OK. I mean, I know the EEOC’s view should get deference regardless, but I wasn’t aware of any on-point cases.
Hell, there are hardly any published EEOC decisions that are point. I only found one, the cold fusion case linked in post 31.
I personally think that making reasonable accomodations should be the default since by definition it should be pretty easy to do with little impact. Unfortunately in teh real world both employees and employers behave like assholes at times and the rules instead become a tool to wield for dicks. This has no bearing on the debate? at hand but the one thing I am sure of is that often what is described as “reasonable accomodations” are anything but reasonable.
Freedom of religion holds hundreds of years of common law protection because of the countless wars fought over the previous hundred years because of the different beliefs of each. Those wars continue to be fought in parts of the world.
To take the vegetarian example, if I believe it is wrong as part of my personal moral code, that’s one thing. If I believe that eating meat will cause my immortal soul to be damned, then that elevates that belief, to me and thousands or millions of others like me to a higher level of importance.
Of course, we could adopt the atheist view and simply decree that all religion is bullshit, but then we are back to the wars.
I don’t think it is wrong for society to recognize the distinction in the type and intensity of the belief. If I have to do things I don’t like for secular reasons, then I can join the club called “life” where everyone has to do it. If I am being forced to do something that I sincerely believe will harm my immortal soul, then society has deemed, again because of the wars, that it should be protected if reasonable accommodations can be made.
Leaving the SSM argument aside because we’ve done it before, it is not at all like the miscegenation argument. Laws against interracial marriage were to subjugate minority races. Laws protection religious beliefs do not harm the non-religious in the slightest bit. If you have no religious beliefs, then by definition, none have been infringed upon.
The fact that society protects minority religious beliefs is further evidence that it isn’t some ruse like the arguments against miscegenation. In this case, the aggrieved party was a Muslim; not one of Scalia’s usual favorites.
Ah, I take it you agreed with the Hobby Lobby decision?
I bet he understood the judicial reasoning.
The Court in Hobby Lobby was asked to apply the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to the circumstances of Hobby Lobby’s complaint – which they did.
They were not asked to determine the wisdom of laws protecting religious beliefs, or the inequity, to the extent that such exists, of the lack of such laws protecting non-religious beliefs or the harm, to the extent that such exists, such protections might do to the non-religious.
Why do you believe that question has relevance to this discussion?
Laws against interracial marriage are now seen as having the intent of subjugating minority races. At the time:
It’s all well and good that you say now that this analysis is a “ruse,” but it’s a ruse that fooled everyone who mattered for a long time, and has fooled everyone about a number of different issues. And what the ruse has been, all along, is just what you’re saying now – we have a neutral law that, sure, in practice seems to give an advantage to one group, but that’s just how it works out! It’s not by design or anything. By design it’s neutrally applicable. If I were you I would leave same sex marriage out of it, too, because we’re right on the cusp of the Plessy-type great awakening on that one, where we say OK, yeah, oops, our bad! We’re the worst!
I’m not sure by what measure we can say that we’re confident that this time, the argument makes sense.
You know it’s possible to agree with the Supreme Court on this case and disagree with them on Hobby Lobby. I do and so do all the liberal justices.
Because, facially or otherwise, the law gives no greater privileges to religious people than to non-religious people. It does not demean non-religious people because the very thing the law protects, reasonable accommodation for religious practices, is simply not applicable to non-religious people because they don’t have any religious practices which need such reasonable accommodation.
Second, the law is inclusive in its purpose. You are the only Hindu in a southern town full of Baptists? The law protects you from the tyranny of the majority.
Not every law which takes into account differences in people is discriminatory. Sure, some are such as anti-miscegenation laws. Even though facially neutral as noted in Pace v. Alabama, the Loving court saw it for what it was: an attempt to subjugate blacks and keep them on an inferior social status.
It doesn’t then follow that every single law which makes these distinctions are like anti-miscegenation laws. For example, my daughter’s school, a public place paid for by my tax dollars, has many rooms that she is not allowed to enter simply because of her gender: the boys’ restrooms.
Oh, but you say that boys aren’t allowed in the girls restrooms either? Isn’t that identical to the flawed reasoning of Pace v. Alabama?
Handicapped parking spaces: Pace v. Alabama
Age limits for drinking: Pace v. Alabama
Really, this whole counter argument to any law which makes a distinction based on, well, anything, which compares the original argument to anti-miscegenation laws is very sloppy logical thinking.
Just because there was one law that was facially neutral which had a discriminatory purpose and practice does not mean that all facially neutral laws have a discriminatory purpose and practice.
This is a house of cards. It takes two seconds for it to fall apart.
From a neutral perspective, this is a bananas thing to say. If you can’t get past this notion, then you are absolutely playing the role of the Supreme Court justice who, decades later, looks like he had his head buried in the sand. It takes some mental energy to put myself in a place where I can respond as if someone might say that and mean it. It’s already false on such a fundamental level that the only way to tease it out any further is to play the kindergartner and say “Why? But why?”.
Why was the charging party in the A&F case entitled to a reasonable accommodation? Why would I not be entitled to a similar accommodation if I decided tomorrow it was really fucking important that I start covering my head at work all the time? Why aren’t those two things the same?
Because our constitution and laws give religion a special status. The government can’t establish a religion, and it can’t interfere with religious practices. But there’s no such constitutional and statutory protection for ideas that you have that you deem really fucking important.
And why are our laws this way?
Because we want them this way.
That is his point: that jtgain’s assertion is incorrect.
Playing the role of the kindergarten teacher this morning will be Bricker.
Then what are you asking? Why we want the laws this way?
I think it comes from atheists pushing so hard to say that they are not a religion.
And, yes, it’s true, for the same reason that theism is not a religion. But there are religions that can come from atheism. Rationalism, secular humanism, Unitarianism. Defining religion to mean belief in the supernatural causes people to lose out on freedom of religion.
Sure, you want to say it’s not a religion socially, fine. But for legal purposes, it should be.
It’s not. Let’s have a handy chart:
Things religious people think are really fucking important: Not protected
Things non-religious people think are really fucking important: Not protected
Things which infringe upon a religious person’s sincerely held religious belief: Reasonable Accommodation
Things which infringe upon a non-religious person’s sincerely held religious belief:
Reasonable Accommodation
Equality all around. Now, you might note that in #4 a non-religious person will not have a religious belief. Right. So there is no need for such an accommodation.
But what’s the bitch? That someone else takes advantage of a law that doesn’t affect you? Again, what about those healthy 25 year olds that get no benefit from the wheelchair ramps and want these “special” privileges to those disabled people removed? Are DUI laws unconstitutional because I drive everyday and another guy takes a bus?
Yes, you nailed it. DUI laws are unconstitutional because you drive. Same thing! I really appreciate your good faith approach to this whole thing, let me tell you.
Anyway. Religious people have religious beliefs. Non-religious people do not. We’re two for two on agreements so far.
So, now all we need to work out is how, when the law says that specifically religious beliefs get a special protection other beliefs don’t get, how it is that the law is not providing greater privilege to religious people (who are defined, as above, as the people who have these beliefs, which is not like some kind of happy accident for Christians) by doing so. How it is that my wanting to dress a certain way is either important under the law, or totally irrelevant under the law, depending on whether or not I believe I have supernatural reasons to do so, but that I have no greater privilege in the one case than the other.
Then again, since neither you or Bricker seems to be reading what I’m saying despite how certain you are that it’s wrong, maybe you can cut out the middleman going forward and argue with each other about this.
I never said you were wrong.
In fact, you’re correct: the law is providing greater privilege to religious people, inasmuch as their beliefs are accorded a protection that non-religious beliefs are not.
And he’s asking: why, in your view, is that a good idea? Why ought we privilege supernatural justifications for personal beliefs? Obviously there are lots of potential answers to that question, but the instrumental “because the law says so” is misunderstanding the question, I think.