A business shouldn’t be allowed to refuse service to someone based on race, because to do so is morally wrong. It’s really quite simple.
In terms of what you personally believe, that’s correct. But the minute you start offering services, taking money, and holding public meetings, it becomes my business - or more precisely, society’s business. And society should hold religious organisations to the same standards as others.
It is no more acceptable to refuse a wedding to someone based on their sexuality than it is to refuse a burger to someone based on their skin colour. The burger seller’s racism may be personal and subjective, but he’s taken it into the public sphere when he starts selling burgers, and as a society that has (rightly) been condemned. The same needs to be done to other immoral beliefs, such as religions. One can hold them in private if one insists, but when they affect others in a negative and discriminatory fashion, they should be controlled.
Yep, fuck it when it impinges on other people’s rights. You have the right to whatever private thoughts you want, but not to use those beliefs to infringe others rights.
You say I’m against freedom of religion, and in the next sentence say that certain people should not be allowed to choose a certain religion. Amazing.
Do you ever read your posts back to yourself to hear how ridiculous they are?
I’ve have extremely little respect for people who base their morality on the ramblings of bronze age goatherders, fictional carpenters, and the voices in their heads. To claim that such nonsense should allow people a pass on discrimination against others is laughable.
I don’t believe a church should preform any service they don’t approve of, that is their right, but it shouldn’t stop a couple from donating any money or services to the institution and they and their friends and family can boycott the Church or business.
Although the state can force a couple to refuse their child medical treatments that are against their religion. In that case the state is protecting the young. I personally wouldn’t want a church to decide what I do or think, so were I in the situation as a gay person is in, I can’t understand why they want a church wedding to begin with!
If the Church isn’t participating in politics, then they’re entitled to tax-exempt status under the law. The Church isn’t required to perform marriage ceremonies to gay couples, if gay marriage is against Church teachings. This all changes once the Church presents themselves to the general public as a business providing marriage ceremony services in exchange for money. Here they must conform to all the laws that apply to businesses, and if these laws give protected status to LGBT, then they must perform gay marriage. They’re a business, not a Church at this point.
Pretty sure the profits from said business would be taxable. Christ threw the moneychangers out of the Temple, may He have mercy on those who invite them back in.
No, what the state is recognizing is a marriage. The word has legal meaning; a civil union is not a marriage. And the state is submitting to the church when it hands over the right to decide who is and isn’t married to the church.
Religion is anti-human the same way the AIDS virus is anti-human; it is a parasite upon humanity and causes humanity great harm.
And, it creates anti-human attitudes in its followers; I see religious people demonize humans all the time in order to defend and excuse religion & religious practices and to encourage faith. For example, whenever someone criticizes the actions taken in the name of religion one of the first defenses out of their mouth is that humans are all monsters who would do all those horrible things just as much without religion. And then there’s the way religions encourage people to disdain real, human concerns and pleasures for an imaginary god and imaginary afterlife.
I was talking about how defenders of religion regularly demonize everyone, not just those they disagree with. Nor is religion a person.
And your attempt to slam me is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if I’m the reincarnation of Hitler; my evil or the lack thereof doesn’t make religion any better.
Well, though I’m a hard core atheist, I recognize how historic churches and other places of worship add to the architectural character of eastern cities like Montréal, New York and Boston, etc. and putting fair-market property taxes could cause a number of them to close and be demolished for generic condos or office towers. I see some value in the aesthetics, though mileage varies of course.
I’d be okay with putting conventional tax rates on new church buildings, while grandfathering any built before, say, WW2.
Respectfully, if you’re so ignorant about this subject that you think Synagogues deny entry to non-Jews or would even ask someone “are you a Jew” before entry, you really should learn more before you form such strong opinions.
Except every other person on this thread who’s touched on the subject has ridiculed his opinions, several of whom, including myself, aren’t religious believers.
Anyway, I do find the idea of what parades would look like if Steophan’s idiotic ideas were taken seriously by anyone.
NAACP marches would be told they’d have include members of the KKK if they wanted to march and marchers on Holocaust Remembrance Day would be forced to include Holocaust Deniers.
It would also be quite amusing to imagine what would happen during the Marching season in his own UK.
Thankfully, no one but him seems to believe what he’s claiming.
I was responding to an equally ridiculous hypothetical, if you bother to read it. If Synagogues aren’t bigoted, then there’s no problem.
Doesn’t make your argument that bigotry against bigots is acceptable, or that we allow people freedom of religion by denying them access to religious establishments anything other than ridiculous Orwellian doublethink.
Lord Feldon has nailed it, how anyone could not agree with this analysis is beyond me. This is the way it should have been all along. A church has absolutely no right to confer legal rights, and the government has no right to sanction or dictate the conduct of a private religious/cultural ritual.
Munch makes a very good point. Let’s not forget that the Civil Rights movement as led by Martin Luther King was really - and I first heard this in a PBS documentary - a kind of religious revival, his letter from a Birmingham jail being a strong proclamation of the connection between his faith in Jesus Christ and his beliefs on racial equality. This is a very inconvenient truth for secular liberals, but nonetheless true.
[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Well, though I’m a hard core atheist, I recognize how historic churches and other places of worship add to the architectural character of eastern cities like Montréal, New York and Boston, etc. and putting fair-market property taxes could cause a number of them to close and be demolished for generic condos or office towers. I see some value in the aesthetics, though mileage varies of course.
I’d be okay with putting conventional tax rates on new church buildings, while grandfathering any built before, say, WW2.
[/QUOTE]
That is a fair point, I can live with that, though they should meet some designation as historic buildings. But their schools, and in some cases farmland and vineyards? I don’t think I accept the idea they need to be tax free.