So how many states have similar laws? Well, check out the map:
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| Somewhere, Orville Faubus is scratching his head |
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Point of order
We've been informed that Indiana is now the Worst Place in the World because it now has a Religious Freedom law that apparently compels every damned bakery in the entire state to deny gay couples wedding cakes or something.
So how many states have similar laws? Well, check out the map:
Maybe someone can explain to me why Indiana is such a horrible place now, while Rhode Island is not?
So how many states have similar laws? Well, check out the map:
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32 comments:
The way these transactions would normally work, were not the issue of "gay rights" the "trump all" card, is: Somebody would walk into the bakery and ask for a cake. That it was for a gay wedding might come up, but not necessarily. If not, the baker makes the cake and everybody's happy. If it does come up, and the baker has a religious objection (mind you, all sorts of other, non-protected objections might apply), the customer decides to take his business elsewhere and the baker loses the sale. Enough of those and the baker either compromises his principles or goes out of business. The gay couple, finding all 50 bakers in town going to the same church, has to bake their own cake but still gets "married." Nobody coerced, here, just the normal freedom of association and conscience. But apparently that's not allowed anymore.
But apparently that's not allowed anymore.
Well it is allowed, as long as you make the correct choices.
I guess in the age of Yelp, I'm not sure anyone could even get by with not selling a wedding cake to a gay couple anyway.
Ah, but who decides what the "correct choice" is, here? And if it disagrees with the choice I would freely make, isn't it just coercion?
And if it disagrees with the choice I would freely make, isn't it just coercion?
Of course it's coercion. But you need to get your mind right, you see. You'd understand all that if you didn't suffer a false consciousness or a lack of nuance or something like that.
Ah, I see. But suppose my objection isn't based on the Christian Bible, but on the Muslim Koran? Which is the trump card in that case?
Play the Koran, dude. No turning the other cheek there.
i wonder where this story would have gone had the baker been approached bake a cake celebrating Eid, Diwali, a Bar Mitzvah, or a First Holy Communion.
Question: does the baker object, in these examples?
I don't know what the baker says, but I know how I'd deal with it if my baker didn't want to make a cake for a First Holy Communion for a child of mine; I would just take my business elsewhere and never return. I sure the heck wouldn't try to have the state close them down.
@jerry: of course, because he opposes such celebrations... if he was consistent.
Sounds like a false equivalence to me. I see no inconsistency at all. Most Christians I know don't consider a Bar Mitzvah a celebration of sin.
if you reject Christ, isnt that a sin?
if you reject Christ, isnt that a sin?
That's what I was taught. And I was also taught that it's important to share the Good News, with the full understanding that it would fall on many deaf ears.
Maybe someone can explain to me why Indiana is such a horrible place now, while Rhode Island is not?
Because Rhode Island has a statewide anti-discrimination law that explicitly extends that protection to LGBT people, and Indiana does not. Moreover, Pence has dismissed any such proposal for Indiana as not on his priority list.
Apparently, not having banned discrimination legally hasn't prevented harassment of religious business owners, so this law was needed even BEFORE the other was considered. And avoiding extension of discrimination laws based on "State of Being" to discrimination based on behavior isn't at the top of the Governor's list simply BECAUSE of the problems seen in other states.
You run a bakery in Indiana. The Westboro Baptist Church asks you to bake a "God Hates Fags" cake. Should you be allowed to refuse to do so?
If the Westboro crowd had the decency to keep their disgusting lifestyle choices to themselves, I wouldn't even know I wanted to discriminate against them, would I?
...
To answer your question more directly, I should not be able to deny WBC service based on their religion, which is to say, I have to offer them the same level of service I'd offer to any other paying customer. To wit: I should agree to bake them a cake.
They are not, however, entitled to compel me to make any particular kind of cake, or one bearing any particular message, any more than I am entitled to compel McDonnald's to serve me General Tso's chicken.
Since we're throwing out hypotheticals here, why aren't you more concerned about the precedent of carving out religious exemptions to the laws of the land? Because that certainly seems like it could go to some ugly places. Plenty of sects would prefer their daughters not be educated. A few others would prefer they not have clitorises. (Just to pick two scenarios that require no imagining whatsoever.)
Religion isn't a ticket to treat the social contract like a buffet.
Now there is an interesting question. In order to qualify under the RFRA, your objection to the cake must come from a sincerely-held religious belief that God does NOT hate fags. Probably easy enough. Second, there would need to be a state law requiring you to bake that cake (which I'm not sure the Church would be covered under), and finally, that law would have to be the least restrictive solution to them getting their cake. With other bakeries in town, that would be very difficult to prove, so I would refuse, the first time at least.
"Religion isn't a ticket to treat the social contract like a buffet."
And these religious freedom laws do absolutely nothing of the sort. The fundamental question, to me, is: why isn't tolerance a two-way street?
The Bar Mitzvah or Eid examples has an interesting point where any good baker of any religious point of view would first tell the person who wants to buy that their bakery is, or is not, kosher or halal. I also remember a case from Pennsylvania where a bakery refused to bake a birthday cake for a kid whose parents had named him "Adolf Hitler".
If it were my bakery, I'd more or less say that there are some decorations that I will allow to come from my shop, and some that I will not. Male-male or female-female wedding cake toppers are in the latter category, as would be certain messages on the cake.
Same basic things for a photographer or musician. Some things I will photograph/play, some things I will not. Might solve a lot of the issues.
And it strikes me that Brian has some 'splainin' to do about what authority he has for that social contract, and how that authority can't go nastily astray when the views of voters change.
I understand that Brian is not making his points from a conventional religious point of view, and I respect that, but it does leave the question of moral authority rather open.
If the Westboro crowd had the decency to keep their disgusting lifestyle choices to themselves, I wouldn't even know I wanted to discriminate against them, would I?
Precisely the argument WBC makes about gays. I want to have the right to discriminate against WBC on religious grounds.
Precisely the argument WBC makes about gays.
I guess Blogger doesn't support the [/dry sarcasm] tag anymore.
I want to have the right to discriminate against WBC on religious grounds.
Hey, at least we're both consistent!
... Brian has some 'splainin' to do about what authority he has for that social contract
I honestly don't know where to start with that. Did you miss the entire Enlightenment?
I guess Blogger doesn't support the [/dry sarcasm] tag anymore.
Sorry. The caffeine seems to have worn off early today.
Brian: nope. Where do you get the authority? Seems to me that the social contract has changed mightily over the past few years, what stops it from changing yet further in ways that appall us all? See "reign of terror", fascism, communism, etc..
Mr. D--No worries. Some people can't tell when I'm joking in person, either. I doubt it's their fault.
Bubba--I don't know why you think I'm asserting authority. By "social contract" I'm referring (broadly) to the idea, expressed in different ways by the likes of Locke and Hobbes and Rousseau (and more recently by Rawls and Petit) that TL;DR boils down to: the extent to which individuals agree to abdicate some measure of autonomy and agree on some rules (including, hopefully, a framework for changing those rules from time to time), for the sake of living together as a society.
The legitimacy of the social contract derives from mutual consent. (Just like sex!)
Seems to me that the social contract has changed mightily over the past few years
Really? Mightily?
Do we no longer have private property? Due process? Have we forgone elections and trials? Is the military in charge now?
Believe me, you can see mighty changes in the social contract in this world, but you're probably going to have to leave Minnesota.
all this started over a cake.
(is there a 'rolling my eyes' tag?)
I'm not so sure. I think this started way back when. Gays have long had the religious right to walk into any number of churches and have their union solemnized. They have likewise long had the legal right to mutual legal contract. But that wasn't enough, apparently. They had to get the State to establish that they had a "marriage," and to then use the power of the State to force people to accept their "alternative lifestyle" as normal and equal. That's what caused, but not started, this fuss over a stupid cake that wasn't even necessary.
And it should be said that this "terrible new law" is essentially the same one created 25 years ago to allow Native Americans to use peyote in their ceremonies. To allow personal religious freedom to trump the law in certain cases.
Hey, the gays should just be happy with whatever crumbs you give 'em, amirite, Jerry?
You haven't lost an iota of freedom. You've lost a tiny bit of privilege. Condolences.
Here's an easy-to-follow article that pretty much puts this whole angry-face kabuki show into useful context, written by a law professor who also wrote a brief urging the legalization of same-sex marriage.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/uva-law-prof-who-supports-gay-marriage-explains-why-he-supports-indianas-religious-freedom-law_902928.html#!
"You haven't lost an iota of freedom."
Not if I live in Indiana. Or Connecticut.
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