Religious Freedom
| Mon May. 4, 2009 8:47 AM PDT
Should a Baptist minister be required to marry a gay couple? Of course not. Should an adoption service run by the Catholic church be required to place children in gay households? Probably not. Andrew Sullivan asks the obvious followup:
But how far do you go? Should a Catholic caterer, for example, be able to refuse to provide food for a second marriage? My own view is: yes. But then I'm a libertarian in many ways. I see protecting religious freedom in the civil sphere as a core principle. And by exposing such religious prejudice so baldly, and allowing the market to disadvantage the bigoted, we may even help jump-start the conversations that will eventually persuade people that they're wrong.
God knows, if Andrew is OK with this, I suppose I should be. And I think there's a strong case to be made that in practice this might not be a big deal. After all, do same-sex couples really want to hire photographers and caterers who make it clear they loathe them? Probably not. But then, you might have asked the same thing 50 years ago: do Southern blacks really want to eat at lunch counters where they obviously aren't welcome? As it turned out, yes.
This has become the latest front in the gay marriage wars, and I'd be careful about ceding too much ground here. Laws guaranteeing religious freedom are fine as long as they cover actual religious practice. But once they start covering bog ordinary commercial establishments that don't have even a tenuous connection to a church and want to discriminate merely because they don't like gays — well, that's a line that gets pretty hard to draw pretty fast. What's worse, in some places it's a line that would essentially take over entire towns. If a caterer can refuse to sell me a wedding cake just because I'm gay — despite state law that would normally outlaw such discrimination — can a landlord refuse to rent me and my newly married partner an apartment despite fair housing laws saying he has to?
I haven't thought this through in a lot of detail, but I'm uncomfortable extending these "religious freedom" exemptions beyond actual religious establishments. I'm all for compromise that turns down the volume on the culture wars, but once these laws are in place they run the risk of cementing bigoted practices in place for years or decades longer than they'd otherwise survive. Count me as a skeptic that, in the long run, this is workable.
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Comments
I'm all for allowing
Submitted by Houston B. on Mon May. 4, 2009 9:24 AM PDT.
I'm all for allowing religious people to discriminate, albeit with a caveat. Businesses who wish to discriminate need to say so up front. If they wish to discriminate against Gays, then have a sign at their entrance saying "No Gays." If they wish to discriminate against Muslims, then have a sign at the front entrance saying, "No Muslims." "No Blacks." "No Mexicans." "No Liberals." "No Republicans." Etc. That way the business in question has the freedom to discriminate, but then, so does the public. I don't want to spend my money at a place that worries about such shit.
On the other hand, when I go to a business as a member of the Public, I should not be embarrassed by the business in question's dishonesty of not making it clear that they are not interested in serving all of the public.
the problem with that
Submitted by kahner77 (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 9:30 AM PDT.
is the same one I mention in my other post. Its great in a major metropolitan area with diversity of population and businesses to choose from. But what about the outsider living in a largely homogeneous community? There, everyone can put up a "N0 Gays" sign and justify it with religion and everyone's happy. Except the gay couple who are legally barred from every business and service available to them.
I hate slippery slop arguments
Submitted by kahner77 (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 9:26 AM PDT.
because so often the slop is not slippery. But in the case of legalizing discrimination, i think there really is a problem with creating a broad exemption for "religious" beliefs. After all, a religion can be pretty much anything. You get a group of people together and say you have a set of beliefs. So my new religion says non-white people are impure, so i refuse them service in my business. Obviously this would not be OK, so why should it be ok in regards to sexual orientation?
Also, it may not seem like a big deal if a caterer refuses to serve you if you live in a metropolitan area. You just go to another caterer. But what about folks in small towns where there's 1 caterer, 1 doctor, 1 mechanic and they all have a religious belief that your gay lifestyle is immoral. Well, then your proper f***ed. And I think this is a very plausible and problematic situation for many people, not just an esoteric "what if a man wants to marry a dog" type argument. As Kevin says, outside of the specific functions and domain of the religious institution, we can't legalize discrimination.
Selective discrimination
Submitted by anandine on Mon May. 4, 2009 9:53 AM PDT.
I'd say we can't make any religious group perform any sacrament on anybody they don't want to, but if they are running a business open to the public, they can't refuse to serve protected groups.
In general, I think groups should be able to limit their services to themselves but not to single out other groups. That is, the Sons of Poland should be allowed to limit their membership to only people with Polish ancestry, but they couldn't keep out only Jews or Czechs. Catholic adoption agencies should be allowed to serve only catholics, but they shouldn't be allow to single out gays or muslims or divorced people not to serve.
This financial crisis might
Submitted by felinecannonball on Mon May. 4, 2009 10:13 AM PDT.
This financial crisis might be a great time for the Mormon Church to buy Bank of America.
No End to Discrimination
Submitted by K in VA (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 10:13 AM PDT.
And how do you prove that the refusal to provide services is truly based on religious belief, and not on vicious, everyday homophobia?
And what about the "Christian" who doesn't want to photograph a Jewish or Moslem wedding?
No, this is America, and we need to respect our Constitution: You set the rules within your own church (mosque, temple, whatever). The state sets the rules in the marketplace and in city hall.
"God knows, if Andrew is OK
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 10:17 AM PDT.
"God knows, if Andrew is OK with this, I suppose I should be. "
A month or so ago, you had a post about florists not serving gays and you were all against that. Today you say, as Sullied goes, so goes the Drum.
Look, gays can be dumbasses and are not in charge of what's wrong or right, gaywise.
I think Sully is right here, but I thought you were wrong about the florists.
The point is, you are the dumbass for looking to prominent gays to be the all knowing champions of gay rights. Just as you are a dumbass for looking to prominent feminists, blacks, disabled, latinos to be the all knowing champion of rights for their group.
It's dumbass thinking, it's shallow, it's politically correct, and it's how we get many of the stupid policies associated with the left that we have.
Feminism used to be about gender equality, Kevin, until you ceded all your brains to feminist activists and decided you couldn't say they were dumbasses at times.
Stop being a dumbass.
um, someone needs to calm down a bit
Submitted by kahner77 (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 10:30 AM PDT.
if you disagree with kevin so strongly and think he's such a "dumbass" stop reading the blog. If you disagree with him on this issue and find value in some of the things he writes then disagree in a civilized way.
As far as the substance of your argument (what there is between the name calling), it seems clear that Kevin's in fact not agreeing with Andrew. However he does give a certain amount of deference to Andrew's opinions on an issue that would directly affect him and presumably which Andrew has spent a good deal of time thinking about. Yes, prominent gays writers and commentators get looked to first when debating gay issues. A prominent priest similarly might be looked to first on a catholic issue. Its not making them the all knowing champions of anything. Its acknowledging that they probably have spent a lot of time thinking an issue because it directly affects them and they know more than the average person about it. God forbid we ask a disabled person about issues of disability, since they don't have an unique insight, huh? I guess we should all just ask you.
Financial disincentive--really?
Submitted by srush (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 11:03 AM PDT.
Sullivan seems to think that bigots, once they get hit over the head financially by refusing good business from people they don't like, will see the light. Sorry, but we've already been thru this experiment. In the South, refusing to serve blacks was tantamount to turning away 30% or more of your customer base. And yet it happened. I believe there were plenty of people who put their "principles" over financial reward, at least initially, before the whole thing became institutionalized. But let's be honest, plenty of business owners gained as many loyal customers as they lost *because* their stance. Does anyone really believe the same wouldn't be true here--that a significant segment of the population wouldn't actively seek out businesses that discriminate? Isn't it easy to imagine bars and clubs that guarantee 100% hetero clientele, restaurants where little Johnny and Sally will be safe from witnessing that awful "deviant" two-mommy behavior? What about real estate agents who make it their business to know where "the gays" are in any neighborhood as a service to their discriminating customers?
"Imagine" is a very
Submitted by Chris Anderson (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 12:30 PM PDT.
"Imagine" is a very important word here because in the real world USA, the situations mentioned above happen so infrequently that they might as well not exist. I say this as a real live gay man with a partner & home & 2 dogs.
Bars and Clubs: Just how does one guarantee a 100% hetero clientele? I suppose by turning away anyone who looks gay, but it really doesn't happen. Some lesbian bars, OTOH, will turn away men.
Restaurants: Seen "no shirt, no shoes" but never "no homos."
Real Estate Agents: This one is the best. These folks don't know about house-by-house demographics, and even if one would be crazy* enough to insist on an all-hetero street, there is no guarantee whatsoever that the street will stay that way when the next house sells.
These kinds of issues would be of concern to me if they actually existed, but they don't! Unless you want to protect someone from ever feeling uncomfortable , we don't need this kind of law for businesses.
Want to be treated with respect? Act like an adult and don't expect a law if, god forbid, you can't get a business to return your call.
(By the way, public schools and public servants like police officers---hell yeah, make it so they can't discriminate.)
*Crazy, because we make awesome neighbors--doesn't everyone know that already?
Quick follow-up
Submitted by Chris Anderson (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 1:28 PM PDT.
Comparing this to Jim Crow really brings it home to me how some african-americans dislike comparisons between gay rights issues and the civil rights movement. There has never been (and certainly isn't now) a Jim-Crow type regime to deny access to gay people. Saying there is (or could be!) one is insulting to those who lived under and worked to dismantle legal segregation.
And on real estate: if you put yourself in the hands of someone who doesn't have your best interests in mind, then I'd say you deserve what you get. Real estate agents simply do not have the power to embargo or control the information on available housing that they once did--the internet took that away. Not using it is no excuse.
A few years ago there was a
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue May. 5, 2009 7:36 AM PDT.
A few years ago there was a landscaper somewhere around the Houston area that was called out for a job. When he realized the couple was gay, he refused the job. The result of the furor? The landscaper got a lot of new business as a result of the controversy. By allowing ordinary businesses an exception to non-discrimination rules can, in cases like these, create a business incentive that forces businesses to discriminate. After all, if that will generate a lot of new business, why not turn away one or two gay customers based on "principle"?
Let them eat cake!
Submitted by Henry (No, the other one) (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 11:06 AM PDT.
Kevin, you often note how the polls can change radically when the questions are shifted slightly. This is the same thing: The problem is that while it is foolish to want your gay wedding catered by the Topeka Baptist Church, and when the question is asked that way, I too feel like ‘Why not’?
Of course, it’s not really about the cake. The issue is whether the right to practice your religion trumps other basic rights. Getting a wedding cake is easy to dismiss, but can a religious group discriminate against other religions, or race, or ethnicity?
We’re already seeing county clerks, doctors, and pharmacists who are refusing to treat people because they are. What next? Will cops be able to refuse to investigate crimes that their religion doesn’t disagree with? Would you still feel the same way if these were the issues, as opposed to catering?
At its essence, it’s the same argument.
I think these laws should be
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 11:13 AM PDT.
I think these laws should be VERY narrowly construed, and only in the practice of one's religion.
So no, a Catholic priest should not marry or bury a gay couple (or, for that matter, a Catholic and a Jew, or two Baptists). Because that's not part of their religion. They should absolutely NOT be expected to baptise a baby who will be raised by parents who are not raising it, in their opinion, in a "Catholic" way, whether that means it's because they're gay or anything else. And they should not have to give communion to someone whose hairstyle, much less whose sexual orientation, they find inconsistent with their religion. Heck, they should be able to throw anyone out of any church ceremony for any reason, no matter how offensive, ridiculous or trivial.
But I'm sorry, adoption agencies aren't a sacrament. Neither are food banks. So, while I don't expect a Catholic church to give a gay person communion, their food bank has to give him food. And while I don't think they should have to baptise a baby being raised by a gay couple, they shouldn't be allowed to throw gay parents out of their adoption agency.
If you don't want the state to regulate your rate of interest, then you shouldn't allow moneylenders in your temple, okay?
hard to believe
Submitted by Jimm (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 11:51 AM PDT.
It's hard to believe that a Catholic caterer would have the market cornered so that one was forced to use them instead of the dozens to hundreds of other caterers available, but in such a case where the 2nd marriage people were insisting on this Catholic caterer, and the Catholic caterer wasn't crafty enough to just decline the business for other reasons, if they want to refuse business because of someone's evident public behavior (i.e. 2nd marriage), I don't see a problem with that, this is a free country, the caterer is likely not receiving special taxpayer (public) benefits or privileges, and the internal source (religious or not) of their disapproval of this evident public behavior is frankly irrelevant.
In other cases though, we may not be dealing with "evident public behavior", but "implied/assumed private behavior", and there I would have to look into the issue more closely, especially if it was a case like homosexuality where we are not dealing with a "choice" in terms of that sexual/romantic orientation.
In the end though, we may discover that that it wouldn't be okay to act as a private bigoted business against a gay couple, but it in other cases where choices are being made by the client seeking business (and disapproved of by the business), we just have to life with the fact and reality of bigotry, whether the behavior is evident and public or implied and private (a private business owner may refuse service to anyone as long as it doesn't clearly violate someone's rights).
As for the Catholic adoption agency, I draw a firm line here, unless it's organized completely privately, and I'm not sure that's even possible when it comes to adoption, where one would assume there always to be some public/state element. So, in the case it was a completely private service that only facilitated the contacts between the birth parent(s) and the adoptee(s), having no public/state connection or assistance, then I would support the Catholic adoption agency from refusing business, but otherwise I would not support any publicly funded or sanctioned business from refusing service to any American that would be a violation of their rights (of course, they could still refuse service for reasons of law or reasonable ranking assessment, like being a sex offender or not being able to show enough income to support the child).
Pharmacists and doctors
Submitted by alan (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 11:52 AM PDT.
Pharmacists and doctors refusing to give people the medications, products and information they are legally entitled to and which they may truly require is where this view runs aground.
When your duty as a citizen is in conflict with your pet notions, in law citizenship is required to triumph.
Pet Notions?
Submitted by wbinmd (not verified) on Tue May. 5, 2009 5:23 AM PDT.
I guess you feel a Doctor whose view is pro-life just suffers from a trivial "pet notion" and should be FORCED to provide abortion "services."
The pet notion is this. You can not define life at any consistent, invariable point in time other than conception. Sustainable life outside the womb is variable dependent upon each individual baby. Anti-life proponents would have people believe that a baby that is partially "born" with their head sticking out of a womb, fully capable of sustaining life just a moment later, is not a life at all and just a choice." THAT is a pet notion based on nothing more than the desire to terminate a life for convenience.
Doctors are called to save lives. Anything legislation that forces them to do otherwise is criminal, tyrannical, and unconstitutional.
pharmacists/doctors
Submitted by Jimm (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 12:18 PM PDT.
For elective procedures and issues, we probably shouldn't use the same calculus as we do for emergency procedures and issues.
What's to stop a pharmacy from just not stocking stuff they don't want to sell? If they do stock it, then they should not be making a distinction who to sell it to, unless we're talking about minors, in which case they should have the right to refuse service (indeed should in terms of legal culpability), unless of course there is an actual law that allows for it, in which case they should abide by the law or conscientiously object (and probably go to jail or lose license).
As for private doctors, I don't have any problem with them refusing to recommend elective procedures they either morally or medically oppose; indeed, it's almost Orwellian to assert that the State could require them to do so.
Remember: Sullivan opposes all civil rights laws.
Submitted by Spartacus (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 12:38 PM PDT.
Sullivan may or may not be right on this one (and the details matter), but people should know that he's being coy: he's actually such a libertarian that he opposes all civil rights laws as applied to private businesses. It's a long-standing position and no secret; a quick search would come up with lots of citations to prove it. Sullivan's "progressive" positions extend, and have always extended, solely to the belief that government, not private actors, must treat all people equally (and in particular must let gays marry).
I'm with Houston
Submitted by MaryContrary (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 12:40 PM PDT.
I agree wholeheartedly with the very first post. Discriminate if you want, but let me know before I walk in the door. (Or not.)
I think Kevin misses an important point. Blacks 50 years ago didn't want to eat in places they weren't welcome. But the riots in Tulsa, OK and Rosewood, FL made it perfectly clear. The message was, you can't build your own institutions to serve yourselves, and you won't be treated equally in our institutions. And if the courts are going to be the remedy... well, it's a lot easier to sue to make Southerners treat equally than it is to sue to keep them from burning down your towns.
Today is a completely different situation. Really, if I'm gay, or Black or liberal or whatever, and I see that every institution in the town has a sign on the front door that says "We hate you," isn't that something it would be good for me to know?
Then I can safely get out while I can, and 60 Minutes II can come in and run that "Town of Hate" special.
A Novel Idea
Submitted by Brian on Mon May. 4, 2009 12:42 PM PDT.
Would it be so awful to allow each individual business to decide to whom it will provide goods and/or services?
exceptions
Submitted by Jimm (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 1:11 PM PDT.
No, unless they receive public funding or are discriminating upon the basis of an inherited personal characteristic or religion of the other, the latter of which is firmly written into the Bill of Rights and clearly unconstitutional and illegal in every case.
I would also note that the "religion of the other" is an interpretation I've always taken away from the Constitution as the likely one, since the clause is referring to being discriminated against, so the Bill of Rights does not say that one cannot discriminate based upon one's own religion, it would be foolish and tyrannical to say that, and one can certainly make choices, distinctions and refusals based upon one's religious beliefs, as long as they do not clearly violate the rights of another not to be discriminated against in the ways identified in the Bill of Rights.
just rephrasing
Submitted by Jimm (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 3:24 PM PDT.
I was just liberally rephrasing the Bill of Rights and follow-up legislation and case law that establishes it to be illegal and a violation of civil rights to be discriminated against due to religion, sex, race or age, and I was being too flippant as well, because I was leaving out discrimination by disability or national origin.
Philosophically, my own approach is that it's immoral and illiberal to discriminate against someone for the circumstances of their birth and resulting DNA (if you prefer religious terms, God's creation).
If you have black skin color, you have black skin color, it is what it is, there is no choice involved (not that you wouldn't have chosen it), and you should not be discriminated against because of it.
Same goes for sex, age, and innate sexual orientation, though there may be requirements related to an activity that naturally discriminate against sex or age (i.e. Special Forces infantry) in the determination of the most qualified and fit for a job.
I would take it even further, though it's silly because noone does this, but it would immoral and illiberal to not hire someone or serve them because they have blue eyes (if they have black oil eyes, we can discuss exceptions, but you should probably serve them first too, so as not to tip them off so they kill you, then sneak away and go call Mulder), though there is not really any constitutional exclusion I'm aware of that prevents this, and I'm not too worried about it either.
Then you have disability and place of origin which are also prohibited as reasons to discriminate, and if "place of origin" literally means only the first place of origin, it too is inherited, whereas disability is clearly something that may or may not be inherited, but even if it isn't, certainly isn't seen as a matter of choice, so again we prohibit discrimination.
Of course, some would say these sanctions only apply to the states and federal government, not businesses, but I disagree, and regardless nearly all businesses are legal creations of the state, unless you are a free independent contractor, and then maybe you're off the hook as far as being a bigot.
Otherwise, individual people are free to be bigots, wind 'em up and watch 'em go.
so no citations
Submitted by Jimm (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 3:30 PM PDT.
So no citations, as I was just using "inherited personal characteristic" as shorthand for what is the guts of the contents of our anti-discrimination laws (and this shorthand obviously shouldn't be meant to include eye color or finger length, if there is any confusion there), along with the additions of religion and disability.
The part I wrote about religious discrimination should speak for itself and is more of a pragmatic philosophical interpretation of the Bill of Rights than it is a legal argument, and anyone is obviously free to disagree (though I don't think it will get you anywhere to argue that religious views must be tailored so as not to be discriminatory on a personal level).
Because It's Discrimination
Submitted by K in VA (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 1:41 PM PDT.
If it's okay for an individual business to refuse to provide services to gays and lesbians, then it's okay to refuse to provide services to people of another race or religion. Right? Is that really what you mean?
You got it.
Submitted by Brian on Mon May. 4, 2009 2:30 PM PDT.
Yes, that's exactly right. Is that too much freedom for you?
yup, too much freedom lost
Submitted by Jimm (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 3:35 PM PDT.
One CEO's freedom to make that decision results in the freedom lost of how many people? Revoke the business license because this company is in violation of the Bill of Rights (at least in terms of discrimination based upon race or religion, clear determination of the fate of homosexuals is an open subject, and one I argue should be inclusionary), and that business license is issued by the state.
If you want to be an independent contractor, be my guest.
jimm, What's to stop your
Submitted by alan (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 2:00 PM PDT.
jimm,
What's to stop your lawyer from mentioning that you don't have to plead guilty?
If you doctor cannot in good conscience perform the job one would necessarily expect of a doctor he is simply in the wrong profession.
The same would apply for to a pharmacist. If they don't stock morning after pills they simply are obviating their community function. Society has a right to expect people doing a particular job will be doing the whole job, not just the part they like.
okay
Submitted by Jimm (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 3:58 PM PDT.
What's to stop your lawyer from mentioning that you don't have to plead guilty?
Professional codes and conduct foremost, I believe, enforced by the licensing guild. Aside from that, plenty of laws, I'm sure.
If you doctor cannot in good conscience perform the job one would necessarily expect of a doctor he is simply in the wrong profession.
I disagree when it comes to "elective" medical procedures, and the lawyer analogy just doesn't work.
If you approach an attorney, he does not have to take your case, but once he does agree to take your case, then he is duty bound to do a good job and can't stop working for you unless he petitions the judge with a very good reason.
Similarly, you can't demand an attorney handle a specific case the way you want him to, dictating all of his arguments for him and so on (though you do have a lot of influence, more so than with a doctor).
A doctor is not duty bound to accept a client demanding an elective medical procedure, and he's not duty bound to handle a medical issue in the specific way a client demands, especially outside of his judgment, as if the client has already diagnosed and prescribed treatment, just needing the doctor to carry it out.
As for the pharmacy, again, I don't see any reason why they would be compelled to stock every single elective medicine possible, especially given space considerations, so they have some leeway in what they do stock (and I've gone numerous times to pharmacies looking for something and couldn't find it), but if "morning after" pills are either required by law or classified as "emergency medicine" then the pharmacy should stock it regardless of moral compunction.
Certainly nowhere in the Constitution or in any medical codes I'm aware of is it required to supply every possible category of elective medicine or you can't be a pharmacy, that sounds like ass-hattery to me, but my own personal opinion is that any legitimate pharmacy should carry any legitimate prescription product or be willing to order it for the customer if there is not a local alternative, and so operate as a respectable business, not a moral agency.
But that's my opinion, otherwise I would leave this to the legislature or to professional guilds to require service through law or license, and if enough people saw it the same way I do in the respective jurisdiction, it would be done.
For the most part, this isn't even relevant in bigger cities where I've lived all my life, so it's not easy for me to relate to the small town only having one or two pharmacies where this issue really raises its head.
Public, Private and Andrew Sullivan
Submitted by fingerfood on Mon May. 4, 2009 3:27 PM PDT.
After I watched Sullivan turn his back to the camera at the end of "Real Time" and begin picking at his ass, I stopped paying any attention to him.
That being said, the answer to this problem is simple: you are operating a public business or a private business. Take your pick. If you are OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, you take what the marketplace sends your way. If you operate privately, you DO NOT ADVERTISE PUBLICLY. Not in the phone book, not on tv, not on the radio and not in your local newpaper. You get your message out by putting up business cards in your church's newsletter, bulletin board or private mailing list.
That was easy.
When it comes to pharmacys it's even easier. Every pharmacy has a sign, right?
So you're driving around looking for a place to get your prescription filled and you see a sign that has a big, circled " + " sign on it: that's the one you're looking for. Otherwise, you end up going to one with a big, circled " - " sign on it and get turned down.
At night, when the signs are lit up, they'll be even easier to spot.
$ 0.02
I live in a county of about
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 4:40 PM PDT.
I live in a county of about 1100 people. There is exactly one gas station, one grocery store, one bank, one tavern, and a handful of restaurants. There is one part-time medical/dental center. In communities this size, anyone who cares what other people are up to can find out, because lots of people feel the same way and gossip travels quickly. There are lots of communities like this in rural areas and the ability for shopkeepers to assign some legally-approved reason to deny someone service (whether true or not) would be widespread and highly popular.
Religious vs civil ceremonies
Submitted by Aatos (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 5:12 PM PDT.
It should be illegal to discriminate in the provision of official state services. Churches shouldn't have to say prayers for gay couples but if they want the right to sign marriage licenses they should have to do it for everyone.
No sanctuary?
Submitted by wbinmd (not verified) on Tue May. 5, 2009 6:01 AM PDT.
Churches should NEVER be forced to marry any couple. Churches have an obligation to scrutinize the lives, religious background, etc. of any couples entering into the bond of marriage. If a couple doesn't want that scrutiny, they can go to Vegas. As for gays, sorry, marriage is a one-way street; man-woman.
What about rural areas?
Submitted by Phil in SD (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 5:37 PM PDT.
I agree with Kevin - ceding "religious freedom" for private interests is very dangerous. In rural areas, services can be very limited. Think about if there is a town where there is only one drug store and the pharmacist is a conservative Catholic who refuses to provide birth control to women because it violates his/her beliefs. Or a rural doctor who refuses to provide perscriptions for birth control to women. You can't just go down the street or to the other side of town to get the perscription filled or to see another doctor. It can involve a drive of 1 or even 2 hours - if you are lucky enough that the next town is more open minded.
This could be a huge door that would allow reintroduction of discrimination. After all, most racial discrimination had the backing of major religious figures in the 1950s and 1960s. I am sorry but when you take a job you have certain social obligations - whether you are an employee or employer. Discrimination cloaked in religious garb is still discrimination.
Just say no
Submitted by rockyjoe (not verified) on Mon May. 4, 2009 6:20 PM PDT.
Why does anyone even bother to read Andrew Sullivan any more? He is clever without being thoughtful. Even when the topic is interesting, the deceptive way that he frames the questions detracts from the debate. After the barebacking incident years ago, it became clear to me that he is a hypocrite as well, so one can only guess what part of his truly messed up analysis he actually believes in. Since he can buy his way out of inequality he has no sympathy for those who can't.On top of that he was a sycophant to the Bushies. The world would be a better place if liberal bloggers just stopped quoting him.
This is a very interesting discussion
Submitted by madprofessah on Mon May. 4, 2009 6:24 PM PDT.
Have people seen the article in the Los Angeles Times that Kevin Drum and Andrew Sullivan are responding to? It's "The flip-side of same-sex marriage."|
My reactions were posted at my blog today:
I'm actually reasonably favorably inclined to agree to strong religious exemptions from non-discrimination provisions as a result of governmental recognition of same-sex marriage if 1) such exemptions are public record and only apply to organizations which receive no federal or state funds (i.e. I want to know who are the caterers, florists, etc who want to say "we don't serve your kind!") and 2) they agree to work to repeal the current federal and state bans on state recognition of same-sex relationships (i.e. DOMA and the 30 states which have banned same-sex marriage by voter intiative) and 3) they do not oppose future legislation to legalize same-sex marriage if it contains these agreed upon religious exemptions.
Additionally, I don't quite see why someone's religious beliefs allow them to discriminate on the basis of any characteristic. Were there religious exemptions for discrimination on the basis of race in the 1960s?
It's not clear to me why current public accomodations jurisprudence can't be used to settle this question. Generally, if you offer services to the public, you don't get to choose a protected class to discriminate against in the provision of this public service. However, I am willing to offer the exemption under the agreement of the three conditions I stated earlier.
I blog at MadProfessah.com
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