Indiana Religious Freedom Law

Parent Cafe
281

Hired help are not devoid of their beliefs, and just because one is or can be hired help does not mean one must do something that one finds objectionable based on one’s religion. This is because the activity is being used to further something the person does not believe in from a moral foundation.

Clearly, you do not run a business that actually sounds money on creating specified products because this is not the same as someone coming a buying something off a store shelf or in restaurant. When asked to cater or produce specific products for a specific event, one is directly participating in a specific function. And you know this is the case of direct participation because if the event got cancelled, none of that stuff could be resold because of its specificity. If I cannot use it elsewhere, I am specifically and directly participating.

I also use myself as the example. I refused outright in grad school in the late 80s (a teaching grad school environment where you were essentially cheap hired help) to do any procedures or anything dealing with abortion. So what is it was part of the curriculum and services offered. I was not going to have anything to do with it. And so what if I could be hired help by someone. Others were shocked because the profs told me, “I had no option.” and I could not go forth is I did not. Yeah, right. I ignored told them flat-out, I did not partake, and still got great grades. They figured quite smartly that I was not the type to be bullied to act against my religious convictions.

The bottom-line is being hired help does not mean one leaves one’s morals behind or ignores them in the process.

282

How about we quit buying from those countries? I’d be good with that.

283

There’s a case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v Craig and Mullin, wending its way right now through the Colorado Court of Appeals. Masterpiece Cakeshop wants to say that their “cake artist” should not be forced to make a wedding cake for a male couple. The happy couple say that they tried to order a wedding cake from Masterpiece, and were refused, although Colorado bars discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Masterpiece filed their [reply brief]( http://www.adfmedia.org/files/MasterpieceReplyBrief.pdf) just yesterday:

Got to admit, the dude makes good looking cakes: http://masterpiececakes.com/wedding-cakes/

@Hunt brought this up before-- there must be some dividing line between someone who merely provides a commercial service, like a limo driver at a wedding, and someone who is seen to endorse the wedding, like the celebrant at the wedding. I’d say the cake guy and the florist are just providing a commercial service, but the woman who says, “I now pronounce you husband and husband,” if that person is paid, is seen to endorse the wedding. People who perform weddings as part of their government job have to perform them for anyone who shows up with a license, but people who are hired to perform weddings should be able turn down clients, I say. But bakers should bake cakes for anyone who walks in and orders a cake.

284

http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-in-talks-to-sell-iphone-in-iran-1414604199

285

This makes no sense to me. I ordered a custom bike for a trip this summer. The chop shop that altered the standard frame, the painter that painted it, the wheel builder who made the wheels, the bike shop that assembled it: none of them are participating in my bike ride. They just made me a bike. I’m the one that rides it, and if I, in my big trip this summer, trespass or do something wrong, it has nothing to do with the perfectly nice bike guys who made the bike for me. They’re not endorsing my trip on the Great Divide. They just make bikes.

And somebody who makes wedding bouquets for a same-sex marriage is not endorsing the wedding. They’re just a florist providing flowers.

286

I would go as far as to say it does not even have to reach the level of writing or printing something, as it could also be the use of the product because how something is used could also be interpreted as violating one’s free speech.

My company did the following in 2007 when we developing a product:

After sending out and RFPs, one of my executives contracted with another company to provide a certain function and part of the design. That company liked what we did and also asked if we would produce something for them. Fine, so far.

However, it turns out that some time later upon visiting that company’s website and literature I learned that it contributed to charities and did certain things that were diametrically opposed to mine, from a religious perspective. Pretty much everything I did not believe in morally, they championed. It got even worse when I found out what the product we were going to produce for them was going to be doing and “saying” to others.

In short, there was no way I would let my company produce a product that would promote such positions that I were against my beliefs. Thus, I told them we could not produce the product for them and also cancelled the work they were doing for us.

I was upfront about the reason, and they did raise the religious bigotry argument, but, as usual, I just ignored knowing they had no grounds legally. Never heard a peep from them. Well, even if the talked to a lawyer, it would have been a waste of their money anyway, as he would have told them what I did.

And what does this have to do with free speech - giving them my business would have violated my free speech in two ways: 1) their donations to those charities and other organizations were opposite the free speech that I would support and 2) the product we were going to produce would be promoting activities that I also would speak out against and would not promote. Therefore, my company was not compelled to give them business to further speech with which I disagreed.

Now, if this or another company walked it and said they wanted to buy X and Y products, sure I would sell it to them. However, no darn way would I produce anything specific for them. Pretty much like the money we make from Iran, Uganda, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia even though they hunt down and execute gays. These are all off-the-shelf products that anyone can buy. However, my company would not produce specific for such countries and many others.

287

When you order a custom product or service for an event–you aren’t a participant. A participant is a guest or a host. Just because a business offers ALL customized services doesn’t meant it’s not providing a service and it doesn’t make the business a participant. Because events get cancelled doesn’t make the customized service provider a participant either. Events get cancelled all the time–that’s one of the costs of doing a customized business. Plus, there’s nothing that keeps the baker from reselling the cake that says “Congratulations to Xand Y”. There are all kinds of bargain hunters who would love to buy the cake at a reduced price and wouldn’t care what it said–maybe not a bride and groom, but certainly a customer who loved the baker’s cakes.

288

I actually agree that there should be a line of demarcation between people actually facilitating the ceremony, like the officiant or the musicians and the people providing a generalized service like chairs, flowers, décor, but I’m still conflicted because at least in my state, the religious person performing the wedding acts on behalf of the state in signing the marriage license, so how can someone acting on behalf of the state refuse to conduct the marriage on religious grounds? I wonder if a person could set rules for everyone, not just protected classes, that say they have to interview each other and be compatible in order to work together. I don’t know. But I still think the orgiastic frenzy and threats of violence (certainly not here on CC) are both political opportunism and flat-out enjoyment of the orgiastic frenzy.

289

I am not surprised and, frankly, there is no way I can explain it to you because you seem not to have a sense of what is a religious moral conviction.

When you wrote that you wondered why religious people get exemptions from certain laws that other “regular” people have to follow told everything I need to know right there.

You just seem more grounded in a relativistic world where all beliefs are treated with equal weight and with little understanding of those who function based on a higher-defined purpose, i.e., a God-driven purpose, not based on man-driven secularism.

Basically, your not understanding is the same as that one reporter who could not believe that a certain public person (not mentioning to keep politics out) said that our rights come from God. The reporter thought and openly said our rights come from the Constitution and that was written by man. No, the Constitution only affirms our God-given rights. Man and government are incidental to those rights, and the Constitution is the protective steward of those rights, not man or government.

However, if you do not believe the above paragraph, I understand why you think hired help are only souls who are employed and who leave their religious convictions at home. A man, by definition, is not separate from his religion for he is guided by it.

More importantly though, you seem not to acknowledge the very first official document written by the Founders, the Declaration of Independence. It states the right to the “pursuit of happiness.” Well, if forced to promote, in any way, something contrary to my religious beliefs that directly disrupts my moral pursuit of happiness and is direct violation of my inalienable rights. However, again, if you do not believe that man can have and can serve a purpose higher than man, then I understand why you do not get my post.

The bottom-line is I am not here on earth to satisfy the wishes of secular man, no matter how rabid he gets.

290

You can work for the government without losing your Constitutional rights. Another officiant without religious objections can be substituted.

291

Right, but not all houses of worship have someone else, and I am confident that after the bakeries have been bullied into submission and the florists, as well, the next will be the professional clergy. Making the convoluted point that there actually is cause for this law, which just says that a person can claim a defense, not necessarily that it will be accepted. So if John Baker says no he won’t bake the cake for Steve and Mike but does so for Gianna and Rocco, a judge could say no to the defense, but if father O’Malley refuses to marry Steve and Mike, the defense would be more easily accepted.

292

Just understand that they and many other companies already do sell in Iran and other countries, as they sell more than just iPhones.

The sanctions stop direct business relationships, but does not stop other countries/companies from doing business with other companies’ products, as proxies. It is sham. We cannot do business directly with Iran, but a Chinese subsidiary can. What is the difference? None.

The iPhone is unique in that to use one must connect directly to Apple servers, and there-in lies the direct connection part that is the issue re current sanctions. iPhone use requires direct relationship with the company.

293

I expect this is true, although I haven’t researched it. People seem to think that if there is no Apple store, then there are no Apple sales. I don’t think this is necessarily true. Don’t many/most businesses use local distributors to sell to their products to end users? This is what I assume is probably happening with Apple products.

294

Even though I am not religious, and would be annoyed if someone refused to do business with me because of it, I agree that there is cause for the law. I don’t want someone like awctnb to be forced to lease his office building to an abortion clinic, or an Orthodox barber be forced to cut a woman’s hair, if their religious convictions forbid it. Why would l want to do that? I respect their religious rights, even if I don’t agree with them. People are making this into an overblown gay-wedding-cake issue, which I think disrespects peoples’ Constitutional religious rights. There are discrimination issues, of course, but at some point there is going to have be compromise.

295

There used to be signs next to water fountains…

No dogs or Jews…

That was ok?

My religion says Jews are going to rot in hell…
So it is ok to discriminate against Jews?

Now…

If the signs say no gays…that’s ok?

Really?

Does God really want people to discriminate?

I thought God made everybody.

296

I am a conservative Christian woman and I find gay marriage completely in keeping with my faith and values, but I understand that there are other people whose faith tells them otherwise. I am Protestant from a very, very long line of battling Protestants, so it would never be possible for my faith to be governed by a man in a position of great power, but I understand intellectually that a lot of people hold to faiths where doctrine and practice are set for the entire group in a somewhat more distant way. I can actually see both sides of the issue as a supporter of gay marriage and as a person of faith, so I think the law kind of does a fair, albeit imperfect, job of trying to compromise by mandating a defense and nothing further. However, people who threaten to burn down a business or kill its employees based on the answer to a hypothetical question asked to someone who would probably never encounter the actual situation aren’t exactly paragons of compromise.

297

“Clearly, you do not run a business that actually sounds money on creating specified products because this is not the same as someone coming a buying something off a store shelf or in restaurant.”

No I don’t but so what?

Again, if these people don’t want to have customers that they hate they should find another business to be in. And no, they are not participants, either. It’s such an absurd concept, for the life of me I can’t even believe people accept that it is.

298

When people don’t share the same religious views, does that mean they “hate” each other?

I don’t have any religious views, and I don’t hate people who have them. I only hate people who seriously injure my family.

299

I can’t believe people are arguing about whether Apple does business in Iran rather than admit a mistake.

300

How much deference should we give to religious beliefs? Should I be permitted to refuse service to a black person at my restaurant because of my sincere religious beliefs that black people and white people shouldn’t eat in the same restaurant? What about my adherence to the First Church of I Don’t Like To Pay Taxes-- should that get me out of paying income tax? What about men who want to be able to marry more than one child bride-- should that be legal because their religion allows it?

Clearly we can’t give unlimited deference to religious beliefs, however sincerely they may be held. Most people want to give some deference, but most people also see that lines must be drawn somewhere.