The R nom thread had a lot of cake baker talk, and NPR is talking about clerks who refuse to service gay weddings/pharmacists who refuse to dole out certain drugs, etc., so maybe this thread has a place here.

If you're choosing to work a job representing the state and carrying out the laws of the state, I don't see how you can claim "this makes me feel icky" and not do your job, and hope to not get fired.

Specifically to religion, the claims that folks can't participate in any aspect of a gay wedding is ludicrous. You're not the minister marrying the people, what's the issue? Your participation is tangential to the act, and I'm pretty sure God never said, "Thou shalt not supply flowers to gay weddings."

The religious exemptions the "put upon" majority wants to claim seems to me like nothing more than another way to stick it to minority groups that are typically discriminated against.

Florists and cake bakers represent the state?

How do multiple topics work?

As someone guilty of polluting an unrelated thread with this topic (sorry!), I like having this as a separate thread. I'm sure that a lot of these have already been covered in this forum, but I assume LK would include things like:

• Taxi drivers refusing to pick up a passenger who is carrying alcohol
• A grocery cashier who will not check out someone buying bacon
• A pharmacist who won't dispense birth control
• A baker who won't decorate a cake according to the wishes of the Westboro Baptist Church

And I think it also includes religious accommodations like:

• Being able to get Sundays (or Sabbath more generally) off from work
• Requesting an exemption from the dress/grooming code
• Getting periodic breaks during the day to allow for scheduled prayer

This is a fascinating topic to me, and Volokh has written pretty extensively about it.

General overview:
http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/wy...ommodation.cfm

further to what you're saying, if suddenly all the filthy capitalists who own the entire world decide they're atheists, thanks to the hobby lobby decision, do they no longer have to respect their employees religious desires, like not working sunday, having prayer breaks, etc?

It surely must violate the owners' rights of atheism to be forced to give prayer breaks, if it violates the owners' rights of xtianity to give their employees insurance that includes birth control.

I think you probably have a decent argument for jobs that directly are empowered by the state, or are the state itself. Laws against customer discrimination from banks or bail bondsmen, for example, make a lot of sense. Aside from requiring a business license, florists and bakers and candlestick makers do not represent the state and should be allowed to refuse customers if they want. As long as no violence is being committed, people should be free to act like dicks where their property is concerned, and free to endure the social consequences of being dicks. This is a solution in search of a problem.

Huh?

Should the US Army not adjust uniform standards for Sikhs and tell them just do your ****ing job?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burwel...by_Stores,_Inc.

I'm familiar with Hobby Lobby. I just have no idea what you're talking about with your notion of atheist rights, especially in the context of workplace accommodations and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Are you suggesting that an atheist is likely to have a sincerely held "religious" belief that other people/employees shouldn't have prayer breaks?

If having prayer breaks violates my personally held beliefs, can I not impose my beliefs on my employees the same way the Hobby Lobby folks impose their beliefs on contraceptives?

People have tried this gambit with their newly found church of no taxes. The belief has to be sincere.

You are the employer? And your personally held belief is that other people can't have prayer breaks? I'm confident that no (let's say federal) judge would uphold that as a sincerely held belief.

You would be more successful (as companies have been in the past) asserting that giving employees prayer breaks would be an undue burden. Here's some background on Muslims suing for accommodations, sometimes successfully and other times not:

http://www.primerus.com/business-law...ess-332011.htm

Or are you an employee, claiming that other employees having prayer breaks violates your sincerely held beliefs? That would be ridiculous.

The former. But perhaps it's best not to detail this thread with stuff that'd go in the Hobby Lobby thread, as this is already an offshoot of a derail.

If I am a baker that does wedding cakes I hope every other competitor refuses to do wedding cakes for gay weddings.

Low Key, i don't think you're quite putting any coherent thought together here.

Do you think the state should force a florist to put together an arrangement for a gay wedding? Or do you think that the flower shop owner should be free to fire the florist for refusing?

One is horrible tyranny and one is ldo.

Don't think Hobby Lobby owner's personally held belief was that other people can't use contraception; it was his belief that using contraception was immoral based on his religious beliefs, and therefore he shouldn't have to provide contraception for his employees.

Within this understanding LK's example holds more water. LK could personally believe that prayer was immoral, then not allow for his employees to partake (a la Hobby Lobby). Right? I'm probably missing something.

I think the lgbt community should be a protected class, and any situation where it's illegal to say, "We don't serve black people," should also be illegal to deny service to lesbian/gay/trans people.

@dib - yeah, you've pretty much got it.

I wonder how long it will be before there is a federal law making discrimination based on sexual orientation illegal?

Too long. This lol obviously should have happened already.

This seems right.

Personally I wouldn't want a baker that didn't want to do a gay wedding themed cake to bake my cake bec I wouldn't trust them. IMR, how many bakers, florists and catering halls that will refuse a gay couple can there be?

Next Democratic supermajority?

But nah... some dickhead blue dog from MO or NE would probably ruin it.

Not that I disagree with your statements Low Key, but it probably won't happen. It would be pretty hard legally to prove discrimination based on sexual orientation for a few reasons. The obvious one being you don't always know when someone's gay/trans/etc. from first glance, so it's a bit harder to discriminate per say, compared to purely racial, where someone is obviously black/asian/etc. Also, the fact that you could hypothetically choose to be gay today and tomorrow decide you're not would allow a shifting of protections, which would obviously cause some issues lol.

As with most things, the people who take advantage of the system would probably ruin it for the majority who could use it's protections.

If a same sex couple tries to hire someone to bake a cake for their wedding the baker is going to know, almost certainly. Let us say that the baker doesn't like gays and sure doesn't like that he must bake a cake for them under penalty of law. So he bakes them a lousy cake, they do the traditional 'cut the cake, take the first bite', and gag it up. The catering hall that only agreed to host the wedding bec of the law overcooks the food. These things are subjective. A member of a protected class can point to the housing denied, the mortgage declined the restaurant table refused. What does the couple do w/ the lousy cake? Take it to the government office and accuse the baker of baking a lousy cake? They take the cake to trial and offer a bite to the jury? The baker's answer is 'I'm really sorry that they didn't like the cake.' The caterer says 'I'm sorry they didn't like the food.' How can it be proven that this was bec of bias? IMO, it can't so don't even try.

And, as somebody posted above, there will certainly be sane suppliers very happy to get the extra business.