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Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed[W:1581]

Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

:doh: You're not understanding the conversation....You, and others brought up human sacrifice as though it was even relevant to this...And I asked you to name any main stream religions practiced today in the United States that call for human sacrifice. So far, you have danced all around it without answering the question. So, I'll just leave it there and take your dodging for what it is, and that is that you know your foolish venture into the absurd was just plain ignorant, and you shot off your mouth without thinking...

But, I will help you....

"Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

So, the overall final verdict is unfortunately for you, that NO you don't get to restrict peoples free exercise of their religion just because you have some special interest you think should gain consideration over that religions belief....At least not constitutionally.
I'll keep dragging this out as many times as I have to...

Take it away, Antonin Scalia ...

"We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.

On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.
"

And, also (quoting Justice Frankfurter):

Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs.

Also, too:

Subsequent decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a "valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes)."

And, finally:


It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in;

but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs.

LINK
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

I'll keep dragging this out as many times as I have to...

Take it away, Antonin Scalia ...

"We have never held that an individual's religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate.

On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition.
"

And, also (quoting Justice Frankfurter):

Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs.

Also, too:

Subsequent decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a "valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes)."

And, finally:


It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in;

but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs.

LINK
That discusses prohibiting conduct, like the human sacrifice hypothetical our liberal friends love to trot out. What this public accomodation laws are being used for now is to force conduct
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

:doh: You're not understanding the conversation....You, and others brought up human sacrifice as though it was even relevant to this...And I asked you to name any main stream religions practiced today in the United States that call for human sacrifice. So far, you have danced all around it without answering the question. So, I'll just leave it there and take your dodging for what it is, and that is that you know your foolish venture into the absurd was just plain ignorant, and you shot off your mouth without thinking...

But, I will help you....

"Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

So, the overall final verdict is unfortunately for you, that NO you don't get to restrict peoples free exercise of their religion just because you have some special interest you think should gain consideration over that religions belief....At least not constitutionally.
Well you know...the Bill of Rights WAS written to protect the Government. No...wait...it was businesses...right? Organizations. That must be it. The Bill of Rights was to protect organizations.NOT...the rights of the individu....hey...wait a second...
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

Well you know...the Bill of Rights WAS written to protect the Government. No...wait...it was businesses...right? Organizations. That must be it. The Bill of Rights was to protect organizations.NOT...the rights of the individu....hey...wait a second...
What people miss is that the Bill of Rights is about what government cannot do to the citizens. Our liberal friends have moved on to believe that government is there to force citizens to do what they don't want to do, and they don't recognize that as the early onset of tyranny
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

Well you know...the Bill of Rights WAS written to protect the Government. No...wait...it was businesses...right? Organizations. That must be it. The Bill of Rights was to protect organizations.NOT...the rights of the individu....hey...wait a second...

Rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights have penumbras. For example, a state government might try to get around the 2nd amendment by banning the sale and possession of ammunition. Sure, you can have your guns, but you can't legally possess ammunition, they'd say. But that would be unconstitional because its effect is to negate the 2nd amendment.

The right to free speech is negated if people are forbidden to speak when they form associations like unions or corporations, therefore that restriction is unconstitutional.

I suspect that the courts will also find that this secular tendency to say that religious people can believe whatever they want so long as they don't express it in public or practice their beliefs in public is an unconstitutional abridgement of freedom of religion.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

That discusses prohibiting conduct, like the human sacrifice hypothetical our liberal friends love to trot out. What this public accomodation laws are being used for now is to force conduct

Read the whole ruling bub.


"It may fairly be said that leaving accommodation to the political process will place at a relative disadvantage those religious practices that are not widely engaged in;

but that unavoidable consequence of democratic government must be preferred to a system in which each conscience is a law unto itself or in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs."


They weren't just talking about human sacrifice.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

What people miss is that the Bill of Rights is about what government cannot do to the citizens. Our liberal friends have moved on to believe that government is there to force citizens to do what they don't want to do, and they don't recognize that as the early onset of tyranny

Actually, if we are now forcing Christian bakers who believe that gay marriage is an aberration to bake cakes for gay weddings then tyranny is at an advanced state.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

That discusses prohibiting conduct, like the human sacrifice hypothetical our liberal friends love to trot out. What this public accomodation laws are being used for now is to force conduct

Force conduct of everyone, not force conduct of people just based on their religious convictions. This is exactly what they are talking about and confirmed by the fact that the owner of Piggie Park Enterprises tried to use that as a defense for why the public accommodation laws should not apply to him, why he should be exempted, because his beliefs came from his religious views. The SCOTUS shot that argument down completely.

The Time A Corporation Cited Religious Freedom As A Way To Avoid Desegregation | Right Wing Watch

Antidiscrimination laws are neutral in their application. They do not target religious beliefs.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

Has J-mac been calling for human sacrifices again?? That's gotta stop!

Hardly. But if you make absurd statements like "The right to practice religion is absolute", then you're agreeing that people should be free to practice their religion in any way they see fit. And that means that there's no legal basis to deny human sacrifice of a willing victim.

Freedom of religion does not mean that YOU have a right to practice your religion in anyway you see fit, but other people of other religions don't. That's why all rights have limitations, otherwise we have anarchy.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

More, from a rude pundit on that case, and the Scalia majority ruling (which has a direct line to today's RFRA's):

<snip>
"And that's because it was designed to undo the ****ery of the Supreme Court in a couple of cases, most specifically the 1990 decision in Employment Division v Smith. In the 6-3 majority's decision, the Court held that the state of Oregon could deny unemployment benefits to two drug counselors who had been fired because they had taken peyote as part of a Native American religious ceremony.

The Court especially had issue with the idea that the state might not have a "compelling interest" in using drug laws against the two men. Said the Court, "If the 'compelling interest' test is to be applied at all, then, it must be applied across the board, to all actions thought to be religiously commanded.

Moreover, if 'compelling interest' really means what it says (and watering it down here would subvert its rigor in the other fields where it is applied), many laws will not meet the test.

Any society adopting such a system would be courting anarchy, but that danger increases in direct proportion to the society's diversity of religious beliefs, and its determination to coerce or suppress none of them. Precisely because 'we are a cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every conceivable religious preference'...

and precisely because we value and protect that religious divergence, we cannot afford the luxury of deeming presumptively invalid, as applied to the religious objector, every regulation of conduct that does not protect an interest of the highest order. The rule respondents favor would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind."


The decision goes on to list these obligations, like "compulsory military service," "health and safety regulation such as manslaughter and child neglect laws" even minimum wage laws. In some ways, the decision makes a great deal of sense. It's just in the case of the Smith defendants, the overreach is kind of stunning.

By the way, you know who wrote this decision that smacked down religion as a reason to violate laws? Antonin Scalia."

The Rude Pundit: History Lesson for Assholes: Bill Clinton Is Not Your Religious "Freedom" Tool
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

More, from a rude pundit on that case, and the Scalia majority ruling (which has a direct line to today's RFRA's):

<snip>
"And that's because it was designed to undo the ****ery of the Supreme Court in a couple of cases, most specifically the 1990 decision in Employment Division v Smith. In the 6-3 majority's decision, the Court held that the state of Oregon could deny unemployment benefits to two drug counselors who had been fired because they had taken peyote as part of a Native American religious ceremony.

The Court especially had issue with the idea that the state might not have a "compelling interest" in using drug laws against the two men. Said the Court, "If the 'compelling interest' test is to be applied at all, then, it must be applied across the board, to all actions thought to be religiously commanded.

Moreover, if 'compelling interest' really means what it says (and watering it down here would subvert its rigor in the other fields where it is applied), many laws will not meet the test.

Any society adopting such a system would be courting anarchy, but that danger increases in direct proportion to the society's diversity of religious beliefs, and its determination to coerce or suppress none of them. Precisely because 'we are a cosmopolitan nation made up of people of almost every conceivable religious preference'...

and precisely because we value and protect that religious divergence, we cannot afford the luxury of deeming presumptively invalid, as applied to the religious objector, every regulation of conduct that does not protect an interest of the highest order. The rule respondents favor would open the prospect of constitutionally required religious exemptions from civic obligations of almost every conceivable kind."


The decision goes on to list these obligations, like "compulsory military service," "health and safety regulation such as manslaughter and child neglect laws" even minimum wage laws. In some ways, the decision makes a great deal of sense. It's just in the case of the Smith defendants, the overreach is kind of stunning.

By the way, you know who wrote this decision that smacked down religion as a reason to violate laws? Antonin Scalia."

The Rude Pundit: History Lesson for Assholes: Bill Clinton Is Not Your Religious "Freedom" Tool

As the Hobby Lobby case shows, religious freedom is far from being completely negated. It's not the case that religion can never be a valid reason to be granted exceptions to laws. Moreover, they are talking about laws that have no intent to restrict or promote religious expression, that have good reasons for existing aside from that. Laws that restrict religious expression qua religious expression are unconstitutional.

These judges argue that since America is so religiously diverse that religion can never be a consideration. That's a bit too cynical and too unconsititional. It's the court's job to weigh these competing rights. They are not at liberty to just negate a right across the board because they think it too hard to consider it.
 
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Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

Back in business with a million dollars in their pocket and customers lined up. Life is good.

The pizza place far beat out cancer patients and Boston Marathon bombing victims. Yay religion!
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

Actually, if we are now forcing Christian bakers who believe that gay marriage is an aberration to bake cakes for gay weddings then tyranny is at an advanced state.

...

While I personally do not believe religious folk should be forced to provide services that may contradict their religious beliefs I think your emotional hyperbole is probably not going to help advance that case. But it does make me happy to see people citing religious liberty as their motivation because in the long run that is going to lead to greater tolerance for everyone because freedom of conscience flows both ways.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

As the Hobby Lobby case shows, religious freedom is far from being completely negated. It's not the case that religion can never be a valid reason to be granted exceptions to laws. Moreover, they are talking about laws that have no intent to restrict or promote religious expression, that have good reasons for existing aside from that. Laws that restrict religious expression qua religious expression are unconstitutional.

These judges argue that since America is so religiously diverse that religion can never be a consideration. That's a bit too cynical and too unconsititional. It's the court's job to weigh these competing rights. They are not at liberty to just negate a right across the board because they think it too hard to consider it.

One thing the Hobby Lobby ruling doesn't do - is allow RFRA's to be used to as a cudgel to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

"But on Monday morning, the apocalypse didn’t come. In fact, quite the opposite: In its ruling for Hobby Lobby, the court—in an opinion authored by arch-conservative Justice Samuel Alito—explicitly stated that RFRA could not be used as a “shield” to “cloak … discrimination in hiring” as a “religious practice to escape legal sanction.” RFRA doesn’t permit employers to break a law when there is a compelling government interest backing that regulation, and, according to Alito, the government “has a compelling interest in providing an equal opportunity to participate in the workforce.”

Alito cites racial discrimination in his opinion. But Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a concurrence, cabins the court’s ruling even further, making clear that the majority isn’t rewriting RFRA (or the First Amendment) to protect anti-gay discrimination.

Kennedy denies that the opinion is a startling “breadth and sweep,” noting that this case could easily be “distinguish[ed] ... from many others in which it is more difficult” to strike a balance between legal regulations and “an alleged statutory right of free exercise.”

While religious liberty may permit employers to exercise their own beliefs to a point, “neither may that same exercise unduly restrict … employees in protecting their own interests.” Translation: This case is about birth control and nothing more—and as a general rule, employees still have a compelling interest in most laws that protect their rights."

The Hobby Lobby ruling is good for gays and doesn't allow discrimination.

The linked article further goes on to discuss how the majority in that decision took on Ginsburg's direct question of whether religious liberty allowed anti-gay discrimination (& not just in employment): “Would RFRA require exemptions in cases of this ilk?” she asks. “And if not, how does the Court divine which religious beliefs are worthy of accommodation, and which are not?”
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

The pizza place far beat out cancer patients and Boston Marathon bombing victims. Yay religion!
Christians, and others, supported the rights of the persecuted Pizza business owner while the leftist Rolling Stone put the Boston Marathon bomber on the cover of their magazine.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

Christians, and others, supported the rights of the persecuted Pizza business owner while the leftist Rolling Stone put the Boston Marathon bomber on the cover of their magazine.

Yup Rolling Stone is horrible. But it is also terribly unfortunate that so many other causes on Gofundme have received nowhere near the support the pizza place did. Why are cancer patients and Boston Marathon victims less worthy of financial support than the pizza place?
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

...

While I personally do not believe religious folk should be forced to provide services that may contradict their religious beliefs I think your emotional hyperbole is probably not going to help advance that case. But it does make me happy to see people citing religious liberty as their motivation because in the long run that is going to lead to greater tolerance for everyone because freedom of conscience flows both ways.

I don't believe it's hyperbole to say that if the state forces servitude on people against their beliefs in such a trivial matter as baking a cake then there is very little the state won't force on citizens.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

One thing the Hobby Lobby ruling doesn't do - is allow RFRA's to be used to as a cudgel to discriminate against gays and lesbians.

"But on Monday morning, the apocalypse didn’t come. In fact, quite the opposite: In its ruling for Hobby Lobby, the court—in an opinion authored by arch-conservative Justice Samuel Alito—explicitly stated that RFRA could not be used as a “shield” to “cloak … discrimination in hiring” as a “religious practice to escape legal sanction.” RFRA doesn’t permit employers to break a law when there is a compelling government interest backing that regulation, and, according to Alito, the government “has a compelling interest in providing an equal opportunity to participate in the workforce.”

Alito cites racial discrimination in his opinion. But Justice Anthony Kennedy, in a concurrence, cabins the court’s ruling even further, making clear that the majority isn’t rewriting RFRA (or the First Amendment) to protect anti-gay discrimination.

Kennedy denies that the opinion is a startling “breadth and sweep,” noting that this case could easily be “distinguish[ed] ... from many others in which it is more difficult” to strike a balance between legal regulations and “an alleged statutory right of free exercise.”

While religious liberty may permit employers to exercise their own beliefs to a point, “neither may that same exercise unduly restrict … employees in protecting their own interests.” Translation: This case is about birth control and nothing more—and as a general rule, employees still have a compelling interest in most laws that protect their rights."

The Hobby Lobby ruling is good for gays and doesn't allow discrimination.

The linked article further goes on to discuss how the majority in that decision took on Ginsburg's direct question of whether religious liberty allowed anti-gay discrimination (& not just in employment): “Would RFRA require exemptions in cases of this ilk?” she asks. “And if not, how does the Court divine which religious beliefs are worthy of accommodation, and which are not?”

The other side of the coin is that there must be a compelling state interest before religious freedoms can be abridged. Negation of religious freedom is not a given.
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

I don't believe it's hyperbole to say that if the state forces servitude on people against their beliefs in such a trivial matter as baking a cake then there is very little the state won't force on citizens.

Was the gov't forcing "servitude" when it said the Atlanta hotel had to admit black guests?

Was it forcing "servitude" when it told the owner of Piggie Park restaurants - even though he religiously believed blacks should not be integrated, so therefore they could not eat at his diners?
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

There are at least two Supreme Court decisions, Hurley and Dale, that prove your assertions are false. Both involved state public accommodations laws which prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. And in both cases, the Court held the law as applied was unconstitutional because it violated a First Amendment right of the public accommodation involved. State public accommodations laws often extend to many things besides hotels, restaurants, and movie theaters, and extending them so far is one reason they tend to conflict with First Amendment freedoms. Where the public accommodation is mainly commercial, a duty to serve is most likely to exist, but there is no bright line between commercial association and expressive association. Justice O'Connor discussed this at length in her concurring opinion in another state public accommodations law case, Roberts v. Jaycees.

The Coeur d'Alene ordinance is another example of a law that attempted to force the very kind of service you claim "no law has ever forced." It threatened the Christian owners of a for-profit wedding chapel with fines and jail time because they declined to let their business be used for same-sex weddings. The town backed down only when the owners filed a suit in federal court. The Supreme Court has made clear in West Virginia Board of Educ. v. Barnette and later in Wooley v. Maynard that laws which compel people to endorse, propound, or celebrate views they do not agree with violate the freedom of speech.
The cases in question are Boy Scouts of America v Dale (2000) or Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Group of Boston (1995).
Boy Scouts of America v. Dale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian, & Bisexual Group of Boston - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Both due with with a private organizations right to exclude members when the presence of that member negatively impacts the ability of the group to publicly or privately express their beliefs. The boyscout successfully argued that the organizing principle of their organization was to instil values in young people, among them that homosexuality was wrong.

In both cases we're dealing with private groups being forced to be inclusive in a way that negates the purpose of their existence. This is akin to the KKK being forced to accept black members. Were that the case the KKK would no longer be an anti-black group. Their freedom of speech would have been impinged.

The bakery is a public for profit business, not a private non-profit group. Thus it fails one leg of the test. Second, anti-wedding-cakes at gay weddings is not a reasonable organizing principle for a business. "I want to start a business to further the view that wedding cakes at gay weddings are wrong" Ridiculous! So it also fails the second part of the test.

What exactly were you trying to get at by referencing these unrelated cases?
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

Was the gov't forcing "servitude" when it said the Atlanta hotel had to admit black guests?

Was it forcing "servitude" when it told the owner of Piggie Park restaurants - even though he religiously believed blacks should not be integrated, so therefore they could not eat at his diners?

Yes...
 
Re: Indiana's 'No Gay Wedding' Pizzeria Has Closed

So servitude is being forced to do anything you don't want to do?

If it is for the direct benefit of someone else.
 
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