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HB2 Strikes Again

"there are impediments to racial integration. those slaves are wearing chains. how can we integrate them into society wearing those loud jingly chains. it's just better not to bother."

-david "junebug" dukes
 
Christ, I think I'm going to start my own damn religion and discriminate against whoever I want to. What a ridiculous guise to have protection of discrimination because of belief of a man in the sky.

If 1/10th of purported Christians acted on what Jesus actually stood for then the world would be a much better place. All it takes is some damn compassion and the realization that not everybody is created just like you.
 
Deacsfan27 said:
Christ, I think I'm going to start my own damn religion and discriminate against whoever I want to. What a ridiculous guise to have protection of discrimination because of belief of a man in the sky.

If 1/10th of purported Christians acted on what Jesus actually stood for then the world would be a much better place. All it takes is some damn compassion and the realization that not everybody is created just like you.
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come on now. god does not make mistakes. that's why it HAS to be a choice. #science
 
This isn't rhetorical, I would like to learn what the difference is between a "Christian" cake decorator, a "Christian" wedding band drummer, and a "Christian" cashier at Party City. It can't be a coincidence that conservatives are more likely to support the "religious freedom" of a business owner over that of a common laborer, as that type of economic favoritism is everpresent in all conservative politics.
 
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Junebug said:
If someone sincerely holds the religious belief that christians shouldn't get married (or, phrased more charitably, that it is against his religious beliefs for him to be involved in the marriage of two christians), then no, I don't think the law should force him to sell a wedding cake to christians.

As I said, I think religious exemptions should be strong and, under RFRA, they are.
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Why does it have to be a religious belief against marriage? Why can't it be a sincerely held belief that Christians shouldn't be served a burger or sold a houseplant because they are hypocritical assholes?
 
Junebug said:
Because discriminating against people on the basis of religion violates the public accommodation laws and the free exercise clause/RFRA only provide for exemptions that are based on religious belief.

Sorry.
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So, it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of religion, but perfectly OK to discriminate because of the religion you choose to practice.

It you can't see why RFRA laws are hypocritical and immoral, then the problem is with you.
 
Junebug said:
The threshold for obtaining a religious exemption is that the religious belief is sincerely held. Good luck making that showing.
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Right, tough to make this showing because that's exactly the way it's intended. Goldilocks theory strikes again.
 
Junebug said:
Because discriminating against people on the basis of religion violates the public accommodation laws and the free exercise clause/RFRA only provide for exemptions that are based on religious belief.

Sorry.
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Do you agree with those limitations?
 
Junebug said:
Of course it is. Religious exemptions are serious business. We can't have some moron decide that he can just stop serving someone in a protected class just because he thinks they are a hypocrit.
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I cannot tell at all if this is sincere or self-mocking.
 
it's funny that religion is a protected class but the supreme court voting that gay marriage is a protected right does not count towards legislative protection. learn something new every day.

time to make more laws to get around any new changes that protect life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for law abiding americans.
 
Junebug said:
Totally serious. Exemptions should be like abortion--safe, legal, and rare.
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So why, in your mind, should sexual orientation, which unlike religion is not a choice, not be one of those protected classes?
 
Junebug said:
Of course. They are actually non controversial. RFRA was introduced by Chuck Schumer, passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis, and was signed into law by Bill Clinton.
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It was also ruled unconstitutional as applied to the states. I also fail to see how making it illegal to deny service to gay people would trigger the Sherbert test in the first place (though maybe your Christianity looks far different than mine), or how refusing exemptions to non-discrimination laws would violate the Sherbert test outside of the very narrow context of Churches declining to perform gay weddings.
 
Junebug said:
If someone sincerely holds the religious belief that christians shouldn't get married (or, phrased more charitably, that it is against his religious beliefs for him to be involved in the marriage of two christians), then no, I don't think the law should force him to sell a wedding cake to christians.

As I said, I think religious exemptions should be strong and, under RFRA, they are.
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What if they hold a sincerely held religious belief that whites shouldn't marry blacks? As was the justification for a lot of anti-miscegenation laws
 
Junebug said:
My position is that the cake baker should have the exemption whether they work for a small business or a big one. The issue is the proximity to the moral/religious issues surrounding gay marriage. Non-wedding businesses/workers should not be permitted the exemption.

ETA: If wal-mart wants to fire the employee who won't serve gay people, they should be permitted to do that.
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I mean what does that even mean? There are lots of businesses that serve both weddings and other events. I would imagine many bakeries are in that category--both the small bakeries I think you're imagining and bakeries at places like Publix.
 
Junebug said:
There are impediments to racial integration that do not exist for integration of gay people, including easy identifiability, genetic homogeneity (i.e., a black couple is not going to give birth to a white child whereas a straight couple can give birth to a gay child), and the long and sordid history of this country's systemic mistreatment of blacks (i.e., slavery, Jim Crow, etc.). Although I am sympathetic to religious exemptions, these impediments cause me to conclude that the societal interest in promoting full integration outweighs the individual's interest in religious liberty. Moreover, and related, practically speaking, anti-miscegenation statutes were pretty clearly about maintaining white supremacy. The social opposition to gay marriage is more of a morality-based objection, whether you view that objection as correct morality or not.

So, no, I would not support religious exemptions if you replaced black for gay.
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See but once you open the door for saying that religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws aren't absolute, I think your argument is toast. We're just arguing over the price now, and I think it's pretty hard to argue that anti-LGBT discrimination should be more societally acceptable than racial discrimination.
 
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As a thought experiment, imagine how that right would react if a Jewish person or (gasp) a Muslim who owned a bakery refused to make a cake for a Christian wedding. Would they be standing up for the bakery's religious freedom? Or would the bakery be getting criticized on Fox News?

I don't think there's much of a question here.
 
MysteryMen said:
I mean what does that even mean? There are lots of businesses that serve both weddings and other events. I would imagine many bakeries are in that category--both the small bakeries I think you're imagining and bakeries at places like Publix.
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Also wedding receptions aren't a religious ceremony. If a small business exclusively did flowers for religious wedding ceremonies and stated that they did so primarily as a form of religious expression then I'm fine giving them an exemption.

But if you are a baker that sells cakes to make money and you happen to sell some of your cakes for wedding receptions and you happen to hate gay people then sorry you don't get an exemption.
 
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