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On March 26 2018 09:52 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 09:38 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 09:14 Nyxisto wrote:On March 26 2018 07:59 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 07:43 Nyxisto wrote:On March 26 2018 07:24 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 07:20 NewSunshine wrote:On March 26 2018 07:15 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 01:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On March 25 2018 23:59 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
And alternatively, passing blanket anti-discrimination laws is going to catch up religious objectors and lead judges to misapply them to Christians only and not to other religious/creeds (as happened in Colorado and as discussed in oral arguments).
The harm done to the gay couple is they had to walk another block to another business offering the same service without religious objection. The harm done to the cake makers is that they no longer have the smallest freedom of religious conscience when it comes to their art. The state now owns their expression and can force whatever message at all.
But you do show significant progress if you’re moving on to weighing harms. That’s where a big part of this lies, along with where artistic expression ends for types of businesses. I suppose that's one way to analyze the two kinds of harms experienced, but I'd imagine others might interpret them differently. For example: The harm done to the gay couple is that they had to experience yet another individual perpetuating an ignorant and discriminatory belief that unfairly judges them as inferior. The harm done to the cake maker is that he got called out on his bullshit and is now being forced to address the issue of whether or not his freedom to prejudge others is morally acceptable. And the religious person considers that ignorant attitude towards the role religion plays in his life and hopes God works on his heart. It’s both ways. I don’t really care about the ignorant and hateful characterizations along the lines of “getting called out on his bullshit.” It’s your opinion and try as best you can to convince people it’s the right way to view it. Just don’t enslave people’s artistic expression to the state. Preserve some rights while you figure it out. That's precisely the argument we're making. Being religious isn't a good excuse to deny the rights of others. Being religious isn’t a good enough reason to forfeit your free speech and free expression rights. Apparently, you’re allowed to have them as long as you’re a hypocrite or don’t seek gainful employment. I really didn’t expect such a callous approach. The problem is honestly not discrimination in some ethical sense but the fact that we'd be living in a clown car of a society if everybody who doesn't like each others ethics or religion would express that through the marketplace. Commercial cake-selling in a publicly licensed business should never be an issue of speech. Imagine if liberals would never hire conservatives or don't sell any goods to them because of their political orientation or vice versa. We'd constantly wage cultural war by economic means. It's better too keep that stuff apart. That’s why we should cut it off at artistic expressions for historically religious events. That’s why I’m not suggesting they have any right to put a No Gays sign in front of their store or asking somebody’s religion before selling them cookies. If you can’t separate things of particularly religious significance, the problem is your understanding of religion. Ignorance of rights is not an excuse to trample on them outright. but it's not really arstistic expression, it's a commercial business that prdouces a product on demand. If you want to be a cake artisan in your free time I don't really think that's much of an issue, but if you operate under a normal business license it shouldn't matter what the people are buying your cakes for. The commercial business produces a custom designed product after a sometimes lengthy consultation with a client. The remaining products are different and “not really artistic expression.” That’s the difference that isn’t present in your post. They could’ve walked out of their with any number of premade cakes, and t wouldn’t matter if it was for a bar mitzvah or gay wedding. That’s a fact. To you and igne above: and what if the standard product doesn't cut it for them? Software is usually the same thing. Long discussions with your client to figure out what he wants and yet that wouldn't be covered in this (from last page)? What about consulting an architect because you want to open a business somewhere and need some place to make your goods? Is there a "standard" factory to choose? No its going to be 100% custom. So you can turn that down if the factory were to make sextoys and you don't like them for religious reasons? What if there's an awful lot of people religious that way and it takes you forever to find someone willing to do it, if at all? I just don't see this argument between standard goods versus custom ones tbh
If the standard product doesn't cut it for them, then choose any number of nonreligious or other-religious-beliefs cakeshops in the area. I'd have to see a software free-speech case to talk about compelled speech in software coding. I can think of a number of architects that might refuse to draft an arch with "Fuck the Mormons," in which case I wouldn't want to be on the side that says he must create that design.
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On March 26 2018 10:39 Kyadytim wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 08:58 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 08:37 Kyadytim wrote:On March 26 2018 08:32 IgnE wrote:
What about a baker who refused to draw a Pepe on a cake? People who want Pepes on a cake aren't a protected class, so that would probably be fine. Same if someone wanted another nation's flag, or an anarchy symbol, or dickbutt on it. What about a person asking for something like "Burn in Hell, Pagans?" I have no idea, I'm not a legal scholar. That's why I avoided listing crosses and stars of david in my examples.
I'd also like an answer on that. It seems like a traditional Christian belief is being singled out here, but people are totally unwilling to extend the logic further. Is it really that religious persecution of Christians is in vogue, but other messages are grey areas of questionable legality?
Very interesting.
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I can see the argument that an artistic cake that celebrates the marriage of gay people could be very objectionable to someone with contrary religious beliefs. It may be that the law should make room for those beliefs. But what the cake maker needs to at least be aware of is that gay people are born that way, and therefore the greater intolerance is on his part, because his beliefs incorporate the view that people who were born with certain characteristics should not be fully accepted.
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On March 26 2018 11:09 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2018 23:51 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 13:12 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 12:34 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 11:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 08:14 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 07:38 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 06:10 iamthedave wrote:On March 25 2018 04:38 Danglars wrote:[quote] I covered the trampling of civil in the unquoted part of my last post. You can read it there and respond to what I wrote if you still don't understand. As you haven't responded to it, I don't know what was less than clear. You're still really deep in the hole with a historically acknowledged religious ceremony. Religions all over the world call the union of a man and woman a central God-purposed event. God ordains this union. You act or don't act in accordance to his will in this union. Et cetera. You're taking a historical revisionist route, and frankly an unsupported assertion, that it should be a secular event because you think some people just happen to choose to put religious undertones on the event. It's a religious event that some people adopt secular attitudes towards, and that's precisely why it's a core feature of this case. None of this wordy mash justifies adopting your attitude. It is a religious ceremony for a huge number of Americans, and just because you think it shouldn't be the case does not diminish that it will involve religious objections if they're making you be part of the service. Will you force a pastor to officiate the event on grounds of discrimination, because after all it's just this secular event to you? The folly just stretches on and on. I understand your perspective in the last three paragraphs. I live in a country that recognizes the role religion plays in life and how government intrusion on core beliefs would destroy a society and cause it to trend authoritarian over time. To re-purpose a sentence of yours, you really don't give a damn about civil liberties for people who you don't think deserve them. You simply don't think they should exist, therefore they don't exist, therefore they should be done away with. Therefore, direct your attention to constitutional amendments because I'm definitely talking about interpreting laws on the books by judges ... the proper realm for judicial battles. Okay. I'd like to get you to directly engage with something you consistently are ignoring, as it seems you don't understand my actual argument. If religion is required for marriage and it is a God-purposed event, why is the marriage a) not legal unless the state recognises it and why b) can the state annul it irrespective of the wishes of religious leaders? I have yet to see you concretely point towards a group I think don't deserve civil liberties. I do think that no group has the liberty to oppress another, and I think that the religious hide behind their religion regularly and use it as a shield to permit them to discriminate. And I think that is wrong. I don't think I'm rocking the boat there. I think I've already answered the post you're directing me towards. I believe marriage is obsolete personally so I do not intend to get married. I have no issues with other people choosing to do so, or the methods and trappings they use to complete that union. But I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular, and that marriage being secular is the only way to reconcile the vast gulf between what people say marriage is and what it actually is, and which part of that union the state - which is required to legitimise the union in the first place - actually cares about. We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious. Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage. You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them. The problem with your argument is that you try to imply that the religious aspect is inseparable from marriage due to the fact that marriage was historically co-opted by religion. What you don't do is acknowledge that marriage has pretty much universally been a legal/cultural institution that shaped the family dynamic, and religion has absolutely no right to uniquely claim it. To strengthen your argument, you would have to make a plausible argument as to why marriage is required to be religious. For example, why did my marriage that was strictly secular (not in a church, no involvement of religious ideas or practices) have some kind of religious component to it? What about the very nature of marriage makes it OK for religious people to discriminate based on it? This also brings up a larger question of why is religious belief ever an acceptable excuse to discriminate, but that's an entire discussion on its own. No requirement, just an extreme likelihood that someone religious would find the ceremony in direct conflict with his or her sincerely held religious views. I only bring it up because someone thought it was secular by nature and nobody’s civil rights were being violated. So really you’re falsely reducing my argument to points I never made. So then you have to justify why religion is an acceptable excuse to discriminate, because this is precisely what your argument is supporting. If he was truly discriminating against gays, he wouldn’t sell premade cakes to them either. The US has a rich history of weighing religious liberty concerns against others ... like unemployment benefits even though jobs were available that didn’t have sabbaths off .. or LGBT groups in a veterans parade. If we could return to a rational discussion of trade offs compared to the unilateral declaration that it’s discrimination ... that would be a good step one. It's the definition of discrimination. You can be triggered by the word "discrimination" since it seems to be a buzz word, but this isn't a debate. It is the very definition of discrimination. He is refusing service to an individual based on a particular trait of that individual. It doesn't matter if it's only a single service, it's still discrimination. There are different situations in which different institutions are allowed to discriminate. This is easily shown by many examples. However, there is always a reason or justification under the law; as you said, a trade-off. There are two different facets to the discrimination that is in question here; the basis for it (religion) and the reason for it (homosexuality, specifically a perceived endorsement of homosexuality). If you really want to justify this instance of discrimination, then you have to tell us why religion is an acceptable reason to allow discrimination, because that is the argument that you are constantly throwing your support behind. You will have to open your mind to alternative looks if you want to truly understand this issue. When you call it discrimination and leave it at that, you can’t progress to see what rights the other party has. That’s one of the reasons this is such a cantankerous issue in general: too many people are willing to cry discrimination and leave apart whether artists have the ability to be in business and still reject messages and whether or not that applies here. One easy reason why the uniform view of discrimination does not bear out is why the Supreme Court actually took up the case. According to some of the people in here, they should never has issued a writ of certiorari, just a one word rejection “Discrimination is not ok!” In real life, this is a balance of rights and responsibilities. This is another example of you being intellectually dishonest and being too afraid to be held accountable for your own opinions. It is discrimination. This is a fact. And in many instances around the world, discrimination is acceptable, i.e. discrimination in a neutral sense. You're refusing to actually own up to your opinions because you're too scared of a buzz word. It's a straightforward question; you are advocating for someone's religious beliefs to be a legitimate justification for discrimination. Why is religion an acceptable justification for this? And does it stop at homosexuality? If so, why is homosexuality uniquely fit to be legally/morally discriminated against? If not, is discriminating against race, or sex, or nationality, or religion, or anything else OK if your religious beliefs demand it? These are all questions you need to answer if your opinion is to have any merit. "But you don't respect religious rights!" isn't an answer. Why does religion seemingly have the right to discriminate?
You're saying that all religious persecution is justified if someone can use a context of the word discrimination in favor of it. I'm saying that isn't true. You have refused to see it in any other light. I live in a world where there are tradeoffs. I discriminate against car brands in selecting others. I discriminate against many women by dating only one. I'm not afraid of the word. I'm afraid of wasting time teaching people of other concerns in the balancing act of rights/responsibilities that refuse to look beyond one narrow framing. Which is why I say, if your framing is the dominant one and the only one worthy of consideration, then the Supreme Court should have rejected this in a single line "Discrimination is not OK."
Show me another religious example if you want to draw this out of homosexuality (really, you should say a homosexual marriage/marriage event).
And you know my reason, which is why you keep asking the question you know the answer to in order to hope for some mob joining you. The marriage ceremony is a traditionally religious event that dozens if not hundreds say is ordained by God/gods/whatever. That is a very valid reason to discriminate against celebrations that counter their religious beliefs because religious liberty means discrimination (used in a very narrow). The Colorado Human Rights Association even believes this because they allowed other religions to refuse to print Biblical scriptures on a cake. Since you've acknowledged that other liberties involve discrimination, I wonder why you think religious liberties must be unique.
(I will say that focus on this word really dumbs down the argument, because we all discriminate every day in our lives)
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I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage?
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On March 26 2018 11:46 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 10:39 Kyadytim wrote:On March 26 2018 08:58 IgnE wrote:On March 26 2018 08:37 Kyadytim wrote:On March 26 2018 08:32 IgnE wrote:
What about a baker who refused to draw a Pepe on a cake? People who want Pepes on a cake aren't a protected class, so that would probably be fine. Same if someone wanted another nation's flag, or an anarchy symbol, or dickbutt on it. What about a person asking for something like "Burn in Hell, Pagans?" I have no idea, I'm not a legal scholar. That's why I avoided listing crosses and stars of david in my examples. I'd also like an answer on that. It seems like a traditional Christian belief is being singled out here, but people are totally unwilling to extend the logic further. Is it really that religious persecution of Christians is in vogue, but other messages are grey areas of questionable legality? Very interesting.
I'll get back to you on that when you get back to me on whether you're okay with the fact that a religious exemption to allow discriminating against gay couples is also a religious exemption to discriminate against interracial couples.
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a jewish lawyer doesnt have to represent a neonazi though
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On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage?
Because when you're the favored group, equality is perceived as discrimination. The other gets more, so what you have is valued less - so either you need more to keep that distinction by also gaining or the other has to keep their previous lot.
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On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage?
They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding.
Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure.
The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly.
An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation.
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On March 26 2018 11:55 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 11:09 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 23:51 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 13:12 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 12:34 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 11:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 08:14 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 07:38 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 06:10 iamthedave wrote:
[quote]
Okay. I'd like to get you to directly engage with something you consistently are ignoring, as it seems you don't understand my actual argument.
If religion is required for marriage and it is a God-purposed event, why is the marriage a) not legal unless the state recognises it and why b) can the state annul it irrespective of the wishes of religious leaders?
I have yet to see you concretely point towards a group I think don't deserve civil liberties. I do think that no group has the liberty to oppress another, and I think that the religious hide behind their religion regularly and use it as a shield to permit them to discriminate. And I think that is wrong.
I don't think I'm rocking the boat there.
I think I've already answered the post you're directing me towards. I believe marriage is obsolete personally so I do not intend to get married. I have no issues with other people choosing to do so, or the methods and trappings they use to complete that union. But I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular, and that marriage being secular is the only way to reconcile the vast gulf between what people say marriage is and what it actually is, and which part of that union the state - which is required to legitimise the union in the first place - actually cares about. We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious. Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage. You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them. The problem with your argument is that you try to imply that the religious aspect is inseparable from marriage due to the fact that marriage was historically co-opted by religion. What you don't do is acknowledge that marriage has pretty much universally been a legal/cultural institution that shaped the family dynamic, and religion has absolutely no right to uniquely claim it. To strengthen your argument, you would have to make a plausible argument as to why marriage is required to be religious. For example, why did my marriage that was strictly secular (not in a church, no involvement of religious ideas or practices) have some kind of religious component to it? What about the very nature of marriage makes it OK for religious people to discriminate based on it? This also brings up a larger question of why is religious belief ever an acceptable excuse to discriminate, but that's an entire discussion on its own. No requirement, just an extreme likelihood that someone religious would find the ceremony in direct conflict with his or her sincerely held religious views. I only bring it up because someone thought it was secular by nature and nobody’s civil rights were being violated. So really you’re falsely reducing my argument to points I never made. So then you have to justify why religion is an acceptable excuse to discriminate, because this is precisely what your argument is supporting. If he was truly discriminating against gays, he wouldn’t sell premade cakes to them either. The US has a rich history of weighing religious liberty concerns against others ... like unemployment benefits even though jobs were available that didn’t have sabbaths off .. or LGBT groups in a veterans parade. If we could return to a rational discussion of trade offs compared to the unilateral declaration that it’s discrimination ... that would be a good step one. It's the definition of discrimination. You can be triggered by the word "discrimination" since it seems to be a buzz word, but this isn't a debate. It is the very definition of discrimination. He is refusing service to an individual based on a particular trait of that individual. It doesn't matter if it's only a single service, it's still discrimination. There are different situations in which different institutions are allowed to discriminate. This is easily shown by many examples. However, there is always a reason or justification under the law; as you said, a trade-off. There are two different facets to the discrimination that is in question here; the basis for it (religion) and the reason for it (homosexuality, specifically a perceived endorsement of homosexuality). If you really want to justify this instance of discrimination, then you have to tell us why religion is an acceptable reason to allow discrimination, because that is the argument that you are constantly throwing your support behind. You will have to open your mind to alternative looks if you want to truly understand this issue. When you call it discrimination and leave it at that, you can’t progress to see what rights the other party has. That’s one of the reasons this is such a cantankerous issue in general: too many people are willing to cry discrimination and leave apart whether artists have the ability to be in business and still reject messages and whether or not that applies here. One easy reason why the uniform view of discrimination does not bear out is why the Supreme Court actually took up the case. According to some of the people in here, they should never has issued a writ of certiorari, just a one word rejection “Discrimination is not ok!” In real life, this is a balance of rights and responsibilities. This is another example of you being intellectually dishonest and being too afraid to be held accountable for your own opinions. It is discrimination. This is a fact. And in many instances around the world, discrimination is acceptable, i.e. discrimination in a neutral sense. You're refusing to actually own up to your opinions because you're too scared of a buzz word. It's a straightforward question; you are advocating for someone's religious beliefs to be a legitimate justification for discrimination. Why is religion an acceptable justification for this? And does it stop at homosexuality? If so, why is homosexuality uniquely fit to be legally/morally discriminated against? If not, is discriminating against race, or sex, or nationality, or religion, or anything else OK if your religious beliefs demand it? These are all questions you need to answer if your opinion is to have any merit. "But you don't respect religious rights!" isn't an answer. Why does religion seemingly have the right to discriminate? You're saying that all religious persecution is justified if someone can use a context of the word discrimination in favor of it. I'm saying that isn't true. You have refused to see it in any other light. I live in a world where there are tradeoffs. I discriminate against car brands in selecting others. I discriminate against many women by dating only one. I'm not afraid of the word. I'm afraid of wasting time teaching people of other concerns in the balancing act of rights/responsibilities that refuse to look beyond one narrow framing. Which is why I say, if your framing is the dominant one and the only one worthy of consideration, then the Supreme Court should have rejected this in a single line "Discrimination is not OK." Show me another religious example if you want to draw this out of homosexuality (really, you should say a homosexual marriage/marriage event). And you know my reason, which is why you keep asking the question you know the answer to in order to hope for some mob joining you. The marriage ceremony is a traditionally religious event that dozens if not hundreds say is ordained by God/gods/whatever. That is a very valid reason to discriminate against celebrations that counter their religious beliefs because religious liberty means discrimination (used in a very narrow). The Colorado Human Rights Association even believes this because they allowed other religions to refuse to print Biblical scriptures on a cake. Since you've acknowledged that other liberties involve discrimination, I wonder why you think religious liberties must be unique. (I will say that focus on this word really dumbs down the argument, because we all discriminate every day in our lives)
This isn't a narrow framing. You don't understand the question.
Everything you stated here acts on the assumption that religion is already justified in being able to discriminate. You give this away by stating that it's religious persecution like it's a fact.
1) Why is religion an acceptable justification to allow discrimination? You have not answered this question in any way, no matter how loudly you scream "but yes I did!". In fact, I'll frame it another way. You continue to fall back on the "civil rights" line, so:
Why is religion a civil right that should be protected to the degree that it allows someone to perform acts that are otherwise considered unacceptable?
2) How would this court case be considered religious persecution?
3) You continue to state "religion is a traditionally religious event".
3a) First off, you provide absolutely no justification for why this makes it acceptable for religious institutions to discriminate when it comes to marriage. For the sake of one argument, let's give this point to you and say it is; why does that matter? Just because traditional institutions or relationships exist doesn't inherently justify continuing the paradigm. Religion is clearly not the dominant actor in the institution of marriage anymore.
3b) To hold you more accountable, we need to address the fact that this is demonstrably false. Historical evidence widely points to the fact that marriage has always either been an explicitly legal or de facto legal (i.e. property/ownership) arrangement that various world religions co-opted due to its powerful influence on the family.
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On March 26 2018 12:09 IgnE wrote:
a jewish lawyer doesnt have to represent a neonazi though
I've read some pretty tortured logic in this thread over the last dozen pages or so. I think you could follow that to yield a conclusion that a jewish lawyer must represent a neonazi ("Why is religion an acceptable justification for discrimination" by stratos_spear, for example).
Hell, in the case itself the Colorado lawyer said a Catholic legal defense fund that might help catholics with marriage-related legal work could be forced to do the same for homosexual marriages. The lines separating that lawyer example are becoming quite thin.
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On March 26 2018 12:16 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 11:55 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 11:09 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 23:51 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 13:12 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 12:34 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 11:19 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 08:14 Danglars wrote:On March 25 2018 07:38 Stratos_speAr wrote:On March 25 2018 06:19 Danglars wrote:
[quote]
We entered into this when you thought religious objections shouldn't even be here in the first place: it's asserted to be a secular event in your eyes, case closed. History tells a different tale. It supports the side that says it's very likely for such a ceremony to entangle religious people in conscience objections by its own nature. That's why very sympathetic individuals, such as the baker, will be kind and offer all there wares to gays and transgenders ... it's not participation in a religious ceremony. Your first problem is showing why your personal view that it is secular should trump the historical reality that it's intimately religious.
Your second problem is showing where I said "religion is required for marriage." I said it very easily raises freedom of conscience objections because of its historical religious nature. I do not imply the reverse is true: all marriages must be religious or it's not a marriage.
You haven't engaged with my arguments that you require religious persons to engage in forced speech (forced expression) and require them to violate their religious liberties (participate in ceremonies complying with their religious beliefs). I can't really help you. From what I gather, because you declare it secular, then no civil rights are violated, because they're secular ceremonies, and no religious person could object. ("I believe it is objective fact that marriage is secular"). That's the only point you come back to and the only sense I can make of your argument. It's ludicrous. Rights don't cease to exist because you don't acknowledge them. The problem with your argument is that you try to imply that the religious aspect is inseparable from marriage due to the fact that marriage was historically co-opted by religion. What you don't do is acknowledge that marriage has pretty much universally been a legal/cultural institution that shaped the family dynamic, and religion has absolutely no right to uniquely claim it. To strengthen your argument, you would have to make a plausible argument as to why marriage is required to be religious. For example, why did my marriage that was strictly secular (not in a church, no involvement of religious ideas or practices) have some kind of religious component to it? What about the very nature of marriage makes it OK for religious people to discriminate based on it? This also brings up a larger question of why is religious belief ever an acceptable excuse to discriminate, but that's an entire discussion on its own. No requirement, just an extreme likelihood that someone religious would find the ceremony in direct conflict with his or her sincerely held religious views. I only bring it up because someone thought it was secular by nature and nobody’s civil rights were being violated. So really you’re falsely reducing my argument to points I never made. So then you have to justify why religion is an acceptable excuse to discriminate, because this is precisely what your argument is supporting. If he was truly discriminating against gays, he wouldn’t sell premade cakes to them either. The US has a rich history of weighing religious liberty concerns against others ... like unemployment benefits even though jobs were available that didn’t have sabbaths off .. or LGBT groups in a veterans parade. If we could return to a rational discussion of trade offs compared to the unilateral declaration that it’s discrimination ... that would be a good step one. It's the definition of discrimination. You can be triggered by the word "discrimination" since it seems to be a buzz word, but this isn't a debate. It is the very definition of discrimination. He is refusing service to an individual based on a particular trait of that individual. It doesn't matter if it's only a single service, it's still discrimination. There are different situations in which different institutions are allowed to discriminate. This is easily shown by many examples. However, there is always a reason or justification under the law; as you said, a trade-off. There are two different facets to the discrimination that is in question here; the basis for it (religion) and the reason for it (homosexuality, specifically a perceived endorsement of homosexuality). If you really want to justify this instance of discrimination, then you have to tell us why religion is an acceptable reason to allow discrimination, because that is the argument that you are constantly throwing your support behind. You will have to open your mind to alternative looks if you want to truly understand this issue. When you call it discrimination and leave it at that, you can’t progress to see what rights the other party has. That’s one of the reasons this is such a cantankerous issue in general: too many people are willing to cry discrimination and leave apart whether artists have the ability to be in business and still reject messages and whether or not that applies here. One easy reason why the uniform view of discrimination does not bear out is why the Supreme Court actually took up the case. According to some of the people in here, they should never has issued a writ of certiorari, just a one word rejection “Discrimination is not ok!” In real life, this is a balance of rights and responsibilities. This is another example of you being intellectually dishonest and being too afraid to be held accountable for your own opinions. It is discrimination. This is a fact. And in many instances around the world, discrimination is acceptable, i.e. discrimination in a neutral sense. You're refusing to actually own up to your opinions because you're too scared of a buzz word. It's a straightforward question; you are advocating for someone's religious beliefs to be a legitimate justification for discrimination. Why is religion an acceptable justification for this? And does it stop at homosexuality? If so, why is homosexuality uniquely fit to be legally/morally discriminated against? If not, is discriminating against race, or sex, or nationality, or religion, or anything else OK if your religious beliefs demand it? These are all questions you need to answer if your opinion is to have any merit. "But you don't respect religious rights!" isn't an answer. Why does religion seemingly have the right to discriminate? You're saying that all religious persecution is justified if someone can use a context of the word discrimination in favor of it. I'm saying that isn't true. You have refused to see it in any other light. I live in a world where there are tradeoffs. I discriminate against car brands in selecting others. I discriminate against many women by dating only one. I'm not afraid of the word. I'm afraid of wasting time teaching people of other concerns in the balancing act of rights/responsibilities that refuse to look beyond one narrow framing. Which is why I say, if your framing is the dominant one and the only one worthy of consideration, then the Supreme Court should have rejected this in a single line "Discrimination is not OK." Show me another religious example if you want to draw this out of homosexuality (really, you should say a homosexual marriage/marriage event). And you know my reason, which is why you keep asking the question you know the answer to in order to hope for some mob joining you. The marriage ceremony is a traditionally religious event that dozens if not hundreds say is ordained by God/gods/whatever. That is a very valid reason to discriminate against celebrations that counter their religious beliefs because religious liberty means discrimination (used in a very narrow). The Colorado Human Rights Association even believes this because they allowed other religions to refuse to print Biblical scriptures on a cake. Since you've acknowledged that other liberties involve discrimination, I wonder why you think religious liberties must be unique. (I will say that focus on this word really dumbs down the argument, because we all discriminate every day in our lives) This isn't a narrow framing. You don't understand the question. Everything you stated here acts on the assumption that religion is already justified in being able to discriminate. You give this away by stating that it's religious persecution like it's a fact. 1) Why is religion an acceptable justification to allow discrimination? You have not answered this question in any way, no matter how loudly you scream "but yes I did!". 2) How would this court case be considered religious persecution? 3) You continue to state "religion is a traditionally religious event". 3a) First off, you provide absolutely no justification for why this makes it acceptable for religious institutions to discriminate when it comes to marriage. For the sake of one argument, let's give this point to you and say it is; why does that matter? Just because traditional institutions or relationships exist doesn't inherently justify continuing the paradigm. Religion is clearly not the dominant actor in the institution of marriage anymore. 3b) To hold you more accountable, we need to address the fact that this is demonstrably false. Historical evidence widely points to the fact that marriage has always either been an explicitly legal or de facto legal (i.e. property/ownership) arrangement that various world religions co-opted due to its powerful influence on the family.
1) I think the best argument here is to say artistic expression is speech and can never be compelled. Anyone is free to deny artistic production to anyone else for any reason.
2) I don't really think it's just "religious." I think it's a free speech issue related to religious expression.
3) Who cares?
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Spear we're not talking about the legal definition of a gay marriage we're talking about the ceremony known as a wedding. Its explicitly different things. The state doesn't recognize weddings in any way.
Should a pastor be forced to administer a gay wedding if he has started a personal business for administering weddings?
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On March 26 2018 11:44 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 09:52 Toadesstern wrote:On March 26 2018 09:38 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 09:14 Nyxisto wrote:On March 26 2018 07:59 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 07:43 Nyxisto wrote:On March 26 2018 07:24 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 07:20 NewSunshine wrote:On March 26 2018 07:15 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 01:12 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
[quote]
I suppose that's one way to analyze the two kinds of harms experienced, but I'd imagine others might interpret them differently. For example:
The harm done to the gay couple is that they had to experience yet another individual perpetuating an ignorant and discriminatory belief that unfairly judges them as inferior. The harm done to the cake maker is that he got called out on his bullshit and is now being forced to address the issue of whether or not his freedom to prejudge others is morally acceptable. And the religious person considers that ignorant attitude towards the role religion plays in his life and hopes God works on his heart. It’s both ways. I don’t really care about the ignorant and hateful characterizations along the lines of “getting called out on his bullshit.” It’s your opinion and try as best you can to convince people it’s the right way to view it. Just don’t enslave people’s artistic expression to the state. Preserve some rights while you figure it out. That's precisely the argument we're making. Being religious isn't a good excuse to deny the rights of others. Being religious isn’t a good enough reason to forfeit your free speech and free expression rights. Apparently, you’re allowed to have them as long as you’re a hypocrite or don’t seek gainful employment. I really didn’t expect such a callous approach. The problem is honestly not discrimination in some ethical sense but the fact that we'd be living in a clown car of a society if everybody who doesn't like each others ethics or religion would express that through the marketplace. Commercial cake-selling in a publicly licensed business should never be an issue of speech. Imagine if liberals would never hire conservatives or don't sell any goods to them because of their political orientation or vice versa. We'd constantly wage cultural war by economic means. It's better too keep that stuff apart. That’s why we should cut it off at artistic expressions for historically religious events. That’s why I’m not suggesting they have any right to put a No Gays sign in front of their store or asking somebody’s religion before selling them cookies. If you can’t separate things of particularly religious significance, the problem is your understanding of religion. Ignorance of rights is not an excuse to trample on them outright. but it's not really arstistic expression, it's a commercial business that prdouces a product on demand. If you want to be a cake artisan in your free time I don't really think that's much of an issue, but if you operate under a normal business license it shouldn't matter what the people are buying your cakes for. The commercial business produces a custom designed product after a sometimes lengthy consultation with a client. The remaining products are different and “not really artistic expression.” That’s the difference that isn’t present in your post. They could’ve walked out of their with any number of premade cakes, and t wouldn’t matter if it was for a bar mitzvah or gay wedding. That’s a fact. To you and igne above: and what if the standard product doesn't cut it for them? Software is usually the same thing. Long discussions with your client to figure out what he wants and yet that wouldn't be covered in this (from last page)? What about consulting an architect because you want to open a business somewhere and need some place to make your goods? Is there a "standard" factory to choose? No its going to be 100% custom. So you can turn that down if the factory were to make sextoys and you don't like them for religious reasons? What if there's an awful lot of people religious that way and it takes you forever to find someone willing to do it, if at all? I just don't see this argument between standard goods versus custom ones tbh If the standard product doesn't cut it for them, then choose any number of nonreligious or other-religious-beliefs cakeshops in the area. I'd have to see a software free-speech case to talk about compelled speech in software coding. I can think of a number of architects that might refuse to draft an arch with "Fuck the Mormons," in which case I wouldn't want to be on the side that says he must create that design.
Sry im not really knowledgeable on Mormons as that's only a thing in the US I think.
Are you talking about (not) drafting an arch because that's related to mormons and the reasoning being "fuck the Mormons" or are you talking about a design that literally has that phrase in it somewhere?
If it's the 2nd you can easily turn that down on basis of not being an asshole.
If it's the first... How is a "generic" arch related to mormons? I'm not really following that o.O
The thing about other cakeshops is that you don't really know if there are others around depending on how rural you go, don't you? At what point does it became unreasonable to ask them to search for another shop? After being to 3 and the next being a 30min drive? A 60min drive?
Do you want to put that into law? It's fine to refuse the job as long as there's other people close by (whatever that is) willing to do the job? What if you're being send on a fools errand wasting hours to prove that noone else is willing to make that cake for you because you're in some mighty backwards place? Is that burden really on you or should you be protected from that?
I'm pretty sure that's all hyperbolic and as stated before I do agree that just getting someone else to make it would have been the easiest solution for everyone involved but what's easiest to get a cake isn't at the heart of this discussion.
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I think what we really need is a federally funded program to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to custom-designed cakes within a 15 mile radius. We can't have people in backwards places without access to customized cakes.
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On March 26 2018 12:16 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage? They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding. Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure. The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly. An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation.
Baking a cake is also a procedure. No one asked the baker to come to the wedding, to bless the couple, or to have gay sex with them. No one asked him to say that gay marriage was ok, that gay sex was great, or that he worshipped satan the gay loving devil. He was asked to bake a cake, which was simply his job, and is a fairly simple procedure.
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On March 26 2018 12:31 IgnE wrote:
I think what we really need is a federally funded program to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to custom-designed cakes within a 15 mile radius. We can't have people in backwards places without access to customized cakes.
Cakes are just at the top of the slope.
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On March 26 2018 12:33 hunts wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 12:16 Danglars wrote:On March 26 2018 12:05 hunts wrote:
I just fail to see how religious people are being persecuted by being told that they as a business can't discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation. Furthermore, I really don't think that christians want to bark up this tree, given how many people in the fields of law, health care, and other services are not christian. If you get to not sell a cake to a gay couple, then why does a muslim doctor have to treat a christian who he may see as an infidel? Why should a Jewish lawyer have to represent a neo nazi who he may see as an imbecile? Why would a gay accountant have to file taxes for a priest? Do you really want to start down the path of everyone being able to deny service to any group of people they dislike? Or should only christians get that privilage? They're discriminating against their wedding ceremony on the basis that historically religions have treated them as major religious events. That's why it's a normal thing to have a religious exemption for. Sexual orientation or identity isn't very important, it's the religious ceremony that arises out of it. The pastor might speak to any homosexual person that comes by, and have a very different reason for not speaking at their gay wedding. Moving on, the muslim doctor is not drawing hearts and flowers and scriptural passages on a Christian man's chest. It isn't religious free expression. It isn't free speech. It's a procedure. The same doctor that would refuse to abort a baby because it goes against his religious beliefs would be one among millions of like-minded individuals that have done this for years. And hospitals staff accordingly. An ER doctor that refuses to treat someone of a different faith (say, coming in with a yarmulke) does not argue that he's right to discriminate against them because his medical practice is artwork protected by the first amendment. It's not the same situation. Baking a cake is also a procedure. No one asked the baker to come to the wedding, to bless the couple, or to have gay sex with them. No one asked him to say that gay marriage was ok, that gay sex was great, or that he worshipped satan the gay loving devil. He was asked to bake a cake, which was simply his job, and is a fairly simple procedure.
He wasn't just asked to bake a cake. You don't do yourself any favors with this sloppy, lazy arguing. He was asked to bake a cake and then decorate it with images symbolic of a gay wedding. He was happy to sell them an undecorated cake.
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On March 26 2018 12:31 IgnE wrote:
I think what we really need is a federally funded program to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to custom-designed cakes within a 15 mile radius. We can't have people in backwards places without access to customized cakes.
You joke but I can see how for someone who has fought for years to be treated like any other normal person (or well couple in this case) that might be pretty important. If just on an emotional level.
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On March 26 2018 12:35 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 26 2018 12:31 IgnE wrote:
I think what we really need is a federally funded program to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to custom-designed cakes within a 15 mile radius. We can't have people in backwards places without access to customized cakes. Cakes are just at the top of the slope.
What's at the bottom? We should probably set up federal programs to provide what's down there too.
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EPT
