Religious conscience and providing services

dies-l · Feb 15, 2014

Cearbhall said:
Only that you're factually wrong. That's not their right.

So, individuals don't have the right to associate with those they choose and disassociate from those they choose? In limited circumstances, certain types of business entities are precluded from disassociating with people based on very specific reasons. But, yeah, for the most part, if I want to treat you (or all people that I deem to be like you) as a second class citizen, that is my right. If I decide I don't like people with freckles, for example, I could discriminate against them all day long, no matter who I am or what business I own.

What exactly does Joe the grocer get out of exercising his bigoted beliefs? All it does is make his business less profitable. Regardless, what gives him the right to exercise them through ownership of a public business? Owning a public business is about serving the public and making money. If he has other goals, then he should do something else with his life.

There was a time in our nation's history where the same line of reasoning made it illegal for corporations to give to charity. If Joe wants to use his business for any legal purpose that is not profit driven, that is his right. Anti-discrimination legislation makes it such that advancing his racist views is largely an illegal purpose. But, I cannot imagine that anyone would be complaining if Joe, instead, saw the purpose of his business to provide food to the poor at affordable prices, nobody would complain that he is not profit-driven enough.

SoldierOfTheKing · Feb 15, 2014

variant said:
If you think it's your first amendment right to use your buisness to try to hurt people you don't like or as a spiteful enforcement tool to those who stray outside your moralizing.

In what sense is refusing to business with somebody hurting them? They're no worse off than they would be if the business didn't exist.

Cearbhall said:
We're talking about having access to what might be the only drug store in town. We're talking about making sure that being part of a minority population doesn't set you back in life by giving people the ability to determine where you can reasonably live. This is about having equal access to food when there's a snowstorm and every block you drive increases your chances of having an accident.

Access to those things is usually an individual responsibility. It's always worked out.

Cearbhall said:
What exactly does Joe the grocer get out of exercising his bigoted beliefs?

How is that anybody's business but his own?

Cearbhall said:
All it does is make his business less profitable.

Then why should it need to be addressed by legislation?

Cearbhall said:
Regardless, what gives him the right to exercise them through ownership of a public business?

That's instrinsic to ownership of property. Private property, if it is truly private, is as open to the public as the owner wants it to be, and no more.

variant said:
Because the people who advocate for an absolute right of property never had to live through being discriminated against in the manner we are speaking of.

"Absolute" right of property isn't the issue. Any real right of property at all necessarily entails control over who has access to it. The authority to decide what type of furniture to put in a building, or what color to paint the walls, does not constitute ownership.

That's an issue you never really addressed. All you did was cite the supposed conditions of the United States before the Civil Rights Act to argue that my reasoning wasn't sound. I give a short article, which, among other things, set the record straight about pre-Civil Rights America. All of the sudden what you previously called "recent history" is so long ago you don't feel the need to discuss it.

variant · Feb 15, 2014

SoldierOfTheKing said:
In what sense is refusing to business with somebody hurting them? They're no worse off than they would be if the business didn't exist.

That isn't true, without you in that particular market another buisness that would fulfill their needs may exist.

This is specifically manifest in the only example we need.

"Absolute" right of property isn't the issue. Any real right of property at all necessarily entails control over who has access to it. The authority to decide what type of furniture to put in a building, or what color to paint the walls, does not constitute ownership.

Then no one owns anything in America because we can't use our buisnesses to discriminate against black people, we are officially communists.

That's an issue you never really addressed. All you did was cite the supposed conditions of the United States before the Civil Rights Act to argue that my reasoning wasn't sound. I give a short article, which, among other things, set the record straight about pre-Civil Rights America. All of the sudden what you previously called "recent history" is so long ago you don't feel the need to discuss it.

We both agree that the arguments you are using are from the pre-civil rights era.

But no, I don't feel the need to labor over dismissing what our society has already clearly dismissed.

Sketcher · Feb 15, 2014

variant said:
I know I've had my hair cut at both.

And of course the reasons for men's barbershops and womens salons isn't about refusing services to people you want to moralize to or rebuke.

Neither were "white only" businesses. So I'm not sure what your basis is.

morningstar2651 · Feb 15, 2014

dies-l said:
So, all homosexuals marry?

How many heterosexuals are getting same-sex marriages?

wintermile · Feb 15, 2014

dies-I said:
If individuals, even those who happen to own business, want to treat x group as "second class", I don't like it, but it's their right. When government does so, that's a problem.

Refraining from promoting homosexuality does not mean individuals treat LGBTs as "second class". Christian believers who provide specific services may refrain from providing services that promote homosexuality and still advocate for certain LGBTs rights such as KGBs in Africa. While fully aware that they may receive hate messages from pro-LGBT groups because they refuse to promote homosexuality, similarly to one publicized minister, they continue to fight against KGBs in Africa.

variant · Feb 15, 2014

Sketcher said:
Neither were "white only" businesses. So I'm not sure what your basis is.

Yeah there's no one in the old south that thought that God made the white people superior or anything.

Yeah white supremacy and such having no religious or moral connotations at all.

Must be a charmed world you live in.

http://tommydavis.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/kkk.jpg

Certainly no one making their bigotry about religious expression or getting God involved at all:

Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Google News Archive Search

Should I continue?

Sketcher · Feb 15, 2014

variant said:
Yeah there's no one in the old south that thought that God made the white people superior or anything.

Yeah white supremacy and such having no religious or moral connotations at all.

Must be a charmed world you live in.

http://tommydavis.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/kkk.jpg

Certainly no one making their bigotry about religious expression or getting God involved at all:

Sarasota Herald-Tribune - Google News Archive Search

Should I continue?

These are not examples of moralizing or rebuking black people. These are examples of harassing and marginalizing black people.

variant · Feb 15, 2014

Sketcher said:
These are not examples of moralizing or rebuking black people. These are examples of harassing and marginalizing black people.

They considered it Gods work. Or, they justified what they were doing in the name of your God. To them it was a moral rebuke.

You can justify about any hateful action this way, you could even claim first amendment privileges, so here we are today.

TLK Valentine · Feb 15, 2014

Sketcher said:
These are not examples of moralizing or rebuking black people. These are examples of harassing and marginalizing black people.

So it's a perfect comparison after all.

Joykins · Feb 15, 2014

KnowtheSilence said:
Question: If it is a violation of religious freedom to require certain businesses (florists, bakers, DJ's, venue owners, etc.) to provide their services in support of a same-sex wedding when such unions violate the owner's religious conscience, is it not equally as great a violation if a business owner is required to provide services for interreligious or interracial weddings when they have a religious objection to those?

I've wondered this since I started hearing about bakers and florists getting fined or sued for not wanting to be a part of a same-sex wedding, and now that we're hearing about states trying to pass legislation that will prevent those penalties from being leveled against business owners in those situations. I understand that current laws would not make it possible for a business to refuse service if the reason has to do with the client's race or religion, but don't those laws violate religious liberty just as much as the laws that would require providing services to same-sex weddings?

If the answer is "yes," what, if anything, should be done about it?

If public businesses want the same rights to religious conscience as private individuals or specifically religious organizations, then they need to restructure to become one or the other, keeping in mind that the primary purpose of neither is to make a profit by providing goods and/or services to the public.

Jeffwhosoever · Feb 16, 2014

Lovely Jar said:
This subject has been discussed adnauseum in these forums.
What is interesting is that in two pages the majority of people commenting are not Christian. When the subject revolves around our faith and values on this issue of homosexual behavior.

Just those who are not religious entering into a flame fest arguing for sodomites civil right to violate the civil right of the religious whom they hold in contempt.

And race? How absurd. Race isn't a corrolary nor has it ever been in this topic.

Race is genetic! And the racist may want to know that there are more than black people that qualify as those who can be involved in an interracial relationship.

While there is no gay gene. This means homosexuality is not genetic. No one is born gay! If they were there would be a gay gene. It's instead a behavior, a lifestyle choice, and an abnormal sexual sin according to Christian doctrine.

The reason Christians concern themselves with homosexual behavior demanding the right to trample our civil rights is because while all people can be said to be sinners, the homosexual sinner demands the right to have their behavior trump the religious civil rights of others. They demand the civil right to trespass and offend. And they bully and are intolerant of the religious, as we see when they target Christian businesses so as to put them out of business when that Christian holds to their faith and does not condone deviant behaviors have a right to parade and flaunt their illness in public.

Yes, Christians should have the right to refuse service to homosexuals! It is not nor will it ever be the same as demonstrating racism. That argument is a category mistake. But those who interject that as an argument are not aware of that and that is why they fail in making that comparison.

QFT - and very well stated.

Sketcher · Feb 16, 2014

variant said:
They considered it Gods work. Or, they justified what they were doing in the name of your God. To them it was a moral rebuke.

You can justify about any hateful action this way, you could even claim first amendment privileges, so here we are today.

I'm not justifying what they did, I'm pointing out that the basis and motivation for refusing certain services to gay people is different from the basis and motivation that was used to refuse services to black people.

Deacon001 · Feb 16, 2014

variant said:
You think the first amendment means you can use a buisness to treat black people like crap and make their lives miserable, what assumptions do I really need?

Why do you keep bringing up "black people"? That's not what's being discussed here.

TLK Valentine · Feb 16, 2014

Deacon001 said:
Why do you keep bringing up "black people"? That's not what's being discussed here.

"I refuse to hire, serve, allow in my store, or do any business whatsoever with __________ people because it violates my religious beliefs to do so."

Legally speaking, does it matter what you fill in the blank with? If so, why?

Deacon001 · Feb 16, 2014

TLK Valentine said:
"I refuse to hire, serve, allow in my store, or do any business whatsoever with __________ people because it violates my religious beliefs to do so."

At least make an attempt to be honest, will you? The baker would have sold them any cake they wanted (and had done so in the past), he just refused to decorate it the way they wanted.

TLK Valentine · Feb 16, 2014

Deacon001 said:
At least make an attempt to be honest, will you? The baker would have sold them any cake they wanted (and had done so in the past), he just refused to decorate it the way they wanted.

At least make an effort to see the big picture -- I'm not talking about a baker.

Deacon001 · Feb 16, 2014

TLK Valentine said:
At least make an effort to see the big picture -- I'm not talking about a baker.

The only big picture is in your imagination, it is what it is. Watching you guys trying to conflate a refusal to decorate a cake into "you hate black people" would be comical if it wasn't so tedious.

TLK Valentine · Feb 16, 2014

Deacon001 said:
The only big picture is in your imagination, it is what it is. Watching you guys trying to conflate a refusal to decorate a cake into "you hate black people" would be comical if it wasn't so tedious.

Then why are you afraid to answer my question? What difference dies it make what you fill in the blank with?

Deacon001 · Feb 16, 2014

TLK Valentine said:
Then why are you afraid to answer my question?

Aside from the fact that it has no part in this discussion, nothing.

Religious conscience and providing services

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