To be clear, you're claiming that the law can compel one person to kill another. Or at least, that there should exist the possibility that this is the case.

Let's say a pacifist doesn't want to inflict violence upon another person. Are you stating that the law can compel someone to do that?

The article was a good read.

From my understanding, the solution is already there: marriage licenses without her name on them that clerks other than her and her son can sign.

The cynic in me says once she gets a few more zeros in her Kim Davis Defense Fund this will be a non-issue and she'll cut back to part-time to accommodate the myriad speaking engagements to Christian groups that are filling up her calendar.

What I said, and as was stated very clearly in plain text: The courts' job is to rule on specific cases of this law, not legally mandate it into general principle that people can conscientiously object to anything on religious grounds. Thus when you re-wrote Doc T River's quote into generalization, you made it impossible to answer your thread question (as you specified "legally").

This, incidentally, also makes it uninteresting to jump between extremes of religious conscientious objection, as these will likely have little to no bearing on your thread issue: Debating "could this person say no to killing" vs "could this person say no to not wearing his left sock" won't get you anywhere.

As for your post here, the specific debate on killing is between you and Doc T River, though for that debate you should both remember that military justice is very different from civilian courts, both in terms of power invested and actual law (and how this applies will also change pending on whether the hypothetical soldier is in actual combat or not).

So do you believe that under law, you may not have any legal reason to not kill someone? That you would be engaged in an illegal behavior is you decided to not kill a particular person in a particular instance?

Nobody is debating left socks. That you are trying to draw even the most remote equivalence tells me your brain isn't fully engaged.

Which is why I asked the question. Pretending like the question doesn't exist so you can avoid answering doesn't really address the issue at all.

The fundamental question (a valid question under any type of governance system) is how far can the law compel you to behave in certain ways?

Your question, as I have stated many times now, not clarifying for the debate you are claiming to hold. You are engaging in very general discussion discussion regarding conscientious objection, when the laws you debate is specifically avoiding just that. To clarify, since it seems you haven't understood this: You have to state a more specific case, specifically one where it is clarified exactly what is objected to, what kinds of losses society and the employer faces. We would also need to discuss whether the employee's beliefs would pass the lemon test.

As is also evident, this law doesn't necessarily apply to soldiers, and I'm very certain it does not apply to soldiers in combat. Thus even the specific case you and Doc T River are debating needs clarification and likely far more specificity.

To make it very clear I am not "avoiding your question", I'll put the reply to that in a spoiler text here. But let me perfectly clear in that this is not relevant to the discussion you raised in your OP. I simply can't be bothered with 10 posts in a row filled with the same meaningless accusation.

Wow, that piece certainly was a breath of fresh air in a rather noxious and bad debate (from both sides). It is easy to just revel in the digust at this women's horrific views and actions, but our liberties and protections most need to be defended in these periphery cases where we are indeed disgusted because that is where they can be eroded first. Liberals seem to get that point when defending KSM, but seemingly not here.

Anyways, she has now been released due to the fact that it is clear the county is now back to continuing to issue licences via the deputies, and she has been strictly informed not to interfere. Exactly how this plays out in the higher courts is unclear, but it seems that the big harm - people unable to get married, and the added indignity to LGBT people - is removed without violating her religious principles.

I agree with the OP that according to RFRA - and will go further to say that it should be the case - that she should get a religious accommodation here, and it seems that perhaps not exactly the OPs hypothetical but somewhere in that area is indeed going to occur. I do think there is a harm still placed on the LGBT community that they have to suffer such an indignity of having procedure on a key symbol of their acceptance amended for the purposes of accomodating homophobes, but this isn't the kinds of harm typically considered in RFRA cases (compared to, say, the very obvious harm of not getting a licence). Regardless of this sentence, there is unquestionably a harm to Kim Davis by not preventing such an exemption and so it is at least debatable, and I suspect fairly clearly in her favour here, although I'm not familiar with precedent.

That said, there seems to be a range of procedural questions, whatever one suspects ought to be the end goal: http://balkin.blogspot.ca/2015/09/fu...avis-case.html For instance, on point 5, perhaps it isn't the case that a rule even exists that needs exempting.

Lestat's "get rid of them all" approach seems obviously wrong on it's face. Tame_deuces point about slippery slopes is more or less entirely correct, we were bogged down in the previous thread about isn't every/no belief of an athiest a religious belief as well, but questions of degree of how far we go down slopes is one of the primary functions of the court, in a sense.

I agree it sounds extreme, but can you please provide an example of a necessary law requiring religious protection that is not already covered in the constitution?

If you are free to believe anything you want. If you cannot be discriminated against regardless of your beliefs... Maybe I'm drawing a blank, but I cannot think of anything else religion needs protection from.

Along a similar a line, another unpopular view I hold is with hate crimes. I think it's unnecessary and redundant. Anytime you victimize someone it's a crime and you should be punished just as severely (or leniently) as if it was against someone of your own religion, race, ethnicity, sex, etc. To do otherwise, seems to diminish the seriousness of the crime itself.

I don't think that she would be treated as deferentially here if her religious beliefs forbid racial intermarriage. Is that because liberals want to give people time to readjust? Or is it because there are far more people against gay marriage than intermarriage? Or might it be because the arguments against gay marriage are perceived to be more reasonable than those against intermarriage?

It is because it says it is wrong in the bible. Bigots have been tooted that horn for thousands of years.

The core of her view doesn't make sense to me. Cant marry two men cause its a sin and not a legitimate marriage under God. Ok.

Well...wouldn't all marriages not not under Christ be sinful and non legitimate under the Christian God? Meaning the rest of us. I know not all Christians hold this view. But seems like someone taking this stand should.


And if so she should of quit or not taken the job out of principal in the first place because its inevitable shes going to marry and sign off on a sinful atheist marriage or two...



Guess id have more sympathy if i knew her views were at least consistent. But she seeming has no issue with her name on other sinful in her Gods eyes marriages.

I don't see how this would be theologically necessary. In fact, I don't know of any Christians that hold this view. Well, maybe the Mormons. But maybe not. I don't really know what their theology of marriage is.

But I know that Catholics accept that non-Christians are married. It may not be a sacramental marriage, but it's a marriage. Not being a sacrament doesn't mean that it's not legitimate.

A lot of people are religious, religious people can happen to believe "irrational" (to the employer at least) stuff and feel strongly about it. So it's an issue of practicality more than anything else.

What the law basically says it that as long as society doesn't lose much, the employer doesn't lose much and the belief qualifies as a genuine strong belief (lemon test)... the employer must seek to accommodate the employee instead of firing her (this is of course all horribly paraphrased).

As is obvious, this is a very situational law. The author of the essay OP is linked is for example giving an example of an employer having to accommodate Muslim drivers not wanting to deliver alcohol (if I remember correctly). What the author is (perhaps disingenuously) "forgetting" to mention is that even this is not a general principle. We could easily imagine a small firm which could not accommodate such a practice without undue loss.

Thus these laws are case-specific. Generalization won't get anyone anywhere when discussing them

I do not see how the Lemon test applies since there isn't an establishment of religion accusation. The question applies just as much to a governor that refuses to sign a death warrant for a prisoner on death row as it does a doctor objecting to allowing certain procedures in their clinic, to a police officer that decides that he will never use deadly force.

That's fine. You're welcome to your view. I'm not going to try to argue that you're wrong. In fact, I agree with you. But from a moral/ethical point of view, these are questions that I think are worth wrestling with in both the practical and in the abstract. Concepts of individual liberties rise and fall on this type of reasoning. What can the government compel you to do with laws? Now, you can ignore those laws and not do those things, but that's not relevant to the question.

Yes, you are right. I was thinking another supreme court verdict where "sincerity of belief" was a legal consideration. Some googling revealed it to be "United States v. Ballard". Essentially the principle being that religious claims do not need to be proved true to warrant legal consideration, only that they are genuinely believed.

This would stop someone from exploiting religious accommodation from an employer, which was why I mentioned it (though by the wrong name).

I think your biases are getting the better of you.

No, I disagree. He is still using specific cases and arguing based on these, without providing enough details to clarify that they warrant comparison. I'm sure the author thinks he is being forthright however, I have no reason to suspect he is being dishonest.

To state it another way: He could just as easily have quoted a case where a person did not get workplace accommodation for his religious beliefs.

Never said it would be theologically necessary. I think more Christians then you think believe all marriage outside of Christ and not sanctified by God are not real marriages and ultimately sinful and adulterous relationships. I know some non Catholics who say this. My grandmother, a Catholic, use too. Not only that she would of said all marriages outside of an official Church wedding performed by a Priest are not real...Protestants are out too...

Think if pressed the clerk would agree two atheists are in a sinful marriage if its not under her God. Just a guess. Could be very wrong.

I think the objection is understandable outside law ("why does she protest from a religious law, when she doesn't hold up the religious law next to it"), but from a legal perspective the courts can't and shouldn't determine if specific religious belief are "valid" or true", only if they are sincere.

Yeah the courts should look at it like that i guess.


Does anyone know if her name was on divorce documents?

I doubt it. Divorces run through the legal system and are signed off by the presiding judge. I don't think it goes back to the clerk again.

You have "no" reason, or you have "reason"?

I suspect you mean "reason" and I suspect your biases are getting the better of you.

And he could have written an article called "When does your religion not legally excuse you from doing your job?" But that would be an entirely different article built around an entirely different question that would be answered in an entirely different way.

It was already a long analysis. Another 3 pages of failed cases doesn't add the overall quality of the article.

There was an interesting NPR story yesterday about Catholics and the Pope, and how it came to be understood in the US that various theological statements were true. One statement that was made was that many of the American Catholics were uneducated and came from a more peasant class of persons, so that there was a particular form of deference to the Pope (and the priests), which made it easier for certain beliefs to propagate.

I think fewer Christians than you think believe marriages outside of Christ are not sanctified by God. I don't say they're not out there, but it's probably a generationally isolated viewpoint.

Id guess about 10 to 20%. Think its a somewhat safe guess.

As usual you tend to look for specific rather than narrative and context, which I suspect blinds you to the obvious question: Why did he include the examples he did? Why are they relevant to the case at hand? I mean, at one hand he admits that these are verdicts which are situational, but then proceeds to use examples without showing why they matter.

The answer is that this is not given in the article, which raises a lot of questions in itself. And call me a cynic, but I don't think it is a coincidence that he chose the examples he did, but that they are a thinly veiled attempt for hinting at deferential treatment in the application of these laws; a popular theme.