WinePusher wrote:
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?
The problem is where this ultimately leads. You can't just be thinking about a few restaurants that use religion to support their racial bigotry. This then actually ends up where landlords don't need to rent to black people, and real estate agents don't need to sell houses to black people, and motels, gas stations, etc, don't need to serve black people.
In short, you don't just end up with a few religious bigots refusing to merely cater to an interracial wedding. You actually end up with huge bigoted white communities refusing to allow blacks to even enter their space at all.
Where do you draw the line? This is why it ends up being that if you are going to run any sort of business at all, you simply can't discriminated even if religion is your excuse for being bigoted.
WinePusher wrote:
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?
It's the same situations here. If it's ok to refuse to provide cakes for gay weddings, then it must also be ok to refuse to rent to a gay couple, refuse to sell them a home. Refuse to employ them. Refuse to enroll them in your schools, etc.
Why should wedding cakes be an exception?
Also, just because you sell someone a wedding cake or cater to their wedding doesn't mean that you need to morally approve of the wedding. There's no way that it could be seen as a "sin" to merely obey the laws of land when the person themselves is not taking part in the actual behavior that they believe to be a sin.
Therefore religious objections aren't valid objections. There is no reason why a religious person who believes that gay marriage is a "sin" couldn't still serve that ceremony for a fee.
IMHO, the religious objections to this are nothing more than an attempt to force their bigotry onto the surrounding society. As I say, what if these people were into reading apartments instead of catering to weddings? Should they then have the right to refuse to rent to gay married couples?
What's the difference between a cake and an apartment on this issue?
If you can refuse one you should be able to refuse the other. And vice versa.
Think of how complicated the laws would need to be if people were allowed to use religious bigotry as an excuse to not service some commodities but could not use religious bigotry to refuse to service others?
From a legislative point of view, it's far more reasonable to simply say, "all or nothing". It's either legal to use religion to support bigotry, or it's not.
You can hardly make laws saying that it's ok to refuse to cater to certain weddings, but you still have to rent to all married couples.
This would be a law that allows bigotry in some situations but not others. And that would become extremely complicated.
Can you refuse to sell gasoline to gays?
Can you refuse to sell insurance to gays?
Can you refuse to enroll gays in your schools?
Can you refuse to hire gays?
Where does it stop? Why can you refuse to cater to a gay wedding, but not be allowed to refuse any other service?
It really needs to be all or nothing. And it can't be all, so it has to be nothing.
This is just the way it has to be if a person wants to go into business. You need to be open to everyone. No bigotry permitted in business, not even for religious reasons.
Once we allow religion to be an excuse for bigotry where does it stop?