But you wouldn’t go the other way and say that anyone is exempt from any law if it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Nor would you say a business is exempt from any law because of the beliefs of its owners.
Okay. But that’s not me. It’s certainly a great description of Steophan.
I wouldn’t cite popular views on the web as something to worry about becoming reality. The web is teeming with idiotic, unworkable, unlikely and just plain crazy opinions that will never see the light of day.
We have a First Amendment for a reason.
The comparison isn’t a religious one, it’s a legal one.
Again, it’s purely a legal comparison to compare how we treat discrimination in law.
And that’s too damn bad. The difference is that their business is a business, not a religion or religious group. Businesses are subject to non-discrimination laws, and the beliefs of the owners or employers don’t override that. This is far different from a church being required to comply.
What’s the difference?
But they did do it, and many people did embrace the logic.
You seem to have missed the part of my post where I pointed out that I was simply interested in your opinion, if you didn’t think that numbers were avaliable. I did already give you that as an option.
I don’t believe there is a lot of hostility to traditional religious beliefs in society, to be honest, in comparison with the level of hostility towards gay people. Laws have been passed, specifically, to stop gays marrying. In the not-too-distant past, things were considerably worse, and the evidence for that lies in the ability for those who were hostile to put that hostility into law, as one point. Things are a lot better, thankfully, but still, there are such laws, still people with a good chance to make such laws. Whereas your suggested alternative - fundamentalist religious beliefs not having free speech protection - is simply holding religious speech to the same standards as any speech.
On the one hand, we have “You have the same rights as everyone else, no more, no less.” On the other, it’s “You have less rights than anyone else, and just to make damn sure of that, we’re going to pass legislation just to beef up our bulwarks against you getting those rights”. I don’t deny the existence of hostility to religion, or religious belief, but in comparison to that directed at gays it pales both in number and in practical effect. That’s why I disagreed with your assumption of the “‘real’ corollary”.
There’s a significant difference between your religious belief about what a Christian marriage is, and something that’s a fact. Beliefs are personal and somehwhat subjective , facts, not so much.
I know people want to believe that if their attitiudes about homosexuals and SSM is based in their religious beliefs then it can’t be bigotry but that’s simply not true. Bigotry has a specific definition and it applies. It may not be malicious , but it is still bigotry born of generations of religious and societal indoctrination.
I see you’re repeating the nonsense that SS couples cannot procreate. Are you going to address any of the posters pointing out how wrong that is? Do you know any churches who refuse to allow couples to marry who choose not to have children, or where one partner is unable?
A distinction without a difference IMHO. If a practice is widespread and accpeted by church officials it is their de facto doctrine.
Would you say the church encouraged or discouraged the Bible being translated into common languages? Is it that they wanted only church approved versions available? Weren’t several reformers/translators concerned that the Latin versions were corrupt and very different than the original greek?
I see the value in certain groups but without some kind of guidelines it seems any group could claim NPO to avoid taxes. I assume that’s why there are forms and guidelines.
I can’t imagine the howl that would go up if it was actually attempted, but that’s not the discussion. I never proposed we actually do it. It doesn’t seem that complicated to me. Remove reliigious from the list of things that qualify and leave charitable, educational, and scientific.
All that said, if we are going to allow any group that promotes a POV to be an NPO under the guise of “education” then churches certainly meet that criteria.
Also, I can see that any NPO group that truly exists for a non profit reason and survives on donations should not have to pay frederal income tax or state income tax on those donations. The employees should have to pay income tax, and IMHO they should pay sales tax on what they purchase.
How is it a breach of the 14th amendment?
Simple, in the same way I get a tax break if I run a home business and have an office at home, if churhes were not exempt for religious reasons, churches who operate a charity and use a protion of their building and funds to do so would get a break.
Treating an otherwise-equivalent organization differently specifically because of their religious status? You don’t see an equal protection violation there?
You, and others, have been arguing constantly in favour of treating religious organisations differently from others solely because they are religious. This, like many things in the US, does not accept “religious freedom” as including the freedom to be free of religion. True “freedom of religion” comes from treating everyone the same regardless of their religion or lack of it. Something you continue to argue against.
Nope. Many churches hold vast wealth, and take in far more than they give out. Also, a charity is, at least in theory, a public good, and the vast majority of churches are not that.
If you amend your statement to say that some churches, in some jurisdictions, are legally charities, you might be more accurate.
Yes, the Roman Catholic Church. As previously stated. (Inability to have children is not a problem, though impotence or equivalent female conditions which make sex impossible, are disquialifications. Absolute unwillingness to have children is also a disqualification, since it casts into doubt the participant’s ability and willingness to consent to a Catholic marriage.
Same-sex couples absolutely cannot procreate with each other, any more than (OK, let’s drop Tolkien for a bit), say, the two intelligent species in Mary Doria Russell’s “The Sparrow” can procreate with each other. Hence, they are incapable of doing what a Christian marriage is supposed to do.
If same-sex couples (or interfaith couples, or what have you) want to be free of religion, they have a simple solution- leave the church, and don’t try to get married in it.
The lunacy on display here reminds me a bit of what G. K. Chesterton said about Tolstoy, who was excommunicated from the Orthodox Church, and whose followers complained that he was denied an Orthodox funeral. If you refuse to abide by Catholic teachings about marriage (or the teachings of any other church), then don’t complain when the church refuses to marry you. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, at least not if you’re more mature than a kindegarten student.
No, that’s one reading of ‘freedom of religion’. There’s an alternative conception of freedom of religion (which originates in the Muslim world, but is used today in the legal system of countries like India, which is both unquestionable a secular country and a mostly non-Muslim one), which revolves around treating people (in matters of personal law) differently according to the tenets of the religion that they freely choose to belong to.
Nonsense. Being “free of religion” to the extent that you’re advocating is an absurd exaggeration of any working understanding of our liberties.
For someone who insists on using their own made-up definition of “business” it does not surprise me that you’re now coming up with your own for “charity”.
The irony of you posting this immediately after distinguishing between fact and opinion is amusing. You are welcome to your belief, but that, (and your new definition of doctrine), is not fact.
The church encouraged vernacular translations.
They did want too much control over those translations.
Some of the objections from the church were that the Latin interpretation was “better” than the more recent translations from the Greek (since the Latin had been created at a time that was closer to the Greek usage and, from their viewpoint, more likely to have understood the original Greek better–sixteenth century Greek was no longer Koine Greek any more than sixteenth century English is the same as the language we speak). Both sides wished to claim that the others’ translation was corrupt, usually based more on their preferred theology than on linguistic concerns. (Neither side, for example, corrected Isaiah 7:14 from “virgin” to “young woman.”)
The issue is not whether the Church wanted excessive control over both the words and the interpretations of scripture (based on its own developed theology). It clearly was (depending on one’s definition of “excessive”).
The issue is that false claims by various Reformers the the Catholic Church wanted no vernacular translations has made it into popular culture. This includes incorrect claims that Wyclif and Tyndale were persecuted merely for trying to publish English translations when the objections to their translations was explicitly to changes those men made to the scripture to support their theology. Wyclif’s translation–itself based on the Vulgate, not Greek or Hebrew texts–was criticized for its errors by Protestant theologians, (when they were not using his example to bash the Catholics). Tyndale’s translation was also recognized has having errors, although it was close enough to provide a base line on which the Great Bible and the Authorized Version (KJV) each relied.
Tyndale was executed for heresy, the charge being the publication of “Lutheran” works, not for publishing an English bible over which the church in Europe never raised its hand. While his (incomplete) bible was raising hackles throughout the power structure of England, it should be noted that the final authority was Henry VIII, who had already broken with Rome, not the Vatican.
Given the number of languages into which the bible had been translated without comment by the church, it is clear that while the church wanted control over the wording, there was always a willingness to have the bible translated into the various vernaculars and the claim that the church opposed vernacular translations is nothing more than anti-Catholic propaganda.
So no, not the Roman Catholic Church, if “Inability to have children is not a problem”.
So what happens if a married couple later becomes infertile? I mean, eventually every woman goes through menopause, but let’s imagine that some unfortunate event leaves either or both of the couple physically unable to have children, and they don’t already have any. Does the annulment go through automatically at the moment they become infertile, or do they need to go see their priest in order to update their unmarried status?
Just poking in to say thank you for this. I hadn’t known it. I’d always held the “usual opinion” that Tyndale was executed for translating the Bible into English.
Good to learn otherwise before I posted something to that effect.
There’s a pretty obvious IMHO there so it may not be as ironic as you think.
The discussion I was having leading into this was about churches having to change their practices and traditional beliefs as society changes what is seen as just. IMO the technical fact that detailed doctrine hasn’t changed is insignificant. I’m going to assume that church officials assumed they had some divine authority and duty to execute people while defending the faith. It wasn’t a isolated incident or two from some rogue priest or bishop was it?
tomndebb has replied to you succinctly and admirably, so I just have a they things to add. There’s a difference between teaching something evil as doctrine, and doing evil things in spite of your doctrines. On an issue like ‘is it legitimate to forcibly convert Jews, or to take away their children’, for example , Roman Catholic doctrinal teaching has always been clear. Lots of abuses happened, of course, but they happened in contradiction to what the church taught , not because of it.
Now, I’m not Catholic, and I do think there are cases where there has been an actual change in what the church teaches. not many, but a few. The best example I can think of is regarding the question of whether those who are not members, during their earthly lives, of the a Catholic Church have the possibility of salvation. the modern Catholic Church says yes, but I don’t think Boniface VIII would have agreed. there are of course Catholics who would try manfully to reconcile the two, but I think it would be more honest to say, yes, in this case doctrine has changed.
and some hetero couples cannot procreate with each other but can and do make the extra effort nessecary to have children. This extra effort is applauded and celebrated.
again, I realize religious tradition dies hard but history demonstrates that practices do change over time, not on a whim or modern fad but based on an overall sense of justice grounded in facts.
Do you mean adoption. OK, sure. Do you mean IVF? The Roman Catholic Church bitterly opposes IVF, as they oppose all forms of artifcially assisted reproduction.
History demonstrates no such thing. The Catholic and Orthodox churches have actually changed surprisingly few of their teachings (although there are some, as I point out), and to the etxent that they do change, its not always in directions you would approve of. Until the fifth century (?) IIRC, Christianity was mostly a pacificst faith and mostly opposed to things like war and the death penalty. That changed when Christians became responsible for running governments and the attendant responsibilities of state.