No, I don’t want it both ways, please don’t ascribe motivations to me that I don’t have. Thank you.
I have laid out the difference here, and if you choose to ignore it, that’s on you. If I make websites for weddings, then I make websites for weddings. If I make websites for hate groups, then I make websites for hate groups. Those are in fact different things, even if it seems you can’t tell the difference.
Right, one contains hate, and the other doesn’t. That’s not an insignificant difference in content.
Why wouldn’t it? Sexual orientation is a protected class, political affiliation is not. The reasoning being that one is an immutable characteristic, and the other is a choice.
So, would you argue that they can deny making a mixed racial couple a wedding website, if they don’t want to promote miscegenation?
That covered this ground quite effectively on True Blood, where discrimination was against vampires because “God Hates Fangs.” It was an interesting extrapolation on religion generally, and persecution of homosexuals and anyone who was different.
As someone that’s too familiar with too many sects of Protestantism and the extreme hostility between them. I can assure you that those three words, in that order, are incoherent.
As to the @Ivan_Denisovich perspective, the succinct response is that such an approach is antithetical to the basic principle of separation of Church and State. End.
I don’t think that such however means that anyone can say anything is their religious belief on a whim to justify any expression. And issue in this case does not hinge on the belief being of religious nature.
That’s where @DavidNRockies’ quote of David Brooks’ articulation of the issue a bit above is helpful, except it isn’t an either or, it is deciding the balance. It does seem that the thumb is pushed away from the nondiscrimination side of the scale though.
Sorry if it came across that way, but that’s not what the idiom means. “You want it both ways” means that (I think) you are making two statements that are inconsistent with each other. It’s not a statement of your motivations.
You’re grouping things together that, in your view, are essentially similar to each other. You’ve laid out “websites for weddings” and “websites for hate groups”. But those are just circles that you’ve arbitrarily drawn around things to support your argument.
To be fair, I did the same earlier: I made the category “websites for churches” and considered it a minor difference (in terms of constructing the site) when one says “God Loves LGBTQ” and the other says “God Hates LGBTQ”.
Regardless, you seem to acknowledge that content does matter, and that you think website makers should be able to reject jobs that involve content that they consider offensive. If the source of that right relates to freedom of expression, then that right should extend to any position one holds (because that’s how it works everywhere else).
Again, it hinged on freedom of expression. There are very few limits to free speech, and they mostly don’t revolve around things related to protected class status. After all, the WBC is itself free to march around with “God hates LGBTQ” signs with few restrictions. The question is if selecting jobs also amounts to freedom of expression.
Sure. Thankfully, there aren’t too many of these people around these days.
Do I like making things easier for bigots? No. But I see no consistent way around that if I want to myself have the right to discriminate against religion–which I do, since I consider it fundamentally anti-human. Religion is a protected class, so I can’t refuse a person on that basis, but I sure would like to have the right to reject jobs that involve promoting ideas that violate my own beliefs.
Simple it is not but less a dream than the ambition. That said the manner that it usually falls short is not due to minority religion having too much say and being respected too strongly. Nah. It falls short more because there is a strongly dominant faith in the country which consider is, if not the genuine religion, then minimally the model for what defines one.
Some of these people are all about both freedom of religion and of speech, so long as it means their freedom as the majority to impose restrictions on others, preferably by use of the state.
Just as I’d rather have a thumb on the scale to nondiscrimination over expression in the balancing act, I would also prefer less power for state approved “genuine” religions and the thumb protecting those not blessed by the state more.
The ambition is not simply achieved but it remains a foundational principle nevertheless.
A “sincerely held” religious belief should be treated the same as a sincerely held non-religious belief. Both should be subject to the law in the same way. If an atheist sincerely believes they can’t do business with [whomever] should they get to discriminate? I say no, and neither should the hateful fundie.
Or what about someone who’s simply delusional? If aliens from outer space tell me not to do business with [whomever] and I sincerely believe them, is that ok?
If it’s a public business then yes. In practical terms I’d probably counsel the customer to tone down the rhetoric.
And the analogy would probably be more accurate if the customer belonged to a church that said atheists go to hell, but the website wasn’t saying anything inflammatory. This is more akin to what’s happening in the wedding-site situation.
Great posts Denisovich. I disagree, but I found them refreshing. Here are some problems:
Separation of church and state has a perfect track record of avoiding religious war. That was the main goal, and it’s done a fine job. State religion? Not perfect, though I concede that most societies live at peace most of the time.
But we do have weird arguments about wedding websites and cakes. Tradeoffs. We also admit all manner of cranky religions.
This is the rub. Protestantism is a) splintered, b) the dominant religion in the US, and c) lacks the religious authorities that Orthodox Christianity, Catholicism, and Islam has. Many of the splinters explicitly reject the concept of worldly religious authority. The most ideologically hierarchical of the bunch (Anglicanism) is pretty ecumenical in practice. The most hierarchical in practice (the Southern Baptist convention) is virulently hostile to religious authority ideologically. Practitioners of legitimate religions as you define them are an overall minority among religious believers in the US. Not so in other countries.
I can’t see an easy adaptation of your proposed system in the US. You provide a useful reminder though that US democratic traditions aren’t the only ones in the world. Sincere props.
ETA: To solve all our problems, we need to get the main stakeholders in a big room and knock some heads. You can do that when you have religious representatives. You can’t with separation of church and state: there’s no way to keep the troops in line. I’m expressing this with tongue in cheek, but there is an actual downside to the US approach. You can’t knock heads form a social consensus like Constantine did.
Oops…didn’t realize that this was a 3-year-old post I was replying to. I’m glad I came in to make this point, but no need to re-hash any old arguments that might have already been fought in the intervening years if my post might lead to that.
There are plenty of these people around these days. You just don’t notice them because the law, quite rightly, forbids them from practicing their hate.
You seem to be implying that there’s some branch of Christianity that’s not schismatic? I’m wondering how it is that you think that’s logically possible.
