There aren’t grounds for objection to same sex marriage outside of religion. The SCOTUS ruled on that. And, legislatures have added sexual orientation to laws specifically requiring equal treatment, including by private enterprise.
So, what’s left as grounds for defying civil rights law?
What our mainline religions do isn’t really the issue. Personal religious beliefs aren’t limited to mainline denominations. Plus, the judiciary has no way of evaluating the validity of a person’s religious beliefs.
So:
If this argument of yours holds, then why would Kim Davis of Rowan County have to create a marriage license for a same sex couple?
That would seem to be more significant speech than simply being the anonymous provider of a cake.
Then yes. If we reach the point where being a Nazi is a protected class then you can’t discriminate against Nazis. Its really that simple. As it stands now we don’t live in such a world and are unlikely to because of exactly this sort of scenario.
Yes - that’s another and more fundamental case of equal treatment being required.
If someone can discriminate against a customer in a public business situation, why could they NOT discriminate against that same customer in a government situation? Or, vice versa.
We see the same argument being used: my beliefs do not let me treat these people equally. I would be supporting this view I loath if I were to serve this customer. Don’t abridge my speech rights, please.
So, I agree the 14th has to hold. But, so do our other civil rights laws. (In fact, one could wonder why we seem to have to restate the laws for each situation and each protected class - government, employment, public accommodation, real estate, etc., etc. What does it take for us to get it?)
Allowing a religious exemption from following our laws is a bit of crazy that could be broadly applied were it considered legitimate.
There are groups that have been recognized as religions by the courts which hold to white supremacy as a tenet of their religious beliefs. While I may vociferously disagree with their beliefs the courts are not going to rule against them just because their beliefs are loathsome. So we do already live in such a world.
So hand waving this away and pretending no one will ever face such a dilemma is dodging a valid argument. If they call themselves the KKK, or the Nazi party you can feel good about rejecting service as such groups are not a suspect class. But once they call themselves the World Church of the Creator then you might want to have a better legal argument as to why you won’t serve that religious group when you do serve others. And any such reason cannot just be limited to that particular group; it would apply to all.
Because the 14th amendment is an injunction against certain actions by the states. It’s not an injunction against actions by private businesses. Private individuals can do things that the state (or the states) cannot do, so just because a private citizen can do “X” does not necessarily mean that government agents can also do X.
But this is exactly backward. I can discriminate against someone based on a position they hold, if that position is neither unique to their religion nor is inoffensive when removed from a religious standpoint. The law preventing discrimination against someone because of their religion says stuff like I need to make reasonable allowances for the religious observations of employees, or I can’t refuse to rent to Jews, or the like. It doesn’t say that I must serve a Wahabbi customer who keeps chatting about how much the 9/11 victims deserved their fate, even if he claims that’s part of his fucked-up religion; nor must I serve the Christian Identity person who wants to celebrate horrible acts of racist violence, even if he says that’s part of his religion. The Wahabbist and the CI are both discriminatable against because of the loathsome claims they make.
If you have case law to the contrary, I’d love to see it.
So the hypothetical, in which discriminating against someone because of their political views is illegal, is still wholly divorced from reality.
The example posited had to do with whether a baker who makes a Buddhist a cake with swastika designs could refuse to make the same cake for a Nazi. I simply noted that there are religious groups that do hold white supremacist views, so substitute a Creativist for a Nazi and you’ve got a religious matter.
If you think you can discriminate on the basis of a belief someone holds and simply argue that you object to their view and not their religion then I think you are on the wrong side of a not-so-very fine line. An argument of the sort, “Honest, your honor, it’s just that I don’t serve people who wear small hats. It’s not that I am discriminating against Jews.” won’t go very far.
And no, you cannot discriminate against someone based upon their offensive religious belief, even if that belief would be offensive outside of a religious context.
As to court cases on that point, look to Peterson v. Wilmur Communications, Inc. from the federal circuit courts. Peterson worked as a manager, including supervising the work of non-white employees. His performance reviews were satisfactory and there had been no allegations of racial bias in performance of his work. He had once been disciplined for a data entry error.
Peterson was interviewed by the local newspaper about his white supremacist beliefs as a professed member of the World Church of the Creator. The article identifying Peterson was published in a weekend edition of the newspaper. Upon arriving at work on Monday Peterson was immediately called in to speak with his supervisor and was summarily suspended. Two days later he was demoted and stripped of supervisory responsibility.
Peterson sued for unlawful discrimination in employment and won.
Had Peterson engaged in acts of racial discrimination in his supervision of employees then his employer would have had a better case. But simply holding and stating offensive religious beliefs is protected. Had his employer instead watched him like a hawk and fired him at the first instance of a discriminatory act in his role as a supervisor then the employer would likely have been on solid legal footing.
Huh. I think that case’s reasoning is bullshit, but given that ruling, then yeah, absolutely it’s consistent to require the swastika-baker to bake swastikas for Nazis. But I think that ruling should be reversed.
Well, not really. As defined by law and the conditions of her employment she was required to issue marriage licenses.
She wanted a religious exemption from that law. In my view that’s similar to the baker wanting exemptions from public accommodation law.
I just brought it up because it shows that public accommodation law isn’t unique. We have law opposing discrimination in many places. Somehow, we seem to have to restate the principle in each situation where the principle applies.
Don’t take this personally, but your view is wrong. The 14th amendment applies to the states, and SSM is the law of the land. A state cannot treat same sex couples differently from other couples. That is the heart of the 14th amendment. Furthermore, separate but equal is no longer a valid legal argument. When we get to private businesses, however, the 14th amendment isn’t applicable. You cannot draw a valid analogy between a state, or it’s representative, and a private business. It simply does not follow that if PRIVATE CITZEN A CAN DO X, then GOVERNMENT AGENT Y CAN ALSO DO X. Not a valid argument.
If you can cite SCOTUS cases that show us otherwise, then we can talk.
My point is that we have had to repeat our proscription of discrimination for each of these cases. We have it in government, in employment law, in public accommodation, etc.
I KNOW these are different areas. My point is that it is unfortunate that we just seem unable to grasp this idea that in America, we insist that we are created as equals and must be treated as such. It would be nicer if we could just look at our founding documents and note the we are founded on the principle that all men are created equal - and then DO that!
I will point out that the 14th amendment says that if a state is going to issue marriage licenses, then it must do so equally.
Not sure what you mean. I am talking about what we are talking about in this thread.
Where there are people worried about “Where will it stop? First we are expected to stop prosecuting homosexuals for their behavior that we have made illegal, then we are expected to allow them to have jobs, then we have to allow them to get married? When will they stop trying to be treated as equals?”
My point is is it has been an uphill battle to achieve every one of the many milestones involved in preventing discrimination, and there is far more of a risk of backsliding than of “going too far”.
Davis is the “state” when it comes to issuing marriage licenses at that location. As an employee of the state with that explicit responsibility she is not a private citizen as regards the issuing of marriage licenses. She is the agent of the state for this purpose.
Consider an alternate example.
In Tinker vs. Des Moines the SCOTUS ruled that students in public schools had a free speech right to wear black arm bands in the school as a form of protest.
The staff at the school could not claim a personal reason for stopping the kids from wearing the armbands. While at the school they are employees of the state and the state is forbidden from encroaching on the kids’ free speech rights.
Now, if one of those kids went to the principal’s home and the principal told them to take off the armband or leave the principal would be within their rights as a private citizen. Not so while acting as principal at the school.
Citizens ARE equals. That’s not a “slippery slope”. That’s the bottom line.
By “backsliding” I assume you mean that someone might get MORE rather than less discriminated against for who they are.
I just don’t accept that. The changes we’ve made since our birth as a nation have been pretty monotonic.
We’re not going to go back to segregation. We’re going to continue fighting the efforts to keep minorities from voting. We’re not going to start blocking interracial marriage. We’re not going to reverse the ruling on same sex marriage.
At times we’ve been seriously slow. And, I’d say the same sex marriage leap was surprisingly fast.
But, I can’t find a case of going backwards due to having overreached in some way.
No, Davis is not the state. There is always a difference between the piece of government and the person operating that piece of government.
Please note that today, Davis STILL runs the county department that issues marriage licenses.
AND, she does not issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.
She was denied the exemption from the law that she wanted, so she has an underling do the marriage licenses, satisfying the constitution and the law of the county.
We’ve seen other cases slightly similar. There have been pharmacists whose actions are licensed by the state and nurses who are licensed by the state arguing that they should be exempt from serving the public in the manner that their state license requires.
