San Francisco. But when you're talking about rural areas, particularly in the Bible belt, I think you're going to find discrimination against gay weddings to be far more widespread-- possibly to the point that "normal life is inhibited". Which, again, is much like the situation in Jim Crow era South. Certainly African Americans could "simply" go north to find a restaurant meal or stay at a hotel. But the point was, that's not simple. They shouldn't have to leave the state in order to engage in the regular functions of society and engage in commerce. And the same is true for GLBT persons. If they want to have a big-city destination wedding that's great, but it should be a choice-- not a necessity because no one in their own community is willing to provide services.
[ 08. October 2014, 00:46: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If it were to be so widespread that normal life were inhibited, as was the case in the Jim Crow South, you would have a point. But I am far from convinced that there is a comparable situation with same-sex discrimination any more. Perhaps there is a mass issue in some parts of the country, but for the most part it does not seem to be the case. One should be as concerned about the freedoms of people that we don't share views with as we are for those whose views we find congenial. There is really something a tad off about needlessly foisting your views on someone else in the name of freedom -- there needs to be a pretty compelling reason to force others to tow your line. Or so ISTM.
Works both ways, doesn't it? Do bakers, photographers, etc. have a "compelling reason" to force couples to comply with their view of what is an acceptable marriage?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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It was a sociology class! The student is taking a sociology class and did not wish to interact with half the freaking population of the planet. The mind boggles.
Though, to be fair, he did enroll in an online course to avoid the conflict.
After the professor outlined his reasoning for denying the request, the student acquiesced, expressed willingness to accommodate and thanked the professor for the way he handled the incident.
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If it were to be so widespread that normal life were inhibited, as was the case in the Jim Crow South, you would have a point. But I am far from convinced that there is a comparable situation with same-sex discrimination any more.
It may not be at the same level, but that does not mean there is no comparison at all. Never knowing where and when an exclusion might occur is not as bad as knowing that you will be excluded everywhere. However, if can wear on a person and it can feel like death from a thousand paper-cuts.
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
There is really something a tad off about needlessly foisting your views on someone else in the name of freedom -- there needs to be a pretty compelling reason to force others to tow your line. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
It is, or should be, a two-way street.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But if the assignment is integral to the stated purpose of the class, then the student bears the responsibility for having signed up for a class he reasonably should have realized would entail that conflict. e.g. if the class was "contemporary women's studies" or some such thing, and the assignment was to interview, say, a woman. It would be like an Orthodox Jew signing up for a course in culinary school entitled, "cooking with bacon".
True. And then we come to the question of whether the student chose to sign up for the individual course. If "contemporary women's studies" was a compulsory course for Engineering students, one might ask whether there was an alternative way of achieving the university's aims.
On the other hand, the student in question presumably sits in lecture theatres containing women, attends lectures given by women, and interacts with women on a regular basis - women who are university officials, shop assistants, catering staff, police officers, bus drivers, bankers, or anything else. You can't live in our society and avoid half the population - it just doesn't work.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Works both ways, doesn't it? Do bakers, photographers, etc. have a "compelling reason" to force couples to comply with their view of what is an acceptable marriage?
No, For me {or, presumably, the state) to demand that you run your (nonessential) business a particular way is vastly more invasive than for me to say that I disapprove of how you run your business, and so will not participate in it. The baker or photographer are not forcing the potential client to change how they live -- they're just not willing to be a part of it. For the burden to be comparable, the state would have to require the gay couple to hire a bigoted photographer for their wedding, whether they wanted to or not.
--Tom Clune
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Earlier in 2014 there was a situation at a university where a student said he would not be attending a required student project group because his religion (not specified, but we can probably guess) forbids him from being with women in public. The Canadian university told the professor to accommodate, but the prof decided not to, and the student attended. It raised the question of how far to accommodate.
What constitutes an "accommodation" in this case? Forming a special "male only" project group for this student to participate in? Would we regard this any differently if the student wanted a special "whites only" project group for religious reasons? Should we?
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Works both ways, doesn't it? Do bakers, photographers, etc. have a "compelling reason" to force couples to comply with their view of what is an acceptable marriage?
No, For me {or, presumably, the state) to demand that you run your (nonessential) business a particular way is vastly more invasive than for me to say that I disapprove of how you run your business, and so will not participate in it. The baker or photographer are not forcing the potential client to change how they live -- they're just not willing to be a part of it. For the burden to be comparable, the state would have to require the gay couple to hire a bigoted photographer for their wedding, whether they wanted to or not.
So, again, how is this different from desegregation in the South? You had the exact same thing-- private business owners claiming "religious scruples" against "race mixing" (even pointing to the same book of the Bible-- Leviticus-- to support it) to justify refusing service to a portion of the community. If it was OK for the government to force restaurant owners and hotel owners to provide services to black, why isn't it OK for the government to do the same with wedding photographers & caterers?
There are many, many businesses which the government regulates. The government is already telling the baker that s/he must use certain approved facilities in certain approved ways to meet health code violations. There may be regulations about labeling of ingredients. In some parts of the US, caterers may not serve fois gras. There are labor regulations. All sorts of regulations. So the government already does tell private business owners how to run their business. The government does not, however, ordinarily tell consumers what they do/do not have to buy (in fact, that was a major GOP argument vs. Obamacare).
[ 08. October 2014, 02:39: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If it was OK for the government to force restaurant owners and hotel owners to provide services to black, why isn't it OK for the government to do the same with wedding photographers & caterers?
As I already said, it is a matter of how burdensome the views are. If there is a whole social structure that makes Jim Crow-style ostracism the operative situation across vast swaths of the country, then there is a compelling reason for the state to intervene. But that is the exception, not the norm. It isn't a matter of someone holding views that you find odious, but of normal life being impossible because of the social collusion of the entire order. I just don't believe that that is the case any more with gay life generally in this country. If I am wrong, then there is a legitimate basis for state intervention. But not otherwise.
--Tom Clune
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If it was OK for the government to force restaurant owners and hotel owners to provide services to black, why isn't it OK for the government to do the same with wedding photographers & caterers?
As I already said, it is a matter of how burdensome the views are. If there is a whole social structure that makes Jim Crow-style ostracism the operative situation across vast swaths of the country, then there is a compelling reason for the state to intervene. But that is the exception, not the norm. It isn't a matter of someone holding views that you find odious, but of normal life being impossible because of the social collusion of the entire order. I just don't believe that that is the case any more with gay life generally in this country. If I am wrong, then there is a legitimate basis for state intervention. But not otherwise.
--Tom Clune
Again, I suspect you are wrong when it comes to rural areas and the Bible belt, but I'll allow other shippies with more first hand knowledge to weigh in.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
As I already said, it is a matter of how burdensome the views are. If there is a whole social structure that makes Jim Crow-style ostracism the operative situation across vast swaths of the country, then there is a compelling reason for the state to intervene. But that is the exception, not the norm.
I'm pretty sure that even a cursory examination of American history will show Jim Crow (or its equivalents) is actually the norm, not the exception.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Again, I suspect you are wrong when it comes to rural areas and the Bible belt, but I'll allow other shippies with more first hand knowledge to weigh in.
It seems like tclune's interpretation would require a fairly micromanagerial theory of individual rights. Does the only pharmacist in town have religious liberty to discriminate against customers he doesn't like? How about the only baker in town? What if there's a second baker but he only works weekends and can therefore only take on a limited number of orders? What if the second baker is also discriminatory? Designing a system of "rights" that are highly contingent upon the actions of other actors seems highly problematic.
More to the point, it seems like the kind of system designed under Jim Crow, where you theoretically had access to a legal remedy, but it would be incredibly complicated to actually access it. (e.g. yes, you have a legal right to vote in this precinct, but unfortunately the case took so long to resolve the election is long past.)
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It seems like tclune's interpretation would require a fairly micromanagerial theory of individual rights.
I suppose establishing that there actually is harm being done before one institutes sweeping remedies that one finds to their liking could be called "micromanaging." If so, I'm all for this kind of micromanaging.
--Tom Clune
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
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Am I wrong that it is illegal to refuse to rent a room to someone because of their race in all of our countries? This is a characteristic of the person, visible and not subject to change. I'm thinking that this is first cut. Always and easily to define the wrongness.
The second cut is inhibition of other types of belief as it impacts on others.
I recall a news story of a trans person and their fiancé who were denied service at a wedding dress store Link. Is this okay? If the argument that service can be had nearby so there's no loss, then it would be, except the couple felt it as a loss.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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Further, there is the loss of competitive advantage to the consumer. The GOP is all about the free marketplace, that competition drives better services. And in this instance they will claim that some other company will come along to provide the wedding services that the more... uh... religiously narrow photographer/caterer/ whatever declines.
But-- that leaves the GLBT consumer w/o that coveted free marketplace. Without free competition. They won't be free to choose the best service or the best price or whatever they desire. If left with a single option (as might very well be the case in a smaller community and/or Bible belt) that provider will be able to charge an astronomical sum for an inferior product.
All of which to say that "real harm" comes in a lot of varieties and ways.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
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It could also impact the businessperson. It's not just the business owner's religious scruples that are at play here, it's the community. In the Bible belt, a baker may be willing to provide a cake for a gay wedding, but find that if word gets out in their small community that s/he is supporting that sort of thing, they might find their straight wedding business drying up. Especially if, as has happened so often recently, there's another baker in town who's managed to make a big play out of refusing to accommodate a gay couple-- leading to a lot more business from the straight fundie community.
This sort of thing happened in the South under Jim Crow a lot-- restaurant owners, etc. under pressure to segregate not only because of their own "religious convictions" but out of fear of losing white business.
So the advantage of government regulation here is that it levels the playing field. Everyone is playing by the same rules, so no business owner is disadvantaged at least economically because they all have to operate by the same rules.
Again, there are all sorts of industries (particularly service industries) in the US that have government regulation for a variety of reasons, some good, some bad. But one byproduct of that is a leveling of the playing field.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
If it was OK for the government to force restaurant owners and hotel owners to provide services to black, why isn't it OK for the government to do the same with wedding photographers & caterers?
As I already said, it is a matter of how burdensome the views are. If there is a whole social structure that makes Jim Crow-style ostracism the operative situation across vast swaths of the country, then there is a compelling reason for the state to intervene. But that is the exception, not the norm. It isn't a matter of someone holding views that you find odious, but of normal life being impossible because of the social collusion of the entire order. I just don't believe that that is the case any more with gay life generally in this country. If I am wrong, then there is a legitimate basis for state intervention. But not otherwise.
--Tom Clune
The categories addressed by non-discrimination laws, including sex, religion, age, sexual orientation, national origin and handicaps were all added to the laws because there were widespread examples of exactly such discrimination.
So now that you're proposing to roll back some of this because it seems to you that you haven't encountered some of this, what parts do you want to leave standing despite the horrible imposition on business people with religious beliefs?
Do you think that race is no longer an issue worth protecting people? How about equal pay for women? And while it's nice that you think Gays have won such great victories that you have a set of zip codes where public accommodation laws are no longer required to ensure they can have get business services?
The 2013 report on lgbqt victims of violence for example shows
quote:
The 2013 report also documents a number of troubling findings related to the interaction of LGBTQ survivors of violence with police. Overall, 45% of survivors reported their incidents to the police, a decrease from 56% in 2012. Of those survivors reporting to the police, 32% reported experiencing hostile attitudes from the police in 2013, a slight increase from 27% in 2012
You might take that as an contra indicator to your theory that GBLTQ folk have won such great victories that they no longer need unambiguous protection of law.
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on
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hosting/
Just a reminder that homosexuality, and specific discussion of discrimination against such, is a Dead Horse. Which is not the case for the subject of religious belief.
/hosting
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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What about this situation?
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
As I already said, it is a matter of how burdensome the views are. If there is a whole social structure that makes Jim Crow-style ostracism the operative situation across vast swaths of the country, then there is a compelling reason for the state to intervene. But that is the exception, not the norm. It isn't a matter of someone holding views that you find odious, but of normal life being impossible because of the social collusion of the entire order. I just don't believe that that is the case any more with gay life generally in this country. If I am wrong, then there is a legitimate basis for state intervention. But not otherwise.
You seem to be saying that bigoted discrimination is OK so long as only a few people do it. Is that a fair summary?
So would you say it's OK for restaurants to put up "No Blacks" signs again, as long as it's only one or two of them and the rest stay open to everyone? Would it be OK for companies to utterly refuse to hire women to management positions, so long as it's only the odd one? Would it have been OK for St Andrews golf club to continue barring women from membership, because there are plenty of golf courses in Scotland that women can join?
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
What about this situation?
I think it should probably be illegal, but then so should the university's anti-gay policy. In this case the young woman in question has reaped what she has sown. I hope she wins her case and they award her $1 in damages and refuse her costs.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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I think we should have zero tolerance of intolerance.
If we are providing a service, either public or private, our own religious or other beliefs should not get in the way of providing that service.
Taking money off other people, either through taxes or payment does not allow you to judge their lifestyle at all imo.
In most areas you wouldn't know anything about their lifestyle anyway.
Posted by Demas (# 24) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
You seem to be saying that bigoted discrimination is OK so long as only a few people do it. Is that a fair summary?
Whether an action is morally OK and whether it should be illegal are two different questions. Which are you asking?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
So would you say it's OK for restaurants to put up "No Blacks" signs again, as long as it's only one or two of them and the rest stay open to everyone? Would it be OK for companies to utterly refuse to hire women to management positions, so long as it's only the odd one?
People have been known to argue that if people want to support a health service, people out of work, etc, then they should do it themselves rather than ask the state to coerce other people to do it.
I'm not seeing any difference in principle between that position, and arguing that if people want minorities to have access to consumer goods and services they should provide them themselves rather than coerce other people into providing them.
If the libertarian argument in the latter case fails (which I think it does) it fails in the former case. If the market will sort it out argument fails in the latter case (which I think it certainly does) it fails in the former case.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I think we should have zero tolerance of intolerance.
If we are providing a service, either public or private, our own religious or other beliefs should not get in the way of providing that service.
Taking money off other people, either through taxes or payment does not allow you to judge their lifestyle at all imo.
In most areas you wouldn't know anything about their lifestyle anyway.
Suppose a Muslim organisation refused to hire out a facility (such as a hall or campsite or convention centre) unless an undertaking was given that no alcohol or pork product was served or consumed on the premises.
On what grounds would you forbid them that right?
Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I think we should have zero tolerance of intolerance.
If we are providing a service, either public or private, our own religious or other beliefs should not get in the way of providing that service.
Taking money off other people, either through taxes or payment does not allow you to judge their lifestyle at all imo.
In most areas you wouldn't know anything about their lifestyle anyway.
This sounds good, but it hits a snag in the case of a Roman Catholic doctor who sincerely believes the unwanted pregnancy presenting to her involves two patients, and both are entitled to her care.
I think it's entirely reasonable for her to decline to provide a service that is freely available elsewhere.
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
What about this situation?
ISTM that Amaruk should have enquired as to whether her beliefs would allow her to function in a team that appears to have strongly negative views about religion. She would also have the right to question Amaruk about their views in relation to her taking the position.
Why she would want to work with a bunch of actively and rudely gay-positive men who are also Christian-phobic is a question.
What the University had as a policy is irrelevant to the situation, since they are not being hired, and the policy in question had just about nothing to do with the job.
I can see that a lawyer might have a problem in a case involving gays, but part of law training is supposed to be the neutrality of the lawyer in question. I assume that they try to teach that, lest it become a factor in the handling of a case.
Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Suppose a Muslim organisation refused to hire out a facility (such as a hall or campsite or convention centre) unless an undertaking was given that no alcohol or pork product was served or consumed on the premises.
On what grounds would you forbid them that right?
You aren't discriminating on a protected status only a specific practice that is not protected (and btw no alcohol bans are fairly common in parts of the US) nor is the ban aimed at indirectly discriminating against a protected group. Note btw that sexual orientation is not a protected class in all states.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I think we should have zero tolerance of intolerance.
If we are providing a service, either public or private, our own religious or other beliefs should not get in the way of providing that service.
Taking money off other people, either through taxes or payment does not allow you to judge their lifestyle at all imo.
In most areas you wouldn't know anything about their lifestyle anyway.
This sounds good, but it hits a snag in the case of a Roman Catholic doctor who sincerely believes the unwanted pregnancy presenting to her involves two patients, and both are entitled to her care.
I think it's entirely reasonable for her to decline to provide a service that is freely available elsewhere.
I think she has chosen become a doctor, therefore needs to treat patients. If that treatment involves abortion, so be it.
If she needs to move to another area of medicine for her own state of mind, fair enough. But her beliefs should not impinge on the treatment patient at all imo.
Doctors are not there to make value judgemets, they are there to treat their parients. I can't refuse to teach children if I disapprove of their parents' lifestyles.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Suppose a Muslim organisation refused to hire out a facility (such as a hall or campsite or convention centre) unless an undertaking was given that no alcohol or pork product was served or consumed on the premises.
On what grounds would you forbid them that right?
You probably wouldn't. You've changed over from deciding which members of the public to serve to deciding which services to offer. The latter is usually not the subject of anti-discrimination laws. If you were running a campground that only served practicing Muslims that might be an issue, but even that can be worked around by a religious organiziation. Most anti-discrimination statutes are based on the idea that if you're a business serving the public, you don't get to decide who is and isn't "the public". But a religious organization doesn't have to organize itself as a business. It can claim to be more similar to a private club, serving only its own members, not the general public. This generally allows much wider latitude for discriminatory behavior, particularly if it's a religiously-themed organization.
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
This sounds good, but it hits a snag in the case of a Roman Catholic doctor who sincerely believes the unwanted pregnancy presenting to her involves two patients, and both are entitled to her care.
I think it's entirely reasonable for her to decline to provide a service that is freely available elsewhere.
What about a doctor who converts to the Church of Christ, Scientist? Should she be accommodated in declining to treat patients with anything other than prayer? Given your position this would seem to be a handy way to invent a sinecure. Can't be forced to work because it violates your faith and can't be fired because your religious beliefs must be accommodated.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
There is many a church which is a no-alcohol facility (except for the Communion wine). I spearheaded making our church a no-alcohol campus, after an unfortunate incident with drunken bridesmaids. That was one merry wedding ceremony, let me tell you.
Posted by Anyuta (# 14692) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Suppose a Muslim organisation refused to hire out a facility (such as a hall or campsite or convention centre) unless an undertaking was given that no alcohol or pork product was served or consumed on the premises.
On what grounds would you forbid them that right?
that is not based on the PERSON being rented to, but an activity that they prohibit. I think it reasonable tor someone to put restrictions on the uses of a rented facility. For example, many places would potentially have a no-alcohol policy based on licencing or indemnity issues. They may have restrictions on bringing in outside food. they may have restrictions on noise levels.. I can think of many other restrictions based on ACTIVITY that anyone might engage in, but which the facility doesn't want. but if we're talking about WHO they rent to (regardless of activity), then we have a problem. for example saying they won't rent to non Muslims (in your example) might be wrong, but saying "no alcohol or pork products" would be OK (a non-Muslim who rents with the understanding of and agreement to those restrictions could still rent the facility). There is an inherent difference between banning a particular activity or person.
and one can't say "gay wedding" is an activity. it's a wedding.. the "gay" part refers to a person (people).
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
Perhaps the situation would be sort of okay for some religious ideals in some situations? Suppose a physician doesn't want to counsel or provide family planning services out of a fundamentalist or RC belief, but seamlessly passes off the patient to another physician in the office essentially immediately: "excuse me, this is not my area of expertise, would you please wait a moment so I can get Dr Tolerant to meet with you?", with no delay (I might suggest 10 mins max wait). The patient would never know that Dr Willnot was passing off for religious reasons and was not inconvenienced or made to feel something bad.
On the other hand, if there is no other physician immediately available, and the patient might need to travel, experience delay etc, this would seem unacceptable, and the physician would have to provide the service, contrary to their held beliefs.
My question has evolved from reading the responses on this thread to whether there is "reasonable accommodation" for something like this, or whether any attempted accommodation is simply a bad idea, and we shouldn't consider it.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
I can think of many other restrictions based on ACTIVITY that anyone might engage in, but which the facility doesn't want. but if we're talking about WHO they rent to (regardless of activity), then we have a problem. for example saying they won't rent to non Muslims (in your example) might be wrong, but saying "no alcohol or pork products" would be OK (a non-Muslim who rents with the understanding of and agreement to those restrictions could still rent the facility). There is an inherent difference between banning a particular activity or person.
and one can't say "gay wedding" is an activity. it's a wedding.. the "gay" part refers to a person (people).
Yes I agree, regarding renting.
For example we can say 'no pets' etc. It doesn't discriminate, it simply sets out terms.
Many Churches don't allow any alcohol on the premises, for example. Which is fine imo - you know before you book and will book accordingly.
[ 08. October 2014, 16:12: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
What about this situation?
ISTM that Amaruk should have enquired as to whether her beliefs would allow her to function in a team that appears to have strongly negative views about religion.
Is there a cultural disconnect between Canada and Norway, where communication and ideas are differentially expressed? I am not familiar enough with their culture to know. The correspondence in the subsequent link on the CBC.ca website would suggest this, though the comments seem to be particularly profane, ill-mannered, intemperate and ill-advised.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
that is not based on the PERSON being rented to, but an activity that they prohibit. I think it reasonable tor someone to put restrictions on the uses of a rented facility.
So how does that differ from the case of the doctor who doesn't want to offer advice on contraception? He's not refusing to offer advice to a particular person - he's putting restrictions on the services he offers.
How does a doctor who doesn't want to offer contraceptive advice differ from a function room that doesn't want to permit the consumption of alcohol, or pork, or whatever?
Is it just a question of degree - that the ability to access contraception is more important than the ability to have a glass of wine with your lunch?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
I think we should have zero tolerance of intolerance.
If we are providing a service, either public or private, our own religious or other beliefs should not get in the way of providing that service.
Taking money off other people, either through taxes or payment does not allow you to judge their lifestyle at all imo.
In most areas you wouldn't know anything about their lifestyle anyway.
This sounds good, but it hits a snag in the case of a Roman Catholic doctor who sincerely believes the unwanted pregnancy presenting to her involves two patients, and both are entitled to her care.
I think it's entirely reasonable for her to decline to provide a service that is freely available elsewhere.
I think she has chosen become a doctor, therefore needs to treat patients. If that treatment involves abortion, so be it.
As far as she is concerned, she is treating both her patients by, in particular, not ending the life of one of them. Now what?
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
There is a difference between people who perform essential services, like medical or pharmaceutical workers (or police or firemen) and people who, say, sell party favors. We may have a bit of difficulty deciding who is who, but the group providing essential services presumably do not get to choose to withhold their professional services for ideological reasons. Or so ISTM.
--Tom Clune
I'm not sure you can even draw that line. In the American South under Jim Crow it wasn't just essential services that were denied or limited for African Americans. They also were denied service at restaurants, hotels, all sorts of other private businesses that are non-essential. But the sheer volume of the exclusion was such that it effectively limited the free movement and particularly ability to engage in commerce of Southern African Americans, which is why it ultimately was outlawed under the Civil Rights Act. I see a very similar dynamic at play with, for example, professional bakers or photographers who refuse to provide services for gay weddings.
I've read a bit about the bakers & photographers who want to be able to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings. In every case, the providers have made the point that they're not refusing to sell cakes or take photos for gay people; rather, they are conscientiously opposed to participating in what they feel is a travesty of Christian marriage. It's not that they're opposed to taking money from homosexuals, more that they don't wish to be seen as implicitly approving of something that they see as wrong.
To be honest, I'm on the fence about whether they should get a pass for this, if for no other reason than that it makes anti-discriminatory laws extremely time-consuming and difficult to enforce. But their refusal to provide their services for same-sex marriages is not quite the same thing as a refusal to serve black people in a restaurant.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
But somehow I am certain that those bakers do not scope out the birthday party, to be certain that the birthday boy and all the attendees are not living in sin, open and notorious, and so on. Acknowledged villains have no difficulty getting birthday cakes.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
But somehow I am certain that those bakers do not scope out the birthday party, to be certain that the birthday boy and all the attendees are not living in sin, open and notorious, and so on. Acknowledged villains have no difficulty getting birthday cakes.
It doesn't seem as though they're taking pains to investigate any of their customers. It's difficult to hide the fact that a same-sex wedding is a same-sex wedding, though; as soon as two men or two women come in to taste the cakes it's going to be known.
I don't have a problem believing that the same bakers would refuse to bake a cake for Richard Speck's 70th birthday party. But of course, I have no way of knowing that.
Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Is it okay to have your or anyone's religious belief be a reason to refuse to provide a service or product? Where might the limits be? Why would a limit be okay in some situations but not in another?
In a recent thread I admitted that volunteers (including me) at a charity bookshop don't put out for sale anything which we believe opposes the aims of the charity. This includes anything racist, pornographic or inciting breaches of human rights. Also we pulp salacious 'true crime' books.
The two responders disagreed with our stance. Would that be the view here? I did ask others on my shift but they just added several other categories which they thought should be pulped as well for the greater good of humankind (the names 'Clarkson' and 'Archer' were mentioned).
I'm conflicted. Should we just sell all we can?
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I've read a bit about the bakers & photographers who want to be able to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings. In every case, the providers have made the point that they're not refusing to sell cakes or take photos for gay people; rather, they are conscientiously opposed to participating in what they feel is a travesty of Christian marriage. It's not that they're opposed to taking money from homosexuals, more that they don't wish to be seen as implicitly approving of something that they see as wrong.
Which is rather like saying you're not discriminating against Jews, you just refuse to cater their blasphemous bar mitzvahs.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
There is a whole thread in Dead Horses about refusing services like baking and photography for SSM marriages. Please take that discussion there. If the discussion persists, this whole thread will get closed or sent down there, and there is quite a bit to this topic besides that aspect. (I would think religious dress alone could provide examples for this thread, for instance.)
Gwai,
Purgatory Host
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
I've read a bit about the bakers & photographers who want to be able to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings. In every case, the providers have made the point that they're not refusing to sell cakes or take photos for gay people; rather, they are conscientiously opposed to participating in what they feel is a travesty of Christian marriage. It's not that they're opposed to taking money from homosexuals, more that they don't wish to be seen as implicitly approving of something that they see as wrong.
Which is rather like saying you're not discriminating against Jews, you just refuse to cater their blasphemous bar mitzvahs.
I'm not sure I know of any Christians who actually believe bar mitzvahs to be blasphemous. But thanks for going out of your way to imply that I'm probably cool with anti-Semitism.
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
The thing is - as a practicing Troglodyte, why should I have to expose myself to the sun just because some Mayan walks into my shop and is supposed to consult the sun before every action? Would I expect him to close the blinds specially for me if I walked into an equivalent shop in his home town so I could commnune with the darkness? And both of us would have problems with the Panists, whose religion requires them to copulate with any stranger they meet. Several times.
So - basically - every religion carries itself around in the person, and every person should realise that not everyone wishes to practice their particular rituals or observe their predelictions. I may be being very English, but it's not my place to impose my beliefs (or their trappings) on anyone else - and neither is it their place to impose theirs on me. If I decide that I can accommodate something out of curtesy, then it is exactly that - out of courtesy, not a right. Preventing them from practicing their religion at all - provided that this practicing does not harm anyone - is not OK. But lets have some mutual respect rather than "rights", please.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
I went and researched the case of ultra-orthodox Jews not wanting to sit next door to women on planes as a result of Brenda's posting, and it reminded me of something I experienced which was nothing to do with religion - I think. I used, 40 years ago, to travel on a Friday train from Dartford down to Dover with a weekend case. I would find a carriage with a space and go in to experience an almost tangible wave of not-being-wanted from the suited salarymen occupying the seven other seats, struggle to put my case on the shelf, with them ready to blame me if I dropped it on them, and then sit down to be hated the rest of the trip.
And then, one Friday, a young man jumped up to help me. Gradually I became aware that on that day, it was he who was the focus of all the rabid loathing, and assumed, until we reached Dover Priory, that this was because he had broken the unwritten rule and treated a woman as a person. But, as I got out of the carriage, and moved along the corridor to get off, I realised it was something else entirely. The train, heading for Dover Marine and the ferry to France, was full of cheerful young men of a certain age, all dressed up to party*, and clearly interested in each other, while being helpful and accomodating to other passengers. The salarymen had spotted a gay, and their dislike for him trumped their being offended about a woman daring to travel. (This was, by the way, the 16:15 from Dartford, nothing odd.)
The religious who turn these hatreds into rules of their faith are merely codifying something else, and they should be given no accomodation at all if it requires other people to be treated as lesser mortals to be reviled officially.
*The purple lace shirt over chest hair was not a good look, though.
[ 08. October 2014, 21:24: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Doctors are not there to make value judgemets, they are there to treat their parients.
Do you seriously believe that such a dichotomy is possible in practice?
Posted by OddJob (# 17591) on
:
How many shipmates have suffered discrimination for seemingly silly reasons? It certainly changes your perspective.
A generation ago when I graduated, the major (London-based), private sector employers in my profession wouldn’t contemplate recruiting those of us who’d attended a comprehensive school in a poor northern town. Others may have suffered worse and more limiting discrimination.
I’m basically opposed to discrimination except where, by delivering the service, the service provider’s essential characteristics are breached. Therefore I’m not comfortable with discrimination against gay couples when accommodation is offered, as it’s not essential to hold views opposing gay sex in order to be a landlord. But where the service provider is a church which chooses to adopt a strict Bible-based approach, IMO it’s OK to decline to offer SSM. In the same way as it’s wrong (and I think illegal) to discriminate against a prospective employee on the basis of their political views, unless the employer is an opposing political party.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
I've been discriminated against on grounds of race and sex, as well as religion. And the discrimination has been significant, not just "I can't buy a cake here."
But I still think that idiots are entitled to be idiots when their behavior is not going to significantly impact someone else's health, life and wellbeing. So firefighters are going to have constraints on them, particularly as they are the only show in town. But a wedding photographer, a gardener, a dressmaker--meh. Let them do as they wish, and let wider society use non-legal methods to indicate their disapproval (such as by refusing to patronize them).
I really, really don't like instituting "tolerance" as a legal requirement for everybody who provides any kind of good or service, because it's all too easy to think of unbearable cases where that law could be used to enforce evil. Would it not be evil to require a holocaust survivor who owned and ran a bed and breakfast set up to make their services available to a group of very vocal neo-Nazis? What about forcing me, a writer and a Christian, to write marketing campaigns for Islam? What about requiring all nurses to assist at abortions, regardless of their own personal convictions? (great way to induce PTSD, I would think) What about requiring gay people who are bakers to produce cakes etc. with anti-gay slogans written all over them?
When in doubt, err on the side that causes the least harm. And it seems to me that it would be more harmful to force people like those above to do it or lose their livelihoods, than continue in the present, non-legalized state, and have people like me occasionally have to find a different baker.
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Doctors are not there to make value judgemets, they are there to treat their parients.
Do you seriously believe that such a dichotomy is possible in practice?
Doesn't the Hippocratic Oath say they must do exactly that? From doctors who treat the enemy wounded on a battlefield, to the Dr. Mudd who fixed John Wilkes Booth's leg.
Yes, a doctor treats the patient in front of them with neither fear nor favour. A Catholic doctor should abort a baby if the law and medical practice dictate that is the right course of action. To do anything other, for me, removes their right to be called a doctor.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
When in doubt, err on the side that causes the least harm. And it seems to me that it would be more harmful to force people like those above to do it or lose their livelihoods, than continue in the present, non-legalized state, and have people like me occasionally have to find a different baker.
I agree with your "least harm" principle. I disagree that "least harm" always falls on the side you're supposing it does.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
When in doubt, err on the side that causes the least harm. And it seems to me that it would be more harmful to force people like those above to do it or lose their livelihoods, than continue in the present, non-legalized state, and have people like me occasionally have to find a different baker.
One of the problems with this formulation is that it effectively makes religious conscious something only rich can afford to exercise. If you own a bakery, you discriminate to your heart's content. If you simply work at the bakery, you're only allowed to exercise your boss' conscience on his behalf. The OP is a good example of this, with the professor in question likely keeping his job only because of tenure, something not available in most professions.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
When in doubt, err on the side that causes the least harm. And it seems to me that it would be more harmful to force people like those above to do it or lose their livelihoods, than continue in the present, non-legalized state, and have people like me occasionally have to find a different baker.
One of the problems with this formulation is that it effectively makes religious conscious something only rich can afford to exercise. If you own a bakery, you discriminate to your heart's content. If you simply work at the bakery, you're only allowed to exercise your boss' conscience on his behalf. The OP is a good example of this, with the professor in question likely keeping his job only because of tenure, something not available in most professions.
The same principle also applies per the consumer. It's all very good for us to say "I'll just have to find another baker" if we live in an area where there are plenty of options or we have the means to pay whatever the one tolerant baker in our community wants to charge. The rich and the privileged always have more options than the poor and the marginalized, and it's the nature of privilege that we are often blind to the benefits of that. The lack of options is precisely what keeps many groups both poor and marginalized. Which was why the civil right movement worked to overturn not just segregation in government and essential services, but in nonessential services as well.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
I may be being very English, but it's not my place to impose my beliefs (or their trappings) on anyone else - and neither is it their place to impose theirs on me. If I decide that I can accommodate something out of curtesy, then it is exactly that - out of courtesy, not a right.
So imagine that you are an employer, and a Mr. Singh presents himself as a candidate for employment. Being an observant Sikh, Mr. Singh wears a turban and has a long, full beard. You are looking for a new sales rep, and have to date hired clean-cut young men and women with conservative hairstyles and conservative suits. Suppose that you think the full beard is not a professional look. Should you be allowed to reject Mr. Singh because of his beard? Would you be being courteous if you considered his candidacy alongside Mr. Smith and Miss Johnson, or does he have the right to be considered on equal terms, and are you obliged to make reasonable accommodation for his hirsute nature?
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
It is not unreasonable for an employer to select the personnel who interface with the public for certain qualities. He may not reject this gentleman for his religion or his skin color, but the beard might well be a difficulty in many fields.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It is not unreasonable for an employer to select the personnel who interface with the public for certain qualities. He may not reject this gentleman for his religion or his skin color, but the beard might well be a difficulty in many fields.
Yes, very understandable. I'm quite sure that many Southern business owners in the Jim Crow era would cite similar "difficulties" that made it "reasonable" for them to select personnel with paler skin to interface with the public.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
I was thinking especially of food service. Are there requirements about hair nets in countries other than the US? In this country you can't have loose hair if you're preparing food.
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I was thinking especially of food service. Are there requirements about hair nets in countries other than the US? In this country you can't have loose hair if you're preparing food.
No worries.
they got it covered
[ 09. October 2014, 03:02: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Doctors are not there to make value judgemets, they are there to treat their parients.
Do you seriously believe that such a dichotomy is possible in practice?
Doesn't the Hippocratic Oath say they must do exactly that? From doctors who treat the enemy wounded on a battlefield, to the Dr. Mudd who fixed John Wilkes Booth's leg.
Yes, a doctor treats the patient in front of them with neither fear nor favour. A Catholic doctor should abort a baby if the law and medical practice dictate that is the right course of action. To do anything other, for me, removes their right to be called a doctor.
I'm thinking of a situation in which a couple wants their baby son circumcised on the values grounds that the short-term pain and discomfort is outweighed by the long-term hygiene benefits, and the doctor wants to refuse to perform the procedure on the values grounds that he/she thinks the long-term hygiene benefits do not justify the imposition of immediate suffering.
Posted by AmyBo (# 15040) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I really, really don't like instituting "tolerance" as a legal requirement for everybody who provides any kind of good or service, because it's all too easy to think of unbearable cases where that law could be used to enforce evil. Would it not be evil to require a holocaust survivor who owned and ran a bed and breakfast set up to make their services available to a group of very vocal neo-Nazis? What about forcing me, a writer and a Christian, to write marketing campaigns for Islam? What about requiring all nurses to assist at abortions, regardless of their own personal convictions? (great way to induce PTSD, I would think) What about requiring gay people who are bakers to produce cakes etc. with anti-gay slogans written all over them?
Speaking as someone who identifies as bi, I did work at an agency for both Billy Graham crusades and Ruth Graham conferences (as well as some Samaritan's Purse and one of the other con-evo preachers who sprouted up around the time of Mr. Graham's retirement). I gritted my teeth and got through it.
Short of hate speech, which could be the case in the last example quoted above, you suck it up and do your job because you're a professional. Don't like [fill in the blank] people? Don't work with people. I got paid all the same, and when it was too much for me, I found another job.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
Why limit it to religious belief? Shouldn't non religious bigots have the right to discriminate? Shouldn't corporations like Woolworths have the right to deny service to customers of the wrong race (assuming you ignore the droll Supreme Court theory that corporations can have religious beliefs)
I also disagree what the lesser harm is.
The Free Market did not prevent discrimination by preferring suppliers who did not discriminate. In general, those who were rejected by the large general suppliers had to pay more money for poor service from the small suppliers who would sell to them.
Doctors and Pharmacists are examples of people who make a good living because the state provides them with a monopoly license to practice. If the local pharmacist declines to sell prescribed drugs and there's no other pharmacist in my locality, I can't just get the prescription drugs at a handy grocery store. I think it's reasonable that a condition of a monopoly license is you have to provide it to all of the public.
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on
:
On medics performing abortions: I’ve mentioned in similar discussions before that this one isn’t just hypothetical to me. A friend of mine used to work as an operating theatre nurse. She told her employer that she wanted to opt out of abortions for conscience reasons (I believe the hospital offers this accommodation to all their surgical staff). They agreed.
One night she got called out to what she was told over the phone was a miscarriage. When she arrived at the hospital, it turned out to be an abortion. They put a *lot* of pressure on her to do it. She refused and told them that, as previously agreed, they would have to find another nurse, which they eventually did with much huffing and puffing. She was very upset.
Asking someone to be actively involved in what they believe is tantamount to murder is a very grave violation of that person’s conscience, and this is quite independent of whether or not you agree with them on the subject. Telling my friend that you don’t think abortion is wrong isn’t going to change how badly my friend would be violating her conscience if she was involved in performing one. ISTM that it’s on a whole other level to baking a cake. You could argue that my friend shouldn’t be in that job at all if she’s not prepared to perform this particular task, but you have to recognise that the health care system is thereby losing the expertise and training of someone who is in all other respects a highly competent nurse.
My question has always been where you draw the line. Is it reasonable to expect someone to:
Serve food which they would not be prepared to eat (either for religious reasons or e.g. because they’re a vegetarian)?
Provide auxiliary services for a gay wedding?
Perform an abortion?
I think there’s a sliding scale of reasonableness somewhere in the above.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
It is not unreasonable for an employer to select the personnel who interface with the public for certain qualities. He may not reject this gentleman for his religion or his skin color, but the beard might well be a difficulty in many fields.
Why, in the name of all that is holy? What is this problem with beards? It's not like you have to do anything special to have one. If you're right, there's a lot of people need to seriously get over themselves.
[ 09. October 2014, 10:06: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
My branch of Waitrose has a bearded butcher - he wears a beard net when serving. No-one comments. (He is not obviously a religious beard wearer.) Everyone serving wears hairnets.
[ 09. October 2014, 10:45: Message edited by: Penny S ]
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
in fact, if you're interviewing for a post on a pirate ship, it could go the other way
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
that is not based on the PERSON being rented to, but an activity that they prohibit. There is an inherent difference between banning a particular activity or person.
and one can't say "gay wedding" is an activity. it's a wedding.. the "gay" part refers to a person (people).
False (attempted) distinction.
Eating pork, drinking alcohol, having gay sex, or getting married to a person of the same sex, are all activities carried out by people who have the choice to do them or not.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Anyuta:
that is not based on the PERSON being rented to, but an activity that they prohibit. There is an inherent difference between banning a particular activity or person.
and one can't say "gay wedding" is an activity. it's a wedding.. the "gay" part refers to a person (people).
False (attempted) distinction.
Eating pork, drinking alcohol, having gay sex, or getting married to a person of the same sex, are all activities carried out by people who have the choice to do them or not.
Nonsense - if you were gay and decided to marry then your partner would be same sex. There is little choice invoved.
It's nothing like choosing what we eat or drink.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Eating pork, drinking alcohol, having gay sex, or getting married to a person of the same sex, are all activities carried out by people who have the choice to do them or not.
The false distinction is yours. Eating pork, drinking alcohol, having sex or getting married are the activities in question, and if a business wants to say that nobody can do them on its premises then that is perfectly fine. But if the business wants to say that only certain kinds of people can do them on its premises, that is discrimination.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Okay, nobody can marry a person of the same sex on the premises. Happy with that?
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Okay, nobody can marry a person of the same sex on the premises. Happy with that?
So you can get married to your same-sex partner provided you're married by an opposite-sex officiant? Of course, that would mean that opposite-sex couples couldn't get married at all since the person marrying them would be the same sex as one of the couple.
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
For the first time, I get what the Dead Horses folder is all about
However, it still brings up the question as to what to do with people who insist on poking their religious practices into pother peoples faces, and people who are blatantly intolerant of other people's religion
Frankly, I can't stand intolerance, and they should all be clapped in prison for a week to encourage them to cool down ad be reasonable.
[ 09. October 2014, 13:44: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Okay, nobody can marry a person of the same sex on the premises. Happy with that?
No - it's "nobody can marry" that I'm happy with. The "a person of the same sex" part changes it from being about what can be done to being about who can do it.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
In what way? How does it change from actions to people?
[ETA - I'm pretty much on the same page as you on this one but, in the words of one of my old teachers, "would like you to show your working out".]
[ 09. October 2014, 13:48: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Okay, nobody can marry a person of the same sex on the premises. Happy with that?
Nope.
It would have to be 'nobody can marry on these premesis' - otherwise you are discriminating against many, many people.
Of course, plenty of Churches do just this ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
[Devil's Advocate]But that still doesn't explain the leap of logic from prohibiting activities to discriminating against people[/Devil's Advocate]
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
In what way? How does it change from actions to people?
If a venue is available for weddings, that should mean it is open to all weddings, regardless of creed, race or orientation. A wedding is a wedding is a wedding. Saying "we're open for all weddings except those involving gays" is discriminating based on the people involved in exactly the same way that saying "we're open for all weddings except those involving blacks" would be.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
[Devil's Advocate]But that still doesn't explain the leap of logic from prohibiting activities to discriminating against people[/Devil's Advocate]
The key element you may be missing is that two people of the same sex getting married is the same activity as two people of different sexes getting married. Marriage is marriage.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Gotcha! You were pretty warm with the first and scorching with the second
[Sorry, just realised I may come across as incredibly patronising with that, but I did genuinely want to see the logic explained]
[ 09. October 2014, 15:13: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
I wonder if that is not the simple way to distinguish it. You test any given rule by swapping out 'gay' with some ethnic term, let us say black or Asian. "We will bake cakes for any wedding except between black persons" -- clearly wrong.
As to appearance requirements, another one that comes to mind is Hooters. This is a rather downmarket and vulgar restaurant chain, whose main feature is busty waitresses in tight tee shirts. You can immediately see that the whole point of the restaurant is the busty waitresses; nobody goes there for the food. Any bearded man, of whatever religion, is clearly not going to be on the wait staff; it has nothing to do with the beard or the ethnicity but with their lack of acceptable figures.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
Another nutty example, ripped from the headlines:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/kentucky-warns-noahs-ark-based-amusement-park-over-hiring-practices/
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Nutty how? I mean, the theme park owners are nutty, IMO.
I think the state correct in their assessment.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I think the theme park.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Brenda Clough: Another nutty example, ripped from the headlines:
Interestingly, the State doesn't say that they shouldn't hire only people who believe in the flood. It only says that they'll lose certain tax advantages if they do. I guess it depends on the conditions that are attached to these tax advantages.
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on
:
So, they want to be able to exclude non-believers from employment, while remaining able to draw benefits (the rebate) from people who may not only not share their beliefs but also actively oppose them? Where does Paul's advice to pay their taxes apply to them?
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
Churches and nonprofits in the US are famous for fudging the rules about being a nonprofit. There is even a day (I think it was last Sunday) dedicated to churches doing political stuff from the pulpit, in direct contravention of their nonprofit status. They want to have their tax deductions but not keep to the regs for it.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Nutty how? I mean, the theme park owners are nutty, IMO.
I think the state correct in their assessment.
The nuts are nuts by virtue of being YECs, obviously. It seems to me that they would be perfectly within their rights to tell their prospective employees that they will have to teach a literal reading of Genesis as employees, but if they want to require their employees to hold YEC beliefs, they need to find a way to claim that their employees are ministers of religion.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
:
To say that somehow or other we ended up with three threads on this topic, all with different numbers of posts. So I've deleted the duplicates.
Please carry on!
B62, DH Host (away and on crappy internet connection but able to do this)
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
Frankly, I can't stand intolerance, and they should all be clapped in prison for a week to encourage them to cool down ad be reasonable.
It's sadism I can't stand.
Frankly, I think that all sadists deserve to have the flesh torn slowly from their bodies with red-hot pincers.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Eating pork, drinking alcohol, having sex or getting married are the activities in question,
No they're not.
They are eating pork, drinking alcohol, gay sex and gay marriage.
The last two inconvenience gays, but not straights, and the first two inconvenience those who like pork and alcohol, but not vegans or teetotallers.
In each case, the Muslim proprietor should be free to say, "Take it or leave it. My place, my rules".
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I wonder if that is not the simple way to distinguish it. You test any given rule by swapping out 'gay' with some ethnic term, let us say black or Asian. "We will bake cakes for any wedding except between black persons" -- clearly wrong.
To make it a historical example; We will bake cakes except for inter-racial weddings because those are against our religious beliefs.
I don't have any sympathy for the request for tolerance for such discrimination, seeing it comes with a heaping history of terrorism that such discrimination is the nicest face.
As for the argument; well it's mostly not an issue in some places, so let's make the laws really complicated, that overlooks that it's really not a solved problem.
Most people with a choice wouldn't want to hire such services from such people if they had a choice. It's like the right to serve in the armed forces or get married. You may not want to do it, but you should have the right to do so if you want to.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I wonder if that is not the simple way to distinguish it. You test any given rule by swapping out 'gay' with some ethnic term, let us say black or Asian. "We will bake cakes for any wedding except between black persons" -- clearly wrong.
Not simple but simplistic.
No-one can help being black, or Asian or Jewish, so it is inherently irrational (as well as objectionable) to discriminate against them.
Same -sex attraction is not a choice, but homosexual behaviour is, so it should be a choice as to whether someone who disagrees with it does or does not do something like provide a cake for a gay wedding.
I am a straight Christian, but my commitment to a free and pluralist society means I defend the right of a private gay, atheist, or other-than-Christian religious organisation to exclude me, or refuse to provide goods or services to me, if it wishes.
[ 10. October 2014, 04:27: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Eating pork, drinking alcohol, having sex or getting married are the activities in question,
No they're not.
They are eating pork, drinking alcohol, gay sex and gay marriage.
The last two inconvenience gays, but not straights, and the first two inconvenience those who like pork and alcohol, but not vegans or teetotallers.
In each case, the Muslim proprietor should be free to say, "Take it or leave it. My place, my rules".
You forgot the women seated inconveniently on aircraft
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
To say that somehow or other we ended up with three threads on this topic, all with different numbers of posts. So I've deleted the duplicates.
Please carry on!
B62, DH Host (away and on crappy internet connection but able to do this)
Yes - the red hot internet highway in Shipdham looks more like a cart track.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by itsarumdo:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Eating pork, drinking alcohol, having sex or getting married are the activities in question,
No they're not.
They are eating pork, drinking alcohol, gay sex and gay marriage.
The last two inconvenience gays, but not straights, and the first two inconvenience those who like pork and alcohol, but not vegans or teetotallers.
In each case, the Muslim proprietor should be free to say, "Take it or leave it. My place, my rules".
You forgot the women seated inconveniently on aircraft
Except that the aircraft isn't the Muslim's
Posted by Snags (# 15351) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Same -sex attraction is not a choice, but homosexual behaviour is, so it should be a choice as to whether someone who disagrees with it does or does not do something like provide a cake for a gay wedding.
Let's make it simple.
The sign in the shop window says "Wedding Cakes".
A couple are getting married and want a cake.
It's still a wedding. And you sell wedding cakes. So unless you're only going to offer "Wedding Cakes For Right-Thinking Straight Folk" you just need to suck up that the world allows people to get married that you don't think should.
Or even better "Wedding Cakes For People Who Pass Our Rigorous Pre-Bake Check" which covers off:
- are you straight?
- are you virgins?
- is either of you divorced?
- if yes, was it because the other party was adulterous?
- have you ever:
i. lost your temper
ii. used profane language
iii. eaten more than you needed
iv. charged interest
v. worn a poly-cotton mix
vi. eaten shellfish
vii. etc. etc.
Even if you don't agree with same-sex marriage, it makes absolutely no sense to single that out of all the other things you don't agree with as a criteria for not doing business with someone.
And what would you do if only one half of the couple ever came in, because the other really didn't give a crap about the cake? You'd never know.
If you offer a service to the public, then you have to deliver that service to the public. If you really don't want to deal with an individual, you can always find a reason. But not a blanket refusal to deal with a whole class of people.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I think though that the cake case was to do with the bakers refusing to put an offensive (to them) slogan on the cake rather than to serve a particular class of customer, so again we return to actions not people.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
No-one can help being black, or Asian or Jewish, so it is inherently irrational (as well as objectionable) to discriminate against them.
Same -sex attraction is not a choice, but homosexual behaviour is, so it should be a choice as to whether someone who disagrees with it does or does not do something like provide a cake for a gay wedding.
Nope, sorry. Your second paragraph is exactly the same as saying "being black or white is not a choice, but a white person marrying a black person is, so it should be a choice as to whether someone who disagrees with it does or does not do something like provide a cake for an inter-racial wedding".
Or even "being Jewish is not a choice, but Jewish people getting married is, so it should be a choice as to whether someone who disagrees with it does or does not do something like provide a cake for a Jewish wedding".
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Also, how does 'gay wedding' = 'homosexual behaviour'? No wedding I've ever been to has involved sexual relations of any kind. Receptions, OTOH....
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Same -sex attraction is not a choice, but homosexual behaviour is, so it should be a choice as to whether someone who disagrees with it does or does not do something like provide a cake for a gay wedding.
Good grief.
Can you begin to imagine being told your sexual attraction must be curbed? That your loving intimacy with your wife is somehow wrong? Or to be told that because of your sexual orientation you can't get married?
You are treating homosexuals as sexual deviants - which is completely wrong, cruel, unkind, discriminatory and homophobic behaviour.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
Is it okay to have your or anyone's religious belief be a reason to refuse to provide a service or product? Where might the limits be? Why would a limit be okay in some situations but not in another?
In a recent thread I admitted that volunteers (including me) at a charity bookshop don't put out for sale anything which we believe opposes the aims of the charity. This includes anything racist, pornographic or inciting breaches of human rights. Also we pulp salacious 'true crime' books.
The two responders disagreed with our stance. Would that be the view here? I did ask others on my shift but they just added several other categories which they thought should be pulped as well for the greater good of humankind (the names 'Clarkson' and 'Archer' were mentioned).
I'm conflicted. Should we just sell all we can?
This thread is about deciding who you sell to. If you decided not to sell to Jews or Gays or Blacks whatever it is you're selling then that's invidious discrimination.
You can decide what you're going to sell. You might decide to only sell children's books. However, the actions of a one store have a different impact when it's done by everyone. If every bookstore in your town decides they aren't going to sell "Heather has two mommies" you're moving into censorship by collusion. I'm always amused that people who object to fiction that describes behavior that they don't like rarely seem to have the same problem with detective fiction.
Posted by fullgospel (# 18233) on
:
do American wedding cakes carry 'slogans' ?
News to me.
Posted by fullgospel (# 18233) on
:
Opposite -sex attraction 'is not a choice, but heterosexual behaviour is, so it should be a choice as to whether someone who disagrees with it does or does not do something like provide a cake for a gay wedding.'
Oh yes, we have to be so careful who we bake for.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
This thread is about deciding who you sell to. If you decided not to sell to Jews or Gays or Blacks whatever it is you're selling then that's invidious discrimination.
You can decide what you're going to sell. [..]
I ask again:
So how does that differ from the case of the doctor who doesn't want to offer advice on contraception? He's not refusing to offer advice to a particular person - he's putting restrictions on the services he offers.
How does a doctor who doesn't want to offer contraceptive advice differ from a function room that doesn't want to permit the consumption of alcohol, or pork, or whatever, or from the charity shop that doesn't want to sell used porn?
Is it just a question of degree - that the ability to access contraception is more important than the ability to have a glass of wine with your lunch?
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I ask again:
So how does that differ from the case of the doctor who doesn't want to offer advice on contraception? He's not refusing to offer advice to a particular person - he's putting restrictions on the services he offers.
How does a doctor who doesn't want to offer contraceptive advice differ from a function room that doesn't want to permit the consumption of alcohol, or pork, or whatever, or from the charity shop that doesn't want to sell used porn?
Is it just a question of degree - that the ability to access contraception is more important than the ability to have a glass of wine with your lunch?
There are several issues mixed in here. One is, there are many doctors who don't usually offer advice on contraception; e.g. my brother the gastroenterologist. If he is advertising that he is a specialist who has a specialty that covers offering advice on contraception; e.g. a a general practice doctor or gynecologist, then they have an obligation to treat things which fall within their specialty or refer to someone else who does provide the service. In rural locations where they are the only Doctor in the locality, if they are practicing it falls to them to provide services. What the compulsion to do so is; if any, is going to vary by country and state because of things like government coverage.
The Federal Court in Washington State has ruled that
requiring pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception violates their constitutional rights As you can see from the discussion on the page, what requirements are reasonable is an ongoing discussion complicated further by the fact that most pharmacies dispense a whole bunch of federally funded drugs ( as well as ones that the person has to pay for in the United States).
It's an ongoing debate, but I doubt that a pharmacist would be allowed to not dispense to Black people because of their religious belief. A pharmacist who would only dispense contraception to married women ( or un married woman) would probably get pulled in on discrimination charges.I also doubt they would be allowed to treat some customers and not to others. This comes down to the requirement to offer a public service to all of the public provided the public can pay for it.
Any Bakery can just decide it's only going to make and sell cookies to everyone and skip the wedding cake business. That could be a skill, economic decision or a religious belief. The problem comes when you start offering cakes, but only to people you approve of.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by fullgospel:
do American wedding cakes carry 'slogans' ?
News to me.
To Gary and Bob: Congratulations! May you have many long hot nights of arse-pounding sodomy. Your friends.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Can you begin to imagine being told your sexual attraction must be curbed?
Quite easily.
As a married man, I am constantly sexually attracted to other women, but my religion (along with my love for and loyalty to my wife) tells me to resist it.
What's more, Christianity has always taught that sexual attraction must be curbed - abstinence before marriage and monogamy within it.
You might not like it or agree with it, but it is no shocking novelty.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Nope, sorry.
Nope sorry, you’re confusing apples and oranges.
Objecting to a person’s ethnicity is inherently irrational because they can’t change it.
Objecting to what two people of different ethnicities decide to do as a choice is not inherently irrational, whatever else one might think about it.
If a neo-Nazi chef declined to cater for a Jewish wedding, I would find that person’s attitude repulsive, but on libertarian grounds ( the same grounds on which I support gay marriage rights, along with the rights of religions that I consider to be false to operate freely) would defend their right to do so.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Can you begin to imagine being told your sexual attraction must be curbed?
Quite easily.
As a married man, I am constantly sexually attracted to other women, but my religion (along with my love for and loyalty to my wife) tells me to resist it.
What's more, Christianity has always taught that sexual attraction must be curbed - abstinence before marriage and monogamy within it.
You might not like it or agree with it, but it is no shocking novelty.
This is a patently ridiculous argument. You are not denying yourself all sex, which is what you are asking of LGBT+ people.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
What Palimpsest said a few posts up.
A doctor cannot discriminate in providing an abortion any more than can a baker in the supply of wedding cakes. If a doctor is prepared generally to carry out abortions, then no non-clinical characteristic particular to the patient is a lawful excuse for failing to perform one. That means that a doctor who never offers such a service can be compelled to perform one - just as a baker who ever bakes only bread cannot be compelled to bake a wedding cake. That result does not depend upon there being someone else in the town prepared and qualified to carry out the service.
Some professions have different rules. If someone offers me a brief in my area of practice, I have the time to perform the service and my usual fee is offered, I cannot refuse the brief. By contrast, a solicitor can. In the past, that has meant that I have done work for lay clients I thought then were more than a bit unsavoury, suspicions since confirmed more than once. But as I was not furthering any illegal activity, I was ethically bound to accept the brief.
[ 11. October 2014, 03:37: Message edited by: Gee D ]
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Can you begin to imagine being told your sexual attraction must be curbed?
Quite easily.
As a married man, I am constantly sexually attracted to other women, but my religion (along with my love for and loyalty to my wife) tells me to resist it.
What's more, Christianity has always taught that sexual attraction must be curbed - abstinence before marriage and monogamy within it.
You might not like it or agree with it, but it is no shocking novelty.
OK - I'll rephrase that.
Can you begin to imagine being told your all your sexual attraction must be curbed for ever, including that towards your wife?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Can you begin to imagine being told your sexual attraction must be curbed?
Quite easily.
As a married man, I am constantly sexually attracted to other women, but my religion (along with my love for and loyalty to my wife) tells me to resist it.
What's more, Christianity has always taught that sexual attraction must be curbed - abstinence before marriage and monogamy within it.
You might not like it or agree with it, but it is no shocking novelty.
OK - I'll rephrase that.
Can you begin to imagine being told your all your sexual attraction must be curbed for ever, including that towards your wife?
Don't say "curbed." That sounds like it's just had a damper put on it. Say "smothered." Say "killed." Say "annihilated."
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
Do non-Americans know that many shops that sell wedding cakes actually cater the wedding? That is, there are some shops that sell wedding cakes where you tell them what you would like and someone from the wedding party picks the cake up at the agreed upon date and time.
There are other shops where someone from the store delivers the cake to the wedding and serves the guests. Which requires participation in events that some might morally object to.
Given some of the events I've heard about, I would not be comfortable requiring my employees to serve food at any event where the people are willing to pay us.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
In my limited experience those who provide wedding cakes often provide delivery of said cake since it's easy for it to go awry or require assembly at the point of service. I haven't been to many weddings where they stuck around to serve the cake but that may be because the receptions were at places that wanted to provide service.
If you're not comfortable requiring your employees to be present at a wedding because of the behavior at some weddings be it ritual cannibalism, alcoholism, fist fights, inter-racial mingling, a wedding band playing or something else that troubles your employees then wedding cake service is probably not a service you should be offering to the public for money.
[ 11. October 2014, 20:05: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
If you're not comfortable requiring your employees to be present at a wedding because of the behavior at some weddings be it ritual cannibalism, alcoholism, fist fights, inter-racial mingling, a wedding band playing or something else that troubles your employees then wedding cake service is probably not a service you should be offering to the public for money.
Right. Because we all know that having a service provided because you are wealthy enough to pay someone to provide that service and needing to belong to a secret society where you have to belong in order to even know who provides that service leads to more equality.
Or not.
But that's kind-of where you're view that all my employees must be willing to provide this service at a wedding where they will be performing ritual cannibalism leads.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
It goes back to the morals/religious instructions argument. If you do not do a full enquiry into the fitness of the couple to be married, you have absolutely no right to question any part.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
If you're not comfortable requiring your employees to be present at a wedding because of the behavior at some weddings be it ritual cannibalism, alcoholism, fist fights, inter-racial mingling, a wedding band playing or something else that troubles your employees then wedding cake service is probably not a service you should be offering to the public for money.
Right. Because we all know that having a service provided because you are wealthy enough to pay someone to provide that service and needing to belong to a secret society where you have to belong in order to even know who provides that service leads to more equality.
Or not.
But that's kind-of where you're view that all my employees must be willing to provide this service at a wedding where they will be performing ritual cannibalism leads.
The proposal is that being wealthy enough to pay for the service should allow you to purchase that service from those who offer that service to the public. No need for secret societies or guidebooks to tell you where you can find someone who will sell the service to you.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The proposal is that being wealthy enough to pay for the service should allow you to purchase that service from those who offer that service to the public.
I assume that everyone would nevertheless agree that if a caterer had had a problem with waitresses being groped at the rugby club dinner, the caterer would be well within his rights to black-ball the rugby club?
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas:
Why should we treat 'religious' beliefs differently from other beliefs?
Because (all other things being equal) religious beliefs are a matter of obedience, and one basically cannot -- or rather should not -- disobey God. Or at least what one understands to be the Divine.
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
It's sadism I can't stand.
Frankly, I think that all sadists deserve to have the flesh torn slowly from their bodies with red-hot pincers.
Mental note: Put that on my "limits" list.
I think that there being a sliding scale of reasonableness for various things, with cake baking at one end and abortion on the other, makes the most sense.
If you believe God says you cannot touch pork, then you can't. But that's not the same thing as not baking a cake for someone whose relationship you don't approve of because you think it sends a message or something. After a certain point I think the actual potential "sin" gets so attenuated that it's more using religion as an excuse rather than having it be a real reason.
Of course you could always bake a pork cake and thus the two things would cancel each other out. (That would be a sort of meatloaf, I guess...)
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
To Gary and Bob: Congratulations! May you have many long hot nights of arse-pounding sodomy. Your friends.
I am literally laughing out loud at this right now and Cubby is wondering why... ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
Or "... with your friends," depending on the relationship's boundaries. ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
By the way, jokes aside, while I suspect I don't agree with Kaplan Korday's politics in general (I am not a libertarian), and I don't know enough about his theology to know what to think about it, I do believe that one can believe the doctrine that only sexual intercourse within male-female marriage is permitted to Christians without being a horrible person. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
(One can also believe otherwise and not be a horrible person.) I don't think he's been nasty in this thread to anyone at all.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I assume that everyone would nevertheless agree that if a caterer had had a problem with waitresses being groped at the rugby club dinner, the caterer would be well within his rights to black-ball the rugby club?
In theory, yes. In practice I suspect it's often ignored on the grounds of needing the business and "the boys will be boys" line.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
By the way, jokes aside, while I suspect I don't agree with Kaplan Korday's politics in general (I am not a libertarian), and I don't know enough about his theology to know what to think about it, I do believe that one can believe the doctrine that only sexual intercourse within male-female marriage is permitted to Christians without being a horrible person. (One can also believe otherwise and not be a horrible person.) I don't think he's been nasty in this thread to anyone at all.
I don't think it would be appropriate to comment on Kaplan Korday on this board. I am curious about your more general opinions. Is it possible to believe that inter-racial marriage is not permitted to Christians without being a horrible person? How do you define horrible?
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
The proposal is that being wealthy enough to pay for the service should allow you to purchase that service from those who offer that service to the public. No need for secret societies or guidebooks to tell you where you can find someone who will sell the service to you.
OK. But there's a town in West Virginia (and I know this because my cousin got married there) where no one advertises that they provide wedding cakes. You can certainly buy a sheet cake from Wal-Mart, who will sell a cake to anyone who has the money to buy it, and decorate it as you wish, and serve it and/or hire people to serve it at a gay wedding. And you can approach a baker and ask them to bake you a wedding cake and come to a mutually acceptable agreement on price and service etc. But in order to find someone willing to bake and serve a wedding cake for a gay wedding, you really do need to belong to a secret society who can tell you which person who is not running a state-recognized business (there aren't enough weddings in town for a dedicated wedding-cake business) will agree to bake and serve a wedding cake at a gay wedding.
Because when you try to force certain beliefs on people, you frequently find that all of a sudden no one is willing to offer their services to the general public. It's members only and there's a high membership fee.
Posted by Louise (# 30) on
:
hosting
Value judgements about whether any given poster is nasty or not do not belong on this board (or any other except Hell). Please don't raise such questions outside the Hell board as they cannot be discussed on any other boards.
Thanks,
Louise
DH Host
hosting off
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
There was a time, within living memory, when inter-racial marriage was illegal. Fifty years ago my marriage with my husband would be illegal, in the state that I am now residing in.
It is not at all difficult to find theological arguments from the 1800s proving, with ample Scriptural backing, that it was not God's will for races to intermarry. It is also not at all difficult to find verses supporting the sequestration of women when they're having their period, the murder of Canadians and so on.
What it comes down to is picking and choosing the verses of the Bible you're going to say are God's will. Because you can't do them all.
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
True.
But IME the people who currently oppose gay marriage are not going to change their minds because someone in NJ or MA or CA or wherever sued a baker or wedding photographer or whatever for discrimination.
That's more likely to cause them to dig in their heels and insist on conscience clauses.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
You are not denying yourself all sex, which is what you are asking of LGBT+ people.
Sorry, I haven't been responding because we have had a domestic crisis - burst water main which flooded our house and caused chaos (cue sad violins expressing self-pity) but at least I have computer access back.
I am not "asking" LGBT+ people to do anything, nor am I demanding that they do anything, and I have no desire (assuming that I had the power eg communist or Islamofascist dictator)to force them to do anything.
I just subscribe to the universal belief of all traditions of Christendoms until very recently (and still believed by most of global Christianity today) that homosexual behaviour is wrong.
This is a belief shared by other faith traditions, such as the world's one and a half million Muslims, and I am simply suggesting that in liberal pluralist societies it can and should be accommodated at the level of individuals and private organisations.
And yes, I freely admit that to believe that anyone should go without sex is confronting today in the West, especially if you are not the one going without, but Christendom required it of countless unmarried heterosexual believers for many centuries without anyone's suggesting it was inherently unreasonable.
I personally cannot imagine living without sex, but then I grew up in the West in second half of the twentieth century and imbibed the emerging - and historically novel - cultural consensus that sexual fulfilment is a basic human right.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I am not "asking" LGBT+ people to do anything, nor am I demanding that they do anything, and I have no desire (assuming that I had the power eg communist or Islamofascist dictator)to force them to do anything.
I just subscribe to the universal belief of all traditions of Christendoms until very recently (and still believed by most of global Christianity today) that homosexual behaviour is wrong.
This is a belief shared by other faith traditions, such as the world's one and a half million Muslims,
Fine. I'll take "Arguments made 200 years ago to show that Slavery was OK" for 10 please?
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
I'm not sure how much else I can contribute here to this thread since it seems to be coming down to whether or not gay sex is OK or wrong, which has its own other threads on which the matter has been discussed ad infinitum. So... um, have fun, everyone.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
Kaplan Corday,
The bible contains justification for genocide, murder of children, incest, polygamy and other things which most of Christianity would decry. Why is anti-homosexuality deemed the one thing that cannot be dispensed with?
How does live and let live in this negatively affect you?
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
But IME the people who currently oppose gay marriage are not going to change their minds because someone in NJ or MA or CA or wherever sued a baker or wedding photographer or whatever for discrimination.
That's more likely to cause them to dig in their heels and insist on conscience clauses.
So unless they're allowed to legally ignore a duly constituted civil marriage, they're going to insist on a legal work-around to ignore a duly constituted civil marriage? That seems more circular than persuasive.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Kaplan Corday,
The bible contains justification for genocide, murder of children, incest, polygamy and other things which most of Christianity would decry. Why is anti-homosexuality deemed the one thing that cannot be dispensed with?
How does live and let live in this negatively affect you?
All I know is that my first wife told me to move out almost the exact same day that Canada legalized adoption by homosexual couples. And I'll have you know that it took me about 30 minutes of Googling before I found this out. But it explains a lot. Anyway praise God because otherwise I'd never have married Josephine.
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
On the other hand, My ex and I broke up the year Proposition 8 was passed. So, there you are.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The bible contains justification for genocide, murder of children, incest, polygamy and other things which most of Christianity would decry.
The OT does, and I don't have any satisfactory explanation for that, but the NT doesn't.
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
"Arguments made 200 years ago to show that Slavery was OK"
The two issues are not analogous.
The NT recognises and allows slavery, but does not require it, and in Christendom there has never been a consensus on it anything like the consensus on homosexuality.
Also, the premise of this discussion is a common commitment to liberal pluralism, which can quite arguably accommodate libertarianism on attitudes toward homosexuality, but can in no way accommodate the coercion involved in slavery.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
[QUOTE]OK. But there's a town in West Virginia (and I know this because my cousin got married there) where no one advertises that they provide wedding cakes. You can certainly buy a sheet cake from Wal-Mart, who will sell a cake to anyone who has the money to buy it, and decorate it as you wish, and serve it and/or hire people to serve it at a gay wedding. And you can approach a baker and ask them to bake you a wedding cake and come to a mutually acceptable agreement on price and service etc. But in order to find someone willing to bake and serve a wedding cake for a gay wedding, you really do need to belong to a secret society who can tell you which person who is not running a state-recognized business (there aren't enough weddings in town for a dedicated wedding-cake business) will agree to bake and serve a wedding cake at a gay wedding.
Because when you try to force certain beliefs on people, you frequently find that all of a sudden no one is willing to offer their services to the general public. It's members only and there's a high membership fee.
So if the law doesn't prevent discrimination Gay people won't be able to get wedding cakes served by Christian bakeries but straight people will. And if the law does prevent such discrimination Gay people and Straight people won't be able to find a cake without finding a secret society (they're called Wedding Planners, some of whom might be gay or gay friendly).
Well boo hoo for the poor straight people to have to carry some of the load of the discrimination they're so happy to toss on Gay people. It may even provide a business opportunity for someone who doesn't discriminate and can be known to the public. As for the exclusionary cliques, hopefully the secrecy of business will put a crimp in their finances. It's a start and if the cake providers are a secret society, the practice loses the sanctity of tradition in the long run.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I am not "asking" LGBT+ people to do anything, nor am I demanding that they do anything, and I have no desire (assuming that I had the power eg communist or Islamofascist dictator)to force them to do anything.
Yes you are demanding they not them not to worship in the church they were raised in if they have sex.
quote:
I just subscribe to the universal belief of all traditions of Christendoms until very recently (and still believed by most of global Christianity today) that homosexual behaviour is wrong.
This is a belief shared by other faith traditions, such as the world's one and a half million Muslims, and I am simply suggesting that in liberal pluralist societies it can and should be accommodated at the level of individuals and private organisations.
And yes, I freely admit that to believe that anyone should go without sex is confronting today in the West, especially if you are not the one going without, but Christendom required it of countless unmarried heterosexual believers for many centuries without anyone's suggesting it was inherently unreasonable.
I personally cannot imagine living without sex, but then I grew up in the West in second half of the twentieth century and imbibed the emerging - and historically novel - cultural consensus that sexual fulfilment is a basic human right.
Except when it was considered reasonable to demand unmarried people not have sex (with lots of winking when it happened), it was in general considered unreasonable to demand that people not have sex if they were married (shakers excepted). This was not just in the twentieth century but back when they were mumbling about "it was better to marry than burn". You glibly equate the two restrictions while saying how much you enjoy sex in your marriage but that same sex marriage shouldn't be allowed.
You also talk in this thread about tolerance after postulating that people with innate qualities should be tolerated but explicit behavior is fair game to not be tolerated. It's an weird halfway point and I don't agree with your distinction, but it's worth noting that your simple belief in the persecutions recommended by traditional religions is actually an explicit behavior and not an innate quality. You can just simply stop believing in those practices.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
"Arguments made 200 years ago to show that Slavery was OK"
The two issues are not analogous.
The NT recognises and allows slavery, but does not require it,
It merely requires slaves to obey their masters.
quote:
and in Christendom there has never been a consensus on it anything like the consensus on homosexuality.
Seriously?
quote:
Also, the premise of this discussion is a common commitment to liberal pluralism, which can quite arguably accommodate libertarianism on attitudes toward homosexuality, but can in no way accommodate the coercion involved in slavery.
Indeed it can. You are welcome to preach your beliefs. But this does not free you from peoples' reactions to them. The same liberal plurality that lets you say them lets me call what you are preaching homophobic, hateful, and harmful. If you want to use liberal plurality allowing you to speak your beliefs then the very same token allows my reply.
(And on a sidenote, given the number of Libertarians who are even to this day pro-Confederacy bringing up the word Libertarian and slavery in the same sentence doesn't necessarily have the connotations you want).
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I ask again:
So how does that differ from the case of the doctor who doesn't want to offer advice on contraception? He's not refusing to offer advice to a particular person - he's putting restrictions on the services he offers.
How does a doctor who doesn't want to offer contraceptive advice differ from a function room that doesn't want to permit the consumption of alcohol, or pork, or whatever, or from the charity shop that doesn't want to sell used porn?
Is it just a question of degree - that the ability to access contraception is more important than the ability to have a glass of wine with your lunch?
There are several issues mixed in here. One is, there are many doctors who don't usually offer advice on contraception; e.g. my brother the gastroenterologist. If he is advertising that he is a specialist who has a specialty that covers offering advice on contraception; e.g. a a general practice doctor or gynecologist, then they have an obligation to treat things which fall within their specialty or refer to someone else who does provide the service. In rural locations where they are the only Doctor in the locality, if they are practicing it falls to them to provide services. What the compulsion to do so is; if any, is going to vary by country and state because of things like government coverage.
The Federal Court in Washington State has ruled that
requiring pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception violates their constitutional rights As you can see from the discussion on the page, what requirements are reasonable is an ongoing discussion complicated further by the fact that most pharmacies dispense a whole bunch of federally funded drugs ( as well as ones that the person has to pay for in the United States).
It's an ongoing debate, but I doubt that a pharmacist would be allowed to not dispense to Black people because of their religious belief. A pharmacist who would only dispense contraception to married women ( or un married woman) would probably get pulled in on discrimination charges.I also doubt they would be allowed to treat some customers and not to others. This comes down to the requirement to offer a public service to all of the public provided the public can pay for it.
Any Bakery can just decide it's only going to make and sell cookies to everyone and skip the wedding cake business. That could be a skill, economic decision or a religious belief. The problem comes when you start offering cakes, but only to people you approve of.
But the cake shop concerned wasn't doing that: it was offering cakes, but not with (as they saw it) offensive slogans on them. Would you, for example, require them to make a sell a cake with the words "white supremacy" on it?
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
But the cake shop concerned wasn't doing that: it was offering cakes, but not with (as they saw it) offensive slogans on them. Would you, for example, require them to make a sell a cake with the words "white supremacy" on it?
There have, confusingly, been several "cake shops" in the news. Some bakers have refused to make (normal, white tiered) wedding cakes for gay couples. A different cake shop refused to produce a cake with the slogans and logo of a gay rights organization, to be used to advance the political aims of that organization.
If posters would identify the particular bakery-related activity that they are discussing, we might navigate our way out of a morass of circular confusion.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I was thinking of the latter case (Belfast IIRC). I don't think the former instance is defensible since it is clear discrimination against a particular class of people; the latter is more complex IMO.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
This story is an example.
quote:
Gavin Boyd of the gay rights organisation the Rainbow Project, said the firm "cannot have their cake and eat it" in relation to equality legislation in Northern Ireland. "The law on this matter is clear. Companies may not pick and choose the laws that apply to them and they cannot pick the sexual orientation of their customers," Boyd said.
Whatever service we provide, we can't pick the sexual orientation of our customers or the message they want put on their cakes. If the slogan is within the law, then we write it.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Agreed re the first, but the second is more nuanced IMO, particularly if, for example, the shop says in its advertising etc, "We reserve the right to not ice cakes with messages which we consider to be offensive"; the nature of their service and its limitations are then plain for all to see in advance.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Whatever service we provide, we can't pick the sexual orientation of our customers or the message they want put on their cakes. If the slogan is within the law, then we write it.
This stands in opposition to the stance taken by que sais-je and colleagues at the charity shop, where they refuse to sell entirely legal literature that they disapprove of.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
First of all, I believe both Say Say and I were talking about the bakery that refused to sell a stock wedding cake to someone who had a civil marriage. There's a shop in Oregon that is being sued for violation of the discrimination laws. In the United States a lot of the law comes from the anti discrimination law; it was decided that you couldn't have a public business with a "Whites Only" policy and the anti-discrimination law carries a lot of power.
To hair split on the other case (Belfast) where a bakery refused to put a slogan on a cake for a political organization. A Bakery can probably avoid this by only offering stock slogans. In fact there are bakeries that only offer to put on a premade transfer sheet rather than ice an inscription. When they offer the service of a custom slogan but refuse to provide one for a legal slogan that they nudge the edges of the law. Since the law has substantial differences in both places, I am not going to attempt a legal analysis of the conflict between the Belfast religious freedom laws and freedom of speech laws. I'd probably be astonished at the actual laws.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
In the United States a lot of the law comes from the anti discrimination law; it was decided that you couldn't have a public business with a "Whites Only" policy and the anti-discrimination law carries a lot of power.
To hair split on the other case (Belfast) where a bakery refused to put a slogan on a cake for a political organization. A Bakery can probably avoid this by only offering stock slogans.
Not necessarily. Very few anti-discrimination laws forbid discrimination on the basis of political opinion.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Whatever service we provide, we can't pick the sexual orientation of our customers or the message they want put on their cakes. If the slogan is within the law, then we write it.
This stands in opposition to the stance taken by que sais-je and colleagues at the charity shop, where they refuse to sell entirely legal literature that they disapprove of.
I'm not sure I see the relationship between putting messages on brand-new cakes, and selecting used books to resell. Can you make this clearer?
Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
You are welcome to preach your beliefs. But this does not free you from peoples' reactions to them. The same liberal plurality that lets you say them lets me call what you are preaching homophobic, hateful, and harmful. If you want to use liberal plurality allowing you to speak your beliefs then the very same token allows my reply.
You can say what you like.
What you can't do rationally is try to pretend that a policy that says that private individuals and organisations should be free to support or not support homosexual practice, is analogous to a policy which says that some human beings should be free to enslave other human beings.
quote:
(And on a sidenote, given the number of Libertarians who are even to this day pro-Confederacy bringing up the word Libertarian and slavery in the same sentence doesn't necessarily have the connotations you want).
The fact that some libertarians fly Confederate flags does not negate libertarianism any more than comunist extremists negate socialism.
As it happens, like most people I am not a "pure" libertarian, but a mixture of liberalism, conservatism and state interventionism (eg universal health schemes).
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
You are welcome to preach your beliefs. But this does not free you from peoples' reactions to them. The same liberal plurality that lets you say them lets me call what you are preaching homophobic, hateful, and harmful. If you want to use liberal plurality allowing you to speak your beliefs then the very same token allows my reply.
You can say what you like.
What you can't do rationally is try to pretend that a policy that says that private individuals and organisations should be free to support or not support homosexual practice, is analogous to a policy which says that some human beings should be free to enslave other human beings.
I can however point out that the arguments you made that I was replying to was honed in the battle to preserve slavery. Which means that as arguments in themselves they are dubious to the point that the premise is almost certainly invalid.
And glad to see you aren't a pure Libertarian.
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
Technically there's a difference between whether or not the Bible supports slaves being obedient to their masters (with lots of other important stuff, totally violated in the American South, relating to the treatment of people hierarchically over and under oneself), and whether not racially-based slavery (and/or taking people captive from their homes in the first place, and so on) is somehow mandated or approved of.
As well as the question of whether or not those arguments really are the same as the others in question--whether the Old and New Testaments are being properly understood on such matters--the place of Christian Tradition--the conclusions Reason can draw from all of these--and so on.
Arguably the question, "Is the kind of slavery in the American South in the 1800s something the Bible and the traditional Christian faith could genuinely support?" could deserve its own Purgatory thread, though I don't feel a real need to go start it.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
Technically there's a difference between whether or not the Bible supports slaves being obedient to their masters (with lots of other important stuff, totally violated in the American South, relating to the treatment of people hierarchically over and under oneself), and whether not racially-based slavery (and/or taking people captive from their homes in the first place, and so on) is somehow mandated or approved of.
As well as the question of whether or not those arguments really are the same as the others in question--whether the Old and New Testaments are being properly understood on such matters--the place of Christian Tradition--the conclusions Reason can draw from all of these--and so on.
Arguably the question, "Is the kind of slavery in the American South in the 1800s something the Bible and the traditional Christian faith could genuinely support?" could deserve its own Purgatory thread, though I don't feel a real need to go start it.
The Conquistadors and the Southern Baptists, both cited their faith to justify slavery. Your vast array of technicalities didn't seem to matter. What period of time are you claiming is the period of Traditional Christianity? This sure does sound like the old "they're not real Christians" Dance. They thought they were traditional Christians and cited the Bible as an authority.
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Your vast array of technicalities didn't seem to matter.
Some of these things may be technical but they are not technicalities in that sense.
quote:
This sure does sound like the old "they're not real Christians" Dance.
So what? That's not relevant to whether or not some form of slavery (but not the abuses nor the false notions of one "race" being superior or inferior to another) was/is permitted by God.
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
Or even specifically given rules and regulations by God, in the Old Testament, in exhaustive detail. Forgot to add that.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
a policy that says that private individuals and organisations should be free to support or not support homosexual practice,
I know this was not the direction this quote was headed, but let us stop and examine this part.
A baker is not providing support for any belief other than, perhaps, the belief that people might enjoy celebrating events with baked goods. Most often, the motivation is "I believe I can bake well, perhaps I can make a living doing so".
When a baker writes Congratulations, Bob, on a Job Well Done, s/he has no idea what Bob has done well. Could before making strides to establish a new Nazi party.* Could be in establishing a new chapter of the Jimmy Saville fan club.
Point is, bake shops do not exist to support ideals, they exist to provide baked goods.
*Yeah, I know, the BNP already exists.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
So what? That's not relevant to whether or not some form of slavery (but not the abuses nor the false notions of one "race" being superior or inferior to another) was/is permitted by God.
It all derives from the same hermaneutic though, doesn't it? If a plain reading of the Biblical text is interpreted as merely symbolic then the whole Bible is worthless.
Or, to put it another way, if God didn't really institute capital punishment for homosexuality at Sinai/curse the descendents of Ham to perpetual slavery then Christ is not risen and we are of all people most to be pitied.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I'm not sure I see the relationship between putting messages on brand-new cakes, and selecting used books to resell. Can you make this clearer?
Each is a form of censorship by the vendor. In one case, the vendor prefers not to write messages that he disapproves of on a cake; in the second case, he prefers not to sell used books that he disapproves of. (In the charity shop case, it's not just choosing to not stock the books - it's pulping them rather than making them available for purchase.)
To me, refusing to produce cakes with a gay theme is almost the same act as being a seller of second hand books who pulps gay fiction. I'm not sure anyone has ever asked for a cake celebrating true crime books or Jeffrey Archer, but ...
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
Whatever service we provide, we can't pick the sexual orientation of our customers or the message they want put on their cakes. If the slogan is within the law, then we write it.
Specialty stores exist in all 50 states to provide (NSFW link): erotic cakes to those who want them.
Doesn't mean I think every bakery should be forced to bake cakes in the shape of a penis. In fact, I'm pretty sure forcing one of my employees to do that against their will would constitute sexual harassment.
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
We always select from Bible admonitions. Some we simply ignore. Have a look at the fabric content label in the garments you are wearing right this instant. Any polyester-cotton in there? Uh uh, God doesn't like that...
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Specialty stores exist in all 50 states to provide (NSFW link): erotic cakes to those who want them.
Doesn't mean I think every bakery should be forced to bake cakes in the shape of a penis. In fact, I'm pretty sure forcing one of my employees to do that against their will would constitute sexual harassment.
I'm pretty sure that 'forcing' an employee of an erotic cake shop to bake a penis-shaped cake constitutes a condition of employment.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Your vast array of technicalities didn't seem to matter.
Some of these things may be technical but they are not technicalities in that sense.
And they still don't matter. The largest groups of people calling themselves Christian at the time used their interpretation of the Bible to justify their use of slavery. If you went to retroactively say "They're not real Christians" then you're attempting to redefine Christianity to avoid responsibility..
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Doesn't mean I think every bakery should be forced to bake cakes in the shape of a penis. In fact, I'm pretty sure forcing one of my employees to do that against their will would constitute sexual harassment.
Has anyone tried to force you to make such a cake? Your customers should acknowledge your expertise and ask for cakes that look like a straw man.
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
Palimpsest: Has anyone tried to force you to make such a cake? Your customers should acknowledge your expertise and ask for cakes that look like a straw man.
I find the argument pretty solid actually. If a (normal; not specifically erotic) bakery can refuse to bake a penis-shaped cake, regardless of whether it is ever asked to do so, it can also refuse to print certain texts on a cake.
My own take on it, which I'll probably fail magnificently to solidify juridically, is that bakers cannot discriminate people, but they can refuse to print certain texts. So they can't refuse to print "Happy marriage John and Jim" but they can refuse "Take one up the arse", provided they refuse this for heterosexual couples too.
My biggest problems is with artists. Surely, a gospel singer can refuse to sing at an Eid Al-Fitr. But can he refuse to sing at a gay wedding? I really don't know well where to draw the line here (and between this singer and the baker).
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Specialty stores exist in all 50 states to provide (NSFW link): erotic cakes to those who want them.
Doesn't mean I think every bakery should be forced to bake cakes in the shape of a penis. In fact, I'm pretty sure forcing one of my employees to do that against their will would constitute sexual harassment.
I'm pretty sure that 'forcing' an employee of an erotic cake shop to bake a penis-shaped cake constitutes a condition of employment.
Wow. There really is no end to the misrepresentation, is there?
When did you start working for the Libertarian Party?
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Doesn't mean I think every bakery should be forced to bake cakes in the shape of a penis. In fact, I'm pretty sure forcing one of my employees to do that against their will would constitute sexual harassment.
I'm pretty sure that 'forcing' an employee of an erotic cake shop to bake a penis-shaped cake constitutes a condition of employment.
Wow. There really is no end to the misrepresentation, is there?
It's a legitimate question. If religious conscience is a legitimate excuse for not doing your job, how far does it extend? (e.g. my earlier hypothetical of a doctor who becomes a Christian Scientist. Or an equally hypothetical Muslim bartender who wants to only serve non-alcoholic drinks.)
[ 15. October 2014, 01:43: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
If you went to retroactively say "They're not real Christians" then you're attempting to redefine Christianity to avoid responsibility..
I'm not trying to avoid any responsibility whatsoever, thank you. Please leave my motives out of this.
God knows about who "real Christians" are and who are not. The question of who is "real" in His eyes and who is not is not the same sense of "real Christian" in the sense that covers people who ostensibly share the same array of theologies and behaviors, who can all at least technically be considered "real Christians" in another sense, which can in theory include everyone from Spong to the Inquisitors and beyond.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
(Or an equally hypothetical Muslim bartender who wants to only serve non-alcoholic drinks.)
A Muslim bartender seeking to serve only non-alcoholic drinks would be unwise to seek employment in a pub - a place whose entire raison d'etre is the serving of alcoholic drinks, but might be comfortable in a coffee shop or juice bar.
Similarly, someone who doesn't want to bake penis cakes shouldn't look for a job at the local erotic bakery, but it might not be unreasonable for someone working at a normal bakery to not want to frost a penis.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ChastMastr:
Arguably the question, "Is the kind of slavery in the American South in the 1800s something the Bible and the traditional Christian faith could genuinely support?" could deserve its own Purgatory thread, though I don't feel a real need to go start it.
You could start a thread but it would be futile sophistry because of the historical facts. As shown in the rise of the Southern Baptists preached that the Bible supported slavery Of course it wasn't genuine support just an astonishing replica.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I have just encountered another, rather different example which I don't think is totally off-topic in my line of work:
My client is selling his flat to Ms Purchaser who is in turn selling her own property. My client is also buying on and his sellers have become 'twitchy' of late (not unreasonably, as the transaction has become protracted). Ms Purchaser's buyer is getting a mortgage and the mortgage lender has commissioned a survey to be done on Ms Purchaser's property. We heard over three weeks ago that the survey was being held up because there was a wasps' nest ay Ms Purchaser's property and the surveyor couldn't attend until this was removed (health and safety, again not unreasonably).
I discovered yesterday that this wasps' nest is still in situ and, on blowing my gasket at the estate agent and the estate agent in turn venting her spleen at Ms Purchaser, we discover that the reason for the stay of execution is that Ms Purchaser is a practising Buddhist and has vowed never to harm a living creature. (I have to say that in my 20+ years of property law practice, that's a completely new one on me!)
So....should the rest of the chain be held to ransom by Ms P's no doubt sincerely-held belief, with the risk that the chain will collapse, or should Ms P really not be in the business of trying to move house, or...what?
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Doesn't mean I think every bakery should be forced to bake cakes in the shape of a penis. In fact, I'm pretty sure forcing one of my employees to do that against their will would constitute sexual harassment.
I'm pretty sure that 'forcing' an employee of an erotic cake shop to bake a penis-shaped cake constitutes a condition of employment.
Wow. There really is no end to the misrepresentation, is there?
It's a legitimate question. If religious conscience is a legitimate excuse for not doing your job, how far does it extend? (e.g. my earlier hypothetical of a doctor who becomes a Christian Scientist. Or an equally hypothetical Muslim bartender who wants to only serve non-alcoholic drinks.)
I think you misread saysay there. They were saying that erotic cake stores exist - but at a nonerotic cake store the employee shouldn't have to bake a cake in the shape of a penis.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Correct. The employee (and the shop owner) should have the right to refuse to make a product s/he/they find offensive
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I think you misread saysay there. They were saying that erotic cake stores exist - but at a nonerotic cake store the employee shouldn't have to bake a cake in the shape of a penis.
Nor should bakery employees (erotic or otherwise) have to paint their customers' apartments, even if paid to do so. Not because it violates their religious conscience or because they find it "offensive", but because that's not their job! Trying to cast refusing to offer specific services as a matter of religious conscience misses the point very badly.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Correct. The employee (and the shop owner) should have the right to refuse to make a product s/he/they find offensive
If that's the case they shouldn't put it on the menu.
If you are employed as a pharmacist and find being a pharmacist and dispensing the morning after pill to be offensive you can resign. You are unwilling to do your job.
If you are employed to bake wedding cakes and find certain weddings to be offensive you can resign. Or you can take wedding cakes off the menu.
If you reserve the right to censor the messages on the cakes you bake that means that you are responsible for every single message you accept and produce. Both legally and morally. You aren't just a cake baker - you are a cake baker and an editor.
And @Creosus, most bakeries don't say "We will bake any shape of cake you like" - this is the point of difference. They do offer any personal messages.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
So...um...what's the difference between not baking cakes in certain shapes and not baking cakes with certain personal messages on them? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So...um...what's the difference between not baking cakes in certain shapes and not baking cakes with certain personal messages on them?
That your business says it will do the one but not the other. If your business were to say that it would do no personalised messages then it would be fine not to do personalised messages. If you were to claim "We bake cakes in whatever shape you want" then the penis cake would be fine.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
That your business says it will do the one but not the other. If your business were to say that it would do no personalised messages then it would be fine not to do personalised messages. If you were to claim "We bake cakes in whatever shape you want" then the penis cake would be fine.
But nobody actually says that. They say "we bake custom cakes" and have a (probably unwritten) rule that they will turn down anything they consider in bad taste (which might be a penis, or a disemboweled torso, or the head of your political opponent on a sliver platter, or ...)
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on
:
You have a charmingly optimistic opinion of what cake bakers can do. To make a cake in the shape of a disemboweled torso can be done, but it is not within the skill of an ordinary cake shop. It would be perfectly OK, in other words, for the baker to say, "That's beyond me, sir," and decline the job. The same with a cake in the shape of a penis -- you need a special pan in that shape (shop for it on google, it's there) and if you don't have it you could easily say, "We don't have a pan in that shape."
Where the difficulty comes is when they ALREADY do wedding cakes, in the standard size/shape, but refuse to do them for a certain subset of customers.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
I find it outrageous that this bakery won't bake me a cake in a non-Euclidean shape! This is clearly the tyranny of orientable surfaces.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Where the difficulty comes is when they ALREADY do wedding cakes, in the standard size/shape, but refuse to do them for a certain subset of customers.
There are two separate "difficulties". One is indeed the desire not to make their normal wedding cake for a gay couple.
The other is a desire not to make a cake bearing particular slogans. It is this second "difficulty" - the Irish baker question - that has been expanded into a discussion of pound cake penes, confectionery cocks, and charity shops pulping true crime novels.
Posted by Planeta Plicata (# 17543) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
It's a legitimate question. If religious conscience is a legitimate excuse for not doing your job, how far does it extend? (e.g. my earlier hypothetical of a doctor who becomes a Christian Scientist. Or an equally hypothetical Muslim bartender who wants to only serve non-alcoholic drinks.)
Well, it seems like there are a couple of answers. You could have a balancing test, where you weigh the (ostensible) good of religious freedom against other relevant factors (e.g., how easy it would be to get another employee to bake the cake, whether the employer actually wants to sell the cake or is just having a laugh, etc.). Or you could simply deny religious exemptions in all circumstances. (I suppose there's also option three: employees are allowed to get out of any request by citing religious objections, but I don't think anyone seriously defends this view.)
If you ask me, what the second option achieves in terms of clarity, it loses in terms of ignoring considerations that a lot of people feel are relevant -- which is one reason why in America the federal government and a number of states have chosen the first option. Does that result in line-drawing problems? Sure. But so does determining negligence, and yet we don't abolish the negligence standard in favor of strict liability (or no liability) despite the obvious difficulties in administering it.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
And to continue the tail of the poor oppressed people with religious beliefs is the case of a North Carolina Magistrate refuses to perform same sex marriage because it violates his religious beliefs.
It's unlikely this will pass muster, but it's going to take another round of lawsuits. In the meanwhile, the anti-gay crowd is piling on the religious belief attack in a way that will end up largely discrediting religious belief.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So...um...what's the difference between not baking cakes in certain shapes and not baking cakes with certain personal messages on them?
That your business says it will do the one but not the other. If your business were to say that it would do no personalised messages then it would be fine not to do personalised messages. If you were to claim "We bake cakes in whatever shape you want" then the penis cake would be fine.
So, what's the problem with saying, "we do offer a discretionary customisation service [shape/ message] but reserve the right to refuse to [make/write] a product we consider offensive"?
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
In that case the jury is out for making a special cake for the UK physiotherapy association ...
LOGO (designed by someone who never heard of Freud)
[ 16. October 2014, 09:41: Message edited by: itsarumdo ]
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
So...um...what's the difference between not baking cakes in certain shapes and not baking cakes with certain personal messages on them?
That your business says it will do the one but not the other. If your business were to say that it would do no personalised messages then it would be fine not to do personalised messages. If you were to claim "We bake cakes in whatever shape you want" then the penis cake would be fine.
So, what's the problem with saying, "we do offer a discretionary customisation service [shape/ message] but reserve the right to refuse to [make/write] a product we consider offensive"?
Again, that's exercising editorial control. There's a difference between being a publisher and being a printer and by actually approving the messages you write on the cakes you're opening up lots of cans of worms.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
So what about (showing my age here) the case of the Sex Pistols' album Never Mind the Bollocks, with employees of EMI refusing to print the record?
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Again, that's exercising editorial control. There's a difference between being a publisher and being a printer and by actually approving the messages you write on the cakes you're opening up lots of cans of worms.
You're suggesting that a printer who refused to print porn, for example, would be setting himself up to take editorial responsibility for everything that came out of his printer's shop?
I find that point of view absurd. There are thousands of examples of vendors applying what we might call "community standards" without being held to this binary distinction that you have invented.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Quite
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I have just encountered another, rather different example which I don't think is totally off-topic in my line of work:
My client is selling his flat to Ms Purchaser who is in turn selling her own property. My client is also buying on and his sellers have become 'twitchy' of late (not unreasonably, as the transaction has become protracted). Ms Purchaser's buyer is getting a mortgage and the mortgage lender has commissioned a survey to be done on Ms Purchaser's property. We heard over three weeks ago that the survey was being held up because there was a wasps' nest ay Ms Purchaser's property and the surveyor couldn't attend until this was removed (health and safety, again not unreasonably).
I discovered yesterday that this wasps' nest is still in situ and, on blowing my gasket at the estate agent and the estate agent in turn venting her spleen at Ms Purchaser, we discover that the reason for the stay of execution is that Ms Purchaser is a practising Buddhist and has vowed never to harm a living creature. (I have to say that in my 20+ years of property law practice, that's a completely new one on me!)
So....should the rest of the chain be held to ransom by Ms P's no doubt sincerely-held belief, with the risk that the chain will collapse, or should Ms P really not be in the business of trying to move house, or...what?
That's an interesting one. I suppose I would say that the burden ought to be on Ms P to find a way out of this tangle or else to withdraw from her arrangements. (Me, I'd probably hire someone to come out and move the freaking nest, even if it meant dismantling the door or window frame and replacing it.) And I'd give her a time frame. She has the right to her religious practices, but not the right to insist that everyone else's lives be held up by them.
Posted by Jane R (# 331) on
:
...or, as it's autumn, you could just wait a few more weeks until they die naturally. Seems unfair on the other people in the chain, though (and why didn't she tell you immediately that she didn't want to kill the wasps?)
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
That's kind of the line I've suggested to the estate agent to adopt: the little black-n-yellow fellows will be asleep or naturally dead by now so nice Mr Pest Controller can gently take out the nest and take it to the middle of the forest where they can all live out what remains of their days happily ever after...
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Again, that's exercising editorial control. There's a difference between being a publisher and being a printer and by actually approving the messages you write on the cakes you're opening up lots of cans of worms.
You're suggesting that a printer who refused to print porn, for example, would be setting himself up to take editorial responsibility for everything that came out of his printer's shop?
That depends on how he did it. As far as I can tell no printer reads through everything they are asked to print and takes a line item veto.
quote:
I find that point of view absurd. There are thousands of examples of vendors applying what we might call "community standards" without being held to this binary distinction that you have invented.
There are indeed. People can decide what to stock on their own shelves. Plenty of newsagents don't stock porn. But when you go into a shop, what's there is what's on the shelves. Artists can choose their own commissions (sometimes) - and I don't in any way mean to imply that the best bakers aren't artists*.
* At time of linking there are some spectacularly good cakes on that page of cake wrecks. But cake wrecks specialises in both the sublime and the riduclous.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
You're suggesting that a printer who refused to print porn, for example, would be setting himself up to take editorial responsibility for everything that came out of his printer's shop?
Porn is a choice.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Then so is icing a slogan on a cake!
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Then so is icing a slogan on a cake!
Indeed. In a public business you can always choose to work somewhere else.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Or, if you are the owner of a private business, choose not to print porn or ice a cake with offensive words.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Then so is icing a slogan on a cake!
Well, I meant consuming porn is a choice, being gay isn't.
But let's take it your direction: Not making porn cakes is denying porn cake to everyone, not doing gay wedding cakes is discrimination.
Pretty simple.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Or, if you are the owner of a private business, choose not to print porn or ice a cake with offensive words.
Private business? I suppose if you run the High Street Christian Church of Non-Inclusiveness, serving only the members of the High Street Christian Church of Non-Inclusiveness, you can conform to the policies of the High Street Christian Church of Non-Inclusiveness.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Porn is a choice.
Yes indeed, and the fact that it is a choice is not at all relevant to the question of whether a cake-maker refusing to print porn is exercising editorial control over everything he produces.
There is indeed an argument that says that things that aren't choices (such as sexuality) should be treated differently to things that are choices, but that's not the one we were having.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Yes indeed, and the fact that it is a choice is not at all relevant to the question of whether a cake-maker refusing to print porn is exercising editorial control over everything he produces.
There is indeed an argument that says that things that aren't choices (such as sexuality) should be treated differently to things that are choices, but that's not the one we were having.
Really, the demand that Bakers bake pornographic wedding cakes is the argument we've been having? Is there a specific case of a lawsuit against a baker who refuses to do so that we're talking about? Or is this just another straw man?
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Really, the demand that Bakers bake pornographic wedding cakes is the argument we've been having?
No.
quote:
Is there a specific case of a lawsuit against a baker who refuses to do so that we're talking about?
No.
quote:
Or is this just another straw man?
Yes.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Then so is icing a slogan on a cake!
Well, I meant consuming porn is a choice, being gay isn't.
But let's take it your direction: Not making porn cakes is denying porn cake to everyone, not doing gay wedding cakes is discrimination.
Pretty simple.
Er...no: not icing a cake with a slogan which you regard as offensive is denying that particular product to everyone and is therefore not discrimination.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Or, if you are the owner of a private business, choose not to print porn or ice a cake with offensive words.
Private business? I suppose if you run the High Street Christian Church of Non-Inclusiveness, serving only the members of the High Street Christian Church of Non-Inclusiveness, you can conform to the policies of the High Street Christian Church of Non-Inclusiveness.
Eh? I really have no idea what sort of argument you are trying to put forward here . I am saying that as the owner of a private business, you can choose which goods and services to offer your customers (as long as you do not discriminate between customers): that is a private arrangement between you and your customers/ clients and nowt to do with the state unless it is an illegal product you are offering.
For example: I am a lawyer. I do not offer all legal services under the sun to my clients but I specialise in property work. I do not, for example, conduct litigation and, if a client or prospective client were to ask me to sue someone for him/ her, I would refuse, not because of who the client might be but simply because I don't offer that particular legal product.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
For example: I am a lawyer. I do not offer all legal services under the sun to my clients but I specialise in property work. I do not, for example, conduct litigation and, if a client or prospective client were to ask me to sue someone for him/ her, I would refuse, not because of who the client might be but simply because I don't offer that particular legal product.
Yes, but if you offer a service you can't discriminate as to who you offer it to. You can't say 'this legal product is available to everyone except black people' for example.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
This London bus company also need to do some staff training in equality.
I have quite a few blind friends who get refused due to having a dog. Quite often taxi drivers refuse them (for religious reasons, dogs are offensive to them) A London Tesco store refused a blind woman with her Guide Dog and shouted at her to get out of the store. But it is against the law for a firm to refuse a person with an assistance dog - however personally offended against dogs the person offering the service may be. They can not chose who to give their service to.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
For example: I am a lawyer. I do not offer all legal services under the sun to my clients but I specialise in property work. I do not, for example, conduct litigation and, if a client or prospective client were to ask me to sue someone for him/ her, I would refuse, not because of who the client might be but simply because I don't offer that particular legal product.
Yes, but if you offer a service you can't discriminate as to who you offer it to. You can't say 'this legal product is available to everyone except black people' for example.
Correct - and neither was the Belfast baker IIRC. They were discriminating in the type of product they were offering (lawful) not the type of person being served (unlawful).
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
For example: I am a lawyer. I do not offer all legal services under the sun to my clients but I specialise in property work. I do not, for example, conduct litigation and, if a client or prospective client were to ask me to sue someone for him/ her, I would refuse, not because of who the client might be but simply because I don't offer that particular legal product.
Yes, but if you offer a service you can't discriminate as to who you offer it to. You can't say 'this legal product is available to everyone except black people' for example.
Correct - and neither was the Belfast baker IIRC. They were discriminating in the type of product they were offering (lawful) not the type of person being served (unlawful).
No. The product is a cake with writing. The request was for a cake with writing.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
..or a cake with only certain types of writing on it. In a liberal society people are (or should be) free to buy and sell what products they want...otherwise we are back to the newsagent proprietor being forced to sell porn.
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
..or a cake with only certain types of writing on it. In a liberal society people are (or should be) free to buy and sell what products they want...otherwise we are back to the newsagent proprietor being forced to sell porn.
You can not equate this with porn!
The idea that there is something 'wrong' with two people getting married is completely beyond me
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I don't believe there is anything wrong with equal marriage. But equally I believe that, in a free, liberal and democratic society, a proprietor should be free to not sell a particular type of product to which s/he objects.
Another example: Jim is a owner of a shop which sells dolls; that's what he does for a living. However, he refuses to sell Barbie dolls since, for him, they objectify and stereotype women and he thus finds them offensive. Should Jim be forced to sell Barbies?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't believe there is anything wrong with equal marriage. But equally I believe that, in a free, liberal and democratic society, a proprietor should be free to not sell a particular type of product to which s/he objects.
Another example: Jim is a owner of a shop which sells dolls; that's what he does for a living. However, he refuses to sell Barbie dolls since, for him, they objectify and stereotype women and he thus finds them offensive. Should Jim be forced to sell Barbies?
If he doesn't stock them, then he doesn't sell them - end of story.
As I keep saying - the cake shop do sell cakes with slogans, so they should provide any (legal) slogan, or none. They can't go picking and choosing what is offensive and isn't. If they don't want to sell cakes with slogans, that's fine. Bakers are not the moral arbiters of society.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
No, he can't discriminate as to whom he sells them. But I'm - for the umpteenth time - not talking about that. I am not talking about persons but products.
I ask again: should Jim be forced to sell a product which he doesn't agree with?
[cp with Boogie - neither are newsagents or doll-sellers, but they are surely free to determine their products that they sell??]
[ 21. October 2014, 14:41: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
[cp with Boogie - neither are newsagents or doll-sellers, but they are surely free to determine their products that they sell??]
Absolutely.
If they don't want to sell cakes with slogans then they don't have to sell cakes with slogans. They could always sell cakes with a space for people to put their own slogans.
But they can't advertise cakes with slogans then (trying to be moral arbiters) pick and choose which slogans are 'right' or 'wrong' for people to order.
They could have a stock set for people to choose from and say 'we never do custom slogans'
I think all this has been said before Matt, you seem not to have understood me? There is a difference between deciding what to sell and deciding what people can choose to choose!
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
Matt, can't you accept that we are discussing a class of products (wedding cakes) against an instance of that class? If the baker sells wedding cakes, then to not supply one on the basis of sexual preference is illegal. If the baker still wants to stick to his principles, be they religious or cultural, that's his look out, but he can't expecct to avoid legal sanction on that basis.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I do understand but not sure you understand me: what is the difference between saying "I sell dolls - but not ones to which I object" and "I sell cakes with slogans - but not ones to which I object"? I see no difference between the two. I also find the idea of attempting to override the freedom that a seller has to choose the products s/he sells quite disturbing in a free society.
[cp with Sioni: I don't see the baker as refusing to sell to a person on the grounds of sexual preference (which would be wrong) but rather as refusing to sell a particular sub-class of product (or instance if you prefer that terminology), just as the Barbie doll is a particular sub-class/ sub-set/ instance. I can't understand for the life of me why it is being said that the latter is acceptable but the former is or should be illegal.]
[ 21. October 2014, 14:57: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't see the baker as refusing to sell to a person on the grounds of sexual preference (which would be wrong) but rather as refusing to sell a particular sub-class of product (or instance if you prefer that terminology), just as the Barbie doll is a particular sub-class/ sub-set/ instance. I can't understand for the life of me why it is being said that the latter is acceptable but the former is or should be illegal.]
Because refusing to write Happy Wedding to Mary and Elizabeth is discriminating against Mary and Elizabeth. It is identical to racial discrimination.
The barbie thing is not a level comparison for several reasons. If you do not sell barbie, you are discriminating against a product, not race or orientation.
Not selling barbies would be more akin to not doing wedding cakes at all.
You want a more accurate comparison? It would be selling barbies but refusing to stock Black ones.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
Seems to me the presupposition of the OP is wrong, in implying that there is a 'we' and that 'religion' needs special 'accommodation'.
The actual issue is "In a plural society, how far do we all accommodate each other so that we can live together without needing to throw fists or bombs, shoot, draw swords, etc.?" And with the minimum of trampling on each other's consciences....
In a plural society, gay people should be entitled to their relationships including SSM. BUT, precisely because it is a plural society, they are not entitled to demand that everybody else believes that relationship to be proper or that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc. If they make that demand, this would then become a new kind of illiberal totalitarianism with the gays acting the part of the Spanish Inquisition imposing their views on others....
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
refusing to write Happy Wedding to Mary and Elizabeth is discriminating against Mary and Elizabeth. It is identical to racial discrimination.
This.
If you will write it for Mary and Jack there is no way it's then lawful to refuse it for Mary and Elisabeth or Jack and James.
<typo>
[ 21. October 2014, 18:36: Message edited by: Boogie ]
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Seems to me the presupposition of the OP is wrong, in implying that there is a 'we' and that 'religion' needs special 'accommodation'.
The actual issue is "In a plural society, how far do we all accommodate each other so that we can live together without needing to throw fists or bombs, shoot, draw swords, etc.?" And with the minimum of trampling on each other's consciences....
In a plural society, gay people should be entitled to their relationships including SSM. BUT, precisely because it is a plural society, they are not entitled to demand that everybody else believes that relationship to be proper or that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc. If they make that demand, this would then become a new kind of illiberal totalitarianism with the gays acting the part of the Spanish Inquisition imposing their views on others....
The how far do we accommodate each other was decided to include not allowing people to restrict who they served. This was because a number of them conspired to not allow Blacks to use many public places. So the law is that if you run a public business you can't discriminate against blacks, women, gays, inter-racial couples or people of the wrong religion.
There's no exemption that says you can discriminate against serving inter-racial couples because of your conscience.
The demand being made is to bake a cake and ice it, not requiring that you believe the wedding (or birthday) is proper.
Your claim that requiring businesses to serve all of the public that is the illiberal equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition burning Jews at the stake is rhetorical excess that is obvious nonsense.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In a plural society, gay people should be entitled to their relationships including SSM. BUT, precisely because it is a plural society, they are not entitled to demand that everybody else believes that relationship to be proper or that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc.
That seems a position rife for abuse. Take the example of an insurance company refusing to pay out a spousal survivor's benefit because it doesn't accept the interpretation that a legal marriage exists. It could be a same sex couple, but do you really think it would stop there if your "individual interpretation" standard could be successfully applied?
Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
If they make that demand, this would then become a new kind of illiberal totalitarianism with the gays acting the part of the Spanish Inquisition imposing their views on others....
Um, that's a really unfortunate comparison, because during many decades the Spanish Inquisition executed more people for being homosexual than they did for everything else put together. So you're comparing the mass killings of gay people by Christians with... gay people insisting that Christians recognise that they're valid citizens and can have valid civil marriages?
When gay people start killing Christians en masse for being Christian, then you'll have a valid analogy with the Spanish Inquisition. Until then, not so much! (I am, as it happens, unaware of a single incident in the history of the world of a gay person ever killing anyone for their refusal to acknowledge gay rights. That always surprises me whenever I think about it.)
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
This is the difference between a relationship between reasonable people and a relationship enforced by law. The law is always there to pick up when reasonableness fails to arise, and ideally the law should be clear (unambiguous), fair AND respected (i.e. accepted as being necessary) by the majority of society. Firstly, there arenlt many laws that satisfy thiose criteria - especially when applied to the niceties of numan behaviour (as opposed to plain bad things like murder).
Given that some folks will always do their best to avoid adherence to the spirit of the law by weaseling the words, if it comes to law then it's inevitably going to be messy some of the time.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Palimpsest ;
quote:
Your claim that requiring businesses to serve all of the public that is the illiberal equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition burning Jews at the stake is rhetorical excess that is obvious nonsense.
Except I didn't actually make such a claim. What I tried to do was simply correct an imbalance in the OP - that it's not a 'we' that must accommodate a separate thing called 'religion'; those of various religions are part of the 'we' who must mutually accommodate, that is what 'pluralism' is about. And refusing that basic underlying idea of pluralism is illiberal.
by Croesos;
quote:
Take the example of an insurance company refusing to pay out a spousal survivor's benefit because it doesn't accept the interpretation that a legal marriage exists
Surely in most cases the company in accepting the policy would in fact have accepted that a a marriage existed, and so would not be able to retro-actively withdraw. Insurance has already produced quite a few discrimination problems as it happens - apparently by the strict mathematics of risk assessment women and men should not receive equal treatment, yet attempts at least have been made to refuse insurance companies that option, on grounds that it is 'sexual discrimination'. At that point two kinds of 'fair' are in conflict - and on the face of it, the insurers' discrimination has better factual basis than the alternative claim.... These issues are not always simple.
I'd also repeat what I said above in response to Palimpsest; I'm dealing here with the starting point in the OP and its unbalanced assumption, with a view to going back to that start and replaying the argument a bit differently; many of the final results will likely be the same because the law cannot deal with completely 'individual' cases - that would not be law but anarchy.
Christians like me are actually interested in accommodation - it would be part of the 'religion being voluntary' aspect of Anabaptism. The real enemy here - 'yours' as well as mine - is the kind of religion which wants establishment or equivalent; and IS, to take the obvious current example, won't be interested in accommodating either of us.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Starlight;
quote:
Um, that's a really unfortunate comparison, because during many decades the Spanish Inquisition executed more people for being homosexual than they did for everything else put together.
I didn't actually know that. I'll check it out, but it may not be exactly overnight.
I would point out that as a Christian I do "recognise that (gay people) are valid citizens and can have valid civil marriages?" Just as I recognise the legal validity of lots of other things like the National Lottery which I nevertheless regard as immoral. Also that the kind of misguided 'Christians' who ran the Spanish and other Inquisitions also persecuted Christians like myself precisely for believing in liberty of belief.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
sorry to reappear again so quickly but I have just checked on Wiki about the Inquisition and homosexuality, and it seems not exactly true that "the Spanish Inquisition executed more people for being homosexual than they did for everything else put together". Suggested total figures on Wiki are 'under 5000' total deaths - but clearly implying some thousands in fact - but only a few hundred cases of homosexuality, and apparently many of those involved coercion or child abuse. Hmmmm!! By the way in which the point is expressed there may have been some individual 'decades' in which more homosexuals were killed than others - but that appears not to have been true in general?
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In a plural society, gay people should be entitled to their relationships including SSM. BUT, precisely because it is a plural society, they are not entitled to demand that everybody else believes that relationship to be proper or that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc. If they make that demand, this would then become a new kind of illiberal totalitarianism with the gays acting the part of the Spanish Inquisition imposing their views on others....
So what would this mean about cakes and things?
Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I have just checked on Wiki about the Inquisition and homosexuality... only a few hundred cases of homosexuality
The information in that wiki page is not in complete agreement with what I recall reading elsewhere. However, either way, it appears that the inquisition executed hundreds of people on sodomy charges.
quote:
By the way in which the point is expressed there may have been some individual 'decades' in which more homosexuals were killed than others - but that appears not to have been true in general?
The wiki article agrees with what I've read elsewhere, in saying that during some periods of time there was a deliberate 'purge' of homosexuals by the Inquisition. Throughout its history the Spanish Inquisition shifted focus from time to time. Going by total number of executions over its entire history, sodomy was not the primary focus of the Inquisition as a whole over the total course of its history, but in certain times it was the primary focus and the primary cause of executions during those times.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Palimpsest ;
quote:
Your claim that requiring businesses to serve all of the public that is the illiberal equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition burning Jews at the stake is rhetorical excess that is obvious nonsense.
Except I didn't actually make such a claim. What I tried to do was simply correct an imbalance in the OP - that it's not a 'we' that must accommodate a separate thing called 'religion'; those of various religions are part of the 'we' who must mutually accommodate, that is what 'pluralism' is about. And refusing that basic underlying idea of pluralism is illiberal.
.........
I'd also repeat what I said above in response to Palimpsest; I'm dealing here with the starting point in the OP and its unbalanced assumption, with a view to going back to that start and replaying the argument a bit differently; many of the final results will likely be the same because the law cannot deal with completely 'individual' cases - that would not be law but anarchy.
Christians like me are actually interested in accommodation - it would be part of the 'religion being voluntary' aspect of Anabaptism. The real enemy here - 'yours' as well as mine - is the kind of religion which wants establishment or equivalent; and IS, to take the obvious current example, won't be interested in accommodating either of us.
What you originally wrote was
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In a plural society, gay people should be entitled to their relationships including SSM. BUT, precisely because it is a plural society, they are not entitled to demand that everybody else believes that relationship to be proper or that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc. If they make that demand, this would then become a new kind of illiberal totalitarianism with the gays acting the part of the Spanish Inquisition imposing their views on others....
Your thoughts about general liberal tolerance are nice but you make the following errors in your argument.
You equate the demand to supply a cake of the sort that is supplied to other customers as a demand that the supplier believe in propriety of the relationship. The customers want the cake. They don't care if there is a blessing attached or an affirmation of propriety. The same baker would bake a wedding cake for a stage play.
Extending that exemption for religious belief means not reliably allowing the privileges of marriage to those in same sex marriages despite your claims of support, such as allowing a person in the hospital room of a spouse depending on the whim or deep religious conviction of the nurse.
After you equate the demand for cake to the demand for belief, you then characterize that demand as the same as the Spanish Inquisition.
Even if you believe that requiring people to bake cakes they don't want bake is "illiberal", equating that with the burning of people at the stake after torture is disgusting. That's nonsense, as is your quibbling about number of homosexuals burnt at the stake per decade. Exactly how many people did the Spanish Inquisition burn at the stake for refusing to bake cakes? Your comparison remains inappropriate even if only some homosexuals were burnt at the stake.
In your argument about accommodation of diversity in a pluralistic society you're demanding the accommodation of people who refuse to accommodate others in the public marketplace. These people may be in a locally important church or a minor sect that is not established. Unlike those burnt at the stake by the Inquisition, such unaccommodated people have the option to not sell in the marketplace if their conscience requires them to not sell to certain categories of people.
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Even if you believe that requiring people to bake cakes they don't want bake is "illiberal", equating that with the burning of people at the stake after torture is disgusting. That's nonsense
Well, it needn't be nonsense if one baked the cake over the flames of someone simultaneously being burnt at the stake after torture; it might still be disgusting, though, what with bits of charred flesh falling off into the cake.
Unless that was what was desired, as a sort of disturbing meatloaf.
I'll stop now. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on
:
quote:
lilBuddha: Because refusing to write Happy Wedding to Mary and Elizabeth is discriminating against Mary and Elizabeth. It is identical to racial discrimination.
What about these bride and groom dolls on top of a wedding cake? In my opinion, if you're selling cakes with a bride and a groom, you should be prepared to sell cakes with two brides or two grooms as well.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Croesos;
quote:
Take the example of an insurance company refusing to pay out a spousal survivor's benefit because it doesn't accept the interpretation that a legal marriage exists
Surely in most cases the company in accepting the policy would in fact have accepted that a a marriage existed, and so would not be able to retro-actively withdraw.
Not necessarily. A generic clause specifying a certain benefit be paid to a surviving spouse may be involved regardless of whether such a spouse exists at the time the policy is issued. A subsequent marriage would bring this in to effect if the insured party died.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In a plural society, gay people should be entitled to their relationships including SSM. BUT, precisely because it is a plural society, they are not entitled to demand that everybody else believes that relationship to be proper or that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I'd also repeat what I said above in response to Palimpsest; I'm dealing here with the starting point in the OP and its unbalanced assumption, with a view to going back to that start and replaying the argument a bit differently; many of the final results will likely be the same because the law cannot deal with completely 'individual' cases - that would not be law but anarchy.
I'm having trouble reconciling these two positions. The first seem to be advocating an anarchy where every man (and woman) is a law unto himself, while the second seems to regard this as abhorrent.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What about these bride and groom dolls on top of a wedding cake? In my opinion, if you're selling cakes with a bride and a groom, you should be prepared to sell cakes with two brides or two grooms as well.
I heard of an incident involving a baker who declined to provide a cake with two bride figures on it. Not because he objected to same-sex marriage but because the only figures he had in stock were a bride-and-groom couple that were joined at the base. (I suppose one reason for this is to prevent unintended 'omens' if it's a particularly light cake and the bride and groom start to separate like a V.) A cake with a floral topper was substituted to the satisfaction of all parties.
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
Really, the demand that Bakers bake pornographic wedding cakes is the argument we've been having? Is there a specific case of a lawsuit against a baker who refuses to do so that we're talking about? Or is this just another straw man?
There are several reasons why society might want to compel a baker to bake a cake with gay rights slogans on, or a cake for a gay couple who are getting married, or whatever else.
Some of those reasons are to do with sexuality being innate, and to do with sexuality being a protected class under anti-discrimination law.
Other arguments being advanced are more general - that someone in a business that offers to write must write any legal message the customer wants, regardless. This set of arguments doesn't rest on gay people being a specific protected class, and applies equally to fans of opposing sports teams, politicians of various stripes, and everyone else.
It is the latter set of arguments that I thought we were exploring (because they're the best match for the religious belief discussion that started this off).
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
What about these bride and groom dolls on top of a wedding cake? In my opinion, if you're selling cakes with a bride and a groom, you should be prepared to sell cakes with two brides or two grooms as well.
I heard of an incident involving a baker who declined to provide a cake with two bride figures on it. Not because he objected to same-sex marriage but because the only figures he had in stock were a bride-and-groom couple that were joined at the base. (I suppose one reason for this is to prevent unintended 'omens' if it's a particularly light cake and the bride and groom start to separate like a V.) A cake with a floral topper was substituted to the satisfaction of all parties.
I think you're abusing the normal meaning of "declined" here.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
but only a few hundred cases of homosexuality, and apparently many of those involved coercion or child abuse. Hmmmm!!
Yeah, the inquisition never misrepresented anything, never forced confession or did anything improper. Hmmmmmm!!
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
lilBuddha: Because refusing to write Happy Wedding to Mary and Elizabeth is discriminating against Mary and Elizabeth. It is identical to racial discrimination.
What about these bride and groom dolls on top of a wedding cake? In my opinion, if you're selling cakes with a bride and a groom, you should be prepared to sell cakes with two brides or two grooms as well.
No argument from me.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
There are several reasons why society might want to compel a baker to bake a cake with gay rights slogans on, or a cake for a gay couple who are getting married, or whatever else.
Some of those reasons are to do with sexuality being innate, and to do with sexuality being a protected class under anti-discrimination law.
Other arguments being advanced are more general - that someone in a business that offers to write must write any legal message the customer wants, regardless. This set of arguments doesn't rest on gay people being a specific protected class, and applies equally to fans of opposing sports teams, politicians of various stripes, and everyone else.
It is the latter set of arguments that I thought we were exploring (because they're the best match for the religious belief discussion that started this off).
There's a difference between compelling someone to produce a cake with a legal slogan inscribed and requiring the baker to produce pornographic cakes. The latter may not be legal in the jurisdiction of the bakery, especially if they employ minors.
Why not go even further down your slippery slope? Will the baker be forced to produce a cake with a naked dancer in it if the law requires him to inscribe legal slogans? Will the baker have to provide the dancer? Yes sir, that freedom of speech requirement is much too onerous a burden to put on a poor baker.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
I don't see the baker as refusing to sell to a person on the grounds of sexual preference (which would be wrong) but rather as refusing to sell a particular sub-class of product (or instance if you prefer that terminology), just as the Barbie doll is a particular sub-class/ sub-set/ instance. I can't understand for the life of me why it is being said that the latter is acceptable but the former is or should be illegal.]
Because refusing to write Happy Wedding to Mary and Elizabeth is discriminating against Mary and Elizabeth. It is identical to racial discrimination.
The barbie thing is not a level comparison for several reasons. If you do not sell barbie, you are discriminating against a product, not race or orientation.
Not selling barbies would be more akin to not doing wedding cakes at all.
You want a more accurate comparison? It would be selling barbies but refusing to stock Black ones.
All of which I agree with; the problem is that it doesn't fit the actual facts of the Belfast case
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Croesos;
quote:
I'm having trouble reconciling these two positions. The first seem to be advocating an anarchy where every man (and woman) is a law unto himself, while the second seems to regard this as abhorrent.
Ever heard of the words 'compromise' or indeed 'accommodation'? Morality tends to be 'black and white' (can I still say that without being accused of racism as well?) In real life a plural society means mutual accommodation between the different 'black and white' moralities involved - this can be messier, but better than resolving the issue in a totalitarian coercive way....
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
re Starlight;
It appears that basically the Inquisition killed thousands of people for various versions of religious dissent - i.e., 'Not being RC'. It may well be that if you break that down into the different versions, executions for homosexuality would appear to be the majority in a 'first past the post' sense - they would nevertheless be a tiny minority of the total deaths, the vast majority of which were about religious dissent.
I agree that there probably were times when the Inquisitors had a bit of a purge on homosexuality - given the dynamics of heresy-hunting they would need such targets to keep up the momentum when they didn't have enough of their prime heretical targets to go after - that doesn't anywhere near make homosexuality their major target.
by lilbuddha;
quote:
Yeah, the inquisition never misrepresented anything, never forced confession or did anything improper. Hmmmmmm!!
And incidentally one of their misrepresentations was to accuse heretics of being homosexual - whence the origin of the word 'bugger' from the 'Bougres' a group of Bulgarian heretics. The Inquisition logic was that if the heretics had nothing to hide, they would meet openly; since they didn't meet openly, they must be having orgies, straight or gay! The fact that open meeting would have resulted in death at the hands of the Inquisition was of course irrelevant....
Palimpsest; pay attention to my words and don't keep on and on attributing to me things I didn't in fact say - indeed rather carefully didn't say.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Ever heard of the words 'compromise' or indeed 'accommodation'? Morality tends to be 'black and white' (can I still say that without being accused of racism as well?) In real life a plural society means mutual accommodation between the different 'black and white' moralities involved - this can be messier, but better than resolving the issue in a totalitarian coercive way....
Mm-hmm. And when one morality demonizes people with another morality, and refuses to treat them as equal, and refuses to provide services to them, where is the possibility of "compromise"? Nowhere. Sometimes you need coercion.
By the way, coercion is not "totalitarian" in and of itself. That's a category error.
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
:
Steven Harper, regrettably the current Prime Minister of what was once a civilized nation, has a religious belief that says he/we must support Israel without any question, and that he/we should interfere in the tribal squabbles of the Middle East, because...GOP/big guys with guns/posturing
This has led us towards losing what little accommodation there may have been among people who merely want to get along with our neighbours.
The above belief may be "Christian" in the sense that a specific fundagelical church holds to it, but I find it intolerable.
Where is Jean Chretien (RC) when you need him?
Come to that, I have little tolerance for the attitude of the Israeli government re Palestine, although I cannot say that I am "anti-Jewish", unless my disagreement on one specific policy line means that.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Croesos;
quote:
I'm having trouble reconciling these two positions. The first seem to be advocating an anarchy where every man (and woman) is a law unto himself, while the second seems to regard this as abhorrent.
Ever heard of the words 'compromise' or indeed 'accommodation'? Morality tends to be 'black and white' (can I still say that without being accused of racism as well?) In real life a plural society means mutual accommodation between the different 'black and white' moralities involved - this can be messier, but better than resolving the issue in a totalitarian coercive way....
So if a couple believes they have valid, legally-constituted marriage and someone else (insurance adjuster, hospital administrator, employer, etc.) believes that they don't, what's the "compromise" position? I'm not seeing any middle ground that doesn't effectively abolish the concept of "law" as we know it.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
As far as I can tell, originally posted by Steve Langton:
Palimpsest; pay attention to my words and don't keep on and on attributing to me things I didn't in fact say - indeed rather carefully didn't say.
Are you saying that the second quote of your post I put in my post about your comments was not from you? Citing your text before pointing out the errors as about as much attention as I can give to your words?
I said you changed the demand for a cake into a demand for belief and that you termed that demand as illiberal and the equivalent to the acts of the Spanish Inquisition. Did you not do both of those things? They seem to be in the words of the quote.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Palimpsest;
quote:
I said you changed the demand for a cake into a demand for belief and that you termed that demand as illiberal and the equivalent to the acts of the Spanish Inquisition.
"You said..." I didn't. I haven't yet discussed that cake at all let alone turned the demand for it into something else. I'm asking rather more fundamental questions about what's going on here. Having now arrived home from a day out it's going to take me a while to catch up fully on what everyone's been saying - hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with a more worked out view on what you've all been saying.
Stop assuming that I'm your standard 'fundamentalist/Religious Right' kind of opponent - I'm not.
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
It's all about cake - I think I've strayed into a thread on either baking or having your cake and eating it - possibly both.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Palimpsest;
quote:
I said you changed the demand for a cake into a demand for belief and that you termed that demand as illiberal and the equivalent to the acts of the Spanish Inquisition.
"You said..." I didn't. I haven't yet discussed that cake at all let alone turned the demand for it into something else. I'm asking rather more fundamental questions about what's going on here. Having now arrived home from a day out it's going to take me a while to catch up fully on what everyone's been saying - hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with a more worked out view on what you've all been saying.
Stop assuming that I'm your standard 'fundamentalist/Religious Right' kind of opponent - I'm not.
Stop assuming that I assume you're a standard 'fundamentalist/Religious Right' kind of opponent. I don't. I've read your posts before if you don't remember your exposition of the many types of "real" Christian.
It's your quote.
We were talking about the demand for cakes and you changed it to a demand for forced belief and compared it to the Spanish Inquisition. Are you claiming you don't compare the lawsuits to the Spanish Inquisition?
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
In a plural society, gay people should be entitled to their relationships including SSM. BUT, precisely because it is a plural society, they are not entitled to demand that everybody else believes that relationship to be proper or that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc. If they make that demand, this would then become a new kind of illiberal totalitarianism with the gays acting the part of the Spanish Inquisition imposing their views on others....
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Stop assuming that I'm your standard 'fundamentalist/Religious Right' kind of opponent - I'm not.
I'm not so sure about that. The assertion that same-sex couples are going to start murdering people who don't recognize the legality of their marriages sounds just like the kind of over-the-top 'fundamentalist/Religious Right' rhetoric we're familiar with (e.g. Scott Lively).
I'm still waiting for your explanation of how allowing individuals to decide the legality of other peoples' marriages isn't an anarchic rejection of the concept of law. After all, if the law is uniform for everyone, isn't that demanding "that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc."?
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
There's a difference between compelling someone to produce a cake with a legal slogan inscribed and requiring the baker to produce pornographic cakes. The latter may not be legal in the jurisdiction of the bakery, especially if they employ minors.
The obvious, unstated framing assumption was that a porn cake was legal for the baker to produce, that he did not employ minors, and so on.
And under those assumptions, precisely what is the difference between asking the baker to produce a cake bearing legal slogans and artwork, and a cake bearing legal porn?
The only difference is that you think equal rights for gay people are important, but porn isn't. Which is fine, and I'd agree, but by making that statement, you impose your belief that equal rights for gay people is a good thing. And especially where the slogans in question are advocating equality that is currently illegal, I'm not sure that you can impose that belief in law.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Exactly. And, much as I agree with said belief, it becomes a frightening socio-political day when I get to impose my beliefs legally on others as a matter of course.
Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on
:
I think the typical anti-discrimination laws of most western countries strike a good balance.
It's nice to let everyone have things their own way. But sometimes what people want comes into conflict. And for the most part we give providers of the services their freedom to refuse service (not that it's common for them to do so). So if you had a strong objection to people who are wearing hats, then you can choose to refuse all customers who walk in wearing a hat for example. That gives the individual service providers freedom to be as nutty as they like. It also gives them freedom to exercise moral judgment, such as to refuse to publish porn, or hate speech etc.
But when it becomes a problem is when a significant number of service providers all decide simultaneously that they want to reject the same group of customers based on who those customers are. (eg black people, gay people etc) It is when this discrimination effect becomes regular and cumulative that the problem occurs. The people being discriminated against begin to have their lives significantly affected - experiencing multiple instances of discrimination becomes humiliating and depressing and stressful. And perhaps worse than that is the ongoing worry and concern that they might be discriminated against at any time in the future - when buying groceries or going to a restaurant or booking a motel begins to carry with it the mental question of "will I be able to do this successfully or might the person refuse to serve me?" then you have gone a long way toward setting them to experiencing chronic stress and anxiety with all the accompanying negative health effects, and are reaching the point where you're basically destroying their lives and their ability to function in society when at every point in their day they have to question whether they will be able to accomplish basic tasks.
That is the purpose of anti-discrimination laws - to prevent massive damage to the lives of people who fall into the categories that significant numbers of people in society want to discriminate against. In order to prevent that significant harm to these people, it is necessary to (mildly) curb the freedoms of the people who otherwise would have discriminated, and thus say "yes, you will accept those people into your store and sell them your products" (how terrible for retailers, being forced to make profits by selling their products to customers! ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
).
A lot of the people who want to discriminate don't think through the psychological damage that repeated occurrences of discrimination inflicts. I think if they really understood the amount of harm they were causing they wouldn't discriminate. And while it might be nice in theory to educate all those people to be more loving and empathetic, in practice it's easier just to ban discrimination.
For a lot of discrimination the connection between the alleged religious reason and the incident of discrimination itself tends to be somewhat tenuous. For example, no religion tells its adherents that they must be nasty to gay people. No teaching of Christianity says that Christians must or should openly express disdain, judgmentalism, condemnation and contempt toward gay people at all possible times, nor says that they must refuse to do business with gay people nor says that when gay people are celebrating a significant day in their lives that Christians are obligated to try to ruin the celebrations by expressing moral superiority and condemnation and making life difficult. Nothing about Christianity forbids Christians from being nice to gay people or gracious or kind. Nor does any part of Christianity require a person to express their moral judgement on others at all times. (Nor is it at all clear in Christian theology that for a gay couple to be married is worse than them not being married... usually the thinking is that the bible objects to gay sex, but endorses lifelong commitment in sexual relationships, so as far as Christian theology is concerned the choice for a couple having gay sex to enter into a lifelong commitment is a net good.)
Now when a gay person goes to a cake shop and says "hey I'm planning on celebrating what I hope will be the happiest day of my life, as I commit myself to the person I love, so I want to purchase a cake to use in the celebrations" they are not asking for a moral judgement on their life choices. The request is for you to bake a cake, it's not an invitation for you to set yourself up as judge and jury of any or all parts of their lives. You're not being asked to pass judgement on them, their partner, or their decision to commit to each other. If it was a heterosexual couple getting married, you wouldn't interpret the request to bake a wedding cake for them as an invitation to be the judge of whether they were marrying the right person for them or whether you should veto their marriage!! If you are being asked anything at all beyond to bake a cake, then the request is an invitation to share some small part in the happiest day of a person's life. They are celebrating a uniquely special day in their lives, and have asked you to contribute some small part of happiness to them by baking them an extra-awesome cake. To say, "well, actually I object to the reason for your happiness, and think you shouldn't be happy, and I'm going to object and do my best to take that away from you and deny you that" is sticking your nose ridiculously too far into what totally isn't your business and is being obsessively judgmental. None of that is mandated by Christian theology. So to claim you're refusing them service because of Christianity is absurd. You're refusing them service because you're a giant judgemental arsehole busybody the likes of which the world has rarely seen. All that your Christianity was providing was a moral disapproval of gay marriage. Christianity wasn't telling you to be a giant dick about it though, nor to express that disapproval in the direction of sabotaging other people's happiness to the best of your abilities.
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
That line has been crossed years ago - we make a decision as to how far we have to protect people from others and from themselves and inevitably that has inbuilt assumptions. There was a great moral maze discussion last night on R4 which exposed the underbelly of the divide between legal, ethical and personal truths.
I have been looking at biology as a model for psychology in the past few years, and realised that in order to reverse fragmentation, the separated parts have to recognise they have a desirable and welcoming home in the core organiser, and the core has to recognise that the parts are of itself. And both have to have some belief that an unfragmented condition is more desirable that the current fragmented one. Otherwise we end up with chronic fragmentation, or even two organisms with mutually exclusive identities (and therefore exclusive immune systems - the immune system being a statement of biological identity). This also works (or doesn't) on a societal level. The prodigal son has to find his way home and be welcomed. There has to be redemption after punishment, just as there has to be contrition. When the punishment is undeserved (so contrition is inappropriate) or there is no real contrition, just fake - then it gets really really messy. None of this can be dealt with legally - it is individuals who have to be as good as they can be.
Posted by itsarumdo (# 18174) on
:
and all of what starlight just said
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
As I have said, the sentiments quoted above, laudable though they are, do not fit the facts of the Belfast case.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
I've prepared this since my last appearance on the thread late last night; I've not fully updated on where the thread has gone in the meantime, but given the nature of the point I'm raising I don't think that will actually matter...
This thread is basically not dealing with the underlying issue, and instead wasting time on nit-picking trivialities.
This whole issue – not just the gay issues part of it – has been distorted in the UK for centuries, and continues to be distorted, by the existence of an established religion. That also distorts the issue in many other countries – some with the same established religion as in the UK, others with different religions. That is the issue you should be discussing and only when that is properly discussed will there be a proper foundation for deciding the more detailed issues like who writes what on cakes.
With most of the world's religions, you're going to have a serious problem. Most of the world's religions are founded on the principle of being 'established' or equivalent. Some are narrowly nationalistic or ethnic, e.g. Shinto in Japan or Judaism in Israel; others are actually intended to 'take over the world' and impose their beliefs and morality everywhere, e.g. Islam whose founder set up an Islamic state by force of arms in his own lifetime. Such religions are not going to accommodate and it must be questionable whether they can be accommodated. And they're not likely to pay any attention to your bleating about your rights – in such a religion you don't have rights, you either conform or you are wrong and must be persecuted.
In the UK, the established religion is a form of Christianity, and it has been the resulting imposition of Christian morality by law which has given rise to the present discussion. Yet ironically, Christianity is one of the few religions in the world which, in its original New Testament form, rejects the notion of establishment. Christianity is emphatically meant to be a voluntary religion which seeks only to persuade and not coerce, and is pacifist in nature. So most of your 'problem' will go away if you tackle the issue of the establishment of Christianity and the assumption of a right to impose Christian morality that goes with that idea.
And in the case of Christianity, that issue can be tackled not by simple opposition as where a religion is 'established' or similar in nature. With Christianity, you can tackle the 'establishment' by calling on the Christians of the established churches to be truer to their faith, to in effect abandon a heresy. I'm afraid the disestablished church will still not agree that gay sex is morally proper – but the difficulties surrounding that will be of a decidedly different nature.
Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
As I have said, the sentiments quoted above, laudable though they are, do not fit the facts of the Belfast case.
The Belfast case is a fairly basic example of the bakery breaking the discrimination law. Not really very interesting or controversial.
For the reasons I outlined, it is good to have non-discrimination laws to prevent severe cumulative harm occurring to targeted groups of people. In general retailers have the freedom to not sell anything they like, except in the small group of categories where the law says they can't discriminate. The Belfast case was clearly an instance of discrimination relating to sexuality (a moral objection to same-sex marriage), and hence not legal.
Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
This whole issue – not just the gay issues part of it – has been distorted in the UK for centuries, and continues to be distorted, by the existence of an established religion.
I'm not at all convinced that having an established religion really makes that much of a difference. These issues still exist in countries that officially have no established religion.
quote:
Yet ironically, Christianity is one of the few religions in the world which, in its original New Testament form, rejects the notion of establishment. Christianity is emphatically meant to be a voluntary religion which seeks only to persuade and not coerce, and is pacifist in nature.
Hmm, says you, but for the vast majority of its history Christianity seems to have done its absolute best to be an established religion. I guess you can label all those people "Not True Christians", but at a certain point you've sort of got to admit that "Christianity" as a whole is defined by total bulk of its adherents.
quote:
I'm afraid the disestablished church will still not agree that gay sex is morally proper
Comparing the rate at which increasing numbers of Christians are becoming accepting of gay sex (ie rapidly), with the rate at which the Church of England is being disestablished (ie snail's pace), leads me to almost absolute certainty that gay sex will be considered morally proper by virtually all Christians long long before the church is ever disestablished.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Starlight:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
As I have said, the sentiments quoted above, laudable though they are, do not fit the facts of the Belfast case.
The Belfast case is a fairly basic example of the bakery breaking the discrimination law. Not really very interesting or controversial.
For the reasons I outlined, it is good to have non-discrimination laws to prevent severe cumulative harm occurring to targeted groups of people. In general retailers have the freedom to not sell anything they like, except in the small group of categories where the law says they can't discriminate. The Belfast case was clearly an instance of discrimination relating to sexuality (a moral objection to same-sex marriage), and hence not legal.
I don't think so: they were asked to publish a slogan with which they vociferously disagreed. Now, we can disagree with their...er..disagreement, but refusal to print a socio-political slogan does not amount to discrimination against persons, anymore than a Catholic baker refusing to produce a cake with the words 'Fuck the Pope' on it discriminates against Protestants.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Starlight;
quote:
I'm not at all convinced that having an established religion really makes that much of a difference. These issues still exist in countries that officially have no established religion.
The issues still exist anywhere - though if you're thinking of the USA their non-establishment is rather anomalous. It still remains a fact that establishment and general 'Christian country' attitudes have distorted the issues here and continue to do so.
and again;
quote:
Hmm, says you, but for the vast majority of its history Christianity seems to have done its absolute best to be an established religion. I guess you can label all those people "Not True Christians", but at a certain point you've sort of got to admit that "Christianity" as a whole is defined by total bulk of its adherents.
No, over the history of Christianity a lot of governments have done their best to use Christianity as an established religion and too many Christians have thoughtlessly gone along with it.
To avoid tripping over hypothetical Scotsmen let's say 'inconsistent Christians' rather than 'not True Christians..' No, Christianity is not defined by the bulk of its nominal adherents, it is defined by the original teaching; and given that the original teaching is a great deal more in your favour than the establishment heresy, why are you so ready to dismiss it?
and yet again;
quote:
Comparing the rate at which increasing numbers of Christians are becoming accepting of gay sex (ie rapidly), with the rate at which the Church of England is being disestablished (ie snail's pace), leads me to almost absolute certainty that gay sex will be considered morally proper by virtually all Christians long long before the church is ever disestablished.
Actually disestablishment is almost a done deal - just unlikely to happen in the lifetime of the present Queen. And what is said either way by people at the top of Anglicanism - or other churches - doesn't necessarily reflect the grass-roots.
And you don't mention what you will or can do about Islamic State.... Nor what you will do if there is a Christian revival which would inevitably mean a return to biblical standards. And that's biblical standards, not pathetically unscholarly re-interpretations of Romans 1, by the way.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Croesos;
quote:
The assertion that same-sex couples are going to start murdering people who don't recognize the legality of their marriages
Don't recall saying that anywhere, strangely enough. But yes, I'm getting the strong impression that the assorted gay lobby are quite happy to see those who disagree with them made subject to legal penalties of the less barbaric modern kind - which would in principle be essentially the same thing the Inquisition did. Again, please stop imputing to me things I haven't actually said. Not allowing people to disagree is exactly what Inquisitions and the like are about.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
...I'm getting the strong impression that the assorted gay lobby are quite happy to see those who disagree with them made subject to legal penalties of the less barbaric modern kind - which would in principle be essentially the same thing the Inquisition did.
Steve, your views seem inconsistent to me - on the one hand you want Christianity and churches to be independent from the state (and I'm with you on this), but you want the state to enforce your particular take on sexual morality. On what basis should your personal beliefs override the wish of some within the 'gay lobby' to marry someone of the same sex?
As I understand it, very few people are proposing legal penalties for people who simply believe same-sex marriage to be wrong and who wish to take no part in it. The penalties only come when one treats people differently based on the sex of their partner. Do you think you should be allowed to treat people differently based on the sex of their partner?
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Croesos again;
quote:
I'm still waiting for your explanation of how allowing individuals to decide the legality of other peoples' marriages isn't an anarchic rejection of the concept of law. After all, if the law is uniform for everyone, isn't that demanding "that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc."?
I'm not so much allowing individuals to decide the legality of other people's marriages, as saying that they must have a right to disagree about the morality as I think could be the case with polygamy as a related example.
Stepping aside from marriage pro tem, I accept, for example, the legality of the National Lottery - but I also strongly disapprove of it, won't take part in it, and will when necessary express my disagreement and the reasons thereof. And surely a plural society allows me to do that....
However right now I'm not trying to deal with the detail outworkings of the matter; I'm trying to put a slightly different balance about the fundamental question. If we resolve that then we can go on to apply it to the details.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by South Coast Kevin;
quote:
...but you want the state to enforce your particular take on sexual morality. On what basis should your personal beliefs override the wish of some within the 'gay lobby' to marry someone of the same sex?
Just to be clear, I am NOT wanting the state to enforce my particular take at all. I am quite happy for there to be SSM in the state for those who believe in it, and polygamy for Mormons and Muslims for that matter. I'm just not happy that either is moral in Christian terms, or that the proponents of either should have a right to tell me I can't disagree with them, or that they should have a right to trample on my conscience. I'm actually committed to being as accommodating as possible but worried that things are currently swinging
from a totalitarianism one way to a totalitarianism the other way - and this is a case where two wrongs would not make a right.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Starlight:
A lot of the people who want to discriminate don't think through the psychological damage that repeated occurrences of discrimination inflicts. I think if they really understood the amount of harm they were causing they wouldn't discriminate.
I think this is overly optimistic. In a lot of cases the harm is known, deliberate, and intentional. A lot of the anti-gay crowd believe that being gay is a choice and that if gay people can be made to suffer enough for being gay, they'll give it up and choose to be straight instead. Another subset just doesn't like gay people and wants to make life as hard for them as possible just on general principle.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
quote:
Hmm, says you, but for the vast majority of its history Christianity seems to have done its absolute best to be an established religion. I guess you can label all those people "Not True Christians", but at a certain point you've sort of got to admit that "Christianity" as a whole is defined by total bulk of its adherents.
No, over the history of Christianity a lot of governments have done their best to use Christianity as an established religion and too many Christians have thoughtlessly gone along with it.
To avoid tripping over hypothetical Scotsmen let's say 'inconsistent Christians' rather than 'not True Christians..' No, Christianity is not defined by the bulk of its nominal adherents, it is defined by the original teaching; and given that the original teaching is a great deal more in your favour than the establishment heresy, why are you so ready to dismiss it?
Is this "pay attention to what we say, not what we do" standard one that you'd apply to any other school of thought? (e.g. Communism)
quote:
No, [Communism] is not defined by the bulk of its nominal adherents, it is defined by the original teaching . . . which is why real Communism leads to a workers' paradise, not a totalitarian state.
Plus given the fact that the New Testament indicates early dissenters within the church met grisly ends and instilled "great fear" in the rest of the flock, I'm not sure your case for non-establishment holds.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Croesos;
quote:
The assertion that same-sex couples are going to start murdering people who don't recognize the legality of their marriages
Don't recall saying that anywhere, strangely enough. But yes, I'm getting the strong impression that the assorted gay lobby are quite happy to see those who disagree with them made subject to legal penalties of the less barbaric modern kind - which would in principle be essentially the same thing the Inquisition did.
Sorry, not following you. Under what "principle" is forcing an employer to extend the same benefits to a same-sex married couple as they do to opposite-sex marrieds "essentially the same" as torturing a confession out of someone and burning them at the stake?
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Croesos again;
quote:
I'm still waiting for your explanation of how allowing individuals to decide the legality of other peoples' marriages isn't an anarchic rejection of the concept of law. After all, if the law is uniform for everyone, isn't that demanding "that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc."?
I'm not so much allowing individuals to decide the legality of other people's marriages, as saying that they must have a right to disagree about the morality as I think could be the case with polygamy as a related example.
Why not? Isn't having a uniform legal code demanding "that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc." (in this case that their relationship is a legally valid marriage)? Why is it okay to "force" someone to agree that a marriage is legally valid? This seems to contradict your original statement on the matter.
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Just to be clear, I am NOT wanting the state to enforce my particular take at all. I am quite happy for there to be SSM in the state for those who believe in it, and polygamy for Mormons and Muslims for that matter. I'm just not happy that either is moral in Christian terms, or that the proponents of either should have a right to tell me I can't disagree with them, or that they should have a right to trample on my conscience.
Okay, thanks. Genuine question then - in what way are you being told you can't disagree with those who think SSM is fine, and in what way is your conscience being trampled on?
ISTM all that gay people who wish to marry their same-sex partner want is the right for their partnership to be considered 'normal' and treated the same as a woman-man partnership. What exactly is it that you object to, Steve?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
Steve Langton - either people in same-sex marriages are equal to others or not. You can't have it both ways.
By law they are equal.
You are, of course, allowed to think otherwise.
What you are not allowed to do, however, is to discriminate against them - whether as part of a public or private business or service. Is that clear enough?
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Boogie;
quote:
By law they are equal.
And in Christian morality they clearly are not equal. So how do we resolve that?
And before you become yet another person telling me what I do believe when I don't necessarily believe it at all, I'm not giving my personal answer at this point, I'm asking you for yours.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Croesos;
quote:
Why not? Isn't having a uniform legal code demanding "that everyone else must accept their interpretation of their condition/situation/etc." (in this case that their relationship is a legally valid marriage)? Why is it okay to "force" someone to agree that a marriage is legally valid? This seems to contradict your original statement on the matter.
And if the legal code demands that 'everyone' consider Jews inferior, and hand them over to be sent to the camps? I assume in that situation you'd want me to take a moral stance against the law?
The law is human and fallible; and one of the reasons why a plural society is better is because it ultimately hinders such bad law, precisely by allowing dissent and disagreement.
And would you mind giving some serious thought to what it means that Christians believe in separation of Church and State?
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Boogie;
quote:
By law they are equal.
And in Christian morality they clearly are not equal. So how do we resolve that?
By realizing that the legal code is not the same thing as your personal moral code?
As observed by the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money, the idea that businesses serving the general public are free to arbitrarily discriminate as to which members of the public will be served is a relatively recent aberration in the common law tradition.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
And would you mind giving some serious thought to what it means that Christians believe in separation of Church and State?
Yes, it means some of them are able to hold political opinions not endorsed anywhere in the Bible.
[ 23. October 2014, 16:42: Message edited by: Crœsos ]
Posted by Planeta Plicata (# 17543) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
As observed by the blog Lawyers, Guns, and Money, the idea that businesses serving the general public are free to arbitrarily discriminate as to which members of the public will be served is a relatively recent aberration in the common law tradition.
Yeah, well, so is the recognition of marital rape. (One can even quote Blackstone in support of the common law rule: "By marriage, the husband and wife are one person in law; that is the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband ...") Which just goes to support Steve Langton's point that morality can recognize a distinction that the law doesn't.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Planeta Plicata:
Which just goes to support Steve Langton's point that morality can recognize a distinction that the law doesn't.
Not necessarily. Morality can recognize a distinction that the law doesn't, but virtually every moral position can be enacted as law. I'm also not sure that's particularly germane to SL's argument, which seems to be that a law calling for the murder of Jews is abhorrent, but if your personal moral code tells you to murder the Jewish couple next door . . . well, shouldn't all sincerely believed moral codes be accommodated?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Boogie;
quote:
By law they are equal.
And in Christian morality they clearly are not equal. So how do we resolve that?
We look anew at 'Christian morality'. Just as we have for many other issues. We bring 'Christian morality' into line with what is actually good and right.
But I don't understand why you are asking the question. Your assumptions about what Christians believe are rather sweeping imo. I am sure you know that many, many Christians do not believe that there is anything whatever immoral about same sex marriage. They can also defend their position very well theologically.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Exactly. And, much as I agree with said belief, it becomes a frightening socio-political day when I get to impose my beliefs legally on others as a matter of course.
The requester of the cake was not forcing their belief on the baker. A cake baked is not an endorsement made. A baker is judged by the appearance and taste of their goods. Their "moral" beliefs enter the picture when they refuse. When they consent, notice is rare. quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
they were asked to publish a slogan with which they vociferously disagreed. Now, we can disagree with their...er..disagreement, but refusal to print a socio-political slogan does not amount to discrimination against persons,
How does it not? If they refused all political slogans, an argument could be made. That the owner himself said gay marriage was the issue makes this a discrimination case.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
anymore than a Catholic baker refusing to produce a cake with the words 'Fuck the Pope' on it discriminates against Protestants.
Let's unpack this. Fuck is a moderated word. Most countries, NI included, have guidelines as to when it is appropriate to use. So the word itself could be eliminated from a baker's offerings.
'Fuck the Pope' is a statement of animosity, so then could also be eliminated.
'Fuck the Pope' is not a statement limited to Protestants. Not even close.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
Steve, now this is what I assumed you would do. You're pursuing your theory that a magic Kind early Christianity will solve all problems in all threads. The last time you brought this up in talking about violence, you admitted that Christianity wasn't that way at the time the Romans adopted it after I cited the lynching of Hypatia. Let's go back a bit further and look at the Gospel of John where the blame for the Crucifixion is changed to be "The Jews" as opposed to earlier Gospels which did not slander them as a group. There is no such benevolent early Christianity at the time of the end of the writing of the New Testament. It's harder to go earlier, but having the Patriarchs of different cities arguing with each other probably pushes it further. Did your superior form of Christianity exist for very long after the death of Jesus? It's hard to distinguish non-violence from just being a powerless oppressed group of victims, but it seems that at the first point that Christians came to power, they started doing bad things.
If the Christians had abjured converting Rome and establishing the Patriarchs, why do you think they would have had more influence on the world than any other sect of the period, e.g. the Essenes? Their success depended on their methods. And even if you do believe a marvelous Christianity could be established, why would it not degenerate into what Christianity degenerated into in less than a few centuries? Do you think you're better than Jesus and his disciples In preventing that?
To go back to the main discussion, I note that without conceding my criticism, and after having looked up the Spanish Inquisition and lecturing the rest of us on it, you seem to be tiptoing away from quote:
this would then become a new kind of illiberal totalitarianism with the gays acting the part of the Spanish Inquisition imposing their views on others....
to
quote:
I'm getting the strong impression that the assorted gay lobby are quite happy to see those who disagree with them made subject to legal penalties of the less barbaric modern kind - which would in principle be essentially the same thing the Inquisition did.
So when you say by dictate of Steve Langton
quote:
No, Christianity is not defined by the bulk of its nominal adherents, it is defined by the original teaching;
as opposed to say, letting those many people define the term Christianity for themselves.
isn't that in principal essentially the same as the Spanish Inquisition on your part? Can't you smell the flesh burning? Or would that be gross hyperbole? Would it be better to define a specific term for what you imagine rather than trying to Humpty Dumpty the term Christianity?
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
:
It's been a while since I posted on this thread, but I wanted to ask:
What about workers in an industrial setting or construction site who want to stop and do their Islamic prayers? Is this something that should be accommodated? Or the Christian who wants to avoid the Sunday work shift to attend mass or church?
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Palimpsest;
quote:
So when you say by dictate of Steve Langton
quote:
No, Christianity is not defined by the bulk of its nominal adherents, it is defined by the original teaching; (unquote)
as opposed to say, letting those many people define the term Christianity for themselves.
isn't that in principal essentially the same as the Spanish Inquisition on your part? Can't you smell the flesh burning? Or would that be gross hyperbole? Would it be better to define a specific term for what you imagine rather than trying to Humpty Dumpty the term Christianity?
Not by 'dictate of Steve Langton'; simply the obvious that the original teaching of Jesus and his immediate followers is Christianity, people coming along later contradicting that are not expressing authentic Christianity. If you believe Jesus is the Son of God, contradicting him is a bad idea. If a Christian can show that his understanding is in line with and a legitimate development of the original, great, I'm open to persuasion. But, for example, the line of thought that led via Constantine to the Inquisition can't show that legitimate development.
Muhammad claimed Jesus (or attempted to) as a Muslim prophet under the name Isa - yet the Quran account of Isa varies considerably from the NT account by the eyewitness apostles and their close associates; should I really accept the Muhammadan account from 600 years later and hundreds of miles away over the account by people who were so much closer to the event? Should I let Muhammad tell me what, in effect, Jesus should have said, rather than accept the account of what he did say according to people in a much better position to know? And if by ordinary historical interpretation principles I prefer the early church over Muhammad, likewise with later Christians who think they know better than the original. Not my dictate, ordinary use of historical evidence.
And no, you won't be smelling the flesh burning around me (unless it's other people like Spanish Inquisitors burning me myself); My point is precisely that Christianity is voluntary and that I don't want to have the power of the state to use against either errant Christians or recalcitrant pagans.
I won't deal with the point in full now - I'm a bit swamped with other circumstances this week - but part of the answer to your point about 'the Jews' in John's gospel is that of course most people mentioned by John were in our terms Jewish. But those who opposed Jesus were almost entirely 'Judeans' as against 'Galileans'; John is not saying 'the Jews' were to blame for Jesus' death - he was after all an ethnic Jew himself - he seems to be saying something more like "There were these southerners..." Only much later could it be taken otherwise.
by Palimpsest;
quote:
Christianity wasn't that way at the time the Romans adopted it
More accurately, Christianity was changed and corrupted AFTER and BECAUSE the Romans adopted it.
Also;
quote:
but it seems that at the first point that Christians came to power, they started doing bad things.
And it's precisely because of that temptation and other problems that arise from the state/church link that the original teaching set forth a different way of doing things.
by no prophet's...
quote:
What about workers in an industrial setting or construction site who want to stop and do their Islamic prayers? Is this something that should be accommodated? Or the Christian who wants to avoid the Sunday work shift to attend mass or church?
I personally would want to do my best to accommodate people of another religion who wanted prayer time, holy days off, etc. It is or should be less of a problem to and with biblical Christians - see Colossians 2;16.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Boogie;
quote:
We look anew at 'Christian morality'. Just as we have for many other issues. We bring 'Christian morality' into line with what is actually good and right.
But I don't understand why you are asking the question. Your assumptions about what Christians believe are rather sweeping imo. I am sure you know that many, many Christians do not believe that there is anything whatever immoral about same sex marriage. They can also defend their position very well theologically.
Christians are constantly looking anew at 'Christian morality'; but not to change it to a supposedly 'actually good and right', it doesn't need changing. The check is to make sure that (unlike, say, the Spanish Inquisition) we are in line with the good and right original.
I'm still waiting for a 'well-defended' exposition of gay sex being OK for Christians (which is a different issue to tolerating it as something the surrounding pagan world does). And I don't just read books I agree with, I do check out other views.
The Bible is in fact quite positive about LOVE between people of the same sex - see the example of David and Jonathan, particularly the statement in II Sam 1;26. But it also seems to say that such love should not, as far as God is concerned, be physically expressed by, in effect, an imitation of heterosexual intercourse.
Modern views have been somewhat skewed by Puritan/Victorian attitudes which were somewhat against the physical generally and became further exaggerated in relation to homosexuality by the Oscar Wilde scandal. As far as I can see the Bible would in fact permit considerable physical expression of love between men; but not 'the whole way' for want of a better phrase in a currently tiring mind.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
only just found this one by Croesos;
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
And would you mind giving some serious thought to what it means that Christians believe in separation of Church and State?
Croesos response;
Yes, it means some of them are able to hold political opinions not endorsed anywhere in the Bible.
Talk about getting everything wrong end round and upside-down...!!
Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
if you're thinking of the USA their non-establishment is rather anomalous.
I was thinking of NZ, Aus, Canada, the US etc. Lots of countries don't have established religion.
quote:
Christianity is not defined by the bulk of its nominal adherents, it is defined by the original teaching; and given that the original teaching is a great deal more in your favour than the establishment heresy, why are you so ready to dismiss it?
The question of what the "original teachings" of Christianity were is extremely controversial. I doubt you and I would at all agree on what they were despite us both having spent years studying them. What we can probably both agree on is that a significant majority of Christians in history have significantly deviated from the original teachings of Christianity.
From a practical socio-political standpoint, the pure ideals of the original teachings of Christianity are somewhat irrelevant, and far more important is what the people who consider themselves Christians are actually doing in the present day. Otherwise, as Croesos has mentioned, it's a bit like putting your hands over your ears and insisting that the original ideals of Communism were pure and that Communism is actually great and that all the Communists don't actually represent true Communism.
I am somewhat sympathetic to your approach because when gay rights issues were first brought to my attention I just mentally labelled anyone who rejected gay rights as not a true Christian. Eventually the sheer number of Christians who were against gay rights made me accept that 'Christianity' as practiced in the present day was against gay rights regardless of its original values and teachings, and that I personally didn't really get to define 'true Christianity' myself based on my own reading of scripture, and that instead I had to accept that the bulk of its adherents were indeed representative of 'Christianity'.
quote:
And you don't mention what you will or can do about Islamic State
?huh?
Obviously I'll crush them like a bug with my little finger. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
quote:
Nor what you will do if there is a Christian revival which would inevitably mean a return to biblical standards.
I would probably be so truly surprised shocked and amazed at that happening that I would be unable to do anything except stand there with my mouth gaping for days on end.
quote:
And that's biblical standards, not pathetically unscholarly re-interpretations of Romans 1, by the way.
I take it you don't like my interpretation of Rom 1? ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
quote:
I'm getting the strong impression that the assorted gay lobby are quite happy to see those who disagree with them made subject to legal penalties of the less barbaric modern kind
Okay, stop right there!
You're incredibly quick to point to significant differences between Christian groups in their views on these issues. And you keep repeating that not all Christians have the establishment views that are publicly expressed, especially not the 'true' Christians. Please have the courtesy and common sense to realize that individual gay people equally hold a range of views. There is no such thing as a single gay viewpoint on any issue - unlike Christianity gay people don't have an authoritative text so there's not even any basic reason why they should or ought to have a unified viewpoint. I know it's extremely tempting to stereotype one's opposition into a single viewpoint and to see them as out to get you. But in practice gay people squabble every bit as much as Christians do. (Recent arguments I've had with other gay people include subjects such as: biblical interpretation; whether it would be good or bad overall if homosexuality was proven to have a significant genetic component; and what political party to vote for) As in all things the extremists tend to raise their voices the loudest. But don't make the mistake of thinking the couple of voices you hear are representative of a uniform viewpoint. Likewise if a newspaper happened to interview two Christian fundamentalists you wouldn't want all the readers to believe that they spoke as representatives of a unified Christianity. Please extend to gay people the same courtesy you're repeatedly demanding they extend to you - recognize that they aren't all the same as each other and don't have a unified 'gay lobby' any more than you are a part of the unified 'Christianity'.
As far as gay issues go, I'm an extremist. As far as the continuum along which gay people's views on law tend to fall, I'm at an extreme end insofar as I tend to think that the law can and should be used to maximally protect gay people and their basic rights to the point of beginning to significantly affect the freedoms of religious people who try to infringe on those rights, and as such would like to see stronger laws in place than most countries have been willing to enact. Not all gay people agree. I have strongly held opinions and speak for myself as an individual, but am not speaking on behalf of all gay people, nor are my words representative of them. I am not part of any political advocacy group, nor do I have any power to enforce my opinions on others. My words and opinions are not representative of any hypothetical non-existent unified 'gay lobby'.
The 'less barbaric' modern penalties of fines that you mention that some gay people would like to see imposed, are not really comparable with torture and burning at the stake that the Christian Inquisition used to impose on gay people.
Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I'm still waiting for a 'well-defended' exposition of gay sex being OK for Christians (which is a different issue to tolerating it as something the surrounding pagan world does). And I don't just read books I agree with, I do check out other views.
The Bible is in fact quite positive about LOVE between people of the same sex - see the example of David and Jonathan, particularly the statement in II Sam 1;26. But it also seems to say that such love should not, as far as God is concerned, be physically expressed by, in effect, an imitation of heterosexual intercourse.
Well, at risk of getting off topic, I would point out that I am utterly convinced that David and Jonathan are intentionally depicted as same-sex lovers by the author of the books of Samuel (a view which appears to be shared by the majority of commentators in the last couple of decades or so). To reach this conclusion requires a certain level of background knowledge in terms of familiarly with how other sources in the ancient world depict same sex relationships, so I can completely understand how most people can read the story of David and Jonathan and simply not see a gay relationship. However there seems to be very high level of agreement among people familiar with other depictions of same-sex relationships in the ancient world to the effect that the author of Samuel is indeed intentionally depicting them as lovers.
I would point out that this is another one of those areas gay people are not in widespread agreement about. Orfeo, for example, seems to get very upset whenever I mention my view that David and Jonathan are deliberately depicted by the bible as being in a relationship, because he seems to strong disagree with my biblical interpretation, and also seems to feel that making such arguments hurts the push for gay rights in the present day.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I won't deal with the point in full now - I'm a bit swamped with other circumstances this week - but part of the answer to your point about 'the Jews' in John's gospel is that of course most people mentioned by John were in our terms Jewish. But those who opposed Jesus were almost entirely 'Judeans' as against 'Galileans'; John is not saying 'the Jews' were to blame for Jesus' death - he was after all an ethnic Jew himself - he seems to be saying something more like "There were these southerners..." Only much later could it be taken otherwise.
You might plausibly argue he meant by Jews he meant Judeans or Pharisees, but to make it "some southerners" that would be "some Jews" not "the Jews.
I'm only reading English translations, so if you have a Greek, Aramaic or Latin source that shows an indefinite quantity, I sincerely would be very interested in learning about it. Otherwise, I'm going to interpret "the" as "all" as did all the later nasty establishment Christians.
Excepting the partial qualifier you threw in, your defense of your special early Christianity is that the group he was slandering in it's entirety as the killers of Christ was a smaller ethnic or religious group than all the Jews. That is not much of an improvement.
The argument that John was an ethnic Jew ignores that it's not clear the author of the Gospel was actually John and not his followers and the first records of that Gospel roughly coincide with the Christians convincing the Romans in 96 CE that they weren't Jews and hence didn't have to pay the tax on Jews.
While it gets much worse later after the Roman adoption, it looks like rot was already there in John (and maybe Matthew) and that was before its establishment as a Roman state religion. Are you arguing that the evil corruption of establishment set in at the point of the first Bishop of Jerusalem?
If you accept that the anti-Semitism of the latter Gospels was not part of your really good early Christianity, then the magic is actually gone well before the Christians took power as an establishment religion and before they finished writing the New Testament. If you think those Gospels are the product of this ideal Christianity, it's not much different than the later state religion you dislike, lacking only the power to oppress.
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
There's a difference between compelling someone to produce a cake with a legal slogan inscribed and requiring the baker to produce pornographic cakes. The latter may not be legal in the jurisdiction of the bakery, especially if they employ minors.
The obvious, unstated framing assumption was that a porn cake was legal for the baker to produce, that he did not employ minors, and so on.
And under those assumptions, precisely what is the difference between asking the baker to produce a cake bearing legal slogans and artwork, and a cake bearing legal porn?
The only difference is that you think equal rights for gay people are important, but porn isn't. Which is fine, and I'd agree, but by making that statement, you impose your belief that equal rights for gay people is a good thing. And especially where the slogans in question are advocating equality that is currently illegal, I'm not sure that you can impose that belief in law.
Porn is a tricky area. The existence of gay people has been often been classified as adult only or pornography especially in states with those Christian bakers. For example,the MPAA accused of homophobia for rating a gay relationship film for viewers over 17 only.
If providing a wedding cake for a same sex marriage is producing pornography, then yes, Bakers should be forced to make pornography. Otherwise, a lovely tangent on what is "legal" pornography is required and if it requires the baker to restrict minors from seeing it.
In general, people have the right to advocate things which are currently illegal in one state but are legal in another state. That comes under the full faith and credit clause of the U.S. constitution and lawsuits are underway. If you think about it, it's also a requirement of a democracy allowing people to advocate changes in the laws that they have the freedom of speech to advocate things which are currently illegal. (admittedly the current anti terrorism laws abrogate that right.)
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Exactly. And, much as I agree with said belief, it becomes a frightening socio-political day when I get to impose my beliefs legally on others as a matter of course.
The requester of the cake was not forcing their belief on the baker.
To you, maybe; clearly not to them. And as they're on the receiving end of the demand, I think their perception should be given greater weight. quote:
A cake baked is not an endorsement made.
Same comment. quote:
A baker is judged by the appearance and taste of their goods. Their "moral" beliefs enter the picture when they refuse. When they consent, notice is rare.
What do you mean by this? quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
they were asked to publish a slogan with which they vociferously disagreed. Now, we can disagree with their...er..disagreement, but refusal to print a socio-political slogan does not amount to discrimination against persons,
How does it not?
For this to be the case, you would have to demonstrate that only gay people would order such a slogan to be printed. Given that a heck of a lot of straight people support gay marriage too, I think that suggestion is dead in the water! quote:
If they refused all political slogans, an argument could be made.
Yes, they would have been wiser to have said that or at least a statement along the lines of "the owners reserve the right to ice statements as their discretion" quote:
That the owner himself said gay marriage was the issue makes this a discrimination case.
Holding a view is not the same as discriminating against persons; it was made clear IIRC that he was not refusing to serve the customer because he was gay but refusing to serve a product with a particular endorsement on it which was in conflict with his beliefs.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
anymore than a Catholic baker refusing to produce a cake with the words 'Fuck the Pope' on it discriminates against Protestants.
Let's unpack this. Fuck is a moderated word. Most countries, NI included, have guidelines as to when it is appropriate to use. So the word itself could be eliminated from a baker's offerings.
'Fuck the Pope' is a statement of animosity, so then could also be eliminated.
'Fuck the Pope' is not a statement limited to Protestants. Not even close.
OK, let's make it easier then: what about "Catholicism is a false demonic religion" or "the Pope is the Antichrist". Do you still think a devout Catholic baker should have to bake such a cake??!!
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Palimpsest;
quote:
You might plausibly argue he meant by Jews he meant Judeans or Pharisees, but to make it "some southerners" that would be "some Jews" not "the Jews.
If you want to discuss anti-semitism I think we need to do it on a separate thread; and give me a bit of a break before starting that thread, I've barely time at present for adequate responses on this thread.
I did say that point was a partial answer to yours. Just for further clarification, the Greek uses the word 'ioudaioi' which is ambiguous between the meaning 'Jews in general' and the narrower 'Judeans as distinct from Galileans'. John, a Jew himself, using the word as he does strongly implies that the latter version must be meant. There's a degree of similar slight confusion in Luke where he seems to make not an ethnic but a religious distinction between Jews and Christians - a distinction the Jews would, I think, have approved of. The article ('the') is used in a different way in Greek to English and does not necessarily carry a 'THE Jews/all Jews' emphasis you suggest.
Yes, John's Gospel is clearly not written by him personally, as witness the 'appendix' of ch 21 almost certainly written after John's death. I think he used colleagues whose Greek was better than his own.
I can't see that there would be any intention to persecute Jews, as that would conflict with Jesus' teaching including what John himself records. You are perhaps forgetting that in the late NT period it was the Jews who were persecuting peaceable Christians, and using the Romans to do it at least until the Jewish Revolts changed that balance.
by P again;
quote:
it's not much different than the later state religion you dislike, lacking only the power to oppress.
No, not lacking the 'power' to oppress, the whole point is that they had an anti-oppressive theology, predicated on separation from the state and living as peaceable 'resident aliens', and therefore did not seek to oppress. On the contrary, they risked oppression and right up to such figures as St George shortly before Constantine, were willing to die but emphatically NOT kill for their faith.
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Just to be clear, I am NOT wanting the state to enforce my particular take at all. I am quite happy for there to be SSM in the state for those who believe in it, and polygamy for Mormons and Muslims for that matter. I'm just not happy that either is moral in Christian terms, or that the proponents of either should have a right to tell me I can't disagree with them, or that they should have a right to trample on my conscience. I'm actually committed to being as accommodating as possible but worried that things are currently swinging from a totalitarianism one way to a totalitarianism the other way - and this is a case where two wrongs would not make a right.
Oh, the brutal totalitarianism of expecting all people to be treated equally! Will no one stand up for these brave martyrs? How can a country be truly free when people face minor legal sanctions for gratuitously inserting their warped morality into a simple baking transaction? Etc, etc, ad nauseam.
Boil it down, strip out the whataboutery, and that's what this is about - supporting the right of anyone to discriminate against certain people in providing your services. It's not about being forced to provide a service, but about not discriminating over a service you have chosen to provide. Imagine the howls of outrage if the conversation had gone like this:
"Hi, we'd like to order a cake for our wedding."
"Sure, no problem. When do you need it?"
"On the 14th, but we'd need to pick it up early, while we're getting the church ready."
"Church - does that mean you're Christians?"
"Yes. Is that a problem?"
"I can't stand Christians. Your homophobia is thoroughly immoral. Get out of my shop."
The Christian Institute would be onto it quicker than you could say "shit-stirring bigots".
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on
:
Steve Langton - I know you're busy but I'd really appreciate a quick answer on this point:
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
ISTM all that gay people who wish to marry their same-sex partner want is the right for their partnership to be considered 'normal' and treated the same as a woman-man partnership. What exactly is it that you object to, Steve?
No one is suggesting that you must take part in same-sex marriage or sexual activity, so what is it that you object to? In what way is (what you consider to be) Christian morality being trampled on, now that SSM is legal and discrimination based on sexual orientation is (in most circumstances) illegal?
EDIT - cross-posted with The Great Gumby. Nice illustration!
[ 24. October 2014, 10:59: Message edited by: South Coast Kevin ]
Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Palimpsest:
In general, people have the right to advocate things which are currently illegal in one state but are legal in another state.
Or, indeed, things which are currently illegal in all states. The question is not whether I (should) have the right to advocate for a change in the law, it's whether I (should) have the right to force your business to support me in that advocacy.
For example, say you're a printer. Are you allowed to refuse to print leaflets for the BNP? Are you allowed to refuse to print material advocating the forcible expulsion of illegal immigrants, or advocating the granting of a blanket amnesty and citizenship to those same immigrants?
Not whether you may produce political leaflets that you oppose utterly, or even whether you should produce such leaflets, but whether you must?
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
For example, say you're a printer. Are you allowed to refuse to print leaflets for the BNP? Are you allowed to refuse to print material advocating the forcible expulsion of illegal immigrants, or advocating the granting of a blanket amnesty and citizenship to those same immigrants?
Not whether you may produce political leaflets that you oppose utterly, or even whether you should produce such leaflets, but whether you must?
The obvious corollary is the question of whether a printer is legally liable for things printed at another's request. If, as has been proposed, the act of printing constitutes an act of support and endorsement rather than the simple provision of a service, this would seem to logically suggest legal liability for whatever is expressed.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Well, we're back to 'legal'<> 'moral'
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
It's an interesting question. If a baker prepares a cake (to stay within the pastry world we seem to keep returning to) claiming that Julie is "The World's Best Mom", does Julie have any recourse if the baker later declares, via cake, that Anne is now "The World's Best Mom"? That would imply that Julie is no longer as good a mom as she was when the original cake was prepared, which seems mildly defamatory.
And that's just matters of opinion. What about matters of fact? If the Reallybig Automotive dealership orders a cake celebrating that they're the #1 car dealer in the region, can Verybig Automotive get damages for libel if they can demonstrate that they actually exceed Reallybig in sales?
This would all seem to follow logically from the arguments advanced by various recalcitrant bakers that their products constitute their personal opinions rather than those of their clients.
Posted by Starlight (# 12651) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
For example, say you're a printer. Are you allowed to refuse to print leaflets for the BNP? Are you allowed to refuse to print material advocating the forcible expulsion of illegal immigrants, or advocating the granting of a blanket amnesty and citizenship to those same immigrants?
Not whether you may produce political leaflets that you oppose utterly, or even whether you should produce such leaflets, but whether you must?
I don't agree that there's a valid analogy between bakers and printers when it comes to being made to 'advocate for a cause'. A cake with a few words of text is not the same kind of ringing political endorsement that printing a political book or political leaflet is. The whole idea that baking a cake represents any sort of endorsement by the baker of the message put on the cake or the celebration in which the cake is being used is just hilarious. The 'burden' on cake bakers to produce cakes they 'object to' is such a ridiculously small burden that I can't take their 'plight' seriously.
In any job involving working with other people, usually you find that something about one or more of your coworkers is objectionable. It's a basic part of work life to just learn to live with other people's issues and get on with them regardless. And if you really really object, then you can change jobs. Part of providing a service to the public such as cake baking, is dealing with the public. Sometimes there will be things about your customers that you don't like for whatever reason. Part of having a business open to the public is that dealing with such people is something you have to learn to live with. And if you really really object, then you can change jobs and not run a business open to the public. You are not being compelled by law to serve anyone, since closing your business instead is always an option - you are simply being required to serve people without discrimination as to a few selected criteria, and if you don't feel your decency and generosity extends to holding your tongue and being fake-nice to the occasional customer that falls into a category you'd love to discriminate against but which the law doesn't allow - then running a business open to the public is not a life choice you ought to make.
Being a publisher/printer of books and pamphlets is quite different in the sense that yes you are producing large volumes of text, which clearly convey various messages, which to varying extents must be approved by you anyway (depending on your exact role), and which to varying extents you're potentially legally responsible for the content of. You obviously retain your rights to reject the client and to reject to provide service on any grounds whatsoever other than those explicitly banned from discrimination. Such grounds might include:
1. You object to swear words present in the material.
2. You object to what you perceive as hate-speech present in the material.
3. You object to an overly negative tone taken by the material.
etc.
There are enough valid options to allow you to find reasons to totally refuse to your heart's content anything objectionably hate-filed that the BNP wants printed.
If your role in the process of publication is such that you are required to approve of or agree with the message being published, then of course you can object to the content of the message on any ground you like. No anti-discrimination law requires you to say things you object to or express opinions at length that you don't agree with. If your role in the process is not such that you are required to agree with the message being published, due to them in no sense being your words or your work and you having no legal responsibility whatsoever concerning the publication of the work, then it becomes irrelevant whether you agree with the content of the work or not and you should probably not read it if you think that would compromise your ability to do the job you're being employed to do. If you chose to be employed as a printer, but your conscience can't cope with the fact that you disagree with some small number of things being printed, then again you've made a bad choice of job for yourself and it's up to you to either endure it as part of the job or think about choosing another career for yourself. Again, part of the choice you make in opening your business to the public is that you are making the choice to serve the public without discrimination on the few grounds of discrimination that are banned.
[ 24. October 2014, 20:05: Message edited by: Starlight ]
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by South Coast Kevin;
quote:
ISTM all that gay people who wish to marry their same-sex partner want is the right for their partnership to be considered 'normal' and treated the same as a woman-man partnership. What exactly is it that you object to, Steve?
One way of expressing the point would be that it depends what you mean by 'normal' and what philosophical view underlies your idea of 'normality'. A plural society implies that people are allowed a great deal of liberty to disagree about that.
I'm still rather exploring 'what exactly ... I object to' here. But my starting point was the inherent bias of the OP with its 'we' who do or don't accommodate 'religion'. In a plural society 'we' includes the various religious people and the correct way of expressing the point is "How far do we in a plural society mutually accommodate one another?"
I do, by the way, probably object to 'The Christian Institute' more than I object to SSM.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by South Coast Kevin;
quote:
ISTM all that gay people who wish to marry their same-sex partner want is the right for their partnership to be considered 'normal' and treated the same as a woman-man partnership. What exactly is it that you object to, Steve?
One way of expressing the point would be that it depends what you mean by 'normal' and what philosophical view underlies your idea of 'normality'.
How about "not insane or criminal"?
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by Palimpsest;
quote:
You might plausibly argue he meant by Jews he meant Judeans or Pharisees, but to make it "some southerners" that would be "some Jews" not "the Jews.
If you want to discuss anti-semitism I think we need to do it on a separate thread; and give me a bit of a break before starting that thread, I've barely time at present for adequate responses on this thread.
Yes it is a tangent, and of course you're much too busy to defend your claim of a golden age of pre-establishment Christianity against the evidence that there is no such period. What are the dates you're claiming for this magic age? Did it survive the death of Jesus?
quote:
I did say that point was a partial answer to yours. Just for further clarification, the Greek uses the word 'ioudaioi' which is ambiguous between the meaning 'Jews in general' and the narrower 'Judeans as distinct from Galileans'. John, a Jew himself, using the word as he does strongly implies that the latter version must be meant. There's a degree of similar slight confusion in Luke where he seems to make not an ethnic but a religious distinction between Jews and Christians - a distinction the Jews would, I think, have approved of. The article ('the') is used in a different way in Greek to English and does not necessarily carry a 'THE Jews/all Jews' emphasis you suggest.
As I pointed out, that "all" interpretation did seem clear the Church Fathers a century or two later like Chrysostom. "Not necessarily" seems a low bar. I prefer the term "probably". If it is "The Jews/all Jews" then would you agree it marks a point past the end of your golden age of early Christianity?
quote:
Yes, John's Gospel is clearly not written by him personally, as witness the 'appendix' of ch 21 almost certainly written after John's death. I think he used colleagues whose Greek was better than his own.
Thus invalidating the argument that the Gospel was not an attack on Jews in general because John was originally a Jew.
quote:
I can't see that there would be any intention to persecute Jews, as that would conflict with Jesus' teaching including what John himself records. You are perhaps forgetting that in the late NT period it was the Jews who were persecuting peaceable Christians, and using the Romans to do it at least until the Jewish Revolts changed that balance.
As we agree, it's quite possible to forget Jesus' teaching and go damage people. Why do you think "establishment" is a necessary perquisite? They were busy denouncing each other as wrong long before the establishment of the Church.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
And as they're on the receiving end of the demand, I think their perception should be given greater weight.
As they are a provider of service to the public, they are under extraordinary onus to justify refusal of service.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
A baker is judged by the appearance and taste of their goods. Their "moral" beliefs enter the picture when they refuse. When they consent, notice is rare.
What do you mean by this?
A person will look at the cake and either approve of the aesthetics or not. A person will eat the cake and approve the taste or not. They will rarely look at the cake and think about the baker's politics unless it says something of which they disapprove. If they approve, they will likely not think of that at all.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
you would have to demonstrate that only gay people would order such a slogan to be printed. Given that a heck of a lot of straight people support gay marriage too, I think that suggestion is dead in the water!
This is akin to saying refusing to marry a gay couple is not discrimination because one would refuse to preform a gay marriage for straight people as well.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
Holding a view is not the same as discriminating against persons; it was made clear IIRC that he was not refusing to serve the customer because he was gay but refusing to serve a product with a particular endorsement on it which was in conflict with his beliefs.
If he would accept the order to bake a cake for a lesbian or gay couple for their wedding, this would hold a little more weight. Given his statements, though, I doubt he would.
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, let's make it easier then: what about "Catholicism is a false demonic religion" or "the Pope is the Antichrist". Do you still think a devout Catholic baker should have to bake such a cake??!!
So, are negative thoughts the only ones that come to mind? Is this an equitable comparison in your mind? How often does such an example occur, do you think?
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So, are negative thoughts the only ones that come to mind? Is this an equitable comparison in your mind? How often does such an example occur, do you think?
Yes.
People buy cakes for celebrations and special occasions.
It's hard to think of a special occasion I would feel I couldn't bake and ice a cake for! If someone is so negative, why are they in the celebration business to start with?
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
Its all about crossing that line between notional acceptance (so arms' length tolerance) and real-time acceptance of difference.
Maybe my weird family gave a bit of a head-start with this, but I have few problems with most of the other religions or differing political standpoints.
As for being prepared to provide professional services, luckily there is little call for an organist either in a mosque or at a KKK convention...
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on
:
The bakery has now been threatened with legal action.
"In a statement, the Equality Commission confirmed it will begin civil proceedings against the bakery. It said it would have preferred not to take legal action and said its contact with the bakery made clear “the claimant will be seeking only modest damages for the upset and inconvenience caused”. However, it said failing this, a civil bill will be issued.
It said the Commission has now received a reply from the company's solicitors “stating that their view remains unchanged that their clients have not acted unlawfully”.
Story here.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
:
I find this whole thing baffling:
Surely, the chap was told what the people wanted on the cake at the time they attempted to place the order: all the bakery had to do was say they couldn't do the figures because they didn't have the expertise - no shame in acknowledging your limitations and they'd have been off the hook.
Strikes me this whole mare's nest has arisen because the bakery decided to make a point, so they've only themselves to blame if they now end up being penalised.
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on
:
Interesting article about accommodation in Montana.
quote:
Some employees in the Yellowstone County clerk’s office have objected to processing same-sex wedding licenses and as a result aren’t being asked to do so for the time being.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Brian Morris overturned Montana’s gay-marriage ban effective immediately. Since then, one deputy clerk has expressed religious objections to granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples while three others have objected on moral grounds, Yellowstone County Clerk Kristie Lee Boelter said.
County Human Relations Director Dwight Vigness consulted with the county attorney’s office and decided to exempt the four from having to issue same-sex marriage licenses, Boelter told The Billings Gazette.
The kicker:
quote:
The decision was based on part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, she said, which makes it illegal for employers to discriminate based on several factors, including religion.
Which is more or less the opposite of what the Civil Rights Act says about discrimination by government officials. I'm pretty sure that a government official who believed (for example) that women shouldn't work outside the home and therefore refused to issue business licenses to any female applicant wouldn't be given the same consideration, but for some reason when it comes to discriminating against gays religion is considered a legitimate legal excuse.
Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on
:
The opposite decision was rendered a number of years ago in Saskatchewan, Canada. The justices either had to comply with the law or lose their jobs. I think it was the right decision.
We certainly wouldn't accommodate a Muslim in a bank who objected on religious grounds to banks charging interest would we?
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