Quantum Windbag
Gold Member
- May 9, 2010
- 58,308
- 5,100
- 245
From here I would like to point to an excellent article written in the Wake Forest Law Review, which I highly recommend. A few snips follow:
The law sends messages. The antidiscrimination law sends a message that the racial caste system, or a similar one based on sexual orientation, is wrong and illegal. Applying the law to particular acts of discrimination emphasizes the message. The message sent by allowing religious exemptions is that discrimination is wrong and illegal except when it is right and legal. It is illegal and wrong unless your deeply held religious beliefs support the caste system and, by one version, unless the victim of discrimination can find a convenient alternative. The right to discriminate can convey a message (at least in certain circumstances) that it is right to do so.General application is important. What would the result have been in the segregated South if exemptions based on religious convictions had been in place? The result would have been even worse if all moral objectors to integration were also included.A Unique Religious Exemption From Antidiscrimination Laws in the Case of Gays | Putting the Call for Exemptions for Those Who Discriminate Against Married or Marrying Gays in Context | Wake Forest Law ReviewConclusion
The best way to think about the claim that gay marriage requires expanded exemptions from existing laws for religious discriminators is in the larger context of both race and gender discrimination and in the larger context of discrimination against gays outside of gay marriageas well as in the case of discrimination against people in same-sex marriages. The racial analogy may help some see why the harms of discrimination against gays are substantial and why broad exemptions are problematic. If so, this Essay will have been a modest success.
^ Just some thought food for munching.
I see you have been reading Seawytch's posts. At least you aren't trying to use this as an argument to prove that churches cannot be sued.
For the record, I agree with the article, there should not be a religious exemption to discrimination laws, they should all be ruled violations of human rights and forever abolished.