So, you want the state to determine which religions are valid enough for protections, and which are not?
I am afraid that you may be correct in that there are many americans who would like to see the state support discrimination again, but even if I am on the losing side of that fight, I still think I’m on the right side of that fight.
That’s fine, but you are defending the right to discriminate against people based on your religious beliefs. You need to accept that you are also defending others to discriminate based on their beliefs as well, even if they believe differently than you do.
She doesn’t have to lose her livelihood. She can go work somewhere else, or she can not make wedding cakes for anyone at all. She has lots of choices. She doesn’t have to “serve all comers in anything they may desire,” she just has to serve all comers in selling them the goods and services that are available to all other comers.
You are very incorrect about the last part. Taht is the basis of the Civil Rights Act, and it has been supported by most Americans, and it has been passed into law, and it has passed constitutional muster.
I fail to see how my “views” that people be treated equally are extremist. I have not in anyway refused nuance, I am pointing out the nuance that is being ignored.
I am not excluding the middle here. You are the one that is claiming that if we respect the rights of people to engage freely in commerce in public businesses, that that is Chattel slavery for the business owners.
You really didn’t answer any questions, really just went on about how agreeing to the social contract that if you open your doors to the public, you open your doors to everyone is like slavery, but I’ll be more than happy to answer yours.
No. He may not discriminate against her for her religious beliefs, even if it makes his customers uncomfortable. That is the reason that we have such laws. In a place without such laws against religious discrimination, he could tell her to violate her religion by taking off her scarf or be fired, and would do so to accommodate the bigotry of his clientele.
Now, since I answered your question, let me ask you in return. Can a business owner operating in a remote area of fly-over country, fire his black employee for no reason other than his race, after several customers confide to him that his race makes them “uncomfortable”?
Since the other poster expressed a preference to pass on answering, I will try.
My question would be: would most reasonable American voters and legislators buy the argument that deliberately and gratuitously to subject customers - any customers - to humiliating experiences, was a matter of religious precept or of counsel? (Please see my post #602)
My answer: Not. Therefore the customer prevails on these points.
And “doesn’t realize the Pat&Sue wedding is actually two men”
Not going to happen. Maybe the state requires that the shop staff prepare a customer intake form for each wedding or wedding-related order. And the intake form would have a box labelled: “Sex / Bride (Spouse 1)” and "Sex / Groom (Spouse 2). The staffers tick off “Male” “Female” “Other.” And the manager of the shop or the MOD will review each form before the agreement is concluded. If the boxes ticked off are other than 1 male and 1 female, the mgr or MOD will call the customer into her office, and privately and politely explain that the establish greatly appreciates his business proprietor is religious, and to accept this particular order would be to go against her religious sensibilities. The interviewer would ask the rejected customer if he understands that this specific order cannot be taken at this establishment, and does he understand why. Does he have any further questions? And that the establishment values his continued business for other occasions and affairs, and would be glad to take these orders. And would the customer be willing to accept the gift of either a freshly baked loaf of bread or an especially terrific pie?
So, no after the fact discoveries that the event being celebrated is a same-sex union.
Euphrosyne, you seem like an earnest Christian woman, despite you chose a user name that is heresy.
The fact is we are a cosmopolitan society. That type of society works best when businesses don’t choose a Byzantine system to decide who they will serve. We have decided that your religion is for how you run your personal life but not for your open to the public business. If your religious spirit is to strong to accept that bargain, you must make your business less public or make wider reaching caveats as to how you o business publicly. If you won’t sell cake to Gay or Muslim weddings then you have to decide to sell to no weddings or create a Christian Wedding cake club. No one is forcing someone to make a cake they don’t want to. They are aking rules about how a public cake company is allowed to act.
No, not “which religions.” I think the voters and the legislature should determine whether any given religious objection to obeying a given law is, for the objector, a matter of permission, a matter of precept, or a matter of counsel.
The position of their religious body, in the case of those who wish to hold human chattel property, is one of permission, not of precept of counsel.
And the consequences to those on the receiving end of this permission is being chained to a gang laboring in the hot sun day in and day out, being screamed at and whipped by an overseer, with no hope of escape, often separated from your family forever, not knowing what has become of them, and knowing this will be your lot for the rest of your life.
So, in the case of those who try to justify slavery according to their interpretation of the Bible, even according to their own religious tenets, to hold human chattel slaves is not commanded of them, or counselled to them, but only permitted to them.
And the consequences to the slaves could not be more horrific by any measure.
But in the case of the refusal of the baker, her refusal is a matter of precept - she must refuse. And the reasonably foreseen consequences to the refused customers are that they will be momentarily inconvenienced, disappointed, and possibly embarrassed. Which is why I would support the State requiring business owners in this position taking the time to explain these matters to the refused customers as politely as possible, and otherwise to extend to them every possible courtesy.
But for some Americans to be fleetingly inconvenienced and embarrassed neither warrants nor justifies the State legislating that business owners must be forced to choose between either violating their consciences or losing their businesses.
I believe the State should take into account not which religions should be accommodated, but whether the problematic activity is of precept or not, and what the consequences to the recipient are. And then judge accordingly.
So-called “honor killings” are not an option, for example.
OK.
Please see my reply (above).
Not so. Ownership of a business is a livelihood apart from being an employee elsewhere. Business owners often invest all their life savings, and take out mortgages to set up their business and maintain themselves until it turns a profit - it can take years before the business becomes profitable. And making cakes, especially wedding cakes, is her bread and butter. If she doesn’t make wedding cakes, she’ll lose the business. If she has to sell the business and take a job elsewhere, she is out potentially tens of thousands of dollars, money she may never be able to recover.
To demand this of a business owner to spare some customers being inconvenienced or disappointed is way out of proportion, way out of balance, and I believe most Americans would not support it.
The Civil Rights Act *does not address the provision of goods and services that do not yet exist, and which, to be brought into existence, requires the exercise of artistic expression. * Another distinction I think you’re not making, but which I think the American people would make, in cases of conscience rights.
Say *what?
*
Moving right along . . .
Well, we agree on something.
For reasons of conscience? Of course not.
For any other reasons? Of course not, but that would be for another thread.
Maybe* you *have decided that your religion is for how you run *your *personal life, but not how you conduct business. But my religion doesn’t provide for such a compartmentalization. And I shouldn’t be required by the State to compartmentalize my life in that way. That the State should reach into people’s hearts and heads, and perform surveys and lay out highways, overpasses, barriers, bridges, and dead-ends within our souls is a execrable overreach and an act of tyranny.
No person of faith should permit so outrageous an intrusion into their personal interior landscape by the State.
Yet they (and you, it seems) are perfectly fine with discriminating against those who don’t happen to hold your particular faith. So you’re free to practice your religion, but they’re not free to practice theirs where you’re concerned, even if it’s no religion at all?
I don’t mean to insult you. I am just about the most irrevocable and unrepentant atheist that exists on this earth. (To give you an indicator, Richard Dawkins is my hero in the religious sphere.) And I don’t begrudge anyone else their faith. However, I look at ethics rather than politics or legalities. And, to paraphrase him, I think it’s the height of hubris for someone to claim freedom of religion in justifying the violation of the rights of others.
(Personally, I think the solution is economic rather than legal. If I were one of a gay, or lesbian, or whatever, couple, and I was refused service, not only would I take my business to some less intractable provider, but I would make my displeasure with the former business owner and my reasons as public as possible, from social platforms to telephone poles and word-of-mouth. Democracy in action.)
For the sake of argument, I’ll ask this: why do the baker’s religious beliefs have to take second place to the lifestyle? Aren’t the gays involved in this compelling the baker to violate his religious beliefs in the name of political correctness or whatever?
I’m unaware of any biblical or other religious textual prohibitions against baking cakes for certain individuals, no matter the characteristics of the individual.
If I lived in the PRC, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, or the former Soviet Union, I would simply accept that the State can and should reach into everyone’s mind and set up shop. Because that’s just the way it is.
Here in the U.S., that’s the way it isn’t. The Founding Fathers wanted to set up a land of liberty and freedom . . . especially freedom from government intrusion and encroachment on liberty.
That’s what the Constitution is all about. That’s what checks and balances is for. That’s what limited power is for. That’s what the First Amendment is for. To keep the American people free from government overstep and overreach.
I don’t see how any of what we’ve been discussing in the thread represents a denial of the freedom to practice their religion, “even if it’s no religion at all.”
Who? What? When? Where? Example?
Mr. Dawkins was an Englishman, not an American. I wouldn’t expect him to understand the First Amendment.
However, here in he U.S. the First Amendment is still the law of the land.
I think it’s disingenuous to claim when the claim to freedom of religion, when it violates the rights of others, should be overridden, and the rights of the other prevail.
What other right of the American people should regularly be invalidated, always and everywhere, should this group or that claim that their rights are being violated in consequence?
Should the right to the Freedom of Speech be put on trial here? And should it be weighed and found wanting in comparison, say, to the right of people of color to go about their lives undisturbed by any public speech that would be considered hateful toward them. In many Euro states, this is the case. The people aren’t free to engage in any speech that might be interpreted as offensive to the sensibilities of people of color or immigrants.
Maybe we should adopt that as well, here in the U.S.
Should the right not to have troops quartered in our homes be put on trial here? After all, many families of military personnel may feel that they are set apart in military “ghettos” and isolated from the mainstream of American life. Shouldn’t their right to be made to feel a part of the communities in which they live offset the right not to have troops quartered in the homes of those living in neighboring communities? I think a family of five, parked in a nicely fixed up basement apartment would work well. The home owners would have to pay for everything, of course, but they would receive a tax break on all the costs.
Let’s do that, too, here in the U.S.
Or Freedom of the Press. Or the Right to a Speedy Trial. Or the Right to Peaceably to Assemble.
Yes, I’ve decided that I’ll make it my personal mission to be against the Right Peaceably to Assemble, particularly when the assembly offends my personal sensibilities about things. I’ve decided I have the right not to be offended by what may come about while others are exercising their right peaceably to assemble, and I’m going to do all I can to stop them doing it, when what they’re doing offends and upsets me. What’s more, I’ll claim that there is no right peaceably to assemble, when their assembly offends me or something that matters to me.
For example, I don’t like the morning gatherings of the Society of Friends at the nearby Quaker Hall. I don’t like the cars and the traffic - it makes it hard for me to get out of my driveway in the morning. And I don’t like the way the people look so peaceful and gentle; it gives me the willies.
So I’ve decided that the right peaceably to assemble has to go, insofar as some of the people assembling annoy me and give me the willies.
Well, I’ve never heard of so immature and narcissistic an attitude in all my life!
[QUOTE(Personally, I think the solution is economic rather than legal. If I were one of a gay, or lesbian, or whatever, couple, and I was refused service, not only would I take my business to some less intractable provider, but I would make my displeasure with the former business owner and my rseasons as public as possible, from social platforms to telephone poles and word-of-mouth. Democracy in action.)[/QUOTE]
Now see, just as you have a problem with the right to religious expression when it violates the rights of others, I have a problem with the right to free speech (I’m being satirical here!) See, I feel that I have the right to a good reputation and goodwill in the community in which I do business, and that I have a right not to be hurt and offended by words that disparage and denigrate my conduct of business in the community . . . because it hurts my bottom line, and it offends me personally. So I’m going to demand that the State override your right to free speech, and that the State silence you when you attempt to share your displeasure about my conduct of my business.
And when you object to my demands on the basis of your Right to free Speech, I will reply, what does your Right to Free Speech matter, in comparison to my bottom line?
See? It can work both ways!
As for me, I don’t want to live in the PRC, where underground churches flourish because the people aren’t permitted to conduct services in any but a very few churches approved by the Communist Party. I don’t want to live in a territory like the former Soviet Union or like Cuba, or Albania, or North Korea.
I believe in the rights secured for us by our Constitution - the rights of all of us - even when I’m offended, disappointed, made to feel outside the mainstream, inconvenienced, disturbed, have to park far away, have to listen to speech I don’t like, feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, or annoyed by the actions of others who are exercising their rights as Americans.
I’m suspicious of people, especially of atheists, who with great relish and great facility, seem to pounce upon one and only one Constitutional right and condemn it as unfair and untenable - and that right happens to be the very one which secures the liberties of their adversaries: American people of faith.
I’m jumping in here with an answer, and quoting myself from earlier today (#602): Regarding the question of Christian bakers who agree to sell to any and all comers of any description any goods they may require which the bakers customarily purvey to the public, except in those cases which may arise in which the customer requests that the baker exercise his or her artistic expression in a manner that violates her conscience, it would seem that there’s a distinction between religious precept and religious counsel, and also between negative and positive directions from God.
A precept is a commandment: each Christian must obey a precept in its fullness as soon as he is old enough to be responsible for his actions. A positive precept is something the Christian must do: (“Keep holy the Sabbath day.”) A negative precept is something he must not do. (“Thou shalt not kill.”)
A counsel is advice which the Christian must treat with reverence from his earliest age of reason, but which not every Christian is morally bound to observe. And the counsels may also be positive (“Go, sell all that thou hast, and give to the poor, and follow me” - which only some are called to do, not all) or negative, for example, to refrain from embracing the goods of marriage and family life for the sake of the Kingdom, which only some, not all, are called to do.
No Christian may intentionally excuse himself from the words of Saint Paul, “And whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Colossians 3:17) This is a matter of precept.
Also of precept is the First Commandment which requires Jews and Christians to honor God above all things, and which would forbid them placing before God an offering of that which He has forbidden.
Among the things which God has forbidden are homosexual relationships, and by extension, homosexual marriages.
Therefore, in fulfilling the precept given by the Apostle to do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus, which is of precept, the baker offends God if she voluntarily undertakes any action that which she cannot lawfully offer to God in Jesus’ name.
And for the State to attempt to compel her to do so, is for the State to compel her to violate her conscience.
The State is not requiring you to compartmentalize your life. The State is requiring you to run your business in accordance with laws forbidding discrimination against certain groups. And in a state that forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation, you are not permitted to sell wedding cakes to only opposite sex couples. You can open a business that is not a bakery, or you can open a bakery that doesn’t sell wedding cakes.( And there are many of those).Yes, that will limit your business - but sometimes our religious beliefs cost us either in money or in choices. But no one complains when a woman whose religious beliefs prevent her from being alone with a man can’t become a psychiatrist and restrict her practice to women or when someone whose religion prohibits contact with dogs must nonetheless serve the blind customer with a service dog.
Maybe the Supreme Court decision will be that bakers don’t have to bake wedding cakes for gay couples. And that will then be extended to venues and florists not being required to provide their services to gay couples. And then logically, it will be extended to bakeries and venues and florists not being required to provide services to interracial couples as long as the refusal is based on religious beliefs. Because once businesses don’t have to provide services to a same-sex couple based on religious beliefs even in a jurisdiction that forbids such discrimination , then there is no basis to forbid such discrimination against interracial couples when it is based on religious beliefs. It doesn’t work to say that God doesn’t forbid participating in interracial or interfaith marriages. You don’t think that God forbids it - but that doesn’t mean other people don’t believe that they are forbidden to provide any services for an interracial/interfaith wedding. Just like the fact that I don’t believe Catholic teaching forbids me to provide a wedding cake to a same sex couple doesn’t mean you don’t think it is forbidden.
There is only one way to justify discrimination based on religious belief against gay couples while forbidding it against interracial/interfaith couples. That way is to say that race and religion deserve to be protected classes and sexual orientation does not. Because in the end, that’s really what this is all about and it’s why people twist themselves into pretzels trying to say that race and religion and gender etc are different.
Except that of course it hasn’t been established yet that any First Amendment rights have been infringed. That determination will have to wait at least for the decision in Masterpiece.
Can you document for us a religious sect that actually exists or once existed that DEMANDS of its adherents denial of service for interracial couples? Purely on religious grounds?
I’ve never heard of one, and I don’t believe such religious sects ever existed.
Therefore I believe any claims that denials of service to interracial couples purely on religious grounds are erroneous.
I believe there were plenty of denials of service to such couples on cultural grounds or on the grounds of fear of social opprobrium or on the grounds of personal distaste.
But not on religious grounds. And it’s “Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion” that we’re talking about here.
As for me, I would squirm inwardly at having to tell anybody I couldn’t do something for them, on religious grounds, or on any grounds at all. I think it would be an awful experience for both of us - yes, of course, more for them than for me.
I think smart bakers and bakery shops with concerns about this should set up everything online. And have all customers order wedding cakes online, either from home, or from a docking stationed laptop set up in the shop. And there should be an online questionnaire with required fields, “Spouse 1 - Sex - male / female?” and “Spouse 2 - Sex - male / female?” and if the responses are ever anything other than male / female, then the system should respond denial of service on this request. Of course in a much more polite way, “We’re sorry, we cannot accommodate requests to provide products specific to celebrations of male-male unions. Please choose another sex for one of the spouses, or check with the store manager.”
Either the customers will get the picture and depart, or else the customers will choose to have a follow-up with the manager.
This way, there will be much less likelihood of embarrassment and disappointment for the customers. Which people of faith certainly don’t want.
Maybe there’s a misunderstanding here- the First Amendment and laws prohibiting religious discrimination don’t
protect the beliefs of sects. They protect the beliefs of individual people even if they are idiosyncratic. So for example, if I want to take December 24 off from work because I have a religious belief that prohibits me from working on December 24, my employer or a court can’t simply say “Catholics aren’t prohibited from working on December 24 so she’s not entitled to a religious accommodation”. They can inquire into the sincerity of my belief, but that’s it.
There may or may not be any sects holding that belief- but there certainly have been (and probably still are) individuals who hold it. Bob Jones University justified its ban on interracial dating and marriage on religious grounds, essentially saying “God created people differently for a reason”. They lost their status as a non-profit for it around 1976. The ban didn’t end until 2000 and they were considered a for-profit organization until they regained the exemption in 2017. It cost them millions in taxes. And those people are perfectly entitled to interpret Colossians 3:17 in the same way you do, which would forbid them from providing services to an interracial wedding.
By entering into commercial activity, the “person of faith” accepts certain limitations on the exercise of his beliefs. That’s the exchange one makes for entering into commerce. The business owner of faith has a choice in the matter: abide by those laws and regulations (while working to change them, perhaps), shut up shop, or make other changes–say, not selling wedding cakes at all. It doesn’t matter whether the owner’s deeply-held belief is to sell only to Christians or only to straight people or only to white people; the deal is, if you want to go into business and gain the advantages of commerce, you play by the rules, and those rules, in California and a lot of other states, say you can’t deny services to those whose sexual orientation your particular brand of Christianity says is sinful.
As a person of faith–a Christian, actually–I find Miller’s religious beliefs to be contrary to my own deeply-held Christian convictions. Yet if she came into my shop and wanted something I made so she could use it for some church ceremony, I’d be bound by the rules of commerce to serve her, as well I should be. If I don’t want to do that, I can shut my shop and pat myself on the back for being so noble as to stick to my convictions, however wrong they might be.
