So can a gay couple now sue a church for refusing them their building for a wedding ceremony?
I would never expect a gay couple to want to be married in a church, but i 100% expect a gay couple to attempt it, just so they could sue and get on tv.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
So can a gay couple now sue a church for refusing them their building for a wedding ceremony?
I would never expect a gay couple to want to be married in a church, but i 100% expect a gay couple to attempt it, just so they could sue and get on tv. [/quote]
No, churches are not private businesses.
The only reason the Civil Rights Act of 1964 sustained legal scrutiny for the tenet of that act that applied to private businesses was that the Supreme Court upheld its legal precepts by agreeing with congressional authority to pass the measure as being backed by the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which allows regulation of businesses. Churches and businesses have long operated along legally separate lines of regulation.
Thanks jr, and great insight sloth! The compromise kind of steps on property rights. So its like we need a 3 way deal. Not a 2 way deal.
So Churches are not private business, but what about the clergy? Could you sue a priest for not marrying a gay couple?
It’s blatantly obvious this has nothing to do with civil rights, and everything to do with pushing the liberal social agenda.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Thanks jr, and great insight sloth! The compromise kind of steps on property rights. So its like we need a 3 way deal. Not a 2 way deal.
[/quote]
I can argue that we already step on property rights by having anti-discrimination laws in the first place, at least since the 1960s to present. However, as a society, we’ve mostly accepted that those laws were necessary and reasonable in their time, and that having them hasn’t significantly impacted the ability of the private sector to otherwise operate efficiently, even in the present day. Even though I philosophically disagree with them for reasons already mentioned, I don’t think repealing them does much good at this point, and honestly, I can philosophically compromise in extending the same general protections to LGBT community, with a clause that also protects the rights of the business owners in specific religious exemption circumstances.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
So Churches are not private business, but what about the clergy? Could you sue a priest for not marrying a gay couple?
It’s blatantly obvious this has nothing to do with civil rights, and everything to do with pushing the liberal social agenda. [/quote]
You can theoretically sue anyone for anything. I think the better point to be made is that businesses, and by extension business owners, have long been subject to government regulations of various facets, including anti-discrimination legislation, because there has been recognized to be a compelling legal interest, on the part of the state, to interfere when the realm of ‘public accommodation’ for profit comes into play.
Churches have no such comparable legal history, and have never been regulated to that extent thanks to the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses of the First Amendment. Clergy members, acting according to their positions, have traditionally been protected by law in a number of similar facets as well. So go ahead and try to sue, but the difference between a church and a business is well established in quite a litany of case laws over the last 200 years or so. The same is true of most private clubs and organizations that are not open to the public or those which are not involved in the sales of goods or services, for profit or otherwise, in a venue of public accommodation, e.g., Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Lions Club, Freemasons, Rotary, Sons and Daughters of Liberty, etc.
We all agree we’re 100 percent against messing with churches or clergy!
If the Supreme Court says there hasn’ t been grounds or standing or whatever, and Congress is striking and no one would stand for executive order on this, how can we get our fair, reasonable law passed?
Big businesses need laws consistant from state to state. They will stop any individual state law deemed controversial. Its dangerous for a politicians career to be the face of these things.
Are there any single Religious figures that could represent all religious interests to be like one voice?
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Are there any single Religious figures that could represent all religious interests to be like one voice?
[/quote]
The great god king obama?
Religious, and a Constitutional lawyer, and experienced in the government. He could be on the panel, right?
Most people are asking this question backwards. The question is not if businesses have the right to refuse service, the question is does a customer have a right to coerce service. The people requesting coercion are the ones that need to justify use of force. So while refusing service may be wrong or immoral, it doesn?t mean you are justified in initiating use of force. And NO, you absolutely do not have that right in the absence of extreme circumstances.
I?ve never understood the logic of making not doing something (and as stupid as baking a cake) a crime. The situation for someone requesting a cake is no different than if the baker decided to close the business. I personally refuse to cater to any gay weddings too, because I?m not a baker.
If you want to do violence to someone for them literally not doing something you think they should, you are as intolerant as they come. It is on the same lines as Christians voting to make it illegal not to attend church, or Muslims voting not praying at designated times illegal.
738k
Holy Shit (sorta literally lol)
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Religious, and a Constitutional lawyer, and experienced in the government. He could be on the panel, right?[/quote]
Ummm. I’m going to go out on a limb and say someone who is that pro-choice, has no qualms about trampling constitutional rights, and is just generally a partisan hack has no place on such panel.
[quote]JR249 wrote:
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
If i were a student writing a paper, I would still be doing the research. I’m trying to understand the conflict. Think of me as raising my hand in class, asking a question.
[/quote]
There are two overarching debates going on here.
The conflict is this:
There are state laws and local ordinances that prohibit private businesses from discriminating against protected classes of people based on such categories as race, sex, age, ethnicity, place of origin, creed, nationality AND sexual orientation. That means that you cannot refuse service to a customer based on the customer’s being a member of one or more of those protected classes. On the other hand, the U.S. Constitution guarantees free exercise of religion, and some business owners are citing legitimate religious reasons why they should not be forced to provide goods or services for same-sex wedding ceremonies. In a very limited number of extreme cases, such as the doctor, they are claiming the right to refuse service to gays. Either way, there is the legal dilemma.
Should private businesses be allowed to refuse service for any reason, and on a related note, if no, should there be a clause that makes an exception for legitimate, closely held religious beliefs? In other words, does my fight to free exercise of religion trump your civic right, protected at a state or local level, from not being discriminated against? So far the Supreme Court has refused to take a case on this exact issue (note: the Hobby Lobby case was related, but tied to the ACA, a federal law mandating contraception coverage, not a discrimination issue in the same right). Local and state courts are siding against the Free Exercise clause for the most part.[/quote]
It seems really simple to me. People cannot and should not discriminate an individual on the basis of race, religion, national origin, sex, or sexual preferences, etc. A business owner should not be forced to service occasions that are contrary to their beliefs. I just do not see whats hard about this.
Beans, on the committe representing government. Not Religion! That would be like a conflict of interests or something?
Pat, you wrapped it in a nice little package. You did the same in the Citizen thread. No one can argue with your words.
Happy Easter if i don’t see you before Sunday everyone.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
738k
Holy Shit (sorta literally lol)[/quote]
I still feel horrible for that pizza shop.
[quote]FlatsFarmer wrote:
Nazi bacon cheeseburgers are NOT hyperbole!?
Being compared to a skinhead is not irksome?
What about the social contract? If you enter the protection of the group, you have to abide by the norms of the group?
Earlier my tone was super disrespectful. I dont want to attack anybody, or derail just to be a douche. I’m sorry.[/quote]
It’s not a problem mate! I didn’t take your tone as disrespectful or anything, and I certainly wasn’t upset. You were just saying things that I continue to hear a million times every month from tons of people, and I felt that it needed to be clarified because those comments DO irk me, since they conflate two very separate things and basically make a giant strawman out of some of the arguments put forth over the years.
Not that there aren’t Westboro type people who have put those same arguments against gay marriage out there, they aren’t the same thing or even ‘playing the same sport’. There are fringe ugly elements making all kinds of arguments that sane and reasonable people also make, but that can’t allow someone to conflate the two different things because “guilt by association” is not a logical counterargument. Ya dig? That’s why it bugs me.
I don’t know who was comparing anybody to skinheads, I most certainly wasn’t!
The bacon cheeseburgers may strike you as hyperbole…hell they might BE hyperbole…but that’s a comparison made specifically to draw an analogy between being forced to provide a service to something that’s sacrilegious to a person. So I do think that deserves careful consideration even though it SEEMS out there.
[quote]Aggv wrote:
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
738k
Holy Shit (sorta literally lol)[/quote]
I still feel horrible for that pizza shop. [/quote]
Eh, they are at a quarter mil in 2 days… My sympathy is thin on this one at this point.
I’m sure they’ll be fine, even if they need to shut down, which I doubt.
[quote]JR249 wrote:
[quote]H factor wrote:
If this hasn’t happened already at some point (which it probably has) it undoubtedly will at some point in the future. You could play the victim and end up a millionaire. Culture wars and social media could be the new lottery 
[/quote]
There is little doubt in my mind that social media has exacerbated the culture wars hysteria, especially with the LGBT issues, on both sides, for the last 5+ years.
…
Case in point…stated that a reporter from South Bend, IN stopped into the pizzeria earlier this week …she responded something akin to “as a Christian owned business, we wouldn’t want to service a gay wedding either, if requested.” He then apparently got permission or asked to quote her for a story, and ran with a headline that this IN pizzeria becomes the first to publicly proclaim it will not service gay clientele.[/quote]
I would fire that fucking reporter…
EDITED after reading JR’s second post from pjmedia.
Still fucking disgraceful