Religiously Based Service Refusal

Basil the Great said:

If these figures are correct, then it would appear that narrow mindedness is on the rise in recent years.

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Some people are very morally and ethically confused.

Personal rights must end with the harm principle. It is right and proper for government to forbid businesses to engage in discriminatory behaviors that harm communities.

If someone owns goods or provides services, they should be allowed to not sell or provide said goods or services for whatever reason they see fit. After all, do they not own or provide it? To force them to provide or sell is tantamount to forced labour. At least this should be the case in a free society, as freedom of association and trade is a cornerstone of that. Luckily, in a Capitalist society, someone else will inevitably come along to fulfill the supply, should the demand be high enough - out of pure self-interest. Their reasoning for refusal is immaterial, as they might just as well refuse to serve people called Joe or stink of too much cologne. The only places I think a reasonable exception be made is in the case of a monopoly, or Life or Limb situations. In my country for instance, someone with a life-threatening situation will be treated in private health care, before transfer to state care, if that had been the closest hospital.

Of course, our societies aren't completely free, with various legal and cultural fetters. Even more so in partially socialised industries, like Medicine. To force a specific person to work or exchange his property unwillingly, when other options are available, is basically tyranny though. We may not like being denied service on occasion, but provided this is not statutory, it would be an erosion of freedom to force it in such cases.

In the real world it is messy, on whether we should allow people such freedom or not. That statistics reflect religious biases is understandable, as religious people tend to be closer-knit groups that reflect strong in-group biases (not that non-religious groups and divisions are that different in this regard, as educational or linguistic or racial discrimination shows). It depends what you value, whether conformity or equal access or conscience; as someone will be negatively impacted regardless.

It reminds me of the fable of the father and son buying a donkey, who ended up carrying it tied to a pole after trying to please everyone. I am inclined to favour conscience myself; though I care less about cakes and photographers, than about forcing doctors to perform euthanasia or abortion. While personally I would disagree with refusal to serve on grounds of race or so, one must uphold the principle even when you don't agree with this or that application thereof. Luckily, so long as Capitalism reigns somewhat, the market will punish and reward; and if the country in question has some form of representation or personal freedoms, the collective culture will do likewise.

Hank77 said:

First I didn't say nuns could be priests, that's ridiculous they're nuns. Do Catholic women want to be priests? I highly doubt it because Catholics are very much in support of their doctrines

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I have an aged aunt who became a nun at about age 20 and spent much of that time as a mother superior. In her retirement she was frequently called out on Sundays to parishes without priests --- she would conduct a worship service, deliver a homily and distribute the Eucharist. She once told me "If the Pope declared today that nuns could be priests, by tomorrow I would have clawed, kicked and bit my way to the head of that very long line."

Occams Barber said:

SOURCE: Increasing Support for Religiously Based Service Refusals | PRRI

Increasing Support for Religiously Based Service Refusals

In April 2019 the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) conducted a random, representative phone survey of 1,100 American adults to assess support for religiously based service refusal directed at a number of minority groups.

The survey, conducted by professional interviewers, was based on responses to this statement:

“A small business owner in <your state> should be allowed to refuse to provide products or services to < group> , if doing so violated their religious beliefs”​

The groups were:

• Gay/Lesbian
• Transgender
• Atheists
• Muslims
• Jews
• African American

Where data was available, the results were compared to a similar survey conducted in 2014.

This bar chart summarises the overall results. Note that acceptance of service refusal has significantly increased since 2014:
View attachment 270098


This chart (below) shows support for refusal by religious affiliation. Across the board, white Evangelical Protestants or white Mainline Protestants were most likely to agree with refusal of service.
View attachment 270099


In 4 out of 6 groups, Republican support for refusal of service was more than double that of Democrats (see chart below):
View attachment 270100
SOURCE: Increasing Support for Religiously Based Service Refusals | PRRI

OB

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Can it not be reversed like not shopping at a certain store because it is owned by a......fill in the blanks.

JackRT said:

I have an aged aunt who became a nun at about age 20 and spent much of that time as a mother superior. In her retirement she was frequently called out on Sundays to parishes without priests --- she would conduct a worship service, deliver a homily and distribute the Eucharist. She once told me "If the Pope declared today that nuns could be priests, by tomorrow I would have clawed, kicked and bit my way to the head of that very long line."

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Thanks for sharing that information.

How about this then.

A social assistent like who is employed to assist elderly,
in what they need help with.
Recently their was a case of a muslim female assistent
who recieved a shopping list from a handicapped elderly person.

So when assistent came back with the shopping,
she had not bought the ham that was on the list,

When asked why no ham, she was told that,

It went against the assistents faith.

The elderly person contacted the social welfare service to complain,

they put the phone down.

Laugh or cry?

Quid est Veritas? said:

If someone owns goods or provides services, they should be allowed to not sell or provide said goods or services for whatever reason they see fit. After all, do they not own or provide it? To force them to provide or sell is tantamount to forced labour. At least this should be the case in a free society, as freedom of association and trade is a cornerstone of that.

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The US has already had this discussion and came to a different conclusion.

essentialsaltes said:

The US has already had this discussion and came to a different conclusion.

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Well, not really. You seem to have missed my point entirely.

The US civil rights act was designed to strike down Jim Crow laws and segregation enforced by statute. It was thus to remove a form of tyranny that impinged freedom to sell or buy goods and services. The US also has a right to freely practice religion and freedom of association, which in effect would thus contravene an absolute ban on 'discrimination'. As I said, the real world is messy. If the South had just had segregation on cultural grounds, with no laws or authorities enforcing it, then such an act would have been a form of tyranny itself. As I said, no one really gets their way. You can't stop people from selling or serving to whom they want, but it is perhaps just as beyond the pale to mandate that they must do so.

I am South African: We did the racial segregation thing much more recently than you lot did, and the cultural differences are far more stark here. There are no simple solutions to such questions.

Occams Barber said:

I actually thought about this i.e. the likelihood that judgements are based on the probability that Group X will ask for something which will violate religious sensibility. The problem is that it's difficult to see what an atheist could possibly ask for. Jews - possible but being asked to photograph a barmitzva hardly warrants a 19% approval to refuse rating. It's even harder to see an African American demanding something which is counter to Christian sensibility. Please don't tell me the race issue has gone away. I'm hearing for too much to accept that.

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When did I ever even hint that "the race issue has gone away"? You asked why the percentages differed, not why there were any at all.

I'm not going to say you're totally wrong - it may be a factor, but the numbers suggest something a little more visceral.

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Like you just wrote to me, I'm not going to say you're totally wrong, it probably is a factor, but how can you know that? Or rather, how can you know that it is to such a degree as to make a declarative statement about it, rather than tempering your analysis as you did when reacting to my post?

You're missing the point. I'm saying that the results are based on underlying prejudice in the survey subjects as opposed to the acceptability of refusing service.

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Again, the question I was answering was not "Why did anyone answer in the affirmative", but "Why do the percentages differ". Apparently you've forgotten your own question.

I have no idea what this last sentence means.
OB

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It was supposed to go with the bit before it about people being in favor of letting other people express whatever view they may have even if you personally think they are wrong -- for example, how you, an atheist, are free to post on these messageboards because that view is (or some would say was until fairly recently) the dominant view in American society, where free speech protections and freedom of association are quite a bit stronger than in many other countries.

Sorry for being unclear.

Quid est Veritas? said:

Well, not really. You seem to have missed my point entirely.

The US civil rights act was designed to strike down Jim Crow laws and segregation enforced by statute.

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The photo is of a lunch counter with segregation enforced by Woolworths. No law required them to be segregated.

This resulted in changes to laws relating to public accommodations, such as stores and restaurants.

Under US federal law, public accommodations must be accessible to the disabled and may not discriminate on the basis of "race, color, religion, or national origin."

Quid est Veritas? said:

Well, not really. You seem to have missed my point entirely.

The US civil rights act was designed to strike down Jim Crow laws and segregation enforced by statute. It was thus to remove a form of tyranny that impinged freedom to sell or buy goods and services. The US also has a right to freely practice religion and freedom of association, which in effect would thus contravene an absolute ban on 'discrimination'. As I said, the real world is messy. If the South had just had segregation on cultural grounds, with no laws or authorities enforcing it, then such an act would have been a form of tyranny itself. As I said, no one really gets their way. You can't stop people from selling or serving to whom they want, but it is perhaps just as beyond the pale to mandate that they must do so.

I am South African: We did the racial segregation thing much more recently than you lot did, and the cultural differences are far more stark here. There are no simple solutions to such questions.

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Look, businesses can still reserve the right to refuse service to somebody who is being a jerk or something like that. It just means you can't tell gay people "we don't serve your kind here".

I am shocked that in the 21st century people should get away with such sick bigotry by using their religion as an excuse for it.