DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Gov. Mike Pence signs 'religious freedom' bill in private

Ummm, excuse me if I'm wrong, but didn't banks use to use this practice to deny loans to people of certain races and ethnicity? How did that work out for them?

The problem is courts around the country are ruling that you waive your 1st Amendment Rights if you open a business in this country, and I'm not just talking about freedom of religion.

Take one of the cases that started this movement: a photographer in New Mexico was sued for not photographing a homosexual commitment ceremony. The photographer argued that this violated their freedom of speech, because through their art, they would be forced to convey the message that their business approves of gay marriage and that gay marriage is a positive, which they disagreed with. The Supreme Court of New Mexico ruled this as invalid.

If I make bedsheets, should I be able to refuse to sell them to the KKK? The Supreme Court of New Mexico tries to sweep this point under the rug in it's ruling, stating that the KKK is not a religion, but a political group, and thus not protected by anti-discrimination laws; However, the point still stands. Just switch "signs" with bedsheets and the "Westboro Baptist Church" with the KKK. Sweep that one under the rug.

If I personally know a person of a different nationality is a wife-beater (though he hasn't been convicted of anything), and he want's to rent the property I have up for rent next door, should I be forced to let him rent out the property, and live around my wife and children?

Basically, if you can prove you belong to certain protected classes, you gain rights that trump any right I have a business owner. That just seems wrong, and unconstitutional.

No, they aren't.

Public opinion is making those choices, and the dication falls under what some would call 'the invisible hand of the free market' and what others would call 'being P.C'.'.

Freedom of speech never meant the protection from being shunned for being an idiot.

Being shunned is exactly what I'm arguing for.

The right to shun.

You're arguing for the right to arrest people.

Provide one quote of mine where I advocated arresting someone for what they believe in.

Jesus accepted sinners.

Do not for a second believe that He accepted sin.

Pardon me: You're advocating theft of money by the government against people for the practice of shunning and ostracism.

I basically boil all laws down to murder threats...since they are, but you don't do that so I misspoke.

Uh, yes they are. There was a case, a business owner cited the free speech clause of the 1st Amendment, and the state's Supreme Court said it was invalid because the business owner was free to say and believe whatever they wanted, they just aren't allowed to act on it. Those are facts.

Nice logic though. You should be a judge! Don't worry guys, it's ok because PDR said so.

But thank you for proving my point. The Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court are meant to protect the rights of the minority from people of the majority opinion who would like to take them away. Which is, quite literally, the exact opposite of what is happening now, as pointed out by you. So thanks for proving my point again!

Please cite the case, but in terms of a society, without full knowledge of the case, I agree 1000% with this ruling.

Also, the phrase 'quite literally' has meaning. It's not a punctuation mark.

I'm saying we live in a litigious capitalist society with a loose leash.

If you're stupid enough to say 'Down with gays!' at work, you deserve to be broke. It's called Darwinism.

If I'm dumb enough to openly insult my boss, I'm going to get fired. And in a capitalist society, public opinion is your boss.

I mentioned the case in the post at the top of this page. Feel free to look it up. I believe the name of the defendant is Elane Photography LLC.

I would post a link to the actual court ruling pdf, but I'm posting from a phone and don't want to do your legwork for you.

Totally agree with the ruling.

Elane Photography LLC had an infinite number of options to refuse service.

They opted to incriminate their own bigotry.

No, they didn't. Like I said earlier (and you convienitly ignored) banks used a similar tactic of lying and making up excuses for why they didn't approve loans to people of certain races. They got found out, and faced even worse punishments. So, that's not really a valid legal option.

Nice try grammar Nazi.

I'm nowhere playing semantics with grammar.

If a banker thinks blacks are lazy and can't pay their bills, and judges loan applications based on that...

...illegal.

Sooner or later, it's not going to work out for him.

But if he jumps out of the gate yelling 'I deny loans to blacks because I don't like blacks!', his downfall isn't discrimination, it's a civilized society weeding out a moron.

If Elane Photography LLC says 'sorry, we're booked', there is a 0% chance they make the Supreme Court.

Them being ignorant enough to blurt out 'Bible say no gay!' as to why they refused someone business is, again, their own downfall. Darwinism.

You keep equating public opinion with law.

I don't disagree with you at all except in terms of whether the government should be involved.

Indiana is getting wrecked by the marketplace over this. Public opinion is handling things just fine. Public opinion is a form of shunning.

Ironically Indiana is being shunned over a law legalizing shunning.

I don't think public opinion should influence law and it can't influence morality.

I thought we already had religious freedom in America?

You don't seem to rate honesty or integrity as very high moral standards.

Do you ascribe to utilitarianism or consequentialism or something? We seem to disagree a lot on ethics

Indiana absolutely should be getting crushed in the marketplace for this, and they have no one to blame but themselves.



In this case, the government got involved.

You're trying to make it the other way around.

And, I'm sorry, but to an extent the government needs to be involved.

America, when left to it's own devices, exterminates and enslaves races. We're arguably the most vicious and violent society to ever walk the modern planet.

If you're stupid enough to yell 'I hate blacks!' or 'I hate gays!', expect to go broke and get sued. That's not discrimation. That's being an idiot.

If you don't like black people, and a black family comes into your restaurant, and you don't want to serve them, you can make up any number of plausible B.S. reasons not to do so, and most of the time, you'll get away with it.

Our freedom gives that leeway.

If you're dumb enough to refuse them because they're black, and explicitly say so, yeah, you're screwed.

And there should be no law that says 'yeah, if you don't like blacks, you shouldn't serve them'.

We did that. We failed that test.

I've got to think the USSR, Nazi Germany, China, Pol Pot, Middle Eastern slavery, the Aztecs, the Mongols, French Revolutionaries, the 30 years war, and basically civilization throughout time are all far far far more violent than America has ever been.

We're debating whether America can allow bigots to run restaurants with open bigotry. Nearly the entire middle east it is illegal to not be a bigot and run a restaurant. America isn't even in the discussion of most vicious.

People hoist all this blame about slavery onto America when it was first off, not racially based (white slaves, Chinese slaves etc. existed), and a universal standard of the times. We fought a gigantic deadly war partially over ending it. But all of a sudden we're the bad evil slavers as opposed to the middle east who doesn't have any black people because they castrated all their slaves and lost millions marching them through the Sahara.

I'm arguing from an ethical standpoint that suing people is aggression and isn't a moral action unless someone has aggressed against you.

You're arguing that if people are stupid enough to get sued well..they are stupid. This isn't a moral or philosophical argument. It's just an observation.

Hence my use of the term 'arguably'.

But Nazi Germany modeled their execution of the Jews on our execution of Native Americans.

And we jail at a rate beyond all of those societies.

And in terms of modern weaponry, or WMD's as the kids say, we're the genocide kings. No one comes close. No one.



I've always said the path to enlightenment is to compare your actions to prehistoric-thinking lowest-common-denominator contemporaries.

I did forget about the American prison rate. That is a friggen sickening statistic.

America used two WMDs on Japan. All those delightful Communist regimes I mentioned slaughtered millions of their own people.

It's a funny point to make, I don't think America is more violent than other countries. But considering the war in Iraq and Afghistan and the incarceration rate (I believe the total exceeds Chinas?) we're pretty damn violent. Combining the economic effectiveness of the free market and an unrestrained state can make a hell of a violence machine unfortunately.

The question is whether violence to change society is a moral endeavor, and from your perspective an effective endeavor. I don't have a great answer to that on the effectiveness side.

I'm saying that in a rational, self-policing society, then, yes, I would be fine with a man running his business as he pleases.

But America has proven itself to be a toddler who doesn't learn its lesson.

If the federal government didn't tell people in the 60's they can't refuse blacks because...[no logical reason]...it would still be happening.

We're not progressive because we just figure out. We're progressive because we have a history of sensible equal rights legislation.

There is no way to test that hypothesis. I can't prove or disprove it and I don't have a great answer for that myself.

Jim Crow was legally mandated discrimination. So it wasn't American's acting on their own free volition to discriminate.

I think some evidence that it wouldn't still be happening is that the law was passed in the first place. Considering this is a representative democracy it implies that most people agreed with the law when it was passed.

This study backs that assumption:
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/27...amp;uid=3739840

The United States has traditionally been brought into enlightenment kicking and screaming, especially in regards to minorities of any kind.

Doesn't mean we're evil. But we didn't just evolve as a society and say 'oh, yeah, blacks are people' on our own.

Idiots had to get shouted down

Here's the thing.

Shouted down is social ostracism. This is exactly what I'm advocating.

Laws are not shouting. Laws when violated lead to fines and jail sentences. This isn't using your words and making a compelling argument. It is taking away people's money with threats of getting raped in jail.

Civil rights protests? That was shouting and making a compelling argument. Protecting people from violence was a moral and justifiable thing to do.

No one is being violent in this situation. They are just being bigots. The people trying to stop them from being bigots are being violent with their fines and jail sentences. You're arguing this is effective. I'm arguing it's immoral to be violent against people who aren't being violent.

And the question is who brought people into enlightenment in the first place? American's brought American's into enlightenment in this example. The law came after the shouting.

I'm arguing that people advocating the encroaching state needs some shouting down. Even if it means defending bigots the right to be bigots so long as they aren't violent.

Again I am amazed at what you said. My rights are not dependent upon societal choices or the free market. I feel that you called me an idiot if I do not agree with your assertion. I would like to think you did not call me an idiot. Did you?

Again I must disagree. Societal norms change with the times. My rights are universal and timeless. I am shocked you feel that society can determine my rights. Surely, I would like to think you misspoke.

PDR, I think you missed their point entirely. If my goods, my intellectual abilities, my skills are not my own to do with as I please, regardless of compensation, if I am forced to use my skills at the risk of imprisonment, fine, or death, I am not free. I believe the reason they used was that they are no longer free men. America is a nation built on individual freedoms and liberties. Please do not use the argument of slavery or other straw men as an attempt to justify tyranny. The government is either a protector of rights or an oppressor of rights. Your rights end where mine begin. We both are equal under the law, however, if you want to have special protections under the law at the expense of others, you are advocating tyranny.

You had mentioned earlier that once the courts have ruled it is the law of the land. I believe you are advocating legislating from the bench. If a court strikes down a law as unconstitutional, it does not then replace it with a law. It reverts the law back to what it was previously. I believe that part of the problem facing America today is that the courts feel that once they rule, they are the final arbiters and their ruling has the strength of law. It does not. Legislators pass laws, executives execute the laws, courts rule on the legality of laws. I am saddened by some of the things I hear you advocate. I will not say you cannot advocate them but I will continue to support your right to have your views. Please do not call others who have opposing views, no matter how offensive you find them, idiots.

The TRUTH of this law is that it doesn't give a free pass for people to hang signs in their shop window that say "No (fill in the blank) Allowed". If this were true, the other couple dozen states would have shown that.

What this law does is say that when the gov't gets involved in issues of religious expression, it has to show it has a compelling interest to do so.

One thing I've found over the last several years and I find it to be... a disservice doesn't adequately describe it... to gay people is that some people speak out on a certain issue and exaggerate and spread lies and claim "Well, its for gay rights, and its a just cause" as their basis for doing so.

Indiana passed a law that over half the states already have had, and not one of them has experienced the issues that people are claiming will happen in Indiana.

A couple years ago here in NC there was a vote to add a State Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as one man/one woman. During the run up people were claiming that if it were added, that gay people in NC would lose domestic violence protections, and they went so far as to claim that a gay person could be beaten and victimized by their partner and nothing would happen. It was bald faced lie. Yes its not uncommon for religion to mix with politics down here, but for years and years the statutes in regards to domestic violence have included same sex relationships.

Just pisses me off.

Its the same old story again in these United States. Apologetic Whites and Hysterical Liberals run crazy over the facts while clear heads try to run a Nation. They find Racists under every bridge and wave their "hands up, don't shoot" in support of events that never happened. Facts matter not.

It's funny because it seems to me that the portion of the political spectrum that has spent the last 3 decades screaming, "You CAN'T legislate morality!!" has spent the same 3 decades successfully creating legislation and lawsuits to change other peoples morality.

Careful there buddy, your side isn't much better. The argument against gay marriage is that it will lead to the eventual downfall of civilization as we know it. I personally have no desire to live there, but San Francisco seems to have a functioning gov't, schools, waste services, first responders (and now I guess gladiatorial games in jail???) and generally seem to be doing well for themselves. Its not some Post Apocalyptic wasteland where Mad Max is running around and the people are cannibalizing each other.

The argument against gay marriage has nothing to do with the downfall of civilization in my opinion. It has more to do with individual liberties. A person can be an ass. No statute will change the world and every ass will stop being an ass. If a state, who is the legal authority over marriage, decides not to accept gay marriage, the Federal government should have no say in the matter. The fact that someone discriminates against another person is not grounds to violate the rights of the citizenry. For each bigot that the gay community wishes to force to accept their lifestyle, they catch innocent people who disagree with gay marriage on religious grounds. Every gay person in America has the exact same rights as any other citizen in the USA. A right to marry or the definition of marriage is not defined in the Constitution. There is no reason to nationalize marriage.

Universal and timeless rights are still required to fit into societal norms. Actions can happen to change societal norms and recently it has happened with the acceptance of the LGBT community.

Your universal and timeless rights must find a way to accept what our society has accepted or find ways to change societal norms back in line with your universal and timeless rights and that's what's been happening with the various Religious Freedom laws that have passed lately.

The debate is how to prevent unreasonable hardships on those who wish to push society's values backwards by saying religion prevents them from treating others as equals. Should a shop owner have to pay a thousand dollar fine just so they don't have to serve gays. My opinion is, I don't know.

Maybe that should be figured out and made clearly defined. Pence has even suggested as much, but stopped short of say gay rights must be protected. Utah passed a religious freedom law, but also included language that the rights of the LGBT community must be considered also. I'm really not sure what that looks like, but it's definitely a discussion.

Does legislating for rights, which both sides are doing in this case, mean legislating morality?

Good question.

It would be easy to say fundamentalists are legislating their spiritual morality, but I'm not sure if that morality is the same as the moral obligation to treat others fairly.

Unless you consider following the spirit of the law.

I'll take it one step further. I too for awhile was content to leave it as a State's Rights issue. But then I asked myself: If the Fed should stay out of it, why should the State either? Why is the State involved in marriage at all? What is IT's compelling interest? If I choose to be with a person, why should my relationship have to be sanctioned by the gov't? A marriage in the legal sense should equate to nothing more than a civil contract and agreement to share property. I can do that with any person I choose to already. Why should "romance" make it any different?

Is buying a cake at a specific bakery or using a certain barn for a reception a right?

Because marriage has been given recognition by the state, and not just by the church, its easy to argue that marriage is a "right" which is controlled by the state... but where you buy the cake or rent the tux or hold the reception... those, to me, do not qualify as a "right"....

j/c

I still find this entire thing funny.

According to the Bible, anyone who gets divorced and re-married is in fact committing adultery. Yet I see no huge alarm bell from the right on serving them. All the while they are living a sinful lifestyle.

I see no uproar from the Christian right in terms of serving drug addicts or drunkards, yet they are living a sinful lifestyle.

It seems they have chosen one single sin and wish to pick it out and discriminate on that sin solely.

I consider myself a Christian, yet other Christians have no idea how embarrassed I am to be associated with them when a topic such as this surfaces.

It's cafeteria sinning, pick your favorite sin to object to.

I can understand if a person objects to a certain group or action or whatever, not buying or supporting that group or action with their own cash, that's their right, but if you open a business that serves the general public then serve them. If you want to pick and choose who you'll service then start a private club and offer memberships with your detailed criteria, just lock the door to the general public.

No uproar, but I did mention divorce in my response on sexual sins.