I profoundly disagree with this. Here in NC, child-marriage is a minor but real tourism draw. There’s no way in hell I’m going to say that someone is a bigot because they refuse to participate in a marriage between a 50-year-old and a teenager. I don’t care what “society” says.
Society would agree with you.
If there is a loophole in the law that allows such activities to take place, then working towards closing that loophole is a good thing.
That society is mostly unaware of this loophole is the problem, not that society would condone it if they were more so.
It is hard to find any sort of stats on this, only that it is possible. There are stats on the overall number of underage marriages, but, while I would think that an 18 year old marrying a 17 year old is unwise, I don’t know that it should be condemned. Certainly not with the same level of condemnation of a 50-13 pairing, as given by @Thudlow_Boink’s example.
But sure, someone comes to my bakery, and demands I make them a cake for such a union, I’d refuse, and if I were fined, I would happily pay the fine (or rather, I’m sure there would be gofundme’s set up in my name to pay it and more), and some attention would be brought to the point that this is going on.
However, I would not try to base my refusal on bible verses, but on the reality that a 13 year old is not capable of consent, unlike an adult.
Question, were you a baker, would you refuse to make a cake for a 18-17 marriage? How about a 50-18?
Technically, it says “You won’t lie the lying-of-woman,” or “You will not lie in the manner of a woman.” There’s a quite viable theory that it’s a stricture regarding having ritual sex and keeping temple prostitutes specifically for this, because other people around us do this, and we want to set ourselves apart. Given the context in which the line appears, it a pretty likely interpretation. It follows immediately another line about things we shouldn’t do in order to be different from people who worship Molech.
The conjugation of the verb is a little weird too. Commandments are almost always in the masculine second person singular present. This one is in the future, as though the means to do it doesn’t yet exist.
What I disagree with isn’t whether society condemns child-rape now; it’s whether my status as a bigot depends on society’s condemnation of child-rape. If I lived in a society where child-rape was common and accepted, and I loudly objected to child-rapists, I don’t think that would turn me into a bigot.
That’s the thing.
Possibly because they pick and choose among those also.
Almost none of them follow the laws about not eating blood. Almost none of them follow the laws about menstrual blood. Many of them consider the American flag to be sacred – they go on specifically about ‘desecrating’ it. And while they certainly pay lip service to laws about fornication, they most certainly don’t enforce them, not even by refusing to make cakes for those in violation.
This really says it all. Bravo!
In the modern world, “Religion” is not, and should not be, simply unassailable as a motivation. Nobody has their religion surgically implanted pre-birth. The OP’s hypothetical sincere believer chose to buy into that grab-bag of ideas. And every day has the opportunity to continue to follow, or to abandon, that grab-bag of ideas. Or, as pointed out up thread, to cafeteria ideas from the grab bag: accept some, reject others.
The mere fact they chose a grab-bag containing some (many?) crappy ideas, and are too stupid / unimaginative / unempathetic / hidebound / rule-following to reconsider that decision later, gives them zero cover for the consequences of acting on the crappy ideas they voluntarily adopted.
The OP was in effect offering this excuse by his hypothetical sincere believer: “I’m religious, I can’t help myself.” To me that reads exactly like “I was just following orders!”
We all know how well that works as an excuse for unethical behavior.
Of course it’s his choice.
You say that, but it doesn’t seem at all unusual for me to label someone zealously and religiously opposed to the notion of teenagers having sex at all as a bigot. That kind of person may well be the one that refuses to make the cake for the 14 year old who marries the 57 year old. The way I see it, bigotry is less about how “fucked up” the belief is, and more about how stubborn the person is in holding that belief. If I think the person is being reasonable in holding to their belief, not a bigot. If I think they are being unreasonably stubborn, bigot.
That being said, North Carolina’s laws really are “fucked up”. Apparently 30% of marriage applications involve couples with age disparities that trigger the state’s statutory rape laws, yet it would be arbitrary and capricious for any individual county to deny licenses on that basis.
~Max
What’s really fucked up is that the ads that it showed me on that page are for wedding rings.
But in stressing genuine, sincere religious belief, I don’t think the OP was talking about those who were “just following orders.” He’s talking about those who are obeying their conscience, not those who are doing what they’re told even when it goes against their conscience.
It’s not that they’re using an excuse for unethical behavior. It’s that they sincerely disagree over what constitutes unethical behavior.
Good intentions are never an acceptable excuse for bad actions. Though they may sometimes be a mitigating factor.
That’s right, they only want their own “Christian Sharia Law” implemented!
There’s more. A 14- or 15-year-old can only obtain a marriage license if they (or the spouse-to-be) are already pregnant with the couple’s child.
100% of 14- and 15-year-old girls married in North Carolina had to essentially go before a district judge, who has the power to issue a bench warrant for arrest on suspicion of statutory rape, and say ‘I want to marry the father of my child’.
~Max
That’s the great thing about religion. You can start with what you don’t like, and find a justification for it.
If you are of a faith that forbids you to eat meat on Friday, then, even though you want to eat meat on Friday, not doing so is following the orders of your sincere belief.
If you are of a faith that legitimizes discrimination against others, then you have chosen to follow a faith that reinforces that notion.
Someone who is raised in a faith that discriminates against others may sincerely feel as though their discrimination is justified, but at some point, they have to actually take responsibility for their actions.
I believe I understand what you’re saying although I’m not sure I agree that you’ve correctly read the OP’s intent.
What I was saying is the idea they’re following their conscience is simply substituting one unassailable non-rational actor, a religiously-inspired conscience, for another unassailable non-rational actor, the superior ordering the massacre or whatever. Whether the evil impulse originates in a book, in your head, or somebody else’s head doesn’t give you a pass for acting on it.
Try this:
“I genuinely sincerely believe that Zeus will punish me unless I sacrifice a 14 year old virgin girl.” Yes, that really is the idea in my head. I’m a conscientious careful follower of Zeus and between the book, the preacher, and the thoughts that enter my head when I pray, I genuinely believe that my conscience requires that I ritually sacrifice this young woman."
Now what? It’s sincere. it’s genuine. It’s also irrational and dangerous and illegal. And IMO wrong. The fact the believer honestly cannot see that is not an excuse. Their sincerity is simply a form of insanity that prevents them from correctly making the ethical decision.
Bottom line: Yes, reasonable minds can disagree about what is ethical at the margin. Virgin sacrifices almost certainly not. Mixed-fiber clothing almost certainly yes. Stuff in the middle may involve harder choices.
The problem is the notion that somehow religion constitutes a basis upon which to make these determinations. And the far larger problem is the one the OP is explicitly about. That religion completely excuses whatever notions, however abominable they may be, by the mere fact of them being of religious origin.
There’s the other usage of “bigotry” as sort of a catch-all for all those -isms where a person expresses hate and intolerance towards a protected group. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia.
In that case it doesn’t matter how theological or academic the rationale is.
Sorry, I forgot…
~Max
There are a few things being conflated here:
- Is it reasonable to call someone a bigot if they object to a 50-year-old having sex with a teenager? Oh hell no.
- Is it reasonable to call someone a bigot if they strongly object to teenagers having sex? Straight up, I don’t see where that matches common uses of the term “bigot.” But that’s a vastly different question from the first one, and I don’t think you should conflate them.
- Is it reasonable for someone to refuse to create a celebratory item for two teens who have sex? I mean, sure? It’s difficult to imagine circumstances under which that’d occur, short of a wedding cake for two teens getting married; and if someone refused to bake that cake, I’d need details before drawing any conclusions. Refusing to bake a cake for two 19-year-olds who live together is pretty different from refusing to bake a cake for a 19 year old dude and a pregnant 14 year old at the behest of an angry father.
You’re misreading that. They analyzed “3,949 marriage license applications involving 4,218 minors.” It’s 30% of those applications, not 30% of all marriage license applications, that involve child rape.
I had it right in my head. Sorry.
~Max
This is, in my experience, far and away the most common use in modern American English, although I think your definition could be tightened. Merriam-Webster sez:
Even that should be tightened. You’re not a bigot if you hate Nazis or serial killers or people who grinningly refuse to wear masks at the grocery store or people who unwrap candy during a concert. That’s just reasonable hatred. You’re a bigot if you show unreasonable hatred toward a group, hating them for their shared, harmless characteristics.
“BUT ‘UNREASONABLE’ IS A HARD WORD TO DEFINE!” you might object. Well sure. It means that bigots are by definition unreasonable, so the debate is less around whether someone is a bigot and more around whether their hatred is unreasonable.
I used “protected group”, that probably works well enough to distinguish Nazi-haters from bigots.
Not me, I suggested it. I provided two different definitions, you seem to say that I should combine them. Sure, that works too. But when you put “unreasonable” in, that means that the bigots might not be bigots from their own perspective, and triggers the confusion evident in Velocity’s OP.
~Max