What are your thoughts on the freedom of religion bill? EDIT
What are everybody's thoughts on the freedom of religion bill's that are being passed all across America? There are two sides to this story. It is not as simple as a gay couple wanting to by a wedding cake and being turned out because of their orientation and the bakery wanting to hold true to their values.
This video clip makes a very good illustration on what is going on.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/hidden-camera-gay-wedding-cake-muslim-b...
I feel different about it on different levels. On one level I am so sick and tired of everybody screaming about rights. It is not as if people are out stoning gays in the streets anymore. It is a lot more socially accepted then ever before. There were probably 200 bakeries in that town and they chose to press the ISSUE with this one bakery. Why? They could have easily gone to another store.
On another level, I feel my right to choose is being challenged. It is not enough that I accept your lifestyle and do not judge you for it, but now I must be forced to live my life differently so you feel accepted or that you have all the same rights as every other "Identity" in the country. How is that any different from someone wanting to have the right to walk into a store and receive service regardless of their race,gender or identity? Imagine the government saying that based on the 1st and 14th amendment you, as a Jewish Photographer, must by law not refuse the job of taking photos at a Nazi rally or a black baker having to make a cake for two clansmen who walked into their shop dressed in full KKK garb? In both cases neither the KKK or the Nazi party are considered separate Identities in the eyes of the constitution, yet that is what is being challenged as I see it. Both sides are wanting amendment rights. Even though the gay community have no amendment rights at this time which segues into my next point.
The gay community as I see it, is fighting for Identity the same as women and race to receive the same constitutional rights as everybody else. The belief that the bakery should not have been able to turn away a gay couple based on religious beliefs is only part of the argument. The bible says it is a sin to be gay (Not in any way religious but it moves to point!), the 1st amendment guarantees the right to practice free religion, why couldn't the gay couple go to a bakery where religion was not an issue? Now in order for this to take place the constitution must be challenged and freedom of religion is at stake which is to say that every citizens right to practice their religion is only true if they do not offend anyone! The other deeper and more sinister side of this is that in order for the gay community to be acknowledged as separate identities the supreme court would have to write another law or amend the 14th amendment. This puts making laws back into the supreme courts hands which is always dicey. At this time gay rights and marriage are not acknowledged at a federal level. Only at a state level, however, 70% of the country accepts same sex unions! So they are receiving benefits of marriage, I do not see anything wrong with a business being able to say no based on religious beliefs and gay couples being acknowledged as gay people having the same rights as everyone else. How is their right being challenged in any way when they had 200 other shops to go to. If every one of the stores had said no than I would see an issue.
If the supreme court gets involved it would be a huge case of Federal law challenging State law which of course you know is a whole other animal since states have the right to govern themselves.
- The number 200 is an arbitrary number and is used only to illustrate the point that there were many other choices.
** Freedom of religion in this case and the constitution is understood to mean without harming others. No sacrifices folks. That does not mean that religion does not offend others. Which is allowed!
I also want to make clear that we are discussing two different cases here. The cake case was in Oregon and the couple that refused service have lost their business and could be fined up to $200,000. In Indiana, it was a pizza parlor that refused the couples wedding. Obviously two very different states. Oregon is left wing and Indiana being the right.
What are your thoughts?
- Bookmark
- 0
- 0
A EllisI like the idea of a business not having to do business with anyone they chose. Only thing that I think should be required is a big sign that says they do not serve the group. I would not do business with them and I would love to see who does.
StevebA EllisNo I think it should single it out. Like "WE DONT SERVE NO FAGS HERE"
Or maybe something like this?
Cause we all know how well that worked.
AnonI've seen a sign like that
A EllisRight. Then you can sit back and see who the shitty people are.
In the state I'm from you can get 6 months in jail for calling a gay a fagot In an argument, that says a lot on where this country is heading.
The gay community is overstepping and making issues over nonsense. Most people don't care as long as you don't interfere with their life.
I have no problems with gays or lesbians. But I do find that theirs actions are over the top with respect to the laws.
AnonTheir over the top period
They play it cool around my parts....
So I'm cool with that
Cry, isn't the constitutional right only justifiable so far as it does not cause others harm? I'm very Rusty in my politics, but doesn't the right to free speech, press, religion only protect you so long as it does not cause harm to others, and weren't there court cases indicating this?
For example, everyone has a right to free speech, and nobody is saying you can't dislike/hate on a certain race, religion, whatever. But your right to free speech does not allow you to start hanging nooses on people's doors, sticking swastikas in their yards, etc. etc.
Now, does the right to free speech, religion, etc, extend to businesses? Are businesses considered a person, or is a business an entity that is governed by different laws?
I'm just curious regarding this, because I always thought the LGBT movement was strongly about equality under the law (which they currently don't have everywhere). For what it's worth, I'm from a very liberal state, so this is really a non-issue to us.
Yes free speech and religion both are covered under the no harm aspect. I mentioned that above next to the *** in my post. No, public for profit businesses are not protected by the same rights as individuals under the constitution. They are protected by this new wave of RFRA or Religious Freedom Restoration Act that most states already have in place. This is an old law going back to the Clinton era. The key language in this I believe is "Free Exercise Clause" which gives states the right to exercise their interpretation of extreme scrutiny of whether or not the Freedom of religion has been violated. The Free Exercise Clause is a clause attached to the first amendment guaranteeing freedom of religion and acts done for that religions beliefs. See this for better definition https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/free_exercise_clause
The big controversy here is that states are trying to pass those rights on to businesses. The other big issue with this is the states interpretation of the constitutional law with respect to their own state constitution and laws. It is a slippery slope.
Thank you for the link. And yes I do see how trying to pass those rights onto businesses is the issue, just as (something a little more up my alley) classifying corporations as persons was/is.
This seems to be a similar case where they are attempting to classify a business as a person with constitutional rights, and I honesltly have a hard time seeing it that way. It is merely a cost of doing business in economic sense, where entering the market you must give up a few freedoms to participate, such as using child labor, discriminating, monopolizing etc. In economic terms, anyone not willing to pay the cost of participation should rightfully leave the market, or risk being pushed out of the market. I live in a liberal state where LGBT issues are no longer front page news, and somehow things get along quite normally. It's not to say that should a business refuse to serve the person based on LGBT issues would not be called out here, but it wouldn't be a bigger issue than if it was because of race, religion, or veteran status, etc.
The second issue happens to be a much more complex one in my opinion, but I believe the federal would override the state when it comes to this issue, much like it did during women's right movements, and civil rights movements. I highly doubt this will be implemented properly, and it will take possibly decades to do, but federal law will grant equal rights under law to the LGBT community, and that's that. Just because your belief system disagrees, will become irrelevant as a business because your personal views do not extend to the views of a public/private business... For the reasons I would assume point #1 brings up. In my opinion, states should no have the power to limit equality, freedoms, and opportunity of one group of people because they disagree with them
Indiana passed a law since this thread begin that added sexual orientation and identity to the list of protected class like religion/race. So now there's no issues with Indiana's RFRA
I don't know man, maybe it's the fact of how I grew up, being an immigrant, with who I grew up with, where, that issues like this seem non-trivial to me. There are issues much bigger than these that need to be addressed.
if you own the buisness, you should get a choice in who you serve or not, that being said, " gay" peoples money is the same as anyone elses, so in reality the bakery loses, if they just took the order, they may have had hundreds of recommendations from with in the gay community and got rich of that.
my personal opinion is irrelevant, as stated below, i dont like seeing any full on pda wether straight or not.
Yes but I see signs all over that say "No Shirt, No Shoes, No business" If we get crazy with this thing here the next thing we know the practice of Sharia will be allowed and then what do we have... we are so afraid to offend anyone any more we cannot even practice our own beliefs or non beliefs. And to top it off people go out of their way to BE offeneded. I m sure this post probably offened someone
oops sorry cry just read your post below mine ..
What she said. People are the problem, and their precious feelings of offense. 80% of the population could not give a damn, but the other 20% are so righteously charged and vocal that they will make the most noise. When only the extreme personalities are heard, we get extreme legislation. It is unfortunate, but if the rest of the nation that does not take these issues as a lifetime priority would speak up and say "shut the fuck up, sit down, and stop creating unnecessary conflict", everything would be good. Unfortunately history has taught us that only the vocal and extreme are followed.
Seriously cant make any public comments anymore qithout disrespecting, or offending a race, belief, sexual orientation, handicapped, etc.....
Politicians, Religious leaders, Activists, The Oppressed, The Rich all take themselves too seriously. However, they drive public opinion and legislation so the rest of us are forced to swallow it til the next Revolution.
That is so true. I get what your saying now. To be honest I missed the whole point of the story, I just thought a couple of gays got offended for not getting cake. I also forget yous are american.
The real news story was just some news organization and young reporters trying to manufacture headlines. The actual story is some news reporter walks into a small town bakery and asks an OPINION. Would the owner cater a same sex wedding? The owner said no because it conflicted with their beliefs. No actual same sex customers were refused. The business had never been asked to do this before anyway. Nothing actually happened...but once this reached social media and the PC police, hysteria followed. These people who were minding their own business started getting blown up. Part of the problem is, journalism these days isn't very good and most of the time people only have time to look at the headlines and then form opinions based on them.
Where are you getting this information from?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/02/02/bakery-same-sex-oregon-fin...
Oops my bad...I claim jet lag :-) I had read about this story before as well as today's story in Indiana got them mixed up.
This story specifically:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/04/01/indiana-family-...
They're somewhat similar, but in the Oregon, there's a real story since there were customers and there was an actual lawsuit and judgment.
Lol I hear ya! They are easy to get confused. I put it my post above at the bottom. A lot to read just to give your opinion about something like this.
I come from a place where women are considered property. They can be beaten, maimed, or killed at the whim of practiacally ANY male. People are small and petty, they take for granted that they can live in relative freedom (that is a whole other discussion) practice their religion, sexual orientation, eat fast food, drink big gulps (unless you live in NYC, lol) .. they CHOOSE to be offended with impunity and without consideration for other people.. (the exact thing they are complaining about) ... this is exactly what you thought it was.. I bet that couple takes JOY in the fact that the people lost their business and have to pay fines because they chose to live by their beliefs.. if it had been me I would have told them that I was already booked up for that date ... but then I wouldn't have been true to my faith ... it is a shame we have to hide what we believe in here in AMERICA the home of the "free"
Dam I gain a lot more respect for you.
That boils my blood. Any man he does that to woman is scum. Maybe people should deal with that first. We have these new laws here at the moment reffered to as vlad laws, if any 3 persons associate with each other, and one has a criminal record its an automatic 6 months jail, does not matter who you are, for instance my brother is in security within the military, if I was to meet him for a beer along with my sister, they can be locked up because of my record, the charge will simply be consorting, so all these laws around the globe made by stupid politicians are taking away freedom, too many do gooders with big mouths, time for revolt by the sound of it.
If you are truly Christian you would never use someone's sin as a reason you can't do business with them. Where do you draw the line?? Do you not bake a cake because someone is divorced? Or because they are atheists? How can these people pick one sin and draw the line there? It's hypocritical at best and severely disingenuous at worst.
So at what point do you stand on your principles as a Christian?
Define Christian principles and I'll answer.
-edit-
This is a bad argument. Ultimately I would ask, how refusing to provide the services of your business to someone who sins (since we can assume no Christian has sins they find more acceptable than others) is standing on your Christian principles.
The answer of Christian principles is irrelevant. What your saying is that it is not OK to stand on your own principles based on someone else principles. It appears you have an ax to grind with Christianity. The fact that they were Christian isn't the point. They could be Muslim or any other religion. You are also making your argument under the assumption most everybody in this room including myself is Christian.
The antithesis of the last part of our argument: "Ultimately I would ask, how refusing to provide the services of your business to someone who sins (since we can assume no Christian has sins they find more acceptable than others) is standing on your Christian principles." If all sins are equal than why have principles at all or variations of law for that matter. Why not throw all people who break the law in prison regardless of the infraction. It is a slippery slope my friend.
I think we're misunderstanding each other. I edited my post because my initial response was a bad argument.
I don't have an ax to grind with Christianity or Christians. Only pointing out that it's silly to stand on homosexuality but not divorce/adultery/eating shellfish/or whatever acts are considered sins. I'm only using the obvious logical inconsistency of Christian principles.
"Why not throw every person who breaks the law in prison" there's no logical stance in which that makes sense. Different offenses have varying impacts and the punishments should reflect those varying I mpacts. But crime and sin are two different things and that's why religion has no place in government.
Christians do not place one sin above another. I can provide you some scripture from their bible if you'd like.
And if we're using the bible to define severity of sin. Read the only part of the bible that references homosexuality (Leviticus) and tell me if any of the other "laws" are principles anybody should stand on.
I'm only pointing out the hypocrisy allowing sincerely held religious beliefs dictate who a business will or will not do business with. I could have also used a Muslim business refusing infidels too. I only used Christianity because it's most applicable in a country that is vastly Christian.
I am not a christian.. it was a hypothetical .. . as well as you completely missing the point about people CHOOSING to be offended
It also seems like I did offened someone ..
I'm not a Christian either not offended. Just pointing it the fallacy in that argument by some Christians.
Because someone is a Christian doesn't mean they are without sin, but that's besides the point. If you feel strongly about something then you should be able to hold firm to your beliefs if it is not inflicting physical harm on someone else. If someone gets offended then they can get over it.
A private business owner should be able to refuse service to anyone. That's just my opinion.
I didn't present an argument .. rather commentary on people choosing to hypersentive and offended .. offered a hypothetical that if it had been me in that situation and i refused to make the cake I probably would not have given the reason that I don't bake cakes for same sex couples, knowing how people are ;-)
There is no winning an argument regarding religion.. it is like arguing with your little sister..
understood
If you are a business owner you do have the right to refuse service. It just has to be a valid reason other than classification of an individual. No shoes no shirt no service is a good example. Or we reserve the right to refuse service because you are an asshole is another one. You could even say you reserve the right to refuse service to anyone wearing a blue shirt that day. But you cannot specifically refuse service to someone because of their gender, religious beliefs, race or ethnicity. That is why this whole argument is so big. The gay community want to be acknowledged as a class like every other classification and therefore protected by the same constitutional rights as all the other classes or Identities.
SNL had a great snippet about it that says it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6aEeCDspD8
The news over this is to distract from Hillary's email scandal. Bill clinton put a similar bill in place 20 years ago.
This is much ado about nothing.
isn't it great what a bit of misdirection will do ?
I think everyone should have the choice whether to support something or not.
For example, why would you force a Pastor to marry a same sex couple? Especially if he didn't believe in that union? That's completely wrong. You should never force anyone to do anything.
You don't understand the law. No one can force a church or pastor to perform a wedding. That was the case before the RFRA.
How is that any different from baking a cake? Both ministering and baking a cake for the public is a service and a product offered.
The difference between ministering and baking a cake is the venue. Minister (religious entity/non-profit church) and baking (for profit corporation/business) do not operate in the same legal framework. we don't allow businesses to discriminate based on race (I'm sure nobody thinks it's ok for a white baker to not bake a cake for a black person cause they're black or vice versa). So why would we allow businesses to discriminate on another sect of people who are just being who they are (key point: they don't chose to be gay). This is the actual debate on the right, evangelical conservatives believe that sexuality is completely a choice, so they don't feel LGBT people should have the same protections as religions, race, ethnicity, etc.
Church's are NOT non profit! Those big buildings and salaries arent provided free of charge. The Church is and always has been a very powerful and influential part of society. One of the reason Church and State had to be seperated.....but they arent really seperated. Too many votes tie them together.
You have a valid point except that I do not agree with the one about ministering being a not for profit. While Religious organizations are typically not for profit. The minister can marry people outside of the church if he so chooses (at the risk of his job). Ministers by and large are paid members. Their service is their ministering and leadership. There is however, a very clear and decisive line between "For Profit and Not For Profit"
Do you think Muhammad Ali should have served a prison sentence in 1967 for his conscientious objection? In 1971 the Supreme Court overturned his conviction though not because of religious beliefs, the reason for his objection was religion.
I don't know enough about Ali's case to comment.
Ultimately the law (in the majority of states with an RFRA) does not allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or identity by any private business and it doesn't seem to be a problem in those states. I honestly feel the whole thing is a huge straw man and Indiana's law is a solution without a problem.
Read the last part of my post above. In Oregon the couple that refused the lesbian couple may have to pay a fine of $200k. I guess there is an argument for protecting their right to refuse service based on their beliefs.
Ok, so help me understand this bill.
The federal RFRA was made to protect an individual from an unjust burden by the state/government. It allows for a legal test to determine if the state's law is an undo burden on a person. The most recent example of this is the hobby lobby case that went to the Supreme Court becaus hobby lobby didn't want to pay for contraceptives for women (based on their sincerely held religious belief). The problem with Indiana's RFRA is it extends that individual protection to any business (beyond an individual) and it specifically doesn't include sexual orientation and identify in the list of protected classes). Which means that you can openly discriminate against gay people. I posted the question above. If you can't discriminate against black/brown/white people how would it be acceptable to discriminate against gay people. The reality is no businesses want this law, it was purely a push from the evangelical right. Every chamber of commerce in Indiana opposed it and almost every major corporation has openly opposed it before it was signed into law. You'd think if businesses really felt they needed this, they wouldn't be overwhelmingly opposed to it.
Its bullshit, already had freedom of religion, this is a trojan horse
This bill gives intolerance the right to hide behind the law. It's sad and deplorable. I'm born and raised very near the birth place of the civil rights movement. We know quite a bit about discrimination down here. We have seen business owners refuse service based on race. I thought we as a country had moved on. I guess not.
I think you pretty much summed up my views perfectly.