The courts usually agree with you. Nobody can get out of a legitimate job requirement for religions reasons. If the thing is incidental to the job (paper hat), they can.
To the extent that people are interested, I post (without comment) a link (.pdf warning) to a letter signed by a number of law professors discussing the Arizona bill and some of the misrepresentations surrounding it.
You ruined the fun.
Nah, lets ruin the “fun” the right has.
The makers of the letter omit the inconvenient point that this new law will override local anti-discrimination ordinances that are already in the state.
Well, “override” in the same way that the federal RFRA overrode the Controlled Substances Act.
I don’t think it “omits” that at all, though. The entire letter is all about how there is going to be a tension between claims of discrimination and claims of religious objection.
So much for no comment. 
That does not follow, if that was the case we should had seen that after the city ordinances; no, the idea is to allow more discrimination.
I don’t understand what you’re saying. What doesn’t follow? We should have seen what?
Edit:
I posted it without comment. I’m happy to discuss it. I don’t think anyone here will be surprised to learn that I generally agree with the points made in the letter, the goals of the federal and state RFRAs, and religious exemptions more broadly.
. Actually I use it as an example of a case in which it is generally accepted the religious restriction should prevail (e.g. can’t sue to have Catholic priestesses or Mormon SSM).
It HAD been questioned if religiously IDENTIFIED entities (owned, affiliated or merely declared) have the right to make the exception or if it depends on whether they offer a public accommodation or services to noncongregants or receive public funds. As you write:
Still, the law does not itself include the focus on “religiously motivated or closely privately held” businesses. And it worries me what happens in a business that cannot afford an alternate employee to serve a customer their regular employee objects to.
That “tension between claims of discrimination and claims of religious objection.” And again, when people that should know better do not bother to mention the local ordinances one should then dismiss that letter.
There has been a lot of conjecture in this thread about how this bill could be applied. I honestly wonder what the intent of the Arizona legislature was for real world application. Who did they think they were protecting? Did they really think there was a demand from business owners that they needed written justification to to refuse to do business with certain customers based on religious beliefs? Do they think there are business owners, or churches or whatever out there saying “Damn it, i’m sick of being forced to do business with all these gays!”
I think it would only be a matter of time before someone discriminates against a federally protect class an seeks protection under this law.
The law could allow a member of the KKK to refuse service to a black person or a Christian to claim a religious opposition to serving Muslims. As it is against federal law to disciminate based on race or religion the laws would be in conflict.
Pat Buchanan’s response: Repeal all civil rights laws!
Not making this up.
According to Arizona State Senator Al Melvin it’s preemptive!
I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think there’s much to be concerned about. The law follows the previous-First Amendment and now RFRA model by requiring the organization to demonstrate that its sincerely held religious beliefs are substantially burdened. As a result it necessarily limits the protection to those organizations that can have them. A publicly traded company is going to fail at this stage, I would think. By providing the protection to any organization that can make the showing instead of attempting to determine precisely which organizations will be able to, the law avoids being underinclusive. But I don’t think there’s much risk of it being overinclusive.
The bill and any complaints of discrimination are irrelevant if they’re not legally actionable. To the extent that Arizona does not have a law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, the bill will never play any role as relates to sexual orientation. Using religious objection as a defense in a judicial proceeding presupposes a judicial proceeding (presumably one brought purusant to the local laws). If the letter said, “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation isn’t illegal so this doesn’t matter,” you’d have a point. But I don’t think it does that.
But contrary to headlines, the law doesn’t give you an affirmative right to discriminate. It gives you a defense against an action against you for discriminating. There would be no conflict against the federal law, because you can’t raise a state law defense against a federal cause of action. If your aggrieved Muslim brought an action under state law, he might lose under state law. But that’s also not a conflict with the federal law. Do you have any authority for the proposition that where there are parallel state and federal causes of action raising a defense in the state action that would not be valid in the federal action violates some provision of the federal constitution?
Why distinguish a publicly traded company from any other corporation?
I’m using a publicly traded corporation as (what I think is) a clear example of a corporation that will be unable to demonstrate that it has sincerely held religious beliefs. I don’t think it’s distinguished as a rule.
If a corporation is going to have religious beliefs, I think it either has to work in a sense of clear religious mission or as a sort of reverse veil piercing in which the owners’ beliefs are imputed to the corporation. I think that that is going to be a very difficult (likely impossible) showing with a publicly traded corporation.
Corporations, businesses etc. are owned by people, and those people may have religious beliefs. So it doesn’t really matter.
I own a house with a yard. It’s not a person. But I could put a nativity scene in the yard, and the government couldn’t come tear them down and say it’s not a violation of religious freedom by saying “your yard is not a person so it has no rights.”
Your point about a publicly traded corporation may still be valid in that context though.
That’s exactly what I mean when I said “a sort of reverse veil piercing in which the owners’ beliefs are imputed to the corporation.”
A corporation is a legal person (much to the shock and horror of some people). Your yard is not. Generally speaking, this provides the corporation with rights, obligations, responsibilites and privileges quite separate those of its owners. But, while that’s straight forward in most contexts that focus on actions, it’s rather weird when talking about a belief.
Cool.
What I’m saying is that you don’t even have to say that a corporation is a person. A real person who owns a corporation may use it to his liking, including expressing his religious rights (subject to the law of course).
What I’m saying is that I think that corporate personhood makes the claim more difficult. If certain people got their wish and corporate personhood was abolished, then the “corporation” clearly can claim religious beliefs, for the same reason your yard can. But becuase of the “corporate veil,” I think it’s harder with corporations being as they are. A person can use a corporation to exercise his rights, but they’re his rights. The corporation can’t assert them. It can, of course, assert its own rights.