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Post Here If You Know Of an Indiana Christian Denying a Service to Someone

Can you find a gratuitous shot at religious people . . .

In this thread? Speaking of Google, maybe you should Google the ministerial exception. I wouldn't recommend the wiki. It is ridiculously light on context. A Catholic school can fire someone for getting knocked up or converting to Judiasm or having an abortion too. And it doesn't have to hire women priests. Sometimes some rights yield to others and there isn't always a remedy for each and every thing that offends a person's sensibilities.

The flip side of your argument that the First Amendment must always yield to anti-discrimination laws would produce some results that you might not like too. Does Westboro Baptist have a right to march in a gay rights parade? Do the Black Panthers have to allow white people at their meetings? Does a black restauranteur have to cater a white power dinner? Do LGBT organization have to print t-shirts for an anti-gay rally? Can a Muslim be forced to shave his beard in prison? (And before someone asks, I'm not making value judgments here. These are based on real life examples and cases).

This is why we have balancing tests when rights come into conflict. There's nothing new here.
Posted from Rivals Mobile
 
Cut the crap . . .

about me "emoting", particularly since your entire argument against serving gays is purely emotion-based . . . the attempt at a personal slight is a clear indication that your argument is unraveling . . . .

I'm merely pointing out how your attempted logic doesn't hold up because your equivalences - the ones you actually create in your posts - are false ones. Like equating a Klan cross-burning with a gay wedding. You just did that. You'd like to disagree - heck, it pisses you off for me to point out the flaw in your argument - but I stand by those, and am confident in the validity of the observations.
 
Yes and no . . .

Homosexuals are protected classes in many states and municipalities, and were protected classes in some municipalities in Indiana until Pence's RFRA got signed into law.

Swingers . . . not so much, anywhere.
 
Guessed answers . . .

Probably not, but a constitutionally mandated area for WB's protest probably has to be made available.

No (it's a purely private group, not a government-sponsored organization or public accommodation business).

Yes.

Not enough information: Is the LGBT organization in the business of making t-shirts?

No, but he can be forced to wear it short and neatly trimmed.
 
Emotion, moi?

You think somebody who just as vocally endorses equal marriage rights for gay couples as endorses the rights of people to object to same-sex weddings on religious grounds (and, thus, decline to attend them, officiate them, give gifts, or furnish goods or services to them) is operating....from emotion?

Best I can tell, I'm something of a rarity in having these two positions. But I'm entirely comfortable with them, because I know they're both grounded in the same foundation of principle. I may be passionate about my point of view. But don't mistake that for that point of view being borne of emotion.

The last time I mentioned the Klan, instead of laboring to understand the point I was making -- which others seemed to grasp just fine, I might add -- you came unhinged about me "equating gays to the Klan!?!?"

Sorry and all. But don't take it out on me.

Let's try again. You agree, as virtually everybody does, that the Klan is morally repugnant, right? OK, well, some people believe that same-sex marriage is morally repugnant. I'm not using the Klan analogy to equate cross-burnings to gay marriage. I'm using it to establish an example that, while legal, you and virtually everybody else finds morally repugnant.

And the specific point here is that you probably wouldn't have a problem with somebody refusing to cater a Klan event on grounds of not wanting to give any indication of sympathy, affiliation, or even indifference.

In other words, to take the gig is to offer something in the way of endorsement. I'm using the Klan to demonstrate this (obvious, frankly) point....not to say "Gays=Klan!"
 
No, it's not "beside the point"

It is the point. People like me are arguing that discrimination against gay couples is every bit as barbaric as discrimination against interracial couples. People like you are arguing look, over there! If this isn't Loving v. Virginia, then please explain why it isn't. Because I've explained why it is. And you've been all over the place.

Having said so, you've ideologically insisted that you'd return this nation to the days before the Civil Rights Act, when "colored people" were beaten and arrested when they objected to the ways in which Southern bigots asserted their freedom of association. As a courtesy to you, I won't post images of what that looked like, but there were beatings, and bombings, and lynchings, and firehoses, and dogs, and arrests. There's nothing neutral about your principle, just as there was nothing neutral about the principle of states' rights in the 1860s.

You're defending bigotry. Full stop.
 
David Brooks says what I think...

...better than I could ever hope to say it. The entire column is worth reading. But this is the paragraph that hit home most for me -- largely because Brooks, like me, is a friend to the gay rights movement, not a foe:

*****
This deviation seems unwise both as a matter of pragmatics and as a matter of principle. In the first place, if there is no attempt to balance religious liberty and civil rights, the cause of gay rights will be associated with coercion, not liberation. Some people have lost their jobs for expressing opposition to gay marriage. A movement that stands for tolerance does not want to be on the side of a government that compels a photographer who is an evangelical Christian to shoot a same-sex wedding that he would rather avoid.
*****

It's becoming a movement defined by "coercion, not liberation." And a movement long defined by tolerance is now using its hard fought victory as a means of becoming intolerant.

This post was edited on 3/31 10:34 PM by crazed_hoosier2

Religious Liberty and Equality
 
Yes....two examples I know of.....

The most recent is a restaurant owner who called into a radio station to support this law and state that now he has legal protection to do what he has done in the past which is deny service to gay couples that have come into his business.

The second is the cookie shop inside the City Market which refused to bake cookies for a gay wedding or party. (forget the specific event) This actually proves the worthlessness of the law. They refused to provide cookies based on their "strongly held religious beliefs". They were not compelled to, and they were not forced to go against their "beliefs". So maybe this law isn't as necessary as some of the proponents would say?
 
Yes it is . . .

This is the business. They made news not too long ago by standing up for a Christian T-shirt company that didn't want to make shirts for a LGBT organization, saying that they would be offended and angry if the tables were turned and they had to make t-shirts for an anti-gay group. The Christian company was found to have violated a local ordinance (note to those that believe the statute would override a local ordinance, here is an example of it not doing so) and required to do sensitivity training.
 
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