Well, here’s what the Court said in New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297 (1976):
(Emphasis added.)
Of course, that’s no surprise given that in Carolene Products Footnote Four itself, the origin of strict scrutiny, and the citation given long ago above, Justice Stone wrote:
(Internal citations omitted; emphasis added.)
That is to say, at the creation of strict scrutiny, religious minorities were, in fact, given as the prime example of the kind of “discrete and insular minorities” that might be due this more searching judicial inquiry.
Recall, Carolene Products passed on the question as unnecessary for reaching a decision. But it is clear that by New Orleans v. Dukes, supra, the Court had indeed determined that statutory distinctions in point of religion were suspect classifications. Accord, Larson v. Valente, 456 U.S. 228 (1982) (“In short, when we are presented with a state law granting a denominational preference, our precedents demand that we treat the law as suspect and that we apply strict scrutiny in adjudging its constitutionality”).
It doesn’t have to be reasonable in your eyes. The point is that people who purport to follow the Bible but wear polyester-cotton clothing aren’t being hypocrites. The larger point is that the link to an “oh-so-clever” retort against Doctor Laura Schlessinger is written by someone whose actual level of Biblical knowledge is rather low, and people who have genuinely learned the Bible and have a place for it in their lives beyond snarkiness to religious folks, could easily rebut it.
So we are helpless, like boys to wanton flies? Were I to be convinced of the existence of such a stupid, arbitrary and demanding Being, I would probably seek out the nearest Satanist recruiting office. I do not worship bullies, however transcendent.
Actually, it’s “divers sorts” in the KJV version of Deuteronomy 22:11 with wool and linen being merely examples. Unless you have a more accurate translation?
Edit: Oh and I assume you have no problem with homosexuals that don’t lie on specific beds like they lie with women, right?
I’ll clearly want to stay away from tax lawyers, too, since they don’t even know enough to be embarrassed. Or haven’t you noticed how all the other lawyers in the thread are disagreeing with you and saying the same thing as me?
Why does it matter what the Bible says? The Bible is a Christiian book. I am not Christian. Why should laws be passed requiring me to follow Christian standards?
If we lived in an alternate universe where Rand Rover’s argument made sense, the anti-discrimination laws would need to have a clear explicit criterion (the “one drop” rule? one-sixteenth? one-eighth? what?) criterion for “black”, and yet in the real world no such clauses are to be found.
I know Hebrew. I don’t need a translation. Wool and linen is not an example, it’s a definition of the term Shaatnez that the KJV does its best to translate as “divers sorts.”
That is… you’re correct in saying that the penalties discussed in Loving are more serious than the penalities in play here, but that alone does not insulate the government from scrutiny. When the government passes a law that burdens a suspect class, regardless of whether the burden is jail time or inability to receive a marriage license, then the law must survive scrutiny.
Because this simple concept you plainly stated is completely beyond the understanding of many people. Maybe most people.
I try to point that out to people, and sometime make the analogy of saying it would be like Jews and Muslims trying to make pork illegal for everybody. Then I get responses like “But they’ll never be the majority so it can’t happen” and absolutely nobody getting the actual point of why it is wrong.
I have given up trying to make people understand that religious freedom also includes not forcing people not of your particular religion into its practices and beliefs.
I ought not, in fact cannot, speak for Orthodox Jews, but it’s my understanding that in their conception of sin, “being gay” in the sense in which gay people claim that “it is not a choice” – i.e., having a romantic/sexual attraction to another person or persons of the same sex – is not in and of itself a sin. Possibly a temptation to sin, but not in and of itself a sin. That bit is a Christian add-on, derived from the New Testament, principally Romans 1:26-27. The actual sin for a Jew is in breaking Leviticus 18:22, which presumably references intromissive anal sex – coupled with the sort of behavior for which the men of Sodom were condemned – and note Ezekiel 16:49-50 along with the account in Genesis 18-19 in understanding exactly what this was.
A celibate-but-horny gay evangelical Christian is arguably sinning by his faith’s standards; a celibate-but-horny gay Jew is not.
Look, I’m not going to keep repeating myself, and I realize that I cant argue you guys onto being smarter. The simple fact of the matter is that sexual orientation is not currently a suspect classification. Of you think it should be, then fine, you are free to have your opinion. If you think that the current suspect classifications support treating sexual orientation as a suspect classification, you are wrong because of the immutability issue. Religious affiliation as a suspect classification is not a counterpoint to the immutability issue because it rests on different underpinnings (ie, the fundamental nature of the right to free exercise of religion) .