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Ok, so this "Religious Liberty" thing has been rattling around in my head a little bit. Mainly because there are things I find disagreeable on both sides.

But here's the problem I keep getting stuck against, something that I can't wrap my head around.

Lets say you're a sandwich shop owner... and you're a Mormon. You do not believe in drinking beer, or drinking caffeine, all that dumb stuff Mormons believe. If you're asked to cater an event in which things are going on which are against your belief... are your religious liberties actually being violated? Does being in a room where someone is drinking beer actually cause you to go to hell? Is being in a room where someone else is drinking coffee actually a sin in those religious tracts? If one can be in a room where people are drinking beer, drinking coffee, not having multiple wives... then why can't one be in a room where people are getting gay married?

This is what keeps sticking. No one in any of this has asked a florist, or a baker or a candlestick maker to get gay married. They just have to be in the same room as something occurring which is theoretically something they believe is against their religion. People do that all the time... but because gay marriage is some sort of LEGAL hot button issue (note, a LEGAL term is not a religious tract...these are two separate ideas), people seem to be focused on this.

So exactly what are "religious liberty" laws supposed to protect a person from? Their religious beliefs aren't being violated.

The only instance where I can see a person's religious beliefs actually being violated might be if you ask a Hindi to butcher a cow for you or something. But hey... I'm willing to at least hear what the biddies here want to say.

They are supposed to give someone "standing" in defense in court.

You don't understand LDS word od wisdom. Mormons bodies are a temple and they aren't supposed to partake in ingesting those things. Being around them isn't partaking, like a Jewish guy can't sit next to a guy in a Chinese restaurant that's eating shrimp and pork fried rice?

Victor are familiar with the florist that is in hot water? She's served the gay couple for a decade, but wouldn't do their wedding. Are you familiar with Melissa Cakes? They offered to recommend other bakeries.....these people had and WERE going to be served. The hate isn't so one sided as is being projected.

Homosexuallity IS widely accepted but there is a majority of people that just don't want to have anything to do with it. The problem I have with what's going on is force and coercion by the state. And I have a problem with a small portion of homosexuals I call the pink mafia who by any means want to force societies acceptance. I don't like that, change hearts and minds with love and valid arguments. Society isn't as bad as many make it out to be.

less than a full answer, but I suspect your beer/caffeine examples are not strong enough to support what you really want to get into...I say this not because I am a Mormon maven, but I'm guessing those rules of that religion are akin to Kosher "law".

No Jew (to my knowledge) believes that eating pork or shellfish keeps you out of the eternal land of milk and honey, as that type of violation is probably not considered a sin. Kosher laws are for health and safety.

I bet Mittens attended many a fundraiser where coffee was served.

Maybe "Thou shall not be a homo" was #11 and that was on the 3rd tablet that Moses dropped.

Well they did bring us the Kama Sutra.

Z,
I do understand that the florist and the baker were very "reasonable"... I don't think they drove the gays out of their shops with pitchforks.

But being at a gay wedding isn't that different than standing next to someone eating pork fried rice. You aren't going to leave the wedding accidentally gay married or anything. Even if one's religion prohibits getting gay married, putting flowers on church pews before a gay marriage and taking them off after doesn't cause that person to become gay married. My point is, just as much as this silly storm around the florist and the bakery is people making a statement, the florist refusing to put flowers up for a gay wedding was not her exercising her religious freedom (that would be her refusing to marry a woman)... it's her making a political statement.

And for the record, serving a gay couple for a decade before refusing to do their wedding actually kind of makes it worse. It also means that gay couple was unwittingly helping a person profit who didn't believe they should be allowed to get married. They could have been patronizing another business for that whole decade, and had a relationship with a different florist who they felt comfortable asking to do their wedding.

This is actually one that was directly in my head when posting this thread.

Just by selling flowers to straight unmarried men who are going to use them to get some @sss, the florist is doing more to enable sin than she would be by decorating a wedding.

somehow you described a chapter in the Kama Sutra AND violated Kosher dietary laws in one sexually taboo scenario.

Kudos.

It's ok. All the wives are separated by doilies with holes in the middle. You can do anything you want as long as there's a doily in between, right?

It's against her religion for her to marry a woman.

Is it against her religion for her to hang flowers at a gay wedding?

If your entire point is that it's requiring her to be in proximity to something that violates her religion, then that takes us back to the mormons serving sandwiches at an event with alcohol.

If your entire point is that she's enabling a violation of her religion by providing flowers, she did that every day by selling them flowers. And she does that every day by selling flowers to single men who use them to get laid by their non-wives...

Hell, if you're christian and you set your friend up with some woman and they bang before they get married... you've violated your religion more than this scenario she's so afraid of.

Again... I'm not a fan of the whole "coerce participation" idea either. (although really... hanging flowers isn't exactly "participation"... but both sides are blowing things out of proportion, so I'll let it slide)... but why are laws generally in place? To keep people from being d$cks to each other.

never heard that but I bet TW's knitting up a mess of 'em right now....

Victor, you're close to troll territory.

On the one hand, you say you are against government telling you what to do. If you really believe that, then you should have no concern if someone is against the government defining for them what their religion does or does not mean to them.

Then in the same sentence you pass judgement upon someone's belief.

Pot meet kettle.

If on the other hand it's your purpose to pizz off a handful of regulars, pass me the popcorn first.

We are supposed to have a separation of church and state. We need freedom from religion laws and religious leaders should have no say about our governance.

So, 'I don't want to', won't work ehh...??

Victor, please don't tell me this isn't an effort to pose rhetorical questions, then argue with people when the offer an opinion. It is what it is. But, nonetheless it still has entertainment value.



Wait.....



You did pass judgement.



2 Thessalonians 3:14-15
If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.



To some extent, it would seem to me that you have perched yourself on a small outcropping and are hanging by your toenails.

At the end of the day, your position is to marginalize her individual personal belief system for what you believe is the greater good. That is your right. But, your rights end where her's begins.

I can't speak for Tony, but I had to wait until noon a couple Sunday's ago to but a bottle of rum.

Can't buy Rum at all on Sunday's here.. or on voting days... no beer after midnight either... I blame the Baptists..

I was forced into taking religion classes in high school, but they wouldn't let me take home economics.

I had to take religion classes for my first 1 1/2 yrs of HS, then I transferred to a public school and was able to take Boys Chef.

You're really picking and choosing here. Leviticus is old testament. Thessalonians is new testament. If you're going to say Thessalonians means she has to withdraw from sinners, as defined in the old testament, then why just the gays? Why doesn't she withdraw from all adulterers? Did she supply flowers to any wedding where the couple had sex before the wedding? You're picking and choosing your sins here (and for that matter, you're choosing one with a single oblique reference in thousands of pages, over ones that are primary commandments).

I'm asking for logic, Anthony. I'm not saying people can't go on with their religious selves, but when a person cites "religious" reasons for something that is a minor footnote of their tract, while not applying even close to the same criteria for other commands... then their excuse seems "flimsy" and it sounds like they're hiding behind religion to make a political statement.

We all know religion has been used in the past to justify horrible treatment of blacks. There were plenty of people, Senators, religious officials, who believed that intermarriage was a violation of the purity god gave the whites... would you allow a florist to deny service to an interracial couple based on those beliefs any more than you'd allow a diner to hang a "no blacks" sign?


It is most definitely not absolute and free from state intervention. I could come up with all sorts of religious practices I've decided I want to follow that the state won't allow. If I decided some obscure tract of the bible actually meant I should snort coke every morning, I'm sure someone would disagree. Hell, I don't even need to look in the christian bible... I can write my own. But that doesn't change the fact that illegal practices are not automatically "ok" just because someone says it's part of their religion.


I don't really care. Mainly I just find it interesting, the intersection of people's rights. I've said elsewhere that I'd be OK with businesses actually discriminating against groups, as long as they post it clearly on their front door. If the florist had a big sign saying "No Gays allowed", I'd think the whole thing would have shaken out a bit fairer.

Like the Gurkha guy?

.... And by that logic I would expect that the same florist then denies service to any jewish weddings, muslim weddings, atheist weddings etc? I mean, not believing in your christian god (or believing in a different god altogether) one of the big daddy sins there isn't it?

It's splitting hairs but on a technicality it would be considered the same. However, those groups you just mentioned are respectful enough to not push the issue and patron businesses who are like minded and follow or identify with their respective faiths.

I suppose we have a shortage of gay owned bakeries and florists. Might be a good business venture for you Victor.

Victor, you are arguing simply for argument's sake and are completely missing the point.

You are trying to apply the scientific process to a completely unprovable point. You are looking for rationality where none exists. Since you know none exists you assume the premise is false. That's what scientists do.

Religion is the complete opposite. There is no tangible proof of a higher being. People of faith, be it Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc... have faith that the teachings are true. But, at the end of the day it's entirely subjective and people will believe what they have faith in.