Limits to religious liberty?

[WinePusher]

My problem comes in when they (gay couple) sue me because I refuse to participate in their religious ceremony....

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has the right to make someone else violate his or her religious beliefs in order to have a wedding.

http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... &start=190

The argument here is that a business cannot be compelled to participate in a gay wedding or service gay people due to the right of freedom of association and the right of religious liberty. I used to buy this argument, and I still do to a certain extent, but then I asked myself how this argument would hold up if it were applied to black people.

Since the 1964 civil rights act it has been illegal for a business to refuse service to anyone based on race, ethnicity, religion, etc. So it would be illegal for a business owner to refuse to provide wedding cakes for an interracial marriage, EVEN IF the business owners religious beliefs condemned interracial marriages.

And it wouldn't only be illegal, it would be completely heinous for a business to deny service to a couple based purely on their race. So, how is it not completely heinous for a business to deny service to a couple based purely on their sex/gender/sexual orientation? The same arguments against gay marriage were once used against interracial marriage. These arguments held no merit then and they hold no merit now.

Questions:

1) For those who are against gay marriage: Suppose a racist business owner hated black people and refused to service them based on a religious belief. Do you support this?

2) For those who are for gay marriage: Do you recognize that some churches and businesses have a moral objection to gay marriage? Shouldn't their beliefs be respected and shouldn't they have the right to refuse to service gay couples and provide cakes for gay weddings?

[Haven]

I asked "why should they not have the freedom to serve as they choose? " Your answer is merely 'they shouldn't'. That's hardly helpful.

They shouldn't because it would have adverse affects on the people who they refuse to serve (see the earlier examples about black people not being able to find a bathroom, put gas in their cars, or buy groceries during Jim Crow).

[enviousintheeverafter]

If not getting a cake service from a supplier that they can easily obtain from others

This frequently gets repeated, and is obviously mistaken; while certainly, in many (e.g. urban) places, there are a variety of businesses that offer the same service, and so its likely that one could "easily obtain from others" the denied product/service. But this is hardly universally true; many people live in small/rural areas that may not have more than one. Or, maybe there's more than one but they are all be run by bigots with similar discriminatory intentions. Moreover, while not being able to get a wedding cake may seem like small potatoes, being denied something like medical products, food, or something like this would obviously be a different story.

[enviousintheeverafter]

I asked "why should they not have the freedom to serve as they choose? " Your answer is merely 'they shouldn't'. That's hardly helpful.

They shouldn't because it would have adverse affects on the people who they refuse to serve (see the earlier examples about black people not being able to find a bathroom, put gas in their cars, or buy groceries during Jim Crow).

Not to mention that its in violation of our constitutional principles and their underlying/motivating political philosophy, and such inequitable situations tend to lead to political/social unrest. Moreover, not only do anti-discrimination protections directly help those people/groups who are in fact discriminated against, they ensure that everyone else won't have to suffer from discrimination in the future; even if we are not gay, or an ethnic minority, or disabled, we may well become disabled, or have a gay child, or otherwise come to belong (or someone close to us comes to belong) to a group that is in fact discriminated against. So anti-discrimination protections not only serve those who are a direct threat of discrimination, but protect all of us from coming under such threat in the future.

[KenRU]

It seems baffling to me that the harm discrimination can do (and has done in the past) still needs to be illustrated. It is not only a question of rights, it is also a question of rights and wrongs. I recognize that it would be wrong to deny services to someone of a different belief system than me. I also recognize that selling a wedding cake (and taking money from said transaction I might add) in no way says I condone the marriage (whether same sex or not!).

If in the future, 90% of the country were Muslim, atheist, deist, Pastafarian or whatever, and decided that they had moral objections to selling houses to Christians, I would find this reprehensible and would voice my discontent loudly. Aren't anti-discrimination laws designed to protect society from these inequities? Isn't that the whole point of having these laws? Whether on a small scale or large, isn't it the point?

all the best,

[Hamsaka]

It seems baffling to me that the harm discrimination can do (and has done in the past) still needs to be illustrated. It is not a only a question of rights, it is also a question of rights and wrongs. I recognize that it would be wrong to deny services to someone of a different belief system than me. I also recognize that selling a wedding cake (and taking money from said transaction I might add) in no way says I condone the marriage (whether same sex or not!).

If in the future, 90% of the country were Muslim, atheist, deist, Pastafarian or whatever, and decided that they had moral objections to selling houses to Christians, I would find this reprehensible and would voice my discontent loudly. Aren't anti-discrimination laws designed to protect society from these inequities? Isn't that the whole point of having these laws? Whether on a small scale or large, isn't it the point?

all the best,

Libyan Christians are living under gross discrimination (persecution and murder by Islamist factions). Yet what some Christians seek to legally protect for themselves is not significantly different in context and intent from the discrimination against their brethren around the world. This alone ought to firmly impress a person that discrimination causes harm and damage.

Those Christians who openly claim it is NOT the same thing are willfully engaging in semantics and special pleading. The Christian 'conscience' so dreadfully challenged by the SCOTUS ruling, is a rarified and transcendent thing; considering the consequences of being 'forced' to violate their conscience (Hell, God's punishment, getting flack from coreligionists), preserving their conscience takes precedence over public policy and constitutional laws that protect minority groups from discrimination.

It's no different than the Islamists who persecute and murder Middle Eastern Christians right left and center, who persecute for exactly the same reasons -- Allah demands it, and that transcends every petty notion not otherwise plucked from the Quran.

[Paprika]

Discrimination is harmful, and cannot be tolerated in a secular society.

So you and others assert.

Do you think discrimination is not harmful?

Some discrimination is harmful; it remains to be shown that all discrimination is.

It's also highly ironical how certain views are not tolerated by this 'non-discrimination' measures - like it or not you have to discriminate, even if it's to allow 'tolerant' views and praxis and ban 'intolerant' ones: you discriminate between what you claim 'tolerant' and 'intolerant'.

This sounds a lot like saying "it's wrong to discriminate against those who discriminate".

Nay, it is merely saying that 'you can't avoid discrimination'. When you try to eradicate discrimination from a certain place or public space you are discriminating yourself.

[Paprika]

[Replying to post 79 by Clownboat]
The answer can be quite nullified now, as I am already doing. We simply ask: why should the law be as it is?

Given that what I'm doing is questioning the law, your answer still remains useless.

[Paprika]

I asked "why should they not have the freedom to serve as they choose? " Your answer is merely 'they shouldn't'. That's hardly helpful.

They shouldn't because it would have adverse affects on the people who they refuse to serve (see the earlier examples about black people not being able to find a bathroom, put gas in their cars, or buy groceries during Jim Crow).

Yet preventing discrimination also has adverse effects. Now what?

[Paprika]

If not getting a cake service from a supplier that they can easily obtain from others

This frequently gets repeated, and is obviously mistaken; while certainly, in many (e.g. urban) places, there are a variety of businesses that offer the same service, and so its likely that one could "easily obtain from others" the denied product/service. But this is hardly universally true; many people live in small/rural areas that may not have more than one. Or, maybe there's more than one but they are all be run by bigots with similar discriminatory intentions. Moreover, while not being able to get a wedding cake may seem like small potatoes, being denied something like medical products, food, or something like this would obviously be a different story.

The latter is, of course, a possibility. But if it only remains as such it's like the game FinalEnigma's mentioned: scaremongering.

[Paprika]

It seems baffling to me that the harm discrimination can do (and has done in the past) still needs to be illustrated.

Hardly. What needs to be shown is that specific types of discrimination leads to specific harms which needs to be accounted for in policy making, not just conflate all discrimination together and scream 'Jim Crow' hysterically when someone proposes that allowing certain freedoms could be beneficial.