In the herd immunity thread, thicksantorum said
I’m all for religious freedom but I’m not sure I want that much separation of Church and State. This is about the government requiring people to sin; stipulating that following the laws in question would have been a sin, a religious exemption breaches the wall of separation but is necessary for freedom to exercise.
(That only goes so far, “I consider it sinful to live in a society that tolerates …” well, too bad.)
No religious exemption should ever exist for a law. If “God says” is sufficient reason not to follow the law, so is “I don’t feel like it”, and it shouldn’t be a law in the first place.
First, what law would the government require you to follow that would mandate sin?
Second, how far do you go? Are SW Indians allowed to use peyote in their religious ceremonies? Would old Mormon style cults be allowed to practice polygamy? Would Christians be allowed to continue discrimination against homosexuals? As soon as you say one religion can do this, but another religion cannot do that, you’re taking a side.
Separation of church & state specifically forbids endorsing one religion over another. Like the poster you quoted said, all you have to do is look at how our government treats Christians vs pretty much everyone else to see that we most certainly do not have that.
Well there are some religions which prevent killing others. So if the government were to have a military draft, that may indeed mandate sin.
I’m afraid I don’t understand exactly what the topic of debate is, here.
If it’s ‘should there be religious exemptions from laws?’, I’d say Grumman has the right of it - a religious belief does not deserve special consideration under the law simply because it is not based in evidence or because it is strongly held. If “my religion does not permit me to X” is a valid reason to be excused from X, than “I don’t want to X” must also be a valid reason. In which case the mandate to do X is less a law and more of a suggestion.
People can make up religious restrictions for anything. Hey, my religion forbids income tax and coming to a complete stop at stop signs. Now do we have the government deciding what religions are “valid” religions? I hope I don’t have explain why that’s a violation of Church-State separation.
Isn’t Christianity one of them? I’m pretty sure Islam has some words on that subject too.
Besides, being in them military doesnt automatically mean killing people. They can be given desk jobs, mechanics, etc.
While I’m a supporter of separation of Church and State, religious exemption is more than just “God says”. It’s usually pretty easy to demonstrate whether or not a religious belief/practice is consistent, long-standing, and/or a strong cultural marker; I’d say weighing those factors is reasonable in deciding whether an exemption should be granted.
Of course I’d do my best to write those exemptions directly into the law, like the exemption for wine at religious ceremonies included in the Volsted Act. But I wouldn’t rule out challenging a law in order to gain a religious exemption, just like I wouldn’t rule out challenging a law under any Bill of Rights grounds.
My suspicion is that a general hatred of religion is coloring folks’ interpretation of the law and driving them to be absolutist. Trust me, I’m no fan of religion, but I’m a big fan of “live and let live”.
Why should long standing or cultural marker be a consideration when deciding a religious exemption? Who are you to say that my epiphany and creation of a new religion which mandates that I smoke some dope every Saturday is less than the Christians that want to slug back a bit of wine with their services?
As soon as you make those differentiations in law you have the government deciding that one religion is more valid than another and that seems to be putting you smack dab in the middle of a situation that the First Amendment seems to be trying to keep you out of.
As a religious person myself, if there were a law that I felt was in direct conflict with my faith, I would break the law and be prepared to accept the consequences of it.
I can’t think of a good example though, at least not in this country.
I think in America it comes down to the tension between the free exercise clause and the establishment clause of the first amendment. In order to have proper church state separation it is necessary to find a place to draw the line between a government making too many special concessions and a government making people violate their religious beliefs. It may seem odd, but I don’t think separation between church and state can actually take place without the government keeping religion in mind. When the government places restrictions on a religion or forces a person to violate his or her beliefs church and state are no longer separate.
However, just as the government can restrict the right to speech under the correct circumstances it follows they can interfere with a person’s religious beliefs under the correct circumstances. However, it then becomes necessary to decide when this interference is warranted and when it is not. This often ends up as a job for the courts. I know some would like to pretend that the free exercise clause is not part of the constitution, but it is and so we must walk that tightrope between establishment and interference.
I think if we as a society really applied this sort of reasoning:
We really wouldn’t have to make that many religion-specific concessions in the first place. It doesn’t infringe on my rights for my neighbor to worship one god or twenty gods, and it doesn’t infringe on my rights if he smokes peyote while doing so (as long as his religion doesn’t command the Sacrament of Smoking Peyote and Then Driving Down the Public Highway). But I would say that it also doesn’t infringe on my rights if my stoner neighbor smokes peyote just because he likes it. (Again, so long as no driving on the public streets and roads or other such activities that might involve the rest of us takes place.) So, if I had my way on that issue, no religious exemption would be needed.
Specifically as to vaccination–forcing medical treatment on people against their will is usually something I’m against. But in the case of infectious diseases, my neighbor not getting vaccinated may put me and other people at risk as well. If we start allowing people to opt out, either because they think God told them not to get vaccinated or because they sincerely believe that Evil Big Phamaceutical Companies are foisting ineffective or dangerous vaccines on us because of, uh, profit I guess–well, if enough people opt out we start getting society-wide ills. (Literally.) And when it comes to decisions about vaccinating children, there is also the issue that children are not property, they are people who aren’t yet capable of making decisions for themselves. Although we properly mostly defer to parents when it comes to making decisions on their behalf, parents certainly don’t have unlimited decision-making rights on behalf of their children, nor should they.
Sorting out the exact boundaries between individual rights (whether those individuals are acting based on religious beliefs or other beliefs) and the common good when it comes to issues like vaccination is one of the things we have democratically-elected governments for.
Hence the problem. What good’s a law that a large number of people won’t follow? Laws are constantly made based on preexisting cultural practices. In fact, that’s pretty much the main way laws originally get made.
And that’s all religion is: the shared cultural practices of a group of people. I wish people would stop making it into some bogeyman.
Oh, and BTW–there are very few religions that are against vaccination. There are groups attempting to form religions based on this, but those are as much a religion as any other single issue group (i.e. not at all). You can’t just make up a religion, nor does a single issue make a religion. It just doesn’t work that way.
And, yes, I know. Atheists often have a huge problem understanding this, because they think of religions as just some ideas someone made up in the past. So you think that someone making up some ideas today is the same thing. But that’s not how it works. A religion has to establish itself. Maybe one guy made everything up way back when, but it wasn’t a religion until it became a way of life for a group of people.
Of course you can: recent examples are Scientology and LDS. Is there some time that needs to pass before something you made up becomes a “real” religion?
Yeah, what would an atheist know about religion? I was raised a Protestant thank you very much and probably know more about religion than most religious people in this country.
What’s the threshold for time and the number of followers? Those Heavens Gate people sure took their new religion seriously.
ETA: I’m not an atheist because I don’t know anything about religion, I’m an atheist because I know too much about religion.
I said what I did because I love freedom, not because I hate religion. The Volstead Act was a bad law (though this was only obvious in hindsight), and putting a loophole in there for religious ceremonies might have made it easier to pass, but it didn’t stop the homicide rate doubling during Prohibition.
On the other hand it likely lessened incidents of rape and domestic violence.
Cite?
Either way, I’m with** fumster**. Look, I’m sorry, but the fact that Scientology was able to sue to become a religion and won is basically the dead giveaway that something is wrong with our system, and that exceptions for religions need to be looked at very sternly. I don’t believe that anyone’s personal belief systems should hold sway over the law, or how the law effects them, because they’re just that - personal beliefs. And unless you can demonstrate that there’s an actual detriment to your life or afterlife from following that law (and good luck proving that your religion is true), you shouldn’t have any chance at exemption. I don’t think arguing from tradition helps much in that case.
There are some who feel that Obamacare mandates sin by requiring employers to provide coverage for birth control. Cite There will likely be litigation over the issue, if there isn’t already.
But that’s an inane position. Should owners of Seventh Day Adventist businesses object because health insurance covers blood transfusion? How about if a Jewish business owner won’t hire people who don’t keep kosher because the wages he pays may buy pork?