Kansas House panel approves gay marriage response

It proves nothing for me to say this but there are times when I see articles like this, or stats that say that 40-50% of Americans believe a God created us as we are now within the last 10k years, when I can't believe that I'm reading about a 1st world, advanced society.

However, my appeal to personal incredulity aside, if this bill passes into law and I'm a Kansan that sets up a religion (with recognized legal status etc etc), with a tenet that forbids me from interacting with anyone of a different faith due to their sinful and immoral lifestyles, and secure myself a government public service job (refusing me on the grounds of my religious beliefs would be discriminatory, so no worries on that score), and where my beliefs didn't impact on my ability to interact usefully with fellow employees, presumably I'd be able to refuse to serve any Christians who ask for my assistance. My employer wouldn't be able to fire me for that behaviour, and they would be protected against law suits.

Gov Brownback, he of the following quote:

..would presumably be against the war in Afghanistan then since the Taliban are simply exerting their religious freedoms. What happens (if this bill passes) when two religious people, who hold contrary views and who both wish to enjoy their religious freedom, come into some kind of conflict of beliefs, who has 'right of way'? How do we reconcile conflicting issues where charges of discrimination are being levied?

As an aside, and in my hugely simplistic opinion, this is another problem caused by the US perspective toward (overemphasis on?) personal freedoms. But, I'd like to learn more which I why I started this thread, I'm interested to see where it might go, as long as it doesn't turn into a conversation about religious views on homosexuality generally.

Well, you're finally touching on why religion is a horrible rationale for norms (and descriptives for that matter). Firstly it allows you to state anything, which is akward but not unique. But far worse, after you have stated anything you answer to noone.

The golden rule, of which so many Christians are proud and which is one of the few saving graces of their religion, is sadly becoming little else than a hood ornament.

Not a very substantial reply, but if ever asked "why do you care what someone else believes?", it's because of **** like this, endorsed by the very leaders of this nation.

"why do you care what someone else believes?"

I once saw someone answer this with "Because you vote" and it stuck with me.

XKCD always says it best.

Jim Crow is back!

I don't even understand the premise. Is it their "religious belief" that gay people shouldn't be allowed to receive service? It's like they're not even trying to disguise it anymore: May as well just call this the "accepted bigotry bill"

Kansas: Proud to be Backward

+1

I am interested in discussing this. At the risk of being strung up I sympathize with those not wanting to provide services. I briefly read an article about this and it is for services specifically pertaining to marriage.

I understand how non PC it is and can be seen as bigotry I totally see that perspective. But OTOH I see the conservative Christian perspective too. Christians taking part (in various forms) in a gay wedding would be going strongly against their conscience.

Even if the Christians are wrong, they are sincerely so (or lets assume that to be charitable).

Let's ban marriage as a discriminatory practice then, and be done with it.

Where does the bible say "thou shalt not print return address labels for gay couples?"

Or bake cakes for gay weddings, or the plethora of other examples that make no sense

I'd prefer this not to turn into another examination of Christian attitudes toward homosexuality, that's been covered fairly extensively on this forum. I'm more interested in issues and conflicts that result from the exercising of 'religious freedoms', exactly what they are, what rights they afford and whether or not they cause something that could be classed as discrimination.

Whilst you see the Christian PoV in this particular instance, would you class it as discriminatory or do religious freedoms override such considerations?

Is sincerity a factor in this?

I've been an advocate for removing the legal status of marriage for a while. But that wouldn't really address the issue because even if it's just a social practice, it would still need to be viewed in light of public accommodation laws.

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I'm reminded of the eHarmony lawsuit from a while back:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121101164.html

Here, we have a company whose business is connecting men to women and women to men being "forced"* to also connect men to men and women to women by setting up an alternate webpage specifically designed to do that at their own expense. It's not that homosexuals were not allowed to sign up, it's just that men would be connected to women and women would be connected to men. A law of this type would probably have prevented the threat from carrying as much weight. I actually think they had a reasonably good chance of winning such a lawsuit on legal grounds, but we will never know.

* I put "forced" in quotes because they settled out of court, and so this was not ultimately put to the legal test.

Would you sympathize with Christian-owned businesses who turned away divorced people? Or people who had told lies? Or dishonoured their fathers/mothers?

If so, do you think business that turn away gay customers should also turn away all sinners so that they maintain consistency?

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I think there are two factors that need to be considered.

1) The availability of these services from other sources: If you're the only game in town, then you are under stronger obligations to provide services for everyone.

2) The nature of the services being offered: In the eHarmony case I cited above, the "discrimination" came down to people demanding a service different than the one that was being offered. I do not believe companies should be obligated in that situation to make special accommodations and provide "extra" services just because a customer wants it. To me, that would be like requiring that a Jewish catering service to serve pork. That's not on the menu, and there's no reasonable expectation that they should provide it just because someone asks wants it.

If the services are available elsewhere, and the nature of the services is such that the request being made is somehow "different" from the one being offered, I really don't care what reasons people use to not offer their services to anyone. Putting it in terms of "religious freedom" doesn't really change my perspective at all.

But I have somewhat strong libertarian leanings when it comes to the marketplace.

Is a providing a wedding cake for a gay marriage somehow "different" from the services usually provided? I'm with you on the Jewish restaurant example... it's not reasonable to force a Jewish restaurant to be ordering in ingredients they don't want to use. I also agree with you on the eHarmony example. But the scenario given by LZ (I've not read any links ITT) seems a lot more like "no blacks, dogs or Irish" than those your examples.

I was mostly joking, as I think we all know marriage is not going to be banned or have its legal status revoked anytime soon.

I oppose public service discrimination for obvious reasons, if you work for the state you must serve citizens. That is what being a public servant means. For a public servant to be allowed to discriminate vs a person who has violated no law and who pose no direct threat seems ludicrous.

Private service discrimination is trickier. Though I'm certainly not completely sold on the sanctity of private property, I do see the point of ownership. However, I'm not sure discriminatory issues can be properly resolved if you allow the private sector to be a holy cow beyond reproach. I would be in favor of a milder control in the private sector, to stop outright hateful discrimination.

I can see Christians being uncomfortable lets say baking a cake for a gay wedding. It is not necessarily stated in the bible but could still violate personal conscience for the Christian. I think it is one of those cases where peoples' freedom impinge on the freedom and conscience of others.

I don't have a good answer here. I feel like Christians should be allowed to refuse service without being sued. But at the same time it is discrimination.

Yes of course. My assumption here is that the Christians are refusing service out of conscience, not just discriminating because they can. For example if we compare the discrimination showed to black people in the US after slavery was abolished. Blacks were marginalized and not allowed to eat in certain places or use certain bathrooms. It was not a matter of white people behaving out of conscience, it was just discrimination.

no.

no.

I see the point your making here and it is valid. However, I don't think it is the same thing. I think a cafe owner not willing to serve gay people is clearly discrimination and that is wrong. However, Christians not wanting to be complicit in a gay marriage seems fair.

I think the comparison is much stronger than you suggest. Undoubtably many racists were very sincere in their belief that a better society was a segregated society, that they were doing the right thing to refuse to support interracial marriages and integrated society, and that refusing to do so was a matter of conscience. On the flip side, there are also undoubtably many people today who will be "discriminating (against homosexuals) because they can". I'd say it is a mix bag for both.

There are libertarian arguments that the state shouldn't intervene at all (that you can refuse to serve both interracial and gay marriages due to some freedom reason) and there are arguments that the state should intervene in both (make it illegal to discriminate in this way). But to thread the needle that the state should intervene against racial discrimination but not lgbt discrimination is pretty hard to justify imo.

Ya it's a cute idea and all (even if almost all attempts to defend it are loltastically bad) but the reality is that through promoting marriage equality there are now 120 million americans with legal marriage, another 15 million in appeals, and so much momentum in the last few years we can expect that number to significantly expand in the future. The strategy of removing the name "marriage" from whatever legal structures are used for consenting relationships - or eliminating all legal structures entirely - has no momentum and has accomplished nothing for gay rights. I suppose if someone wants to plan their idealized AC society then great, have at it, but for any practical discussion of how to move towards ending discrimination for as many people as possible as quickly as possible, there is only one approach on the table. And it is succeeding at a pretty phenomenal rate these days.

Let's make it more direct. If a wedding cake shop refuses to make a generic wedding cake for a gay wedding, is that ok? If a wedding cake shop refuses to make a generic wedding cake for a post-divorce marriage is that ok? Let's assume both are on biblical grounds.

I mean, it seems to me that the fact that evangelical Christians come down so hard on homosexuality rather than lying, stealing, divorce, adultery etc is because... well... most of them are not gay, so it's easier to be a hard-ass about sins they'll never even be tempted to commit. Why exactly IS there this yawning gulf between evangelicals puritanical stance on homosexuality vs every almost every other sin? Because it really seems from here to be simple and utter bigotry: "well MY sins are no big deal... just a little light adultery and tax-evasion here and there. But THOSE guys sins, well, we can't possible have THAT."

Would you sympathize with Christian-owned businesses who turned away divorced people? Or people who had told lies? Or dishonoured their fathers/mothers?

LZ, you brushed over this, but it's the key point IMO.

Gay marriage is against the religious beliefs of these people. Ok.

What on earth does that have to do with providing a service for gay couples? I honestly don't even see a connection. That's the whole point. If you are going to refuse services for things that are against your religious beliefs, why stop at gay marriage?

Their unwillingness to be consistent shows this to be simply a justification of a prejudice through scripture, nothing more.

I don't know what you mean by "assume both are on biblical grounds". You mean they want to refuse service based on their beliefs/conscience right?

I don't know if it is ok. But I can understand why a shop owner would be hesitant to want to do so. And in the case that they didn't want to perform service it would be nice if they didn't get sued.

I think this would be uppidy. Yes I understand why you think my pov is inconsistent.

Yeah I think this is pretty correct.

Homosexuality is high profile and visible as far as sins go. Therefore it is an easy target. Also important to note that I don't really think it is the job of Christians to witch hunt sinners/sin.

There is an argument to be made for performing service for gay couples in the spirit of bridge building and furthering understanding yadda yadda yadda...