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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: How far to accommodate religious belief?
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
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.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
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.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
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.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
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 ]
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
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?
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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OddJob
Shipmate
# 17591
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Posted
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.
Posts: 97 | From: West Midlands | Registered: Mar 2013
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
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.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
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.
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
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.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
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.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
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.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
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?
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
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.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
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.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
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.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
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 ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
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.
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AmyBo
Shipmate
# 15040
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Posted
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.
Posts: 122 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Aug 2009
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
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.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
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 ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
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 ]
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
in fact, if you're interviewing for a post on a pirate ship, it could go the other way
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
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.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
Okay, nobody can marry a person of the same sex on the premises. Happy with that?
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
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.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
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 ]
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
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 ]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
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)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
[Devil's Advocate]But that still doesn't explain the leap of logic from prohibiting activities to discriminating against people[/Devil's Advocate]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
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.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Matt Black
Shipmate
# 2210
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Posted
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 ]
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
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.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Nutty how? I mean, the theme park owners are nutty, IMO.
I think the state correct in their assessment.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Matt Black
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# 2210
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Posted
I think the theme park.
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"Protestant and Reformed, according to the Tradition of the ancient Catholic Church" - + John Cosin (1594-1672)
Posts: 14304 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Jan 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
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.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
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?
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Brenda Clough
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# 18061
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Posted
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.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
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.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
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)
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
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.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
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".
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
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.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
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 ]
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