Why Must We Abandon Our Religious Beliefs to Operate A Business?

[dblack]

It is discrimination if you're willing to put a bride and a groom on a cake for an opposite sex wedding. It is also a gross distortion of the meaning of religious freedom.

It's actually not discrimination. If you're willing to put a bride and groom on a cake for a gay couple, you've offered them IDENTICAL service to what you gave the straight couple.

Don't be obtuse. Of course it's discrimination. The question is whether government should be in charge of regulating discrimination.

If not the government, then whom, business?

Neither? I guess it's inconceivable to you that discrimination is a deeply personal issue, and not something that should be subject to 'regulation'.

 

[dblack]

It is discrimination if you're willing to put a bride and a groom on a cake for an opposite sex wedding. It is also a gross distortion of the meaning of religious freedom.

It's actually not discrimination. If you're willing to put a bride and groom on a cake for a gay couple, you've offered them IDENTICAL service to what you gave the straight couple.

Don't be obtuse. Of course it's discrimination. The question is whether government should be in charge of regulating discrimination.

Discrimination, from a legal standpoint, means discriminating against a person based on that person's identity. If you're willing to do business with the person in question and offer them exactly the same product that you're offering everyone else, you're not discriminating between customers, you're discriminating between different types of products that you're willing or not willing to produce.

When you conflate these two concepts in order to "win" the argument, you're the one being obtuse, Mr. Dufresne.

I don't give a shit about bogus legal distinctions. Discrimination is every person's right - arguably a responsibility. We shouldn't let government tell us how to do it "properly".

 

[bodecea]

It is discrimination if you're willing to put a bride and a groom on a cake for an opposite sex wedding. It is also a gross distortion of the meaning of religious freedom.

It's actually not discrimination. If you're willing to put a bride and groom on a cake for a gay couple, you've offered them IDENTICAL service to what you gave the straight couple.

Don't be obtuse. Of course it's discrimination. The question is whether government should be in charge of regulating discrimination.

Discrimination, from a legal standpoint, means discriminating against a person based on that person's identity. If you're willing to do business with the person in question and offer them exactly the same product that you're offering everyone else, you're not discriminating between customers, you're discriminating between different types of products that you're willing or not willing to produce.

When you conflate these two concepts in order to "win" the argument, you're the one being obtuse, Mr. Dufresne.

I don't give a shit about bogus legal distinctions. Discrimination is every person's right - arguably a responsibility. We shouldn't let government tell us how to do it "properly".

Well, don't run a business if you "don't give a shit about 'bogus' legal distinctions....

 

[BS Filter]

You didn't make any points. You don't understand why Christians have the belief that homosexuality is an abomination to their God. You don't respect their belief. Until you understand why Christians have the belief and respect their belief, you're not going to understand why Christians refuse to go along with promotion of same-sex marriage.

I'm supposed to respect their "belief".

Bullshit. Their "belief" if fucking bigotry of the worst kind. They use their religion to justify bigotry.

The simple fact is, they have this book called the Bible which says lots of things, and they cherry pick to their heart's content.

John 8:3-8:11

"3 And the scribes and the Pharisees bring unto him a woman taken in adultery: and they set her in the midst,

4 And said to him: Master, this woman was even now taken in adultery.

5 Now Moses in the law commanded us to stone such a one. But what sayest thou?"

Well, you have Moses saying that an adulterer should be stoned to death and you have Jesus not saying she shouldn't be stoned to death.

What Jesus talks about is judging people.

"15 You judge according to the flesh: I judge not any man."

Deuteronomy 21:18-21:21

"21 And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear."

Basically talks about stoning a son to death if he doesn't listen to his parents.

Leviticus 20:13

"And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, [and] all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name [of the LORD], shall be put to death."

Blasphemy and you should be stoned to death.

Exodus 31:15

"Six days may work be done; but in the seventh [is] the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth [any] work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."

If you work on the sabbath, you'll be stoned to death.

So, they don't stone gay people to death which is what they're told to do. They don't stone bad sons, they don't stone those who work on the sabbath and they don't stone to death those who blasphemy.

So, they've cherry picked the Bible. They don't follow the parts they find inconvenient.

Mark 12:31

"And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no other commandment greater than these."

Okay, so you should treat thy neighbor as thyself.

Would you want to be stopped from being able to buy in a shop? No. So you should not stop others.

Again, cherry picking.

So don't come all fucking sanctimonious with me. These people are bigots and they hide behind cherry picked verses of the Bible and nothing more.

You're ignorant of the Scriptures. You're like a little kid playing with a stick of dynamite. You don't rightly divide the Word. You're evil.

Oh am I really?

Because I don't cherry pick the scriptures in the manner that's convenient for you, I'm ignorant.

Right......

It's funny you know. There are hundreds of Christian Churches out there.

List of Christian denominations - Wikipedia

I can't be bothered to list them all for you, here's the wikipedia page if you really need to know how many there are.

Each one preaches something different. Each one says the Bible means something different.

So, the chances are they're ALL ignorant of the Bible. Or they're all cherry picking their way through.

I've met gay Christians. I've even been to church with gay Christians in THEIR church. This church did not say gay people are bad, or evil, or sinners, or that they should be stoned to death, or that they should be stopped from shopping in stores.

I suppose they're ignorant simply because they don't follow YOUR interpretation (I mean cherry picking really) of the Bible.

Christophobic bigot.

Ah, I see the time for the ignore list has come.

That's what usually happens when Constitutionally illiterate leftists keep hitting a brick wall.

 

[frigidweirdo]

Pretty straight-forward. This is a question to anyone who believes that business owners should be forced to abandon their religious beliefs in order to do business. Also, let me preface this by saying that I am non-religious and that, personally, I generally lean pro-choice and pro-gay-rights. This principle is an exception.

Why? Why should business owners be forced to offer certain forms of compensation (birth control, for instance) if the practice of their religion forbids it?

Why should business owners be forced to abandon their moral reservations and do business with people with whom they'd rather not?

The first amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. Nowhere does it make an exception for the public sector. Nowhere does it say, "Except when doing business".

Nowhere in the bill of rights is the right to demand birth control as compensation from an employer. This is simply a commonly held opinion of leftists.

Nowhere in the bill of rights is the right to demand service of a business owner. Again, simply a commonly held opinion of leftists.

So if the Bill of Rights guarantees religious practice, but nowhere in the founding documents are the rights to demand service or particular forms of compensation, why do both of these things outweigh the right to free exercise?

Particularly, if gay rights activists say that equality of marriage is a right, and rights aren't up for a vote, then why do these same activists believe that the right to the free exercise of religion -can- be infringed when it suits their agenda?

Anyone? Why are your opinion-based rights more valid than the actual legal rights of religious business owners?

You don't have to abandon religious beliefs to run a business. You have to accept that there are laws in place.

Imagine a religion where you have to sacrifice someone on the 24th July every year.

You have to abandon you religious beliefs to live in the country.

Well, you can leave and go somewhere else.

Ah, so if you just reframe it as accepting that there are laws, then the fact that we're forcing people to choose between contradicting their religious values and losing their livelihood just goes away? Ceases to be? Sorry, but rewording the description doesn't actually alter the nature of the situation you're describing.

This isn't the same as sacrificing someone because not offering birth control as labor compensation in a -VOLUNTARY- contract doesn't victimize anyone. I didn't make a post asking why we're not allowed to do whatever the fuck we want in the name of religion, I'm strictly referring to contexts wherein the religious person hasn't used any form of force or coercion against anyone. In fact, in every scenario I've defended in this thread, the only victim of any sort of force or coercion is the business owner.

You're asking for a choice anyway.

On the one hand "religious freedom" and on the hand equality in society.

Sometimes two rights will collide. Which on wins?

Basically the theory of rights says you can do whatever you like as long as you don't hurt others.

Who is going to hurt more, the people who can't get whatever they want religiously, or the people who they'd force to be second class citizens?

Clearly the stronger of the two is equality.

The US Constitution trumps any religion, any belief. I might have religious beliefs that murdering is okay. Doesn't matter, the law is above that, I can't murder without breaking the law.

Before I go any further, I have a request. Either A tell me how someone who doesn't want to put 2 grooms on a cake or doesn't want to offer birth control as a form of compensation for voluntary labor is using force against a victim, or B stop using murder as your metaphor. Until you can establish that it actually applies, you're just making a rhetorical smoke screen and ignoring me when I point out that it's a rhetorical smoke screen.

Anyway, part of the issue here is how you define equality and how you define rights.

Personally, I don't see how anything that I've suggested here has anything to do with equality under the law, which simply means that the law will be evenly applied. If we simply allow people to operate their own businesses as they see fit, who is being treated unfairly? If you wanna open up a shop that sells card games and model airplanes, name it Hobby Foyer, and offer your employees ONLY health plans that include birth control, your business will be protected by the same police and military system as anybody else's, and legally subject to that protection being enforced on exactly the same terms as those Christian business owners. And if someone doesn't want what you offer, they'll be able to decline working for you, just like they can decline working for Hobby Lobby.

I also don't see how any of what I'm suggesting violates anyone's rights. I've thought about this, and there are enough one horse towns in shitty areas throughout parts of the nation that I'll concede that public accommodations laws ought to apply to the extent of human need. If you go into business selling fuel, food, or lodging, I'm of the mind that you shouldn't be allowed to turn people's business away without cause. In the case of a baker who doesn't want to put two grooms on your cake, or the photographer who doesn't wanna go and do a shoot of your wedding, I don't see whose rights are being violated if these people refuse that business. I get that it's a dick move, but I'm not sure where it is from which one derives the right to force any available baker to design a cake in any particular way, or demand that a professional photographer take on some particular project simply on the grounds that they are a photographer. Not only did I not realize that was a right, but I was actually under the impression that subjugating another human being was abolished after that whole tiff between the North and the South back in the day. Does it not apply to business owners, or Christians?

Aside from rights, if I don't put two grooms on your cake, I haven't hurt you. If you're looking for a job and I've got an add in the classifieds, and then you find out that I don't offer health plans that include birth control, I haven't hurt you.

Firstly, there's nothing in the Bible that says "thou shalt not put two grooms on the wedding game."

What it says in the Bible has to do with STONING. Now, these people have managed to take stoning in the Bible and ignore it because they don't stone gay people or Blasphemous people or the like.

But the Bible gives the SAME punishment, whether you want to carry out the punishment in the name of your religion or not, to Blasphemy, gay sex, rebellious sons and those who work on the Sabbath.

Now, do these religious people treat ALL of these people the same? No, they don't. They do NOT refuse to serve blasphemous people (they might if they did it in their shop, but the gay people aren't fucking in their shop, so the comparable is that they're blasphemous outside of the shop), they do not refuse to serve rebellious sons, they do not refuse to serve those who work on the Sabbath, but they DO refuse to serve gay people.

Why?

My only thought can be that they're using the Bible to protect their bigoted views, rather than having a consistent view of the Bible.

Yes, sure, how you define equality and rights is important.

I mean, there are people on here who think that black people shouldn't have rights. I think that if black people don't have rights, then there aren't any rights, only privileges.

Equality is equality under the law. Laws are equal for all, who you are makes no difference to how the law plays out for you.

Your problem is that you're trying to say that everyone can operate their business as they see fit.

You could ban black people, or have a separate room for black people. You could demand that women cover their faces. You could do a lot of really shitty things, and people would. We know this. They did it under segregation.

If 69% of the population is Christian, and Christians choose to not serve gay people, and then say this is equal, then they're fucking idiots. I'm sorry. I don't like insulting people, but really, it pisses me off immensely.

For me to call them idiots is far less than what they want to do. The same for those people who had black people using separate services. It's just plain wrong and there's no way around that.

The problem is, you want some businesses to have public accommodation laws, and other business to not.

Essential services. "Hey there n*gger, I'll sell your slimy jumped up ass a loaf of bread, because I'm the only seller of bread for 20 miles around here, but you'll have to crawl all the way up here."

You think that would be acceptable?

No, you either have public accommodation laws that are EQUAL FOR ALL PEOPLE based on how they were born, or you don't and you live in a backwards "shithole" as Trump would call it.

If you advertise that you do a particular service, then this service MUST BE OPEN to all people, unless of course they've done something to prove that you don't have to serve them that has nothing to do with how they were born.

You don't have to advertise certain services.

"Hey, I want Garfield on my cake" "I'm sorry sir, but we don't do putting things on cakes."

Who's hurt.

"Hey, I want two grooms on my cake for my wedding" "I'm sorry sir, but I'm a bigot and we won't be serving you"

THIS HURTS PEOPLE. It makes people feel like they're SECOND CLASS CITIZENS in their own country. Unacceptable.

 

[BS Filter]

It is discrimination if you're willing to put a bride and a groom on a cake for an opposite sex wedding. It is also a gross distortion of the meaning of religious freedom.

It's actually not discrimination. If you're willing to put a bride and groom on a cake for a gay couple, you've offered them IDENTICAL service to what you gave the straight couple.

Don't be obtuse. Of course it's discrimination. The question is whether government should be in charge of regulating discrimination.

Discrimination, from a legal standpoint, means discriminating against a person based on that person's identity. If you're willing to do business with the person in question and offer them exactly the same product that you're offering everyone else, you're not discriminating between customers, you're discriminating between different types of products that you're willing or not willing to produce.

When you conflate these two concepts in order to "win" the argument, you're the one being obtuse, Mr. Dufresne.

I don't give a shit about bogus legal distinctions. Discrimination is every person's right - arguably a responsibility. We shouldn't let government tell us how to do it "properly".

Well, don't run a business if you "don't give a shit about 'bogus' legal distinctions....

Don't trade with the business if you don't like their way of doing things. Liberty.

 

[dblack]

It is discrimination if you're willing to put a bride and a groom on a cake for an opposite sex wedding. It is also a gross distortion of the meaning of religious freedom.

It's actually not discrimination. If you're willing to put a bride and groom on a cake for a gay couple, you've offered them IDENTICAL service to what you gave the straight couple.

Don't be obtuse. Of course it's discrimination. The question is whether government should be in charge of regulating discrimination.

Discrimination, from a legal standpoint, means discriminating against a person based on that person's identity. If you're willing to do business with the person in question and offer them exactly the same product that you're offering everyone else, you're not discriminating between customers, you're discriminating between different types of products that you're willing or not willing to produce.

When you conflate these two concepts in order to "win" the argument, you're the one being obtuse, Mr. Dufresne.

I don't give a shit about bogus legal distinctions. Discrimination is every person's right - arguably a responsibility. We shouldn't let government tell us how to do it "properly".

Well, don't run a business if you "don't give a shit about 'bogus' legal distinctions....

Better yet, repeal laws that put government in charge of what kinds of discrimination are allowed.

 

[BS Filter]

Pretty straight-forward. This is a question to anyone who believes that business owners should be forced to abandon their religious beliefs in order to do business. Also, let me preface this by saying that I am non-religious and that, personally, I generally lean pro-choice and pro-gay-rights. This principle is an exception.

Why? Why should business owners be forced to offer certain forms of compensation (birth control, for instance) if the practice of their religion forbids it?

Why should business owners be forced to abandon their moral reservations and do business with people with whom they'd rather not?

The first amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. Nowhere does it make an exception for the public sector. Nowhere does it say, "Except when doing business".

Nowhere in the bill of rights is the right to demand birth control as compensation from an employer. This is simply a commonly held opinion of leftists.

Nowhere in the bill of rights is the right to demand service of a business owner. Again, simply a commonly held opinion of leftists.

So if the Bill of Rights guarantees religious practice, but nowhere in the founding documents are the rights to demand service or particular forms of compensation, why do both of these things outweigh the right to free exercise?

Particularly, if gay rights activists say that equality of marriage is a right, and rights aren't up for a vote, then why do these same activists believe that the right to the free exercise of religion -can- be infringed when it suits their agenda?

Anyone? Why are your opinion-based rights more valid than the actual legal rights of religious business owners?

You don't have to abandon religious beliefs to run a business. You have to accept that there are laws in place.

Imagine a religion where you have to sacrifice someone on the 24th July every year.

You have to abandon you religious beliefs to live in the country.

Well, you can leave and go somewhere else.

Ah, so if you just reframe it as accepting that there are laws, then the fact that we're forcing people to choose between contradicting their religious values and losing their livelihood just goes away? Ceases to be? Sorry, but rewording the description doesn't actually alter the nature of the situation you're describing.

This isn't the same as sacrificing someone because not offering birth control as labor compensation in a -VOLUNTARY- contract doesn't victimize anyone. I didn't make a post asking why we're not allowed to do whatever the fuck we want in the name of religion, I'm strictly referring to contexts wherein the religious person hasn't used any form of force or coercion against anyone. In fact, in every scenario I've defended in this thread, the only victim of any sort of force or coercion is the business owner.

You're asking for a choice anyway.

On the one hand "religious freedom" and on the hand equality in society.

Sometimes two rights will collide. Which on wins?

Basically the theory of rights says you can do whatever you like as long as you don't hurt others.

Who is going to hurt more, the people who can't get whatever they want religiously, or the people who they'd force to be second class citizens?

Clearly the stronger of the two is equality.

The US Constitution trumps any religion, any belief. I might have religious beliefs that murdering is okay. Doesn't matter, the law is above that, I can't murder without breaking the law.

Before I go any further, I have a request. Either A tell me how someone who doesn't want to put 2 grooms on a cake or doesn't want to offer birth control as a form of compensation for voluntary labor is using force against a victim, or B stop using murder as your metaphor. Until you can establish that it actually applies, you're just making a rhetorical smoke screen and ignoring me when I point out that it's a rhetorical smoke screen.

Anyway, part of the issue here is how you define equality and how you define rights.

Personally, I don't see how anything that I've suggested here has anything to do with equality under the law, which simply means that the law will be evenly applied. If we simply allow people to operate their own businesses as they see fit, who is being treated unfairly? If you wanna open up a shop that sells card games and model airplanes, name it Hobby Foyer, and offer your employees ONLY health plans that include birth control, your business will be protected by the same police and military system as anybody else's, and legally subject to that protection being enforced on exactly the same terms as those Christian business owners. And if someone doesn't want what you offer, they'll be able to decline working for you, just like they can decline working for Hobby Lobby.

I also don't see how any of what I'm suggesting violates anyone's rights. I've thought about this, and there are enough one horse towns in shitty areas throughout parts of the nation that I'll concede that public accommodations laws ought to apply to the extent of human need. If you go into business selling fuel, food, or lodging, I'm of the mind that you shouldn't be allowed to turn people's business away without cause. In the case of a baker who doesn't want to put two grooms on your cake, or the photographer who doesn't wanna go and do a shoot of your wedding, I don't see whose rights are being violated if these people refuse that business. I get that it's a dick move, but I'm not sure where it is from which one derives the right to force any available baker to design a cake in any particular way, or demand that a professional photographer take on some particular project simply on the grounds that they are a photographer. Not only did I not realize that was a right, but I was actually under the impression that subjugating another human being was abolished after that whole tiff between the North and the South back in the day. Does it not apply to business owners, or Christians?

Aside from rights, if I don't put two grooms on your cake, I haven't hurt you. If you're looking for a job and I've got an add in the classifieds, and then you find out that I don't offer health plans that include birth control, I haven't hurt you.

Firstly, there's nothing in the Bible that says "thou shalt not put two grooms on the wedding game."

What it says in the Bible has to do with STONING. Now, these people have managed to take stoning in the Bible and ignore it because they don't stone gay people or Blasphemous people or the like.

But the Bible gives the SAME punishment, whether you want to carry out the punishment in the name of your religion or not, to Blasphemy, gay sex, rebellious sons and those who work on the Sabbath.

Now, do these religious people treat ALL of these people the same? No, they don't. They do NOT refuse to serve blasphemous people (they might if they did it in their shop, but the gay people aren't fucking in their shop, so the comparable is that they're blasphemous outside of the shop), they do not refuse to serve rebellious sons, they do not refuse to serve those who work on the Sabbath, but they DO refuse to serve gay people.

Why?

My only thought can be that they're using the Bible to protect their bigoted views, rather than having a consistent view of the Bible.

Yes, sure, how you define equality and rights is important.

I mean, there are people on here who think that black people shouldn't have rights. I think that if black people don't have rights, then there aren't any rights, only privileges.

Equality is equality under the law. Laws are equal for all, who you are makes no difference to how the law plays out for you.

Your problem is that you're trying to say that everyone can operate their business as they see fit.

You could ban black people, or have a separate room for black people. You could demand that women cover their faces. You could do a lot of really shitty things, and people would. We know this. They did it under segregation.

If 69% of the population is Christian, and Christians choose to not serve gay people, and then say this is equal, then they're fucking idiots. I'm sorry. I don't like insulting people, but really, it pisses me off immensely.

For me to call them idiots is far less than what they want to do. The same for those people who had black people using separate services. It's just plain wrong and there's no way around that.

The problem is, you want some businesses to have public accommodation laws, and other business to not.

Essential services. "Hey there n*gger, I'll sell your slimy jumped up ass a loaf of bread, because I'm the only seller of bread for 20 miles around here, but you'll have to crawl all the way up here."

You think that would be acceptable?

No, you either have public accommodation laws that are EQUAL FOR ALL PEOPLE based on how they were born, or you don't and you live in a backwards "shithole" as Trump would call it.

If you advertise that you do a particular service, then this service MUST BE OPEN to all people, unless of course they've done something to prove that you don't have to serve them that has nothing to do with how they were born.

You don't have to advertise certain services.

"Hey, I want Garfield on my cake" "I'm sorry sir, but we don't do putting things on cakes."

Who's hurt.

"Hey, I want two grooms on my cake for my wedding" "I'm sorry sir, but I'm a bigot and we won't be serving you"

THIS HURTS PEOPLE. It makes people feel like they're SECOND CLASS CITIZENS in their own country. Unacceptable.

Like all ungodly leftists, you don't understand the Old Testament and the New Testament. You're blind and confused.

 

[WorldWatcher]

Discrimination, from a legal standpoint, means discriminating against a person based on that person's identity. If you're willing to do business with the person in question and offer them exactly the same product that you're offering everyone else, you're not discriminating between customers, you're discriminating between different types of products that you're willing or not willing to produce.

When you conflate these two concepts in order to "win" the argument, you're the one being obtuse.

#1 There was never any discussion of design (so saying things about requiring two grooms is false). This is agreed to in court documents in the Statement of Facts. To say different means you think Mr. Phillips (the baker) is a liar.

#2 The bakers (both Masterpiece Cakeshop and Sweetcakes by Melissa) both admit in court documents that the provided the product in question "i.e. wedding cakes".

#3 When you refuse to sell the exact same product based on who the people are, than yea you are discriminating between customers.


Below is one of the wedding cakes in the Masterpiece Cakeshop catalog (Wedding | MASTERPIECE CAKESHOP). Mr. Phillips would sell the cake to a different-sex couple, but would refuse to sell it to a same-sex couple. Same cake different people, basis then is the customers.

 

[Skull Pilot]

if you open a business that is open to the public, you have to accommodate the public.

you can rant about this until your bigot head explodes. if you can't accommodate the public, don't open a business.

Accommodating the public isn't the same as accommodating employees. Business owners aren't subject to the whims of activists. If you don't like a business, then don't work there or do business there. It's really simple. It's called Liberty.

So...you don't like PA laws at all...what are you actively doing to get them repealed in your state?

I ignore them. Leftist activists want a law for everything. I just ignore the idiots.

If you want an exemption from any law then it is you that has to provide proof that the exemption is justified. If I kill in self defense it is up to me to prove it was self defense so exemption from the murder laws an be applied

So if you don't want to build a house for a gay couple it is up to you to prove that doing so violates your religious bent by providing proof from your religious manual whatever it may be.

Or you could make your business a club where customers have to pay a fee to be a member and you only provide services to your members. I'm sure you can find enough bigots to join you.

Naw, I'm not going to submit to perverts and fascists. Come and get me.

As if you'd be worth my time

 

[BS Filter]

Accommodating the public isn't the same as accommodating employees. Business owners aren't subject to the whims of activists. If you don't like a business, then don't work there or do business there. It's really simple. It's called Liberty.

So...you don't like PA laws at all...what are you actively doing to get them repealed in your state?

I ignore them. Leftist activists want a law for everything. I just ignore the idiots.

If you want an exemption from any law then it is you that has to provide proof that the exemption is justified. If I kill in self defense it is up to me to prove it was self defense so exemption from the murder laws an be applied

So if you don't want to build a house for a gay couple it is up to you to prove that doing so violates your religious bent by providing proof from your religious manual whatever it may be.

Or you could make your business a club where customers have to pay a fee to be a member and you only provide services to your members. I'm sure you can find enough bigots to join you.

Naw, I'm not going to submit to perverts and fascists. Come and get me.

As if you'd be worth my time

LOL. All mouth.

 

[Skull Pilot]

I get why you people want to hide behind your religion so as to justify your bigotry

I was raised Catholic but had the good sense to get the hell away from those people

There is no way you can equate baking a cake with committing a sin
There is no way you an equate paying for part of an insurance policy that offers birth control with committing a sin

I get why you want to define what people should believe for them, but trust me, it says a lot worse things about you than your constant use of "bigotry" over and over.

I can't imagine what your personal religious training and feelings about it have to do with the topic at all. This is not your group therapy session, so please refrain from sharing unless it's relevant.

There is no way YOU can equate baking a cake with committing a sin. But YOU are not representative of all possible beliefs, or even of "the only true, acceptable belief". Get over yourself. Personally, I can't equate walking around with my face uncovered with committing a sin, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for other people to genuinely believe it.

You can't have it both ways.

Either it is a sin to bake a cake for a sinner or it isn't.

you want to say that your soul is in not in jeopardy if you bake a cake for a serial killer but if you bake one for a gay guy you'll be thrown into the fires of hell

IDGAF if you're religious or not but if you actually think about it the above statement is absolutely nonsensical

Actually, you can have it many ways, because we're not talking about The One Ultimate Truth of Sin here, we're talking about beliefs. You can have as many different beliefs as you have people. See, you want to invalidate people's beliefs because they don't match YOUR belief as to the "one ultimate truth of sin", and you don't seem to get that yours is just as subjective as theirs is. The First Amendment protects freedom of religious belief precisely because the Founding Fathers recognized that we don't even remotely all agree on the subject. Allowing you to rule out the beliefs of others on the basis of "Well, they're wrong" would invalidate the entire spirit and purpose of the First Amendment; and you should consider that THEY think YOU are wrong, so it's a wash.

I'm not saying anything about the state of my soul, because IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. THAT is the only thing I'm saying, and you should write it down somewhere, because you just don't seem to be comprehending me. MY BELIEFS ARE NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. MY RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. THE BAKER'S BELIEFS AND RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD ARE NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. The First Amendment isn't about sanctioning "correct" beliefs; it's about telling you that EVERY belief is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Tend to your own soul, and stay the hell out of everyone else's unless and until you're omniscient.

So your beliefs are none of my business but the beliefs of your customers are your business?

What the fuck do you care if you bake a cake for a killer, a rapist, an adulterer or a gay guy?

The act of baking and selling a cake is not a sin in any religion

If the beliefs of the customer are none of your business then why can't bakers be forced to make Hitler cakes?

I don't know if they can't do you?

is it a sin to put a maniacal dictator's likeness on a cake?

 

[Skull Pilot]

So...you don't like PA laws at all...what are you actively doing to get them repealed in your state?

I ignore them. Leftist activists want a law for everything. I just ignore the idiots.

If you want an exemption from any law then it is you that has to provide proof that the exemption is justified. If I kill in self defense it is up to me to prove it was self defense so exemption from the murder laws an be applied

So if you don't want to build a house for a gay couple it is up to you to prove that doing so violates your religious bent by providing proof from your religious manual whatever it may be.

Or you could make your business a club where customers have to pay a fee to be a member and you only provide services to your members. I'm sure you can find enough bigots to join you.

Naw, I'm not going to submit to perverts and fascists. Come and get me.

As if you'd be worth my time

LOL. All mouth.

You don't even own a business

 

[bodecea]

It's actually not discrimination. If you're willing to put a bride and groom on a cake for a gay couple, you've offered them IDENTICAL service to what you gave the straight couple.

Don't be obtuse. Of course it's discrimination. The question is whether government should be in charge of regulating discrimination.

Discrimination, from a legal standpoint, means discriminating against a person based on that person's identity. If you're willing to do business with the person in question and offer them exactly the same product that you're offering everyone else, you're not discriminating between customers, you're discriminating between different types of products that you're willing or not willing to produce.

When you conflate these two concepts in order to "win" the argument, you're the one being obtuse, Mr. Dufresne.

I don't give a shit about bogus legal distinctions. Discrimination is every person's right - arguably a responsibility. We shouldn't let government tell us how to do it "properly".

Well, don't run a business if you "don't give a shit about 'bogus' legal distinctions....

Don't trade with the business if you don't like their way of doing things. Liberty.

That was the reasoning behind being against the civil rights movement....and the black students going to the Woolworths lunch counters.

 

[bodecea]

You don't have to abandon religious beliefs to run a business. You have to accept that there are laws in place.

Imagine a religion where you have to sacrifice someone on the 24th July every year.

You have to abandon you religious beliefs to live in the country.

Well, you can leave and go somewhere else.

Ah, so if you just reframe it as accepting that there are laws, then the fact that we're forcing people to choose between contradicting their religious values and losing their livelihood just goes away? Ceases to be? Sorry, but rewording the description doesn't actually alter the nature of the situation you're describing.

This isn't the same as sacrificing someone because not offering birth control as labor compensation in a -VOLUNTARY- contract doesn't victimize anyone. I didn't make a post asking why we're not allowed to do whatever the fuck we want in the name of religion, I'm strictly referring to contexts wherein the religious person hasn't used any form of force or coercion against anyone. In fact, in every scenario I've defended in this thread, the only victim of any sort of force or coercion is the business owner.

You're asking for a choice anyway.

On the one hand "religious freedom" and on the hand equality in society.

Sometimes two rights will collide. Which on wins?

Basically the theory of rights says you can do whatever you like as long as you don't hurt others.

Who is going to hurt more, the people who can't get whatever they want religiously, or the people who they'd force to be second class citizens?

Clearly the stronger of the two is equality.

The US Constitution trumps any religion, any belief. I might have religious beliefs that murdering is okay. Doesn't matter, the law is above that, I can't murder without breaking the law.

Before I go any further, I have a request. Either A tell me how someone who doesn't want to put 2 grooms on a cake or doesn't want to offer birth control as a form of compensation for voluntary labor is using force against a victim, or B stop using murder as your metaphor. Until you can establish that it actually applies, you're just making a rhetorical smoke screen and ignoring me when I point out that it's a rhetorical smoke screen.

Anyway, part of the issue here is how you define equality and how you define rights.

Personally, I don't see how anything that I've suggested here has anything to do with equality under the law, which simply means that the law will be evenly applied. If we simply allow people to operate their own businesses as they see fit, who is being treated unfairly? If you wanna open up a shop that sells card games and model airplanes, name it Hobby Foyer, and offer your employees ONLY health plans that include birth control, your business will be protected by the same police and military system as anybody else's, and legally subject to that protection being enforced on exactly the same terms as those Christian business owners. And if someone doesn't want what you offer, they'll be able to decline working for you, just like they can decline working for Hobby Lobby.

I also don't see how any of what I'm suggesting violates anyone's rights. I've thought about this, and there are enough one horse towns in shitty areas throughout parts of the nation that I'll concede that public accommodations laws ought to apply to the extent of human need. If you go into business selling fuel, food, or lodging, I'm of the mind that you shouldn't be allowed to turn people's business away without cause. In the case of a baker who doesn't want to put two grooms on your cake, or the photographer who doesn't wanna go and do a shoot of your wedding, I don't see whose rights are being violated if these people refuse that business. I get that it's a dick move, but I'm not sure where it is from which one derives the right to force any available baker to design a cake in any particular way, or demand that a professional photographer take on some particular project simply on the grounds that they are a photographer. Not only did I not realize that was a right, but I was actually under the impression that subjugating another human being was abolished after that whole tiff between the North and the South back in the day. Does it not apply to business owners, or Christians?

Aside from rights, if I don't put two grooms on your cake, I haven't hurt you. If you're looking for a job and I've got an add in the classifieds, and then you find out that I don't offer health plans that include birth control, I haven't hurt you.

Firstly, there's nothing in the Bible that says "thou shalt not put two grooms on the wedding game."

What it says in the Bible has to do with STONING. Now, these people have managed to take stoning in the Bible and ignore it because they don't stone gay people or Blasphemous people or the like.

But the Bible gives the SAME punishment, whether you want to carry out the punishment in the name of your religion or not, to Blasphemy, gay sex, rebellious sons and those who work on the Sabbath.

Now, do these religious people treat ALL of these people the same? No, they don't. They do NOT refuse to serve blasphemous people (they might if they did it in their shop, but the gay people aren't fucking in their shop, so the comparable is that they're blasphemous outside of the shop), they do not refuse to serve rebellious sons, they do not refuse to serve those who work on the Sabbath, but they DO refuse to serve gay people.

Why?

My only thought can be that they're using the Bible to protect their bigoted views, rather than having a consistent view of the Bible.

Yes, sure, how you define equality and rights is important.

I mean, there are people on here who think that black people shouldn't have rights. I think that if black people don't have rights, then there aren't any rights, only privileges.

Equality is equality under the law. Laws are equal for all, who you are makes no difference to how the law plays out for you.

Your problem is that you're trying to say that everyone can operate their business as they see fit.

You could ban black people, or have a separate room for black people. You could demand that women cover their faces. You could do a lot of really shitty things, and people would. We know this. They did it under segregation.

If 69% of the population is Christian, and Christians choose to not serve gay people, and then say this is equal, then they're fucking idiots. I'm sorry. I don't like insulting people, but really, it pisses me off immensely.

For me to call them idiots is far less than what they want to do. The same for those people who had black people using separate services. It's just plain wrong and there's no way around that.

The problem is, you want some businesses to have public accommodation laws, and other business to not.

Essential services. "Hey there n*gger, I'll sell your slimy jumped up ass a loaf of bread, because I'm the only seller of bread for 20 miles around here, but you'll have to crawl all the way up here."

You think that would be acceptable?

No, you either have public accommodation laws that are EQUAL FOR ALL PEOPLE based on how they were born, or you don't and you live in a backwards "shithole" as Trump would call it.

If you advertise that you do a particular service, then this service MUST BE OPEN to all people, unless of course they've done something to prove that you don't have to serve them that has nothing to do with how they were born.

You don't have to advertise certain services.

"Hey, I want Garfield on my cake" "I'm sorry sir, but we don't do putting things on cakes."

Who's hurt.

"Hey, I want two grooms on my cake for my wedding" "I'm sorry sir, but I'm a bigot and we won't be serving you"

THIS HURTS PEOPLE. It makes people feel like they're SECOND CLASS CITIZENS in their own country. Unacceptable.

Like all ungodly leftists, you don't understand the Old Testament and the New Testament. You're blind and confused.

Who cares about your bible when it comes to secular law? Seriously....our laws are not christian sharia.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Refusing a voluntary business contract because you don't want to put two grooms on a cake or photograph a gay wedding isn't treating others badly.

It is discrimination if you're willing to put a bride and a groom on a cake for an opposite sex wedding. It is also a gross distortion of the meaning of religious freedom.

It's actually not discrimination. If you're willing to put a bride and groom on a cake for a gay couple, you've offered them IDENTICAL service to what you gave the straight couple.

However no one offered or requested any writing or figures on wedding cakes.

BTW...the 21st century is calling....almost no one puts figures on their wedding cakes anymore.

The 21st Century is calling? Man, I'm not sure whether the sadder part is the "time period is calling" setup or the fact that you're trying to get witty about my ignorance of current wedding trends. How unfashionable of me! Lol!

If there was nothing inherently "gay marriage" about the requested cake design, I stand corrected, and I'll stop presenting their case as being the same as the photographer's.

That said, I still don't see why this is a situation the requires the intervention of the government. I don't understand why anyone ought to be able to demand service of anyone else and have the power of the government enforcing that demand.

 

[TheProgressivePatriot]

Also, if you're of the mind that belief and action are things that exist independently from one another, I have to wonder if you're a sociopath.

PS By calling me a sociopath, It's apparent that you have no idea what a sociopath actually is. In fact, people like you may have more in common with a sociopath than me:

Traits of Sociopath and How to Communicate

What Are the Traits of Sociopath?
Various hallmark sociopath traits are listed below. It is important to note that not all traits will be present in all the sociopaths.

According to ICD-10 criteria, presence of 3 or more of the following qualifies for the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy):

• Callous unconcern for the feelings of others.
• Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, and obligations.
• Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them.
• Very low tolerance to frustration, a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.
• Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment.
• Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalization for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict with society.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Pretty straight-forward. This is a question to anyone who believes that business owners should be forced to abandon their religious beliefs in order to do business. Also, let me preface this by saying that I am non-religious and that, personally, I generally lean pro-choice and pro-gay-rights. This principle is an exception.

Why? Why should business owners be forced to offer certain forms of compensation (birth control, for instance) if the practice of their religion forbids it?

Why should business owners be forced to abandon their moral reservations and do business with people with whom they'd rather not?

The first amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion. Nowhere does it make an exception for the public sector. Nowhere does it say, "Except when doing business".

Nowhere in the bill of rights is the right to demand birth control as compensation from an employer. This is simply a commonly held opinion of leftists.

Nowhere in the bill of rights is the right to demand service of a business owner. Again, simply a commonly held opinion of leftists.

So if the Bill of Rights guarantees religious practice, but nowhere in the founding documents are the rights to demand service or particular forms of compensation, why do both of these things outweigh the right to free exercise?

Particularly, if gay rights activists say that equality of marriage is a right, and rights aren't up for a vote, then why do these same activists believe that the right to the free exercise of religion -can- be infringed when it suits their agenda?

Anyone? Why are your opinion-based rights more valid than the actual legal rights of religious business owners?

You don't have to abandon religious beliefs to run a business. You have to accept that there are laws in place.

Imagine a religion where you have to sacrifice someone on the 24th July every year.

You have to abandon you religious beliefs to live in the country.

Well, you can leave and go somewhere else.

Ah, so if you just reframe it as accepting that there are laws, then the fact that we're forcing people to choose between contradicting their religious values and losing their livelihood just goes away? Ceases to be? Sorry, but rewording the description doesn't actually alter the nature of the situation you're describing.

This isn't the same as sacrificing someone because not offering birth control as labor compensation in a -VOLUNTARY- contract doesn't victimize anyone. I didn't make a post asking why we're not allowed to do whatever the fuck we want in the name of religion, I'm strictly referring to contexts wherein the religious person hasn't used any form of force or coercion against anyone. In fact, in every scenario I've defended in this thread, the only victim of any sort of force or coercion is the business owner.

You're asking for a choice anyway.

On the one hand "religious freedom" and on the hand equality in society.

Sometimes two rights will collide. Which on wins?

Basically the theory of rights says you can do whatever you like as long as you don't hurt others.

Who is going to hurt more, the people who can't get whatever they want religiously, or the people who they'd force to be second class citizens?

Clearly the stronger of the two is equality.

The US Constitution trumps any religion, any belief. I might have religious beliefs that murdering is okay. Doesn't matter, the law is above that, I can't murder without breaking the law.

Before I go any further, I have a request. Either A tell me how someone who doesn't want to put 2 grooms on a cake or doesn't want to offer birth control as a form of compensation for voluntary labor is using force against a victim, or B stop using murder as your metaphor. Until you can establish that it actually applies, you're just making a rhetorical smoke screen and ignoring me when I point out that it's a rhetorical smoke screen.

Anyway, part of the issue here is how you define equality and how you define rights.

Personally, I don't see how anything that I've suggested here has anything to do with equality under the law, which simply means that the law will be evenly applied. If we simply allow people to operate their own businesses as they see fit, who is being treated unfairly? If you wanna open up a shop that sells card games and model airplanes, name it Hobby Foyer, and offer your employees ONLY health plans that include birth control, your business will be protected by the same police and military system as anybody else's, and legally subject to that protection being enforced on exactly the same terms as those Christian business owners. And if someone doesn't want what you offer, they'll be able to decline working for you, just like they can decline working for Hobby Lobby.

I also don't see how any of what I'm suggesting violates anyone's rights. I've thought about this, and there are enough one horse towns in shitty areas throughout parts of the nation that I'll concede that public accommodations laws ought to apply to the extent of human need. If you go into business selling fuel, food, or lodging, I'm of the mind that you shouldn't be allowed to turn people's business away without cause. In the case of a baker who doesn't want to put two grooms on your cake, or the photographer who doesn't wanna go and do a shoot of your wedding, I don't see whose rights are being violated if these people refuse that business. I get that it's a dick move, but I'm not sure where it is from which one derives the right to force any available baker to design a cake in any particular way, or demand that a professional photographer take on some particular project simply on the grounds that they are a photographer. Not only did I not realize that was a right, but I was actually under the impression that subjugating another human being was abolished after that whole tiff between the North and the South back in the day. Does it not apply to business owners, or Christians?

Aside from rights, if I don't put two grooms on your cake, I haven't hurt you. If you're looking for a job and I've got an add in the classifieds, and then you find out that I don't offer health plans that include birth control, I haven't hurt you.

Firstly, there's nothing in the Bible that says "thou shalt not put two grooms on the wedding game."

What it says in the Bible has to do with STONING. Now, these people have managed to take stoning in the Bible and ignore it because they don't stone gay people or Blasphemous people or the like.

But the Bible gives the SAME punishment, whether you want to carry out the punishment in the name of your religion or not, to Blasphemy, gay sex, rebellious sons and those who work on the Sabbath.

Now, do these religious people treat ALL of these people the same? No, they don't. They do NOT refuse to serve blasphemous people (they might if they did it in their shop, but the gay people aren't fucking in their shop, so the comparable is that they're blasphemous outside of the shop), they do not refuse to serve rebellious sons, they do not refuse to serve those who work on the Sabbath, but they DO refuse to serve gay people.

Why?

My only thought can be that they're using the Bible to protect their bigoted views, rather than having a consistent view of the Bible.

Yes, sure, how you define equality and rights is important.

I mean, there are people on here who think that black people shouldn't have rights. I think that if black people don't have rights, then there aren't any rights, only privileges.

Equality is equality under the law. Laws are equal for all, who you are makes no difference to how the law plays out for you.

Your problem is that you're trying to say that everyone can operate their business as they see fit.

You could ban black people, or have a separate room for black people. You could demand that women cover their faces. You could do a lot of really shitty things, and people would. We know this. They did it under segregation.

If 69% of the population is Christian, and Christians choose to not serve gay people, and then say this is equal, then they're fucking idiots. I'm sorry. I don't like insulting people, but really, it pisses me off immensely.

For me to call them idiots is far less than what they want to do. The same for those people who had black people using separate services. It's just plain wrong and there's no way around that.

The problem is, you want some businesses to have public accommodation laws, and other business to not.

Essential services. "Hey there n*gger, I'll sell your slimy jumped up ass a loaf of bread, because I'm the only seller of bread for 20 miles around here, but you'll have to crawl all the way up here."

You think that would be acceptable?

No, you either have public accommodation laws that are EQUAL FOR ALL PEOPLE based on how they were born, or you don't and you live in a backwards "shithole" as Trump would call it.

If you advertise that you do a particular service, then this service MUST BE OPEN to all people, unless of course they've done something to prove that you don't have to serve them that has nothing to do with how they were born.

You don't have to advertise certain services.

"Hey, I want Garfield on my cake" "I'm sorry sir, but we don't do putting things on cakes."

Who's hurt.

"Hey, I want two grooms on my cake for my wedding" "I'm sorry sir, but I'm a bigot and we won't be serving you"

THIS HURTS PEOPLE. It makes people feel like they're SECOND CLASS CITIZENS in their own country. Unacceptable.

You can stop interpreting Christianity. Your interpretation has no bearing on peoples' freedom to practice their religion. The entire idea of that freedom was that people shouldn't be told what is or isn't a valid interpretation of their own faith, so all of your opinions about what is or isn't valid Christianity are utterly meaningless to this conversation. Whether they ignore half or all of the bible and call it Christianity, that's up to them, not you.

Next up, I actually don't want some businesses to have public accommodations laws. As a principal, I don't like the idea of telling people how they have to operate their own property. I'm willing to concede that point in cases where actual injury or death might occur from discrimination.

I specify "actual" because -FEELING- like a 2nd class citizen isn't an actual injury. -BEING- a 2nd class citizen would mean that the law itself explicitly favors some other class of human being more than it favors you, so someone not making you the cake you want doesn't -actually- make you a 2nd class citizen. Therefore, if you -feel- like a 2nd class citizen as a result of the baker turning down your request, that's an errant emotion, and I don't see why some 3rd party should be responsible for anyone's errant emotions.

If 69 percent of the population and they all, to a person, decided they wouldn't serve gay people, that would be quite a fucking turn of events. You know what wouldn't protect people in that situation? The law. Why, you ask? Because if 69 percent of the country didn't want to serve gay people, that law wouldn't stand a snowballs chance in hell of staying on the books in a nation with a democratic process.

This also means that the very fact that the public accommodations laws have never been upturned implies that this worry that allowing bakers to do business only with whom they wish would result in gay people not being able to get cake is extremely hyperbolic. The majority of business owners in general are more concerned with profiting than they are with avoiding certain identity types.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Also, if you're of the mind that belief and action are things that exist independently from one another, I have to wonder if you're a sociopath.

PS By calling me a sociopath, It's apparent that you have no idea what a sociopath actually is. In fact, people like you may have more in common with a sociopath than me:

Traits of Sociopath and How to Communicate

What Are the Traits of Sociopath?
Various hallmark sociopath traits are listed below. It is important to note that not all traits will be present in all the sociopaths.

According to ICD-10 criteria, presence of 3 or more of the following qualifies for the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy):

• Callous unconcern for the feelings of others.
• Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, and obligations.
• Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them.
• Very low tolerance to frustration, a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence.
• Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment.
• Markedly prone to blame others or to offer plausible rationalization for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict with society.

If apparent unconcern for the feelings of others on the internet makes me a sociopath, then everybody's a fuckin sociopath.

Same with the low threshold for discharge of aggression. I said a couple snide words on the internet. That's hardly violence or triggered by the same level of rage as an actual outburst.

The third thing that you've highlited does pique my curiosity, though. What evidence do you have that I'm in conflict with society, or that I blame others for or rationalize this conflict?

You're right, though, sociopath was clearly the wrong term. Maybe psychopath would be better? What do you call someone who is so out of touch with the human condition that they can't seem to understand that beliefs and actions aren't separate from one another? How do you not understand that being forced to act in contradiction to one's beliefs is, in effect, being forced to abandon them?

 

[BS Filter]

Don't be obtuse. Of course it's discrimination. The question is whether government should be in charge of regulating discrimination.

Discrimination, from a legal standpoint, means discriminating against a person based on that person's identity. If you're willing to do business with the person in question and offer them exactly the same product that you're offering everyone else, you're not discriminating between customers, you're discriminating between different types of products that you're willing or not willing to produce.

When you conflate these two concepts in order to "win" the argument, you're the one being obtuse, Mr. Dufresne.

I don't give a shit about bogus legal distinctions. Discrimination is every person's right - arguably a responsibility. We shouldn't let government tell us how to do it "properly".

Well, don't run a business if you "don't give a shit about 'bogus' legal distinctions....

Don't trade with the business if you don't like their way of doing things. Liberty.

That was the reasoning behind being against the civil rights movement....and the black students going to the Woolworths lunch counters.

Queerdom has nothing to do with the civil rights movement.