What about my freedom as a practicing Aztec to rip the hearts out of ritual sacrifices?
Why not? We’ve already got two Kali worshipers who want to strangle strangers along the road for the glory of Thuggee.
As someone who also places a high value on individual freedom, my reflex is to favor your side. However, I think there is a an awful lot of nuance here that disappears into “in this case”. In the case of the wedding cake, or in the case of “any private business”?
I mean, there’s freedom to act like an asshole, but the fact remains that the Jim Crow south was disgusting. If you’re not going to clarify more precisely where you draw the line on “being an asshole” and “harming others”, you’re just going to invite a bunch of attacks. In the case of forcing desegregation…on the one hand, I agree that it was a violation of individual freedoms; on the other hand, I find it hard to really care in that case. It’s definitely not the kind of exercise of freedom that I would find worth fighting and dying for. In the past few decades, I think it’s fair to say that the biggest undermining force against my personal libertarian values is the seeing the vast number of people dedicated to using their freedom, not to “pursue their self-interest”, but to deliberately act like assholes, in groups. In theory, I agree that the freer society is the better society. In practice…I sincerely hope that evolution is not finished with us.
Reading through this thread, I find that both sides have some good arguments, and I wonder things. Like, what if someone opened a bakery called “Wedding Cakes For Straight People” or, alternatively, “Wedding Cakes For Gay People”? I know it sounds silly, but I find thinking about it that way…interesting. I also think it ought to be the case that both businesses would get their asses kicked by “Wedding Cakes For All”.
On the particular subject of wedding cases…regardless of what the law says, I don’t think I’d want to buy a cake from someone who hated me. I’d be scared to eat it.
-VM
That wasn’t under the equal protection clause.
I know you’re not saying that the Voting Rights Act requires privately owned public accommodations to serve al people equally.
Are you saying that the 14th amendment says this?
The public accomodations rulings were based on the commerce clause. They upheld federal laws that were passed by congress. The limited government folks (direct descendents of the states rights folks of the civil war) argued that congress cannot pass a law requiring a private business to serve blacks. The landmark civil rights case having to do with public accommodation upheld the Civil Rights Act under the commerce clause, not the 14th amendment and certainly not under equal protection.
Sexual orientation was not covered by the Civil Rights Act. You need congress to pass a law protecting sexual orientation as a protected class if you want that sort of treatment for the LGBT
I don’t think we will need to modify the constitution. We only need to pass a law. There will be resistance to passing the law but once it is passed, it will be very difficult to repeal.
All I am saying is that gay rights do not exist in the form you think they do and right now religious bigotry against homosexuals is still protected under the first amendment. This will not change unless congress acts.
And that is why we have democracy. The subjective views of 300 million people are expressed in our congress and we live in the society that we want as opposed to a society that hews to some ideological principle. Pursuing a more free society without any concern about whether it is a better society is silly. People pursue a freer society because they believe it will be better that somehow it all works out as a net positive in the end but we have several decades of history that proves that it makes for a horrible society for minorities and the poor while making for a really pleasant society for wealthy bigots. By forcing those wealthy bigots to give up their bigotry is a fairly cheap price to pay to alleviate the burden of discrimination against minorities.
That’s not OK anymore? :eek:
History does not move only in one direction. I doubt we will see whites only restaurants pop up the day after we repeal the civil rights act just like we will probably not see 6 year old coal miners the day after we repeal the child labor laws. but over time we will see regression in some parts of the country.
The law recognizes a difference between the private sphere of the home versus the public sphere of a business. I can hang a sign outside my home saying No Blacks Allowed. I can’t do that with a business.
Good question. I wonder…
Why does every clerk have to be willing to issue a marriage license to an interracial couple or be fired?
Why does every clerk have to be willing to issue a marriage license to a non-Christian couple or be fired?
Why does every clerk have to be willing to issue a marriage license to a tattooed couple or be fired?
Why does every clerk have to be willing to issue a marriage license to a black couple or be fired?
This could quickly become problematic, or at the very least, confusing.
I am in favor of letting a sole proprietorship pharmacist decide not to dispense plan B. Heck he doesn’t even have to carry it in his dispensary if he doesn’t want to carry it. I am pretty sure that no one thinks that a bakery MUST sell wedding cakes to gay couples if they don’t carry wedding cakes (because they don’t believe in marriage).
I am against trying to starve the gay out of people by not selling them food.
Isn’t allowing bakers to discriminate but not grocers a form of discrimination?
There are some states that have gays as a protected class and some that do not but every state has laws against murder. The RFRA does not apply to restrain the states from applying their laws. Religious liberty arguments are not invincible, they just can’t be dismissed as easily as some people seem to think.
Just be sure to tip your hat at any ladies walking by.
So, some people can discriminate, but not others? Where do you draw the line?
What if all of the clerks, or pharmacists, or bakers in a town don’t want to do X because it “violates their religion”. How about firefighters? Police? Doctors? Grocery store employees? Copy shop employees? Day-care center owners?
Religious accommodation does not have to be extended to this.
Yet another protected class.
The only religion that discriminates against tattoos AFAICT is Judaism and I THINK there are rabbis that refuse to marry couples with visible tattoos and jewish cemeteries that refuse to bury Jews with visible tattoos. However, Jews as a general rule don’t insist that the rest of the world follows their religious beliefs so they don’t really hold it against me that I eat bacon cheeseburgers and lobster.
It is ground for firing, religious exceptions do not apply to discrimination against protected classes.
Its already problematic and confusing.
Sure but I’m allowed to discriminate because grocers are not a protected class.
I’m also not sure what religious theory would allow them to let gays starve.
I hope that you can see that your last quote finally acknowledges what your other quotes do not: that there is, in fact, a law that protects gays from discrimination. No, it’s not a federal law. But it does exist. It is in that context that this discussion has been occurring.
You seem to drift into exhortations that religious freedom is protected, but that sexual preference is not. And you are right, at the federal level. That (unfortunately) is an easy win for religion. But, it is in those states where sexual preference is a protected class that the debate really lies: Is it permissible for a person to violate that existing law in the name of religious freedom?
I don’t think it is. Having read your posts, I think you might agree. But you keep dismissing those parameters to say that there is no protection for sexual preference. Fine. But what about when there is?
This discriminates against my right to worship Huitzilopochtli in the appropriate manner.
Right, which was the point of my ridiciulous suggestions.
Because if someone doesn’t get this “religious beliefs” excuse under control, we’re going to see a garbageman refusing to pick up the trash from the gay married couple’s place.
Someone has to just say to these people, your job is to do X, not sit in judgement on others. So pick up the frikkin’ garbage; print out the form and hand it to the gay couple; serve the pizza.
I really never have understood why religions get a pass or special treatment in the ideas market.