Midwest Dad: NO church teaches any such thing. You are just twisting the religious position now.
OHMom of 2: I’m sure that most people would create a cake for anyone getting married in any sort of setting. After all, it is about the money for most people, right?
I’m simply stating that there are a very few who believe they could not create “wedding” cakes - and remember, this is ONLY about weddings for them, since God defines marriage - for what cannot be weddings in their religious tradition, and those very few should be protected.
@Albert69: that’s why there is separation between church and state. If your religious beliefs require you to do or not do something, or consider someone or something is sinful, you’re absolutely free to think so and act in agreement to your belief when it applies to yourself. You can even apply it to your children until they’re 18. However, it doesn’t give you any right to make anyone follow your own personal code or beliefs.
The law of the land is secular, not based on any faith, according to the idea people can be moral without a specific religion’s guidance, or without a religion at all, and the law must be the same for all regardless of faith. Religion can’t be an excuse to do wrong and faith is not a recevable reason for a secular law to be changed. If a religion wants to affect the law, then it’s an infringement upon separation of church and state. This protects all faiths from infringements from other faiths, as well as those who don’t believe in any god(s).
@albert69 No, that’s a logical fallacy. Two sides of a question does not mean they are equally valid. As has been said over and over, no one is asking anyone to “applaud and accept” anyone else’s “behavior” (odd word choice, because this isn’t about behavior, it’s about who they are.)
They’re being asked to treat them the same as anyone else. That’s how we roll in this country. This has nothing to do with beliefs. And yes, yours is the EXACT same argument used by those who opposed inter-racial marriage.
Tranquil, who’s twisting? If indeed no church teaches that then the clerks SHOULD issue the licenses even if they find it distasteful. I don’t like the stop sign at the end of my street but I still stop at it.
I have to disagree with bakers getting some kind of special exemption because they are creating something custom. That is simply not true. For every “custom” cake they bake there is give and take between the baker and the client as to flavor, size, color, etc. Their only objection is that the cake is being used at a gay ceremony. SCOTUS had a case in front of it and now we have legal gay marriage. Very soon SCOTUS will likely have another case in front of it and we will have LGBTQ rights more protected universally than they are now. We are in a weird catch-up period.
Imagine if hair cutters claimed a religious exemption because they are creating a custom product? Or architects? In both cases (and many others) someone is providing a creative service with a great deal of input by the paying client. Should the providers be able to discriminate based on sexual orientation? It’s laughable, especially considering how those two professions have been historically LGBTQ friendly. Hair dressers refusing to do hair for a gay wedding? Has that happened? Extending the “logic” of the religious bakers it should have happened but it hasn’t.
We can extend the logic to infinity. Maybe some Ford assembly line worker doesn’t want to “create” a car on her line for a gay couple who wants to drive away in it.
It seems to me that for people overseas looking at the US, the primary groups applauding these measures would be the Taliban, ISIS, etc. What on earth are our legislators thinking???
MyoS1634. But the baker/artist is NOT applying his standards to anyone else. He is not prohibiting others from marrying. He is simply saying that he chooses not to do an event because it conflicts with his religious beliefs. He does not prevent the event from taking place. He does not apply any rules to anyone else. He simply decides his own level of participation.
Midwest Dad: You have now diverted to another topic. Of course clerks should issue licenses as agents of the state. That is part of the job. If you don’t like the job, now that the law changed legally redefined potential marriage partners, then you will need to change your job.
Your religion doesn’t define stopping at a stop sign as an abomination, I am presuming. Kind of ridiculously inappropriate comparison, don’t you think?
This is entirely different than being asked to do an event as an artist, which one should be free to decline or not.
Greenwitch, none of those examples is remotely similar because none involves participating in a wedding or religious event, which, under Christian tenet (and Muslim, and others) is defined as between a man and a woman.
Getting a hair cut or building a house is completely different, and something everyone does, unrelated to religious ceremonies.
People do get their hair professionally done for weddings. So far no discrimination against LGBTQ folks in that regard that have made the news.
Tranquil, I think where you and I differ is that the state is sanctioning the discrimination in both cases, whether it is the clerk who is permitted to send you on down the line to find a clerk who does not think you are an “abomination” or a baker who can legally say get the hell out of my bakery because I don’t serve people who are an “abomination.”
In both instances this is discrimination hiding behind the letter of the law.
However, a religious college claimed that its former ban on interracial dating was religion-based.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/marchweb-only/53.0.html
Please let’s not forget, many Christian churches perform gay wedding ceremonies. It is okay with those churches. So you aren’t speaking for all Christians.
Our gay son is active in a church that supports gay marriage. They fly a rainbow flag to be sure everyone understands they are inclusive.
The baker usually can’t know if the cake if being used for a civil ceremony or a religious ceremony. Is the baker only going to bake wedding cakes for their own denomination and for couples vetted by that particular church? Because otherwise it seems they are baking heretical cakes a whole lot of the time. Maybe they should just advertise on their church bulletin board and not provide a public service.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/21/where-christian-churches-stand-on-gay-marriage/
I am going a little off -top for a moment. Maybe it’s useful and maybe not. I have been on this board a really long time and have posted this before.
Some of you will be surprised when your kids come home for break and come out to you. Some of you don’t think this is a even a remote possibility. What you say and do when you think it isn’t going to happen has the potential to have long term consequences for your kid and your family. fwiw
And even in my childhood some Christian churches taught interracial marriage was against God’s law.
In my great- great grandfather’s day, some Christian churches taught slavery was God’s law.
Beliefs evolve. Like it or not.
ETA: and yes, they pointed out bible verses that supported those beliefs. You could easily find the verses on google. I don’t know my bible well enough to recall off the top of my head.
I have not gone through all of the posts in this thread so apologies if it has been covered but when they were discussing the issue in Charlotte, I heard someone make the argument that with the decision being passed in Charlotte it would allow someone who is biologically male to wake up one morning feeling like a female freely be able to go into a female locker room. This person could look very male, beard, etc but still feeling inwardly like a female and that is all they would need to say. Is that true to anyone’s knowledge?
I believe I am fairly liberal and do not really care about anyone’s sexual orientation nor do I think anyone should be discriminated against but it seemed to me at the time Charlotte’s ruling could easily be taken advantage of??
That is the big fear, and yet the reality is that transgender people who look very much like the gender they belong to, will have to use facilities for the opposite gender (that they were born as). Think of Chaz Bono having to legally use the women’s restroom because he was born female.
Because there are scores of men out there just hoping for a chance to use the women’s restroom for some perverse reason?
It’s a baseless fear. Men weren’t doing it before the law and they’re not going to start now.
And it has already been stated several time that assault, etc (what people are “worried” about) is ALREADY illegal.
PS: I’m someone who will go in the male bathroom if the female one has a massive line. It never occurred to me that it might be illegal one day!
All this focus on restrooms - we just need to switch to gender neutral restrooms that are safe and comfortable for all!
I remember going to the MD Sheep and Wool festival at a county fairground. Women greatly outnumbered men and the lines for the women’s restroom would get horrible. Eventually, women would just take over the men’s rooms too. These are generally older women who like to knit and crochet, not exactly a radical crowd!