http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/07/national-gay-rights-group-withdraws-ENDA-support-over-religious-exemptions/

I wish I owned a company that actually could hire people. My response to this would be to establish a policy of not hiring Christians because I'm a Satanist. It would be interesting to watch their heads spin as they try to find a politically-correct way to say "No, we don't want exceptions for ALL religious beliefs. Just OURS!"

What a step backwards.

As a free and heterogeneous society, when are we ever going to figure out that one's "freedom of religion" ends when it causes harm to others, especially when those others do not subscribe to that particular set of beliefs.

Quote from: Jill F on July 08, 2014, 04:16:49 PM
As a free and heterogeneous society, when are we ever going to figure out that one's "freedom of religion" ends when it causes harm to others, especially when those others do not subscribe to that particular set of beliefs.

I imagine society will figure it out around the same time it realizes that reasonable people can come to different conclusions and that is fine.....

I wouldn't hold my breath.

And so both sides continue to rage and scream for the other's complete capitulation, without even trying to reach an equitable middle ground.

Zoe, would the equitable middle ground not be the point that the LGBTQ community is striving towards? Being treated fairly and equally?
If we aren't allowed to work then how are we to afford food, clothing or shelter?
Are they not effectively saying that we don't deserve to live?

Quote from: Falconer on July 08, 2014, 06:05:12 PM
If we aren't allowed to work then how are we to afford food, clothing or shelter?
Are they not effectively saying that we don't deserve to live?

If they sincerely believe your eternal soul is at stake, all of that is small potatoes. Your entire mortal life is just a tiny drop in an ocean of eternity.

Quote from: Falconer on July 08, 2014, 06:05:12 PM
Zoe, would the equitable middle ground not be the point that the LGBTQ community is striving towards? Being treated fairly and equally?
If we aren't allowed to work then how are we to afford food, clothing or shelter?
Are they not effectively saying that we don't deserve to live?

There are many places where the religious rights and conscience exemptions do not infringe upon anybody's livelihood. You don't have to work for Wheaton College if you're gay, and they shouldn't have to hire you. Separate cultures, separate ideals, nobody loses.

Lets assume for a second that it passes with religious exemptions. Isn't this already a HUGE improvement over what we have now? Its this a HUGE improvement over the executive order that Obama still hasn't signed? Even if we can't get rid of the religious exemptions, its going to put tremendous pressure on them to not be so close minded over time. Eventually hatered of LGBT in a church will be just like that wellsboro church is now.

Quote from: ZoeM on July 08, 2014, 06:50:36 PM
There are many places where the religious rights and conscience exemptions do not infringe upon anybody's livelihood.

Except that if it's "okay" for one group to do it then we legitimise this for everyone and that could change.

Anyone can claim something offends their religious beliefs.
People can create their own religion to support any position that they wish to take and claim that your actions are offensive to their religion.
There's already one dedicated to a flying spaghetti monster!



No offence to pastafarians, I love pasta, mmmmmm tortellinni...

But how would you feel if someone told you that you couldn't work for their company because the Flying Spaghetti Monster says that it's wrong for you to exist?
Exactly the same way that you ought to feel if told that you can't work for their company because God says that it's wrong for you to exist.
Those positions are equally "legitimate".

I can easily envisage a society where employment opportunities are significantly limited because of bigots abusing their "religious freedom" to refuse employment to individuals or groups that they don't like or care to understand.

Quote from: ZoeM on July 08, 2014, 06:50:36 PM
Separate cultures, separate ideals, nobody loses.

Talented people find jobs denied to them, companies are less innovative and stagnate, prejudice is legitimised in a society which grows more intolerant and oppressive. Everyone loses.

Quote from: ZoeM on July 08, 2014, 06:50:36 PM
You don't have to work for Wheaton College if you're gay, and they shouldn't have to hire you.

I'm pretty sure they should hire the most capable person for the job regardless of their sexual orientation.
If someone turned around and said to you "I'm sorry, it's against our religious beliefs to hire women" would you take the same stance?
Or do you see discrimination against a group as variably acceptable depending on which group is targeted?

Quote from: ZoeM on July 08, 2014, 06:50:36 PM
There are many places where the religious rights and conscience exemptions do not infringe upon anybody's livelihood. You don't have to work for Wheaton College if you're gay, and they shouldn't have to hire you. Separate cultures, separate ideals, nobody loses.

I really want to agree with you Zoe. I'd love to say "Yeah. We should take what we can get and deal with those still affected later once more progress has been made and society has changed a little more". But the last time the LGBT group said that about the writing of proposed E.N.D.A. legislation, they left out the Transgender community to try to get it passed. It's wrong for us to try to progress forward and then leave our religious brothers, sisters, and non conforming to fight it out on their own because of a small but loud and powerful bigoted minority.

There are many political arguments where I think compromise is vital. However I think doing so with equal rights only serves to prolong the suffering of others. To me it's not melodramatic to say that the fight for equal rights in the United States isn't a fight, but a war. One that's been being fought since the end of the United States Civil War. It's my personal opinion that we either all move forward, or we do ourselves a great disservice, not just among LGBT people, but all of society.

Equal rights means everyone's basic rights are equal. And - sorry, but that includes freedom of religious belief and expression. It's on an equal playing field to the LGBT movement, and trying to get rid of it or downgrade it to "win" is not only morally wrong (in my eyes and the eyes of at least half the nation, probably much more), but contrary to the laws on which America was founded.

We are no more in the right than they are, fundamentally. Someone is, sure, in absolute terms. But it's not for us to judge, so we have to just learn to get along. Side by side. Together. As equals.

They don't infringe on our lives or livelihoods, and we don't infringe on theirs. Yes, That means there will be Christian wedding bakers and LGBT-friendly wedding bakers. But that's okay, 'cause there's still cakes for everyone and everyone can be happy. Except the folks who want one side to be right and the other to be wrong, of course.

Quote from: ZoeM on July 08, 2014, 09:40:12 PM
Equal rights means everyone's basic rights are equal. And - sorry, but that includes freedom of religious belief and expression.

Zoe what's happening here is that LGBTO people are trying to make this a reality; they want to be treated as though everyone's basic rights are equal. Including their own right to freedom of belief and expression.

I'm confused by your position.
You appear to be arguing that it's wrong to try and interfere with the beliefs of others whilst defending a group of people who are attempting to circumvent the rule of law in order to impose their own beliefs in place of another's (,as though theirs somehow had greater value,) and to deny others their rights to freedom of belief and expression.

Your right to your beliefs (religious or otherwise) should not nullify another's right to their own beliefs.
If applied inequitably then this "freedom of religion" is a farce.
The only reason that another's beliefs (and the exercising thereof) should be curtailed is when they cause harm (not mere offence) to others.

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But it's not for us to judge

It is the responsibility of each person to judge for themselves the difference between right and wrong according to their conscience.

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we have to just learn to get along. Side by side. Together. As equals.

This is what the LGBTQ community is trying to achieve, through non violent and legal procedures.
Your position in this baffles me where you make arguments for a comparable middle ground between equality and bigotry and describe the goal of one side (equality) as the desired meeting-place between the two...

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They don't infringe on our lives or livelihoods, and we don't infringe on theirs.

Attempting to make it legal to refuse to employ people based upon their gender or sexual orientation impacts neither their life nor their livelihood?
How is this morally different than attempting to make it legal to refuse to hire ethnic minorities, or say, women?

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Yes, That means there will be Christian wedding bakers and LGBT-friendly wedding bakers. But that's okay, 'cause there's still cakes for everyone and everyone can be happy.

If it becomes legally sanctioned and accepted practice to refuse "cake" to LGBTQ people then it would allow all businesses to do so with little opportunity for recourse. You don't think there's a possibility that people who challenged the rule of law would attempt to pressure other businesses to operate under similar guidelines? The promise that the "cake" will still be available indefinitely may turn out to be a lie.

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Except the folks who want one side to be right and the other to be wrong, of course.

When one side is peacefully pursuing legal equality whilst its members are being murdered and the other side is trying to deny that equality along with basic human rights then it couldn't be clearer cut which side is in the wrong.
Were the many people who lost their lives during the American civil rights movement on equal moral footing with the bigots who wanted to deny their self-worth?
If the Confederate States had turned around and said "ending slavery is against our religious beliefs!" should Americans have just left them to it?

Religious freedom should not supersede the basic human rights of others.

Article 23 of the universal declaration of human rights states that:

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

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It's on an equal playing field to the LGBT movement, and trying to get rid of it or downgrade it to "win" is not only morally wrong (in my eyes and the eyes of at least half the nation, probably much more), but contrary to the laws on which America was founded.

This isn't about a group of people trying to protect their religious freedom. This is about people treating religious freedoms as the freedom to impose their religious beliefs on those who don't share them. They're effectively claiming that their religious freedoms trump yours, along with your human rights.

The freedom of religion was put in place to prevent the imposition of religious beliefs upon others, not to sanction this immoral practice.

I feel that that religious oppression is undeniably immoral. Killing people with bombs in the name of religion is wrong. Stoning people to death in the name of religion is wrong. Mutilating infants in the name of religion is wrong. Treating women as inferior second class citizens in the name of religion is wrong. Refusing the fundamental human rights of LGBTQ people on the basis of religion is wrong.

If you disagree would you please explain why?


As for being contrary to the laws on which America was founded,

Article XIV of the US constitution
1:  All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

It seems pretty clear to me that no state shall pass a law which allows citizens of the united states to discriminate against others or to remove privileges or protections for any reason. All people are citizens and should be treated as such.
Does this not make the discrimination against LGTBQ people "contrary to the laws on which America was founded."?


Whatever happened to the idea that all men were created equal?

I've been wrestling with this religious freedom thing for a while thanks to Zoe's advocacy stemming back months. I've landed with the following:

I know who I am and when I speak as a woman, as a lesbian and as a trans woman I am speaking for myself.

When someone seeks to discriminate based off religious beliefs they are putting words in the mouth of God because they can't know what God wants. This church is cool with LGBT, that one is not. Which one is right? Who knows!?!

The United States Government, State, county, city government cannot make laws that effectively endorse the practices of the most discriminatory religions. To do so infringes upon the tolorant religions freedom to not condemn. Is that an endorsement of tolerance? Sure. But we must side with tolerance because we don't know what God actually wants and this country is supposed to be about equality.

And indeed, seperate but equal is apartheid. A house divided cannot stand. It's wrong along with discrimination and gets to a sickness in the heart of this country. I'll not participate. I will befriend those who I sometimes very much disagree with (though I'm hitting likes less often if their FB profile is public).

I don't believe in religious freedom. I just believe in freedom. Everyone should have the same freedoms and that should include practicing your religion, but only up to a point. Obviously if your religion called for human sacrifice, you should not get an exemption for murder just because it's your religion. I'm against discrimination laws but if they exist, there should not be a religious exemption. The hypocrisy of that notion is mind-boggling. That would be discrimination by the government itself against the non-religious!

Religious freedom is a lie anyway, the only religion that that excuse flies for is Christians. Muslims, Buddhists, Satanists or any other religion wouldn't get anywhere if they tried to get exemptions too.

Its just a cop out that people fall back to these days whenever the culture of a population shifts in such a way that reduces their religions power over people.

Its got nothing to do with the original meaning of freedom to practice whatever you want anymore, which was in reaction to governments banning religions etc. Its supposed to stand for personal freedom to live your life in the way you want, not freedom to discriminate and treat people differently. If you are going to live in a society, you still have to live by its moral code, regardless of your beliefs, ideals, background or social status. When enough of a population decides that its not ok to discriminate against and marginalize a minority, you dont get to claim religious freedom to get exemption from that decision. Thats not how the world works.

The only thing you achieve through doing that is ending up on the wrong side of history.

The other thing that occurred to me is by discriminating, there cannot be equality. That is becuse in order to discriminate, someone must either elevate themselves up or put another down or both in order to say, "You don't deserve to be treated as well as me."

I think that's what was missing from my earlier post. Parts of what I wrote before feels soapboxy and that's not my style.