At times, both LGBT progressive activists and religious conservative activists seem to uphold the above sentiment. It puts both groups of zealots at odds with the majority of Americans—including those of traditional faith and gay Americans, who would find better ways to accommodate with one another, if the activists would let them.
Consider the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act (MRFA), a House bill introduced last week by Republicans that, the conservative Washington Times reports, “seeks to protect the religious freedom of individuals, institutions and businesses that are increasingly being punished or harassed for their beliefs on marriage.” MRFA is intended to “prohibit discrimination through the federal tax code” against citizens and institutions who think marriage is the union of one man and one woman, said Rep. Raul R. Labrador, Idaho Republican.
The paper notes that the bill would not have affected, for example, recent state actions against the New Mexico photographer or the Oregon bakery that each refused to provide services for gay marriages, based on the small business providers’ religious faith.
However, the push for the bill nevertheless is clearly a response to such actions. What the bill would do is “ensure that individuals who want to donate to a church that holds to the traditional teaching on marriage would not see their donations challenged” by the IRS. Religious conservatives fear that such moves are being pondered against Catholic and other religiously affiliated schools that won’t hire openly gay or lesbian faculty, for instance (there is currently a push in California to revoke the Boy Scouts’ state tax-exempt status over the group’s refusal to hire openly gay scoutmasters).
MFRA also would shield companies and nonprofits from “adverse actions” by the federal government, such as denying federal grants, contacts, certifications and employment based on opposition to gay marriage.
MFRA is bad legislation, but another bad idea would be limiting the moderate religious exemption in the proposed Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which if passed would outlaw workplace discrimination against LGBT people. The Washington Blade reports that Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, which spearheads marriage equality campaigns, said he:
shares the “grave concerns” expressed by the American Civil Liberties Union over the religious exemption—which he said would “carve coverage by certain kinds of entities for LGBT people.”
Those “entities” being religiously affiliated institutions, including private schools. In their zeal to force faith-based organizations and small business owners who hold traditional religious beliefs about marriage to hire gay people or provide services (including those of an artistic nature) to lesbian or gay weddings, LGBT zealots are firing up a backlash that might come back to haunt all of us. Even worse, they are seeking to use the power of state coercion to force others to engage in actions that violate their religious beliefs, an ugly thread that runs throughout too much of human history.
An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal favoring religious freedom recently noted that:
Some 97.6% of religious adherents in the U.S.—more than half the population—belong to religious bodies that affirm the traditional definition of marriage, according to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. For those Americans, tolerance isn’t turning out to be a two-way street.
The author, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, a “committed Lutheran” and contributor to Christianity Today, doesn’t aid her case when she goes beyond defending the rights of small business owners, arguing that government employees such as dissenting county clerks should be exempt from providing services to marrying gay couples. The state is different from civil society (or what’s left of it), something that progressive activists won’t acknowledge, either. In this misconceived view of state supremacy, religious conservatives and progressive activists are beholden to the same misconception.
More. Some activists have responded with, “well, that’s the law; they have to abide by the law.” What mendacity! As if these activists didn’t spend much of their time otherwise opposing bad laws. Moreover, the civil rights laws were enacted to remedy systemic employment discrimination against African-Americans, who often couldn’t find decent and equal employment anywhere (and often because of state “Jim Crow” laws). To apply the same government power to punish a tiny number of independent service providers with sincere religious objections to same-sex marriage is not only petty and cruel, but speaks to a lack of comprehension about the nature of religious conscience and why government should safeguard it, not coercively force individuals to violate their religious beliefs. But if you don’t take religious conviction seriously (hey, “it’s the law” and “they’re bigots; they should be forced to photograph the wedding; serves ’em right”), then you really are slouching toward totalitarianism.
Furthermore. Walter Olson replies to Mollie Ziegler Hemingway:
Many of the conscience cases she cites involving private businesses arose in jurisdictions that don’t recognize gay marriage, and most would reach the same legal result so long as local antidiscrimination laws remain in place, whether or not the law on marriage has changed. Libertarians have consistently worried about the tendency of anti-discrimination laws to erode individual rights of association. Modern progressives have consistently sought to dismiss or minimize such worries. Many conservatives from outside the libertarian tradition, such as Ms. Hemingway, do not seem to have given much attention to the issue until it gored their particular ox.
And from a posted comment at the Wall Street Journal site to Walter’s letter:
The florist in question did not “refuse to serve” gay clients. No one was turned away from her shop or denied service. Rather, she declined a solicitation to provide flowers to an event, namely a gay wedding… It’s the same thing as if a black florist sells flowers to KKK members who come into the shop, but refuses to supply flowers to a KKK function.
How many of the progressives who favor forcing small businessmen and women to bend knee to them would approve of forcing the black florist to decorate a Klan rally? [Added: Not so far-fetched, which is why a recent parody rings true.]
48 Comments for “Freedom for Me, but Not for Thee”
posted by Doug on
It’s called public accommodation. If you offer goods and services to the general public then you cannot pick and choose, ie discriminate against, who you will and will not serve. All of these legislative efforts are nothing more than trying to allow bigots to discriminate against LGBT people. No one is suggesting that religious institutions, ie churches, have to marry or accept LGBT people. Hotels, bakeries, florists etc are not religious institutions.
posted by Mike in Houston on
It’s not even worth telling Stephen that – he is of the mind that public accommodation statutes are not only not needed, but enslavement by the state.
posted by Houndentenor on
The problem for churches is when they rent out their space to non-members. That makes them a public accommodation. For most churches this isn’t an issue but for many it could be. And should be. Once you are operating a business, that’s an entirely different issue from operating as a church.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Yet again, the usual suspects are singling out gays and lesbians for discriminatory treatment, treatment not accorded to other citizens similarly situated. Whatever happened to “equal means equal”?
posted by Houndentenor on
I don’t know what kinds of jobs Stephen has had, but every job I’ve ever had I was expected to do all of it, not pick and choose which parts I felt like. There were many times, especially when I was working in lower Manhattan that some of the things in which I participated (usually just typing up the documents) I found morally repugnant. No one cares. I can do the job I’m paid to do or quit. That’s life. I resent the whining from conservatives of all stripes about this. Boo hoo it’s so hard being a liberal in Hollywood. I’m sure it was. It wasn’t fun on Wall Street listening to jokes about how fat Hilary Clinton is either but I had to keep my mouth shut. If I can do it with my fat mouth, so can everyone else.
As far as churches, they can teach whatever they want. When they start engaging in politics, they are no longer tax exempt. That’s their choice to make. The same people can form a political group and raise money and do as much politicking as they like but that has to be kept separate. There’s a LOT of politicking happening in churches right now (across the board to be fair and liberals are going to have to stop looking the other way especially with African American congregations). We need to start enforcing the law.
As for the rest, I’m open to a decent compromise, but given the overt hypocrisy of anti-gay Christians on this issue removes my sympathy. They won’t photograph a same sex wedding but they didn’t seem to have a problem cheating or their wife or getting divorced or dozens of other things that Bible tells them not to do. They have focused on this one thing and somehow think no one is going to call them on their bullshit. Consider yourselves called out. I was raised among these ass clowns and I know what BS they are full of. Honestly, they could have just said they were already booked the day of that wedding and none of this would ever happen. It wasn’t so much that they refused to make a cake or take some pictures as it was that they felt the need to be assholes about it. That’s really what the issue is. But frankly I wouldn’t want bigots taking my pictures and I damn sure wouldn’t want to eat their hate-filled food. So please come up with a compromise that doesn’t allow religious people to pick and choose among their own religious tenets to single out one group for discrimination because that’s exactly what most of these bigots want to do.
posted by Jim Michaud on
I suppose it never crossed the soc cons’ minds that this legislation can cut both ways. Muslims are just as devout as Christians. I’m waiting for the day when a Muslim business owner discriminates against a Christian because he/she eats pork or drinks alcohol. What’s that old saying again? Oh, yeah: be careful what you wish for.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I’m waiting for the day when a Muslim business owner discriminates against a Christian because he/she eats pork or drinks alcohol.
Ah, but that is exactly the problem with this legislation and the flurry of similar bills in state legislatures around the country.
The bills are specific to sanctioning discrimination against a single group of Americans, gays and lesbians, and specific to a single issue, marriage equality.
The bills do not sanction discrimination with respect to any other expression of religious conscience, say, for example, the entirely understandable religious qualms that a believing Christian might have about state-sanctioned adultery in the form of remarriage after divorce. I can’t imagine a devout Catholic, for example, wanting to serve open and notorious adulterers, participating in the scandal of adultery, but this bill and the others like it don’t protect the religious conscience of Catholics who take that teaching of their Church seriously. Not at all.
This bill and other bills like it are not about sanctioning religious conscience. The bills are about weakening Windsor, the opening salvos in a long series of bills that will come down the pike as the “massive resistance” movement takes form and shape over the next few years.
We should be raising hell about the fact that yet again, social conservatives want to single us out for discrimination, enacting laws that allow us to be treated in ways that the law does not allow for others similarly situated. Stephen is a fool for falling for this “religious conscience” chimera.
posted by Jorge on
The author, Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, a “committed Lutheran” and contributor to Christianity Today, doesn’t aid her case when she goes beyond defending the rights of small business owners, arguing that government employees such as dissenting county clerks should be exempt from providing services to marrying gay couples.
Maybe not. But she’s right.
The idea that a business owner is an individual deserving of having their First Amendment religious rights recognized and protected from the hammer of the state is something I agree with, but it’s a rather tortured bout of reasoning that doesn’t survive legislation to the contrary. The Commerce Clause trumps it federally, and designates to the states the authority to trump it state-by-state. The Constitution explicitly gives the government the power to regulate trade and commerce to benefit the security of the economy.
It is much easier to draw the line from state action to abuse of power when it comes to how the government impacts its own employees. The government has the power to regulate how it grants civil rights. But here, allowing an employee not to put their stamp of approval on gay marriages and assigning another employee to the task does not meaningfully impact the granting of this civil right. Furthermore, here the First Amendment operates with less opposition elsewhere in the Constitution–the Constitution has not been held to require states recognize same sex marriage. Because the intervention is so direct, because so many other alternatives are available to it, and because the competing interests are less grounded in the Constitution, the government has more of a responsibility to recognize a religious exemption.
By the way, I thought from the first line of this post that this would be about transgender rights.
posted by Jorge on
The Commerce Clause trumps it federally, and designates to the states the authority to trump it state-by-state.
Hmm. This line of reasoning suggests I’ve changed my mind about the New Mexico case. Let me read the commerce clause for a bit.
Yes, I’ve changed my mind. A combination of the commerce clause and the Tenth Amendment gives the states the power to pass civil rights laws that restrict business owners’ First Amendment rights in the name of intra-state trade. The Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on discrimination in places of public accomodation has been upheld by the Supreme Court as a valid exercise of the commerce clause. Whereever the federal government has the power to regulate interstate commerce, the power to regulate intra-state commerce has been reserved to the state governments.
Do I agree with it? No. Do I think civil rights laws should have robust religious exemption provisions? Oh, my goodness! Yes I do.
posted by Doug on
“Do I think civil rights laws should have robust religious exemption provisions? Oh, my goodness! Yes I do. ” So I guess your religious exemption would include denying service to blacks or hispanics if that was your religion?
You can have any religion you want, you just cannot push your religious beliefs on others. Your god is NOT better than my god.
posted by Jorge on
So I guess your religious exemption would include denying service to blacks or hispanics if that was your religion?
Haven’t we been through this before?
No? All right. I’ll refer you to the “Ugly Face of Zealotry” post. Three points.
1. Jorge August 26, 2013 at 1:18 am
You guys are too much principle, not enough ethics.
It does not matter why gays are a special case or somehow distinct from blacks, or whether or not we should be. The fact is that we are.
2. [Same post]
Comparing sexual orientation to race in defense in your face attacks on the name of religious freedom fails because the civil rights movement never attacked religious freedom. It cloaked itself in the name or religion instead. There is a history of in your face, intolerant activism on the part of the civil rights movement… from after it achieved all its major victories to the present.
3. Jorge August 30, 2013 at 9:02 am
My point is religious exemptions and accomodations are based on respecting those who are bound to stand for what is right even when that stands apart from the values of the wider community. It is based also on the principle that the state has no business making a decision for any religion about what is right or wrong, even and especially when the tenets of that religion call for clear and firm opposition to the standing social order.
My specific point is exactly what Tom suggested: [civil rights laws] have reached a point where they are unjusty intrusive upon people’s private religious morals. You’re asking for examples? This topic, and a Catholic hotel owner being forced to a rent a room to an unmarried couple. You do not agree with either of my examples, but you may have a limit. Yes, I am well aware that my second example is a violation of the Civil Rights Act–and I am very comfortable maintaining my position in the face of that awareness.
In other words, the answer to your question is no, because you are comparing apples to oranges.
Your god is NOT better than my god.
Uhhhh, first of all, yes he is.
Second of all, you may worship your god however way you wish, but you don’t get to impose your religious values on anyone else. You don’t get to deny anyone else their right to act in accord with their own conscience without fear of punishment. That is a violation of human rights, and you will be held to account for that.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Your god is NOT better than my god. … Uhhhh, first of all, yes he is.
Snort. So much for bringing in the “full measure of the Gentiles”. G-d might as well adopt a bunch of quarrelsome cats.
posted by Doug on
First you say no I’m wrong and then you acknowledge your beliefs are opposed to the civil rights act. Can’t have it both ways.
So your god is better than my god. PROVE IT ! ! ! ! ! !
Sounds like you are just fine with Muslim’s killing people to preserve honor because “You don’t get to deny anyone else their right to act in accord with their own conscience without fear of punishment”.
posted by Houndentenor on
And now we get to the real issue. You are free to believe in whatever you want. You don’t have a right to enforce those beliefs on me. We have several religious groups in our country who want to impose their religious prohibitions on the rest of us. This is not a theocracy. It’s your business if you don’t believe in birth control. That doesn’t give you the right to deny birth control to someone who doesn’t. And let’s add to that the fact that most people who are trying to impose their theocratic policies on the country do most of the things they want banned. No thank you. Practice whatever religion you want. It’s none of anyone else’s business. Impose that on the rest of us? Hells to the no.
posted by Jorge on
So your god is better than my god. PROVE IT ! ! ! ! ! !
My God’s worshipper is much more powerful, and he has a better figure. The trick is to end your sentence as if you are asking a question <3
First you say no I’m wrong and then you acknowledge your beliefs are opposed to the civil rights act. Can’t have it both ways.
I remind you that where I stated my position would violate the civil rights act, I was talking about a question of religion, and not one of race. Civil rights prohibitions on race-based discrimination have nothing to do with religion. Civil rights prohibitions on discrimination based on sexual orientation do. Civil rights prohibitions on discrimination based on an unmarried couple’s adultery (excuse me, marital status) do. And the latter two reach too far.
Sounds like you are just fine with Muslim’s killing people to preserve honor because “You don’t get to deny anyone else their right to act in accord with their own conscience without fear of punishment”.
If YOU want to repeal legislation outlawing murder because it interferes with religious rights, you may go ahead and put that to a vote. I believe murder is actually something society should not tolerate, and which society has no way to safely tolerate. I believe we cannot make that decision in a selective way. But, that is only my opinion, and you’ve already made it plain that you do not believe my God is any better than yours. I can only go as far as the votes go.
posted by Jorge on
And now we get to the real issue. You are free to believe in whatever you want. You don’t have a right to enforce those beliefs on me.
EXACTLY!
Pass the religious conscience laws.
posted by E. Carpenter on
Slavery was justified for centuries by quoting pro-slavery texts in both the old and new testaments. Some Christians today still believe that slavery is just fine with their God, but they don’t express this often in public.
Prohibiting intermarriage between races was justified for just as long, and also with quotes from the Bible. And many Christians today still quietly beleive this, but they no longer act on it publicly.
Prohibiting women from many kinds of work, from voting, and from owning property was also justified for several centuries by quoting Biblical passages. And again, many Christians (men and women) still believe this.
So, the anti-gay folks who claim “religious beliefs” to support their bigotry and who want exemptions, are following in a very long Christian tradition of claiming that their God supports their personal prejudices.
We should not allow any religious exemptions for businesses open to the public.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Do I agree with it? No. Do I think civil rights laws should have robust religious exemption provisions? Oh, my goodness! Yes I do.
Of the myriad of “religious conscience” bills being proposed around the country, the sole example of an honest attempt at a religious/personal conscience objection I’ve been able to find is in my home state of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin is considering adding explicit religious freedom language to its state constitution. The text of the proposed amendment (existing constitutional language in italics; proposed added language in bold) is:
The proposed amendment, unlike the bills usually touted as “religious conscience” bills, is actually about religious/personal conscience.
The amendment (1) applies to personal conscientious objection, both religious and non-religious in origin, (2) applies to all laws, whatever the subject matter, and (3) applies to all citizens. That’s what makes it real. It isn’t designed solely to “single out gays and lesbians for discriminatory treatment”, creating an exemption only to marriage equality laws.
The language of the proposed amendment isn’t perfect, but it is at least an honest proposal.
posted by Jorge on
I think it’s close enough to perfect in breadth and depth, and limitations.
Compelling interest plus least intrustive alternative to the state’s action. This is both a robust limitation to religious exemptions and fair limitation.
It is also not singling out any specific issue.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
It is unlikely to be added to Wisconsin’s constitution, for better or worse (the process of amending our constitution is arduous and lengthy), but I commend it as an honest attempt to protect personal conscientious objection.
By comparison, the MRFA and almost all of the other “religious conscience” bills being considered at state and federal levels are, in my opinion anyway, fraudulent. The sole reason for their existence is to protect anti-gay bias parading as “religious conscience”.
Because our Wisconsin constitution is difficult to amend, we are not going to be able to repeal our anti-marriage amendment before SCOTUS acts in 2018-2020.
But that has a bright side. Wisconsinites who actually value personal conscience (as opposed to social conservatives who want to label anti-gay discrimination as “religious freedom”) may win in the end.
Because our anti-marriage amendment will be ruled unconstitutional, rather than repealed, we won’t have to suffer the indignity of suffering a blatant fraud on religious conscience, as seems to be happening in so many states.
posted by Jorge on
The sole reason for their existence is to protect anti-gay bias parading as “religious conscience”.
So what? Everything has a reason. That’s why my union contract’s so full of unnecessary BS. Because before the BS got put in, someone actually got screwed by something unfair.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Tom: The sole reason for their existence is to protect anti-gay bias parading as “religious conscience”.
Jorge: So what? Everything has a reason.
So long as you have no objection to laws permitting blatant and overt anti-Catholic discrimination under the guise of “religious freedom”, you position is consistent, at least.
posted by Jorge on
So long as you have no objection to laws permitting blatant and overt anti-Catholic discrimination under the guise of “religious freedom”, you position is consistent, at least.
Boy Scouts of America v. Dale.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Boy Scouts of America v. Dale
I didn’t realize that Dale was refused membership in the BDA because he was Catholic. The anti-Catholic rationale of the BSA was well hidden in the court documents.
But whatever the case was in BSA v. Dale, I wasn’t thinking about the right of private associations to restrict their membership. I thinking about a law (similar to the Marriage and Religious Freedom Act) that sanctions public and private discrimination against Catholics while keeping in place laws prohibiting discrimination against Protestants, Jews, Muslims and adherents of other religions.
In my view, The sole reason for their existence is to protect anti-Catholic bias parading as “religious conscience”. I wouldn’t support such a law, any more than I would support the MRFA and similar laws. I would say exactly the same things about that law as I have been saying about the MRFA and similar laws.
I think that laws that single out a particular group for discrimination under the guise of “religious freedom” are abominations, offensive to American values and to religious freedom alike.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Again — I posted about this earlier at some point. Minnesota actually has had some exemptions (more or less) since “sexual orientation” was added to our civil rights code in 1993.
I would suggest that in terms of contract law, a small business should not be forced to contract with a customer to provide certain wedding related services, (1) if they have a religious objection which they are often about from the get-go and (2) they are not the only game in town.
If they are not a small business, if they take a gay couple’s money and then (insist on religious convictions later on) or if they are the only game in town, then the exemption becomes absurd. This is an eff0rt to balance both First Amendment rights as well as the public policy/commerce interest of the government.
posted by Don on
Everybody can get what they want out of this with the perfect solution: ask the Amish. Do they manage to sell cheese and bread and furniture without endorsing the sinful acts of driving cars and having women bare their forearms? Yes, they’ve apparently been doing it for nearly two centuries without a problem. Religions have to let go of the absurd idea that providing health insurance that then gets used for ideas they disagree with. Do the Amish riot because someone found sustenance in their cheese to commit horrifying acts of driving? And gays need to get over the fact that some people are going to reject their lives on religious grounds. Not all of Christianity does. And maybe less of it will some day soon. But we will never get all of them to do it.
Maybe I’m crazy here, but if conservative Christian leaders quit going on television to say gay people should be publicly punished by laws discriminating against them, maybe this thing would simmer down. Maybe they wouldn’t be suing so much.
To me, this is the most libertarian of all answers to this question. There need not be a single law written to preserve religious liberty. Simply believe what you want to believe and don’t make others follow your beliefs by passing laws making your beliefs the preferred ones of everyone. Don’t want gay marriage? Don’t get one. Don’t approve of a “sinful” movie or television program? Don’t watch it. It’s really not that hard.
Just sit down and shut up already. Or as nearly everyone heard at least once by the third grade: eyes on your own paper.
posted by Doug on
I can agree with most of what you say, but with all due respect, the LGBT community did not start this fight, the right wing christian community did. We are the victims of discrimination at the hands of right wing christians and we have been silent and in the closet for far too long.
posted by Jorge on
Religions have to let go of the absurd idea that providing health insurance that then gets used for ideas they disagree with.
What the heck does selling cheese have to do with women’s right to bare arms? Is the cheese being used as deodorant? Or is the cheese being used to help short men reach the gas pedal?
Not one penny of the Catholic Church’s money shall be used to fund even one abortion. Not one decimal of any organization which the Church owns or otherwise operates shall be used to promote or silence its clear and emphatic opposition to even one abortion. “Religion has a right to express its opinion in the service of the people.”–Pope Francis. “Clear and consistent opposition is a duty.”–Pope Benedict XVI (albeit on another topic). The government shall not use its power to reshape the economy as a pretext or excuse for shutting religion out of its far more longstanding roles in society and the community. It must grant a reasonable religious accomodation (and you know how that goes…) The government shall have to find another way.
posted by Don on
I can promise you that the Catholic Church has paid for lots of abortions over the years. And always indirectly just as healthcare would. If the other scandals are any indication, I can easily see an employee of a catholic hospital having an abortion elsewhere. I can even see a priest driving his female lover (the church secretary) to get an abortion. If we can have rampant pedophile priests, that is not a leap at all.
I’m not aware of any health insurance that pays for abortions. maybe life of the mother at risk, that’s it. and same with contraception. elective stuff that most insurance won’t pay.
what you are saying is that your boss can tell you what to do with your paycheck. NOT ONE PENNY of the money I give you will go to buy that demon bourbon! Uh, it ceases to be your money when you pay me? Oh. Sorry, it doesn’t in your mind. Now we have to grind our political process to a halt so we can figure out a way for you to shame people and put limits on how they spend their money. Cuz the health insurance is a form of payment just as salary. it ceases to be the Church’s money the minute they pay that premium.
Talk about your big government? Crafting laws to allow employers to tell employees how they can spend their money in keeping with the employers religious beliefs but not the employees?
My point with the Amish is that they have separated commerce from religion. A commercial act is not a religious endorsement. its not that hard. but it is to fundamentalists.
posted by Kosh III on
“I can’t imagine a devout Catholic, for example, wanting to serve open and notorious adulterers, participating in the scandal of adultery”
I can easily imagine that because Reagan got plenty of Catholic and “evangelical Christian” votes despite the fact that he was an adulterer (Mark 10) “whosoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery” and Mal 2:16 “I hate divorce, says the Lord.”
Fraking lying hypocrites.
posted by Jorge on
That’s why the Catholic Church will [not] grant annulments.
Until Protestants do[n’t], you will simply have to live with a cognitive dissonance that no one else notices or cares about.
posted by Houndentenor on
The RCC seems to grant annulments to those whose donations to the church are large enough. Plus ca change….
posted by Jorge on
Well, duh, why grant an annulment to someone who’s not living a Catholic life? That means actually going to church.
However, you are changing the subject.
Without an religious doctrine through which a faulty marriage can be recognized as an exception to the doctrine that divorce is a sin, there is no basis for Kosh III’s accusation that accepting Ronald Reagan is an act of hypocrisy. He cannot prove that Ronald Reagan’s prior marriage(s?) was not a faulty one deserving of annulment.
posted by Kosh III on
You must not have read my post. Let me make it plain.
Reagan divorced Jane Wyman and married Nancy Davis.
Jesus said in Mark 10:11 “”Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery”
No exceptions. So if making a cake is endorsing gay marriage, voting for a proven adulterer is endorsing adultery.
posted by Houndentenor on
Although one never truly knows what went on in someone else’s marriage, I have never heard any claims, including from Reagan or Wyman, that theirs was anything but an amicable split. To me that’s their own damn business. But according to the Bible and to Catholic doctrine, both of them were committing adultery by remarrying. If one is going to have this hissy fit about gay marriage, then they have to also condemn premarital sex and divorce and remarriage and I don’t see that happening. Not to the same extent anyway. I saw fundamentalist Christians supporting Gingrich who is one wife #3 and cheated on the first two (if not this one as well). When confronted they would give all kinds of excuses the brunt of which was that they can choose which sins they will be outraged by when it suits their own political objectives. The whole thing just reminded me of what hypocrites almost all Christians are.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
But if you don’t take religious conviction seriously …
… you trivialize personal/religious conscientious objection by pushing fraudulent bills like the MFRA.
posted by JohnInCA on
I’ll take “religious objections” seriously when they aren’t specifically anti-gay. If these laws were actually based on protecting religious liberty, they would allow much broader discrimination… faith, interfaith, racial, interracial, age, caste, virginity, recent participation of stoning hookers, etc. But to single out gay people as being okay to discriminate against in the marriage industry while no other Biblically-opposed group gets the shaft? Sorry, at that point it’s not about religion, it’s just about animus. If it was about religion you would have been standing up for your right to deny a wedding cake to an interracial couple.
posted by Doug on
Your individual right to religious freedom ends at the point it causes harm to another individual. No right is absolute. You are entitled to ‘believe’ anything you wish but you also have to live in a society where others may not hold your ‘belief’.
posted by Don on
The racial discrimination laws were justified by religion. These religious conscience laws may usher that back in. And they’ve got a ton of scripture to back them up. Talk about your unintended consequences.
posted by Don on
That’s why this thread has taken a very, very liberal bent, in my opinion. Not for the substance of the topic, but in the solution. This is the typical social conservative answer: more government interference in people’s lives (why I say it’s a liberal solution to a conservative belief system).
We now need a law that will create a right to use religious beliefs as a weapon against employees and those in the marketplace who stray from the true calling.
For a political party that is so freaked out by Sharia law, they sure put forward a lot of proposals to enact it.
I will use my religious beliefs to bend you to my way of thinking by hijacking your right to spend your salary how you want into my right to forbid you from spending your earnings on things I disapprove of on religious grounds. Huh? Well, insisting that employer based insurance cannot have contraception is precisely that. Here’s $10 salary. But you can’t spend it on things I disapprove of. I’m going to make that illegal. And you can’t stop me.
And the Catholic church shrieks freedom!?
And yet, that’s what is being argued here. I’ve always said the republican party is only conservative half the time: the money half. The rest of the time it’s SUPER BIG government on steroids with a side of napalm to get dissenters to do as they “should.”
This isn’t about protecting religious freedom. Not by a long shot. This is about forcing others to pay penalties for not believing the same thing you do. And they’re doing it for your own good.
Hard to get more crazy liberal than that.
posted by Individual Liberty v. Equality | The Purple Elephant on
[…] Stephen Miller, Independent Gay Forum […]
posted by Houndentenor on
“To apply the same government power to punish a tiny number of independent service providers with sincere religious objections….”
And just how do we objectively measure that sincerity? And why do they get a special carve-out of the law for same-sex marriage? I can’t think of a case of anyone refusing to photograph a wedding because one of the couple had been previously married. If I saw consistency in their religious practice I might be more sympathetic. For example, I don’t think it would be reasonable to expect an observant Orthodox Jew to work on the Sabbath to photograph your wedding. (Although the law does allow businesses to refuse to hire someone who refuses to work specific days, so even that one isn’t universal.)
I get the point you are making Stephen, and I might be sympathetic if I knew the owners and knew them to be serious and strict adherents to their faith. What I mostly find among people who make the biggest noise over issues like this is that they do what they want in their own lives and then use the Bible as a blunt weapon to beat up on others. I can’t find any sympathy for such people and in my own quite extensive personal experience that is the vast majority of Evangelical and Roman Catholic Christians. And again, all they had to say is that they were booked for that weekend and regretted that they couldn’t take the order. If they had done that this wouldn’t be a problem. I do it all the time when someone wants me to sing at a Catholic Church or other other denomination hostile to gays, women or that is overly political. I don’t use that as an opportunity to lecture them about why they are wrong. What would be the point? I just tell them I’m busy (what I’m busy with is none of their business) and let them find someone else. It’s really not that hard. The problem is not that the business is being forced to do something they feel is wrong. They could easily have found a way not to do it. The problem is that they had to be assholes in their refusal. Not only is that stupid, it’s bad business practice.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
Libertarians (of the rightwing variety) want to depict ALL civil rights laws that apply to the private sector as being intrusive/unjust. Its a part of the Libertarian Party platform and one of the nastier elements of the philosophy.
Some conservatives are apparently jumping on the similar band wagon. Odd, but not too surprising. Some conservatives are best described as ‘Republicans who want to smoke pot’.
The common sense reality is that civil rights laws are important/necessary part of life. However, they are not suppose to apply to EVERY single contract or business transaction that may occur
A lady who wants to rent out her one bedroom (but only to good Christians) is a very different ball game them a lady that wants to rent out her apartment complex.
Likewise, a small business that does not want to offer its services for a particular wedding ceremony is a very different ballgame them if this were a moderate-to-large company trying to have the same policy.
The fact is that — at least for now — their are going to be a handful of small business owners that do not want to provide wedding related services for a gay marriage.
Their is almost no interest in doing so because of the race/ethnicity or because its not the couple’s first marriage or because procreation is unlikely to occur due to age or disability.
At one point their might have been, but not today.
This is either because people are more evolved or do not want to face the bad publicity/social stigma. Within a decade it will be the same with same sex couples.
As a practical/pragmatic matter it is best to carve out these exemptions for small business folks that do not want to provide services for a gay wedding.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
As a practical/pragmatic matter it is best to carve out these exemptions for small business folks that do not want to provide services for a gay wedding.
Well, sure, Tom. Common sense makes sense.
I’d argue, though, that our laws already meet the common sense test, for the most part.
Title II (public accommodations) exempts small (5 rooms or less) owner-occupied hotels, motels and B&B’s, private clubs not open to the public, and so on. Title VII (employment discrimination) exempts businesses with less than 15 employees, as well as religious corporations, associations, educational institutions, or societies employing individuals of a particular religion, tax-exempt private clubs and so on. Equal opportunity laws and regulations exempt small contracts. And so on.
That’s one of the reasons why the “religious conscience” bills are a sham, pure politics, a tempest in a teapot.
We have laws, usually at the state level, which do not protect small businesses and private individuals by using common sense. That’s easily corrected. The legislators can put protections for small businesses and private individuals into the law, covering all cases — race, religion, gender and sexual orientation — without singling out discrimination against gays and lesbians for special, priviledged status.
Why, for example, is a special religious exemption needed in order to add non-discrimination against gays and lesbians into Title VII if “religious corporations, associations, educational institutions, or societies employing individuals of a particular religion” are already exempted from the law? Are we really so different and dangerous as to require the government to grant special exemptions in our case that are not needed in the case of religion, race or gender? If so, why?
In my view, singling out gays and lesbians for special discrimination is the real reason why the “religious conscience” bills are a sham, a perversion of American values of fair play and freedom of conscience. If “religious conscience” is applicable to discrimination against us, then religious conscience should be applicable to all.
After all, is an religious objection to same-sex marriage somehow more valid and valuable than a religious objection to remarriage after divorce?
posted by Houndentenor on
I hear this libertarian-style talk around this issue but I’ve yet to see any member of Congress advocate for repeal of these civil rights laws. Either the law applies to everyone or no one. I object to the singling out gays as okay targets for discrimination or giving special rights to religious people as if there are no other reasons to have moral objections to something. If we want to repeal these laws and allow anyone to simply refuse to serve customers, then we should put that up for a debate and put such a bill up for a vote. But if I have to serve people whose religion and/or politics I find abhorrent then that has to go both ways.
posted by Don on
hey, did anybody see where the catholic chaplains came down with a ruling that they are not to participate in gay marriages on military bases, but if they have to fill out paperwork for a gay couple as a result of their duty – it’s not a sin and they should do it to keep their job?
I have some not-so-pleasant beliefs as to why they picked this particular contortion to go with – i.e. chaplains are male, and they can break religious law if they’re in the club – but this flies in the face of this entire thread. County clerks who issue marriage licenses are committing sins, but chaplains who do the same thing are not?
I think somebody just shot themselves in the foot.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
And from a posted comment at the Wall Street Journal site to Walter’s letter:
The point Stephen and others who are on the “religious conscience” kick miss (or don’t understand and/or acknowledge) is that the so-called “religious conscience” exemptions that are the Republican rage right now are limited, with rare exception, to sanctioning discrimination against marriage equality.
In fact, the bills under consideration don’t even cover the equivalent of Stephen’s KKK example — a florist being asked to provide flowers to a gay pride function. A florist in that situation would not be protected by the bills, any more than a florist being asked to provide flowers for a KKK function.
Nope, it is just same-sex weddings.
And, on another front, what is it with the conservative love of the KKK example? The black florist being forced by a cruel liberal law to service the KKK has become a meme on the right.
Apparently, cannot distinguish between a same-sex marriage and a hate-group function.
In fact, same-sex marriages are far more destructive than KKK functions in the mind of conservatives, it would seem, since special exemptions are needed to protect conservatives’ “religious conscience” in the case of a same-sex marriage but not in the case of providing flowers to hate-group functions.
posted by My letter in the WSJ: antidiscrimination law and religious liberty - Overlawyered on
[…] Some recent links on these controversies: Elane Photography (New Mexico) and followup; Oregon cake bakers; Arlington, Va. video-duplication shop, first, second, and third posts. I wrote about the relations between religious liberty, libertarianism, and social conservatism here (more, and yet more on Twitter with columnist Tim Carney). More: Bainbridge, Stephen Miller/Independent Gay Forum. […]