In other words,only people whose religious beliefs are identical to yours should be exempt from generally applicable laws. If a baker has a religious objection to baking a cake for a same-sex couple, he shouldn’t have to. If he has a religious objection to baking a cake for an interfaith or interracial couple, too bad. Euphrosyne has decided that those cannot possibly be actual religious beliefs and those who claim they are must be lying. The analogy isn’t about the marriages - the analogy is about the religious beliefs.
I saw a video once of a pastor reading religious objections to SSM in a town council or something similar. I wish I could find it now. as it turns out, the exact arguments were used pre-Loving as against SSM.
Then this is one more reason why you should be arguing against this result, as this was not a federal court that was “legislating” on a Constitutional matter, but a state court.
So, you are saying that the Civil Rights Act is unconstitutional, and should be taken down. It denies the rights of bigots to discriminate based on protected classes.
You may deny, but there are those who find the idea of an interracial marriage just as abhorrent as you find a SS marriage. Denying reality doesn’t change reality, it just denies reality.
Any justification you can use to disricminate against homeosexuals for their oreitnation, another bigot can use to justify their discrimination against any demographic that they don’t like.
The analogy is that they have the right to get married, and that there are those who would deny them that right. Simple as that. You would deny a SS couple the right to get married using the exact same arguments that a racist bigot would deny an interracial couple from being married.
I found it, and it was regarding segregation. Several preachers are quoted in the video, and those men surely felt that integration was impinging on their Christian rights.
You read that as an ultimatum?! Oh, I see! I was using the generic “you.” You’ve undoubtedly seen this in use before: “It’s so smoggy, you can’t breathe,” or “You can’t get a meal at that airport.” (Notice neither is an ultimatum.) It was not directed at you personally: logically, it couldn’t be, because I have no idea if you’re a business owner. It’s kind of ironic that you took a statement of legal options as an ultimatum, but that’s all it was, akin to, “If you want to get a drivers license, you have to submit your birth certificate with your application. If you don’t want to do that, don’t apply.” See? Not an ultimatum. I can’t (and wouldn’t) give an ultimatum on that because I have no legal authority (nor desire). What would I say, “Submit that birth certificate, or you get no dessert?” That’d be silly, wouldn’t it?
As for your argument about abortion in China, I can only say that the good ol’ USA, not being China, allows people to work to change the laws. I stated in my previous post that that’s an option for people who oppose U.S. or state commerce laws. People are still bound by those laws while they fight (Notice: not an ultimatum but a statement of fact.), and if those people (See how I’m avoiding that generic you?) are in the minority, they may be unsuccessful, but they have that option here.
Again, back to the issue this thread is about: Miller has the right to her religious beliefs. California law says she can’t refuse service to certain protected classes of customers based on those religious beliefs. Had she been a Satanist, she wouldn’t be able to deny service to a Christian couple because religion is a protected class. Given that situation, Miller or anyone in that type of situation has legal options: serve them, shut up shop, or change the business (i.e., don’t sell wedding cakes).
The legislature of California or Oregon or Texas can pass whatever damn fool laws they would like, AS LONG AS THEY DON’T VIOLATE THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF OTHERS.
I do get it just fine. But, we have a question of competing rights. Does a consumer have the right to not be discriminated against based on their protected class, or does a shop owner have the right to discriminate against a custer based on their protected class.
It’s not as simple as you are trying to make it out to be, especially as my statement was in reply to someone who was trying to say that it should be the legislature, not the courts, who determines what rights can and cannot be restricted, not understanding that that was exactly what the legislture had done.
You’re way overanalyzing this. Anti-discrimination statues are enforceable only so much as they don’t infringe on the Constitutional rights of others. No one is seeking to declare any statute unconstitutional in any of this, they are seeking to prove that, as applied to them, in those circumstances, the statute is unconstitutional.
The problem, of course, is that gays are not a “protected class” at the federal level. So if we’re talking about US constitutional rights, the idea of suspect class (the actual term of art here) does not come into play. Yet. The Supremes might determine that they are or should be, but as of now they are not. The CA or CO legislators can pass any laws they like concerning discrimination against gays, but the states cannot determine whether or not someone is a member of a suspect class *for federal purposes. *
Nellibly, in message #672, you wrote "If you think making a wedding cake for a gay wedding is a sin, fine, close your shop. If that seems like too big a sacrifice for your faith, remember that Paul and 11 of the 12 apostles made a much bigger sacrifice for theirs."
You invited me - and those who think as I do - ultimately, to imitate the Apostles who were martyred, as an alternative to obeying the law in its present-day form.
You can walk that back all you want.
Your own words indicate that you would be content to see people of faith put to death.
A more anti-American outlook, I never hoped to live to see.
My poor family now entering pre-school. What does the future hold for them? Where can they go to be free, now that, for many Americans, it’s Open Season on people of faith.
I hope all who read this recognize this shockingly anti-American attitude, and object to it!
I think that is a wild misinterpretation. The point of the remark appears to me that closing your shop DOESN’T equal death. Hence the apostles, who were put to death, made a much bigger sacrifice.
Compare changing careers to that ultimate sacrifice. No one is indicating that Christians should be put to death. Perhaps they should, instead, gain a sense of perspective, and realize that.
Not at all. They are not attacking the statute. They are attacking the application of that statute when it infringes on someone’s 1st. Amendment rights.
You’re not suggesting that a Superior Court judge in California can not rely on the US Constitution to make a ruling?
