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

[TheProgressivePatriot]

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?

Maybe this will help you to see the error of your ways:

Two meanings of religious freedom/liberty:

1. Freedom of belief, speech, practice.

2. Freedom to restrict services, hate, denigrate, or oppress others.


1. The historical meaning of religious freedom:

This term relates to the personal freedom:
•Of religious belief,
•Of religious speech,
•Of religious assembly with fellow believers,
•Of religious proselytizing and recruitment, and
•To change one's religion from one faith group to another -- or to decide to have no religious affiliation -- or vice-versa.


The individual believer has often been the target of oppression for thinking or speaking unorthodox thoughts, for assembling with and recruiting others, and for changing their religious affiliation. Typically, the aggressors have been large religious groups and governments. Freedom from such oppression is the meaning that we generally use on this web site to refer to any of the four terms: religious freedom, religious liberty, freedom of worship and freedom to worship.

2. A rapidly emerging new meaning of religious freedom: the freedom to discriminate and denigrate:

In recent years, religious freedom is taking on a new meaning: the freedom and liberty of a believer apply their religious beliefs in order to hate, oppress, deny service to, denigrate, discriminate against, and/or reduce the human rights of minorities.

Now, the direction of the oppression has reversed. It is now the believer who is the oppressor -- typically fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and other religious conservatives. Others -- typically some women, as well as sexual, and other minorities -- are the targets. This new meaning is becoming increasingly common. It appears that this change is begin driven by a number of factors:

•The increasing public acceptance of women's use of birth control/contraceptives. This is a practice regarded as a personal decision by most faith groups, but is actively opposed by the Roman Catholic and a few other conservative faith groups.
•The increasing public acceptance of equal rights for sexual minorities including Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender persons and transsexuals -- the LGBT community (); and
•The increasing percentage of NOTAs in North America. These are individuals who are NOT Affiliated with an organized faith group. Some identify themselves as Agnostics, Atheists secularists, Humanists, free thinkers, etc. Others say that they are spiritual, but not religious.


One interesting feature of this "religious freedom to discriminate" is that it generally has people treating others as they would not wish to be treated themselves. It seems to be little noticed among those who practice or advocate "religious freedom to discriminate" that this way of treating people is a direct contradiction to the Golden Rule, which Jesus required all his followers to practice. See Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, and the Gospel of Thomas, 6.

Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/relfree.htm

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

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?

Truth be told, I'm not 100 percent. 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell's refused birthday cake never actually went to court, and he was apparently removed from the custody of his parents soon after said refusal, so they clearly had bigger issues on their legal agenda than suing a bakery. I do know that a Hitler cake has, in fact, been shot down by a bakery, though, so, as it stands, yes, they can turn down requests to make Hitler cakes.

 

[TheProgressivePatriot]

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 personally? None. But those bakers, and other who brought a shit storm down on themselves by discriminating do seem to be taking responsibility for it.

 

[frigidweirdo]

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.

So, I can say I'm a Christian and say that God hates black people and then I can hide behind the Bible as I go around segregating?

Seriously?

 

[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?

Maybe this will help you to see the error of your ways:

Two meanings of religious freedom/liberty:

1. Freedom of belief, speech, practice.

2. Freedom to restrict services, hate, denigrate, or oppress others.


1. The historical meaning of religious freedom:

This term relates to the personal freedom:
•Of religious belief,
•Of religious speech,
•Of religious assembly with fellow believers,
•Of religious proselytizing and recruitment, and
•To change one's religion from one faith group to another -- or to decide to have no religious affiliation -- or vice-versa.


The individual believer has often been the target of oppression for thinking or speaking unorthodox thoughts, for assembling with and recruiting others, and for changing their religious affiliation. Typically, the aggressors have been large religious groups and governments. Freedom from such oppression is the meaning that we generally use on this web site to refer to any of the four terms: religious freedom, religious liberty, freedom of worship and freedom to worship.

2. A rapidly emerging new meaning of religious freedom: the freedom to discriminate and denigrate:

In recent years, religious freedom is taking on a new meaning: the freedom and liberty of a believer apply their religious beliefs in order to hate, oppress, deny service to, denigrate, discriminate against, and/or reduce the human rights of minorities.

Now, the direction of the oppression has reversed. It is now the believer who is the oppressor -- typically fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and other religious conservatives. Others -- typically some women, as well as sexual, and other minorities -- are the targets. This new meaning is becoming increasingly common. It appears that this change is begin driven by a number of factors:

•The increasing public acceptance of women's use of birth control/contraceptives. This is a practice regarded as a personal decision by most faith groups, but is actively opposed by the Roman Catholic and a few other conservative faith groups.
•The increasing public acceptance of equal rights for sexual minorities including Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender persons and transsexuals -- the LGBT community (); and
•The increasing percentage of NOTAs in North America. These are individuals who are NOT Affiliated with an organized faith group. Some identify themselves as Agnostics, Atheists secularists, Humanists, free thinkers, etc. Others say that they are spiritual, but not religious.


One interesting feature of this "religious freedom to discriminate" is that it generally has people treating others as they would not wish to be treated themselves. It seems to be little noticed among those who practice or advocate "religious freedom to discriminate" that this way of treating people is a direct contradiction to the Golden Rule, which Jesus required all his followers to practice. See Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, and the Gospel of Thomas, 6.

Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/relfree.htm

Sorry, but that website's a fuckin mess. I'm gonna need some citation on that traditional meaning of religious freedom that doesn't include anything about being forced to act in contradiction to one's beliefs, and I'm done trying to navigate that tragedy to find their references.

This article's basically telling me that that traditional meaning of religious freedom implies that feeding Muslims bacon in prison isn't a violation of their religious freedom. Is that your opinion, as well?

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

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.

So, I can say I'm a Christian and say that God hates black people and then I can hide behind the Bible as I go around segregating?

Seriously?

Go around segregating? Lol. When did I make the argument that the bakers should be allowed to go out into their community and dictate where homosexuals can and cannot live or go to school?

No, but what you ought to be able to do, in my opinion, is say "I built this business. It is mine. I will operate it as I wish and do business with whom I wish and not for anything less than the price that I determine." That's what you ought to be able to do, whether you're Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Agnostic, or a worshipper of the Flying Spaghetti Monster like me.

 

[frigidweirdo]

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.

So, I can say I'm a Christian and say that God hates black people and then I can hide behind the Bible as I go around segregating?

Seriously?

Go around segregating? Lol. When did I make the argument that the bakers should be allowed to go out into their community and dictate where homosexuals can and cannot live or go to school?

No, but what you ought to be able to do, in my opinion, is say "I built this business. It is mine. I will operate it as I wish and do business with whom I wish and not for anything less than the price that I determine." That's what you ought to be able to do, whether you're Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Hindu, Buddhist, Agnostic, or a worshipper of the Flying Spaghetti Monster like me.

What do you think will happen?

69% of the population is Christian. If Christians can pick and choose who they serve, and they decide to stop serving gay people, then large swaths of the country will be no go areas for gay people.

That's segregation.

Ignore it to your heart's content, but that's the reality of what we're talking about.

Also, we know this can happen because IT HAPPENED ALREADY. Remember 1865-1952?

 

[Cecilie1200]

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

Yeah, amazingly enough, this has nothing to do with the customers' beliefs. I realize it's hard for people to believe, but everything is not about them. This is about THE BAKER and HIS beliefs, and only that. He's doing his thing, and in no way trying to change them doing THEIR thing. He just doesn't want to participate in it.

One more time: IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO OR DON'T CARE ABOUT. You don't get to tell them anything on that subject.

You also don't get to dictate what is and isn't a sin, and what "any religion" does or doesn't teach. You aren't God, you aren't the Pope, you aren't the head of any religious denomination, YOU AREN'T DECIDING. Stop fucking trying to deal yourself in to approving or disapproving other people's beliefs, and telling them whether or not those CAN BE their beliefs based on your opinion.

The First Amendment doesn't exist to protect beliefs you agree with; it exists to protect those you don't agree with. And you're making it painfully, excruciatingly obvious WHY the First Amendment is necessary.

the first amendment has nothing to do with public accommodation laws

The first amendment only mentions the free exercise of religion. Baking a cake is not exercising a religion it is baking a cake to be sold in a business that is government by public accommodation laws.

If the baker believes that all Back people should be served from the back alley entrance and be charged 3 times more for everything he would be just as wrong as the guy claiming that the very act of conducting his business for "certain people" violates his religion

Now show me where in any written religious scripture that says it is a sin to conduct any business with a sinner.

I know there's nothing about baking cakes being a sin written in any scripture

The First Amendment has EVERYTHING to do with public accommodation laws, when you insist that public accommodation laws require people to act against their beliefs and that you have a right to define their beliefs because you personally don't think they should believe something that conflicts with your public accommodation ideas.

Oh my freaking God, what IS it with people and running to the blacks? You know how I can tell an idea is left-think bullshit? Because the triumphant "Aha!" argument will always involve using black people as human shields.

Understand the difference between believing "This is bad behavior" versus "Therefore, the government must force people to behave otherwise." SOME bad behavior, like killing people or robbing them, needs to be stopped by the government. Other behavior, like racism, not so much, at least not in this day and age. So no, your "Aha!" moment of being supremely convinced that I'm ALL in favor of the government forcing racists to serve black people has fallen flat. I would much prefer that they be openly repugnant in their racism, so that I and virtually everyone else in the country can avoid giving them our money. I have no desire to be funding people who secretly hold such nasty views because the government forces them to pretend otherwise.

I don't have to "show you where" anything. I'm not trying to convert you, or convince you to agree on the subject of sin, and for me to try to "prove" to you that it's a sin would invalidate my entire argument, which is that IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Asking me to justify the baker's beliefs to support the argument that you're not entitled to a justification is nonsensical.

I don't give a shit what you "know" or don't "know" about the Scripture, because again, YOU DON'T GET A VOTE. PLEASE stop wasting my time with your constant "Yes, but his beliefs are wrong" posts. They are empty air, because AT NO POINT IN TIME has this ever been about whether or his beliefs can be proven "right" to other people's standards; it's about the fact that HE HAS A RIGHT TO BELIEVE THEM WHETHER YOU AGREE OR NOT. The fact that people DON'T agree on beliefs is exactly why they're protected.

So please, when you start firing out your next post, just save us all some time like this (the parts in all caps should be shouted loudly:

"It's not a sin . . ."
NONE OF MY BUSINESS!
"The scriptures don't say . . ."
NONE OF MY BUSINESS!
"Show me where . . ."
NONE OF MY BUSINESS!
"No religion says . . ."
NONE OF MY BUSINESS!

Because the only answer you are EVER going to get to your attempts to debate whether or not the baker SHOULD believe something is exactly that: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!

Public accommodation laws are not about beliefs they are about equal treatment of the public in businesses open to the public.

And they can believe whatever the fuck they want what they can't do is violate the law with no consequences. The whole baking a cake for certain people is a sin thing is the purest most unadulterated bullshit I have ever seen outside of a political campaign

Hey I can believe that I should only do business with blondes with blue eyes and big tits but that doesn't mean I am justified in declining service to everyone else

In that they are forcing through government power private individuals to do things they do not want to do because other private individuals want them to do it, they very much touch on any number of rights held by private individuals. I have a right to choose not to associate with other people; they do NOT have a right to force others to associate with them. Because of this, public accommodation laws, in and of themselves, violate the Constitution. It is one thing to say that public sector entities, such as government agencies, must service everyone. It is entirely another to say that private sector entities must do so.

Furthermore, to say, "They can believe what they want; they just can't practice it" is to say "They cannot believe it". A major problem with left-think on this subject is that it conflates "belief" with "thought", and assumes that one's beliefs are merely thoughts in one's head, divorced from one's actions. The exact opposite is the truth: one's beliefs are NOT what one thinks, or even what one says. What a person DOES is the truest measure of what he believes, particularly when circumstances are most difficult. The First Amendment recognizes this by guaranteeing not only "freedom of religion" but also "the free exercise thereof".

You are still arrogating to yourself the right to approve the beliefs of others. You are saying, "They have the right to believe what they want, so long as it is acceptable to most people." The First Amendment doesn't exist to protect belief that is generally acceptable to society at large; if it's acceptable to most people, it doesn't NEED protection, because it won't be attacked. The First Amendment exists precisely to protect belief that most people find repugnant.

And yeah, I actually think you should be free to restrict your business only to well-endowed blondes, if that's what you want to do. Of course, I also think you should be free to avail yourself of bankruptcy court when your business closes two months later. What I DON'T think is that you should be legally required to pretend that you like skinny brunettes if you don't choose to.

 

[Cecilie1200]

If you can’t deal with Chrisitian beliefs, then don’t go to Christian shops. It’s that simple.

Shoving your christian faith down people's throats, eh?

Operating your own business your own way is akin to shoving your beliefs down someone else's throats?

Or is going into someone else's business, that they put together, that you don't own and didn't build, and expecting them to cater to -your- beliefs, on the other hand. . . there's nothing pushy or imposing about that, amirite?!

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.

How is expecting to be treated like any other customer activism? They were asking for the same accomodation the bakers made for every other customer. They were not asking them to do something illegal.

Um, that would be when you deliberately seek out a business for the purpose of picking a fight.

Whether or not what they were asking for was "illegal" is immaterial to the topic.

 

[TheProgressivePatriot]

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?

Maybe this will help you to see the error of your ways:

Two meanings of religious freedom/liberty:

1. Freedom of belief, speech, practice.

2. Freedom to restrict services, hate, denigrate, or oppress others.


1. The historical meaning of religious freedom:

This term relates to the personal freedom:
•Of religious belief,
•Of religious speech,
•Of religious assembly with fellow believers,
•Of religious proselytizing and recruitment, and
•To change one's religion from one faith group to another -- or to decide to have no religious affiliation -- or vice-versa.


The individual believer has often been the target of oppression for thinking or speaking unorthodox thoughts, for assembling with and recruiting others, and for changing their religious affiliation. Typically, the aggressors have been large religious groups and governments. Freedom from such oppression is the meaning that we generally use on this web site to refer to any of the four terms: religious freedom, religious liberty, freedom of worship and freedom to worship.

2. A rapidly emerging new meaning of religious freedom: the freedom to discriminate and denigrate:

In recent years, religious freedom is taking on a new meaning: the freedom and liberty of a believer apply their religious beliefs in order to hate, oppress, deny service to, denigrate, discriminate against, and/or reduce the human rights of minorities.

Now, the direction of the oppression has reversed. It is now the believer who is the oppressor -- typically fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and other religious conservatives. Others -- typically some women, as well as sexual, and other minorities -- are the targets. This new meaning is becoming increasingly common. It appears that this change is begin driven by a number of factors:

•The increasing public acceptance of women's use of birth control/contraceptives. This is a practice regarded as a personal decision by most faith groups, but is actively opposed by the Roman Catholic and a few other conservative faith groups.
•The increasing public acceptance of equal rights for sexual minorities including Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender persons and transsexuals -- the LGBT community (); and
•The increasing percentage of NOTAs in North America. These are individuals who are NOT Affiliated with an organized faith group. Some identify themselves as Agnostics, Atheists secularists, Humanists, free thinkers, etc. Others say that they are spiritual, but not religious.


One interesting feature of this "religious freedom to discriminate" is that it generally has people treating others as they would not wish to be treated themselves. It seems to be little noticed among those who practice or advocate "religious freedom to discriminate" that this way of treating people is a direct contradiction to the Golden Rule, which Jesus required all his followers to practice. See Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, and the Gospel of Thomas, 6.

Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/relfree.htm

Sorry, but that website's a fuckin mess. I'm gonna need some citation on that traditional meaning of religious freedom that doesn't include anything about being forced to act in contradiction to one's beliefs, and I'm done trying to navigate that tragedy to find their references.

This article's basically telling me that that traditional meaning of religious freedom implies that feeding Muslims bacon in prison isn't a violation of their religious freedom. Is that your opinion, as well?

The cite works for me. It appears that you reading comprehension needs some work. Otherwise you would understand that the point is that the traditional interpretation of religious freedom is all about how you live your life and NOTHING to do with trying to control how others live, or penalizing them for it. You got it exactly backwards

 

[BS Filter]

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.

So, I can say I'm a Christian and say that God hates black people and then I can hide behind the Bible as I go around segregating?

Seriously?

No, because being a black person isn't a sin in the bible. Homosexuality is an abomination to God in the bible. You're an ignorant idiot.

 

[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?

Maybe this will help you to see the error of your ways:

Two meanings of religious freedom/liberty:

1. Freedom of belief, speech, practice.

2. Freedom to restrict services, hate, denigrate, or oppress others.


1. The historical meaning of religious freedom:

This term relates to the personal freedom:
•Of religious belief,
•Of religious speech,
•Of religious assembly with fellow believers,
•Of religious proselytizing and recruitment, and
•To change one's religion from one faith group to another -- or to decide to have no religious affiliation -- or vice-versa.


The individual believer has often been the target of oppression for thinking or speaking unorthodox thoughts, for assembling with and recruiting others, and for changing their religious affiliation. Typically, the aggressors have been large religious groups and governments. Freedom from such oppression is the meaning that we generally use on this web site to refer to any of the four terms: religious freedom, religious liberty, freedom of worship and freedom to worship.

2. A rapidly emerging new meaning of religious freedom: the freedom to discriminate and denigrate:

In recent years, religious freedom is taking on a new meaning: the freedom and liberty of a believer apply their religious beliefs in order to hate, oppress, deny service to, denigrate, discriminate against, and/or reduce the human rights of minorities.

Now, the direction of the oppression has reversed. It is now the believer who is the oppressor -- typically fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and other religious conservatives. Others -- typically some women, as well as sexual, and other minorities -- are the targets. This new meaning is becoming increasingly common. It appears that this change is begin driven by a number of factors:

•The increasing public acceptance of women's use of birth control/contraceptives. This is a practice regarded as a personal decision by most faith groups, but is actively opposed by the Roman Catholic and a few other conservative faith groups.
•The increasing public acceptance of equal rights for sexual minorities including Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender persons and transsexuals -- the LGBT community (); and
•The increasing percentage of NOTAs in North America. These are individuals who are NOT Affiliated with an organized faith group. Some identify themselves as Agnostics, Atheists secularists, Humanists, free thinkers, etc. Others say that they are spiritual, but not religious.


One interesting feature of this "religious freedom to discriminate" is that it generally has people treating others as they would not wish to be treated themselves. It seems to be little noticed among those who practice or advocate "religious freedom to discriminate" that this way of treating people is a direct contradiction to the Golden Rule, which Jesus required all his followers to practice. See Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, and the Gospel of Thomas, 6.

Source: http://www.religioustolerance.org/relfree.htm

Sorry, but that website's a fuckin mess. I'm gonna need some citation on that traditional meaning of religious freedom that doesn't include anything about being forced to act in contradiction to one's beliefs, and I'm done trying to navigate that tragedy to find their references.

This article's basically telling me that that traditional meaning of religious freedom implies that feeding Muslims bacon in prison isn't a violation of their religious freedom. Is that your opinion, as well?

The cite works for me. It appears that you reading comprehension needs some work. Otherwise you would understand that the point is that the traditional interpretation of religious freedom is all about how you live your life and NOTHING to do with trying to control how others live, or penalizing them for it. You got it exactly backwards

If it works then what historical source are they citing? The only citations I was able to find about that essay you linked were a couple of news articles that dated back as far as 2009, none of which had anything to do with historical religious/legal philosophy. This suggests that this "traditional meaning" that they've put together is their opinion on what the "traditional meaning" of religious freedom was.

I'm also not pushing for religious people being able to control how others live. Me refusing to do business with you isn't the same as me controlling how you live. Me offering jobs for voluntary applicants but not offering birth control as compensation is not the same as me controlling how you live. Just like lumping in hate and oppression with this level of discrimination, you're just trying to use hyperbole to make the concept we're discussing -feel- more threatening. I'm not interested in emotional appeals or some random website operator's opinions on history.

Anyway, since you're standing by this "traditional definition" of religious freedom, and since this "traditional definition" has no mention of being forced to contradict one's own beliefs, do you consider it a violation of a Muslim's religious freedom to feed them bacon in prison?

 

[Cecilie1200]

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.

How so? Because it doesn't agree with what YOU think people should believe?

 

[Cecilie1200]

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?

Your religion beliefs are bullshit if they make you be unkind towards others.

Which is the problem with religion.

No, that's the problem with ANY belief: there's always someone who thinks your beliefs are bullshit. Aaaaand that's why we have the First Amendment. Like I've said before, no legal protection is needed for beliefs that the majority approves of; it's only needed for beliefs that go against the majority.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Anybody care to address this with an actual argument?

There is nothing to argue. No one is asking you to give up your beliefs. Beliefs reside between your own two ears. Behavior is another issue. Behavior effects others. It is your behavior that you are being asked to change. Your behavior towards others should reflect how you would like others to behave towards you . You beliefs are not a valid excuse to treat others badly.

No, they don't. Again, left-think insists on conflating "beliefs" with "thoughts". I think a lot of things, often things I don't agree with. It's what I actually DO that constitutes what I really believe. That is why the First Amendment specifically protects "free exercise thereof": because the Founders Fathers understood that beliefs are all about actions.

Behavior may affect others, but that doesn't always mean they have a right to dictate that behavior to their liking. It annoys and offends the shit out of me when some penis-bearer in a dress talks about how much more of "a woman" he is than those who are born biologically female (and yes, I have encountered several who say exactly that, so don't even start in on telling me it doesn't happen), but just because it pisses me off doesn't mean that I get to dictate that he doesn't get to say it. Being irritated doesn't not equate to harming me; it's a natural consequence of interacting with other human beings. Life sucks, wear a helmet.

If you were ASKING me to change my behavior, we wouldn't have a problem. I would just say, "No, piss off", and we would go on with our lives. But you are DEMANDING it, and metaphorically twisting my arm behind my back and frogmarching me as you choose. That is far more immoral than simply saying, "I don't wish to participate in your wedding".

What makes you think my behavior DOESN'T reflect how I would like others to behave toward me? It says more about you than it does about me that you assume everyone is a one-way-street hypocrite who wants to demand from others what he/she is not willing to give him/herself. As it happens, racists (which left-think always loves to run and hide behind) hate me even more than they hate minorities, if that's possible, because they see me as a race traitor. I would far prefer that they be allowed to be honest about their opinions on the subject, so that I know who they are and can avoid them. I have no desire to trade the knowledge of people's true feelings and beliefs for a government-imposed delusion that everyone likes me because they're forced to pretend they do.

YOUR beliefs that everyone should feel liked and approved of is not a valid reason to force people to lie.

 

[BS Filter]

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

Yeah, amazingly enough, this has nothing to do with the customers' beliefs. I realize it's hard for people to believe, but everything is not about them. This is about THE BAKER and HIS beliefs, and only that. He's doing his thing, and in no way trying to change them doing THEIR thing. He just doesn't want to participate in it.

One more time: IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS WHAT OTHER PEOPLE DO OR DON'T CARE ABOUT. You don't get to tell them anything on that subject.

You also don't get to dictate what is and isn't a sin, and what "any religion" does or doesn't teach. You aren't God, you aren't the Pope, you aren't the head of any religious denomination, YOU AREN'T DECIDING. Stop fucking trying to deal yourself in to approving or disapproving other people's beliefs, and telling them whether or not those CAN BE their beliefs based on your opinion.

The First Amendment doesn't exist to protect beliefs you agree with; it exists to protect those you don't agree with. And you're making it painfully, excruciatingly obvious WHY the First Amendment is necessary.

the first amendment has nothing to do with public accommodation laws

The first amendment only mentions the free exercise of religion. Baking a cake is not exercising a religion it is baking a cake to be sold in a business that is government by public accommodation laws.

If the baker believes that all Back people should be served from the back alley entrance and be charged 3 times more for everything he would be just as wrong as the guy claiming that the very act of conducting his business for "certain people" violates his religion

Now show me where in any written religious scripture that says it is a sin to conduct any business with a sinner.

I know there's nothing about baking cakes being a sin written in any scripture

The First Amendment has EVERYTHING to do with public accommodation laws, when you insist that public accommodation laws require people to act against their beliefs and that you have a right to define their beliefs because you personally don't think they should believe something that conflicts with your public accommodation ideas.

Oh my freaking God, what IS it with people and running to the blacks? You know how I can tell an idea is left-think bullshit? Because the triumphant "Aha!" argument will always involve using black people as human shields.

Understand the difference between believing "This is bad behavior" versus "Therefore, the government must force people to behave otherwise." SOME bad behavior, like killing people or robbing them, needs to be stopped by the government. Other behavior, like racism, not so much, at least not in this day and age. So no, your "Aha!" moment of being supremely convinced that I'm ALL in favor of the government forcing racists to serve black people has fallen flat. I would much prefer that they be openly repugnant in their racism, so that I and virtually everyone else in the country can avoid giving them our money. I have no desire to be funding people who secretly hold such nasty views because the government forces them to pretend otherwise.

I don't have to "show you where" anything. I'm not trying to convert you, or convince you to agree on the subject of sin, and for me to try to "prove" to you that it's a sin would invalidate my entire argument, which is that IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. Asking me to justify the baker's beliefs to support the argument that you're not entitled to a justification is nonsensical.

I don't give a shit what you "know" or don't "know" about the Scripture, because again, YOU DON'T GET A VOTE. PLEASE stop wasting my time with your constant "Yes, but his beliefs are wrong" posts. They are empty air, because AT NO POINT IN TIME has this ever been about whether or his beliefs can be proven "right" to other people's standards; it's about the fact that HE HAS A RIGHT TO BELIEVE THEM WHETHER YOU AGREE OR NOT. The fact that people DON'T agree on beliefs is exactly why they're protected.

So please, when you start firing out your next post, just save us all some time like this (the parts in all caps should be shouted loudly:

"It's not a sin . . ."
NONE OF MY BUSINESS!
"The scriptures don't say . . ."
NONE OF MY BUSINESS!
"Show me where . . ."
NONE OF MY BUSINESS!
"No religion says . . ."
NONE OF MY BUSINESS!

Because the only answer you are EVER going to get to your attempts to debate whether or not the baker SHOULD believe something is exactly that: NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!

Public accommodation laws are not about beliefs they are about equal treatment of the public in businesses open to the public.

And they can believe whatever the fuck they want what they can't do is violate the law with no consequences. The whole baking a cake for certain people is a sin thing is the purest most unadulterated bullshit I have ever seen outside of a political campaign

Hey I can believe that I should only do business with blondes with blue eyes and big tits but that doesn't mean I am justified in declining service to everyone else

You're still promoting the lie. No one was denied business because they're queer. The issue was over demands of what the queers wanted on the cake. Stop lying.

 

[WorldWatcher]

You're still promoting the lie. No one was denied business because they're queer. The issue was over demands of what the queers wanted on the cake. Stop lying.

No it's not a lie, it is part of the statement of facts that both the claimant and respondent agreed to in court documents.

Here let me prove it -->> Craig and Mullins v. Masterpiece CakeShop - Decision

Starting on page 2 you will find "undisputed facts" (i.e. those agreed to by claimant and respondent). Item #4 says they arrived for the meeting. #5 says they sat down introduced themselves. #6 Says Mr. Phillips informed them he wouldn't produce one of his products for a same-sex couple. #7 says "Complaintants immediatley got up and left the store without further discussion with Mr. Phillips."

And finally #8, "The whole conversation between Phillips and Complainants was very brief, with no discussion between parties about what the cake would look like."


Is Mr. Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop lying when agreed to the fact that no discussion of design occurred?


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[BS Filter]

You're still promoting the lie. No one was denied business because they're queer. The issue was over demands of what the queers wanted on the cake. Stop lying.

No it's not a lie, it is part of the statement of facts that both the claimant and respondent agreed to in court documents.

Here let me prove it -->> Craig and Mullins v. Masterpiece CakeShop - Decision

Starting on page 2 you will find "undisputed facts" (i.e. those agreed to by claimant and respondent). Item #4 says they arrived for the meeting. #5 says they sat down introduced themselves. #6 Says Mr. Phillips informed them he wouldn't produce one of his products for a same-sex couple. #7 says "Complaintants immediatley got up and left the store without further discussion with Mr. Phillips."

And finally #8, "The whole conversation between Phillips and Complainants was very brief, with no discussion between parties about what the cake would look like."


Is Mr. Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop lying when agreed to the fact that no discussion of design occurred?


>>>>

The queers obviously made it known they were queer. If they walk in and buy a cake, how does the business owner know they're queer. Your transcript admits that they told the owner they wanted the cake for a same-sex marriage ceremony. The owner doesn't believe in same-sex marriage. Go somewhere else and leave him alone.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Operating your own business your own way is akin to shoving your beliefs down someone else's throats?

Or is going into someone else's business, that they put together, that you don't own and didn't build, and expecting them to cater to -your- beliefs, on the other hand. . . there's nothing pushy or imposing about that, amirite?!

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.

Yeah, but we don't want "an exemption" from the law. We want there not to BE laws that violate the Constitution in the first place. We want to not be legally required to give other people a vote in our private lives and decisions. WHY is that so hard for you to comprehend unless it involves agreeing with you? I KNOW you, at least, don't have this problem on other subjects, so I'm foxed as to why you have it now.

 

[WorldWatcher]

The queers obviously made it known they were queer. If they walk in and buy a cake, how does the business owner know they're queer. Your transcript admits that they told the owner they wanted the cake for a same-sex marriage ceremony. The owner doesn't believe in same-sex marriage. Go somewhere else and leave him alone.

You are the one that kept/keeps claiming it was about the design that the couple asked for. According to court documents that is incorrect.

Do you now admit that there was no design discussion or is the baker a liar for saying their wasn't?



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