Religious Liberty, AZ Gets it Right

[Jermyn Davidson]

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

Christian wedding planners shouldn't provide services for people who are not Christian as they are helping sinners to celebrate and will likely defile their unholy matrimony bed with unspeakable deeds that are surely just like the sins that the people of Sodom were guilty of committing.

The desire to have relations with angels-- well that was just the icing on the cake!

Yes it is sarcasm, but there is a very good point made in the post above, but no one has tried to address it.

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

Christian wedding planners shouldn't provide services for people who are not Christian as they are helping sinners to celebrate and will likely defile their unholy matrimony bed with unspeakable deeds that are surely just like the sins that the people of Sodom were guilty of committing.

The desire to have relations with angels-- well that was just the icing on the cake!

If they feel convicted about it? I agree. There are also ministers who won't perform wedding ceremonies in certain cases, because they don't want to participate in forming a union if it is sinful in some way. (Not just speaking of homosexuals here, but also for polygamists or people who are divorced and the minister believes remarriage with a living spouse is a sin.) They are well within their rights to refuse their services on the basis of religious freedom.

Whether you agree with their position or not is irrelevant from their right to participate or not participate in something they view as sinful.

[MissBrattified]

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

There are amendments designed to ensure that all law-abiding citizens in the public arena be treated fairly.

If CVS were to deny me the ability to sit a their counters and receive service today (or if their Pharmacists refuse) and their refusal is because of my race, class, gender, etc., then they are breaking the law.

I am using the Pharmacist purposefully.

Laws and amendments have ripple effects and what's good for the baker is good for the pharmacist.

Or do you think that individual pharmacists should be able to reserve the right to serve or not serve whoever or whatever?

Where will it stop?

Now Arizona is trying to protect Judges?

These public servants are the bedrock of our justice system!

The whole thing is ludicrous.

We live in an open, pluralistic society, not a theocracy.

Our country allows people religious freedom. I asked you specifically about that and then you responded by listing things that have nothing to do with religion or sin. Race, gender or class are personal attributes. I don't know of anyone who is convicted against someone being male or female, hispanic or being poor. (However, my earlier point also stands. If they are, for some reason, unreasonably biased and express that in their business practices, they will go out of business, so why does anyone actually care?)

Is there a constitutional basis for a business owner to not be allowed to run his business according to his religious beliefs? If a Pharmacist refuses to give medication to someone based on some religious preference, then that is his right, although I don't believe it's a very Christian thing to do. You seem to be having difficulty separating the idea that something isn't "right" from someone having a "right." People actually have the right to make choices we believe are immoral or even unethical--if it's for certain reasons that are protected under our Constitution.

And you're right: we don't live in a theocracy. That has nothing to do with a citizen's right to run his privately owned business in accordance with his own personal religious beliefs.

[n david]

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

Your logic does not take into account the relatively recent history of the Jim Crow South Era, nor the racism that would happen in the north but never publicized.

Your logic would have tabled, indefinitely, the Civil Rights Act.

We live in a pluralistic society, where all people are supposed to be treated equally.

These recent bills and amendments are definitely steps towards the proverbial "slippery slope".

Not so, as I stated, free market principles could put the discriminators out of business if people stopped using the business.

We also have freedom of religion where people should be allowed to live out their religious principles. Please name one religion which makes being a certain race a sin. I'll answer that....there are none.

This has nothing to do with race. It has to do with being able to freely live out religious convictions. And BTW, SB1062 would have forced the individual or business to prove that providing business to the person they discriminated against was truly a violation of their religious beliefs. So that really makes your entire post above irrelevant.

[n david]

Originally Posted by Jermyn Davidson

Yes it is sarcasm, but there is a very good point made in the post above, but no one has tried to address it.

I missed the "very good point" in that post, where was it?