Posted on 02/23/2014 11:31:35 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Conservative Christian groups in Arizona cheered the passage Thursday of legislation that would allow individuals and businesses in the state to deny service to same-sex couples due to religious beliefs.
All eyes have shifted to Governor Jan Brewer, who must now decide whether to sign the bill. Similar legislation died in Kansas last week, but has also been introduced in Ohio, Mississippi, Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Oklahoma.
The Arizona law seems to apply to services beyond those tied to weddings, but same-sex weddings are the impetus for these bills. Specifically, they are in response to lawsuits against three different Christians who refused to photograph, bake a cake, and sell flowers for same-sex weddings. The backers of these laws claim that a Christian cannot, in good conscience, provide a good or service for a same-sex wedding because it violates the teachings of Christianity.
If these bills become law, we could see same-sex couples being denied service not just by photographers and florists, but also restaurants and hotels and pretty much anyone else who can tie their discrimination to a religious belief.
Many on the left and right can agree that nobody should be unnecessarily forced to violate their conscience. But in order to violate a Christian’s conscience, the government would have to force them to affirm something in which they don’t believe. This is why the first line of analysis here has to be whether society really believes that baking a wedding cake or arranging flowers or taking pictures (or providing any other service) is an affirmation. This case simply has not been made, nor can it be, because it defies logic. If you lined up 100 married couples and asked them if their florist “affirmed” their wedding, they would be baffled by the question.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
In the second it is quite in your face.
I am not quite sure why this seems to be so difficult.
It is like if I sold a dog to a couple not knowing that they were going to make the dog a blood sacrifice and in another case sold a dog to someone who TOLD me he was going to sacrifice the dog to satan before burning down his neighbors house.
I suppose an important distinction is that serving a restaurant meal to someone I don’t like, I’m not morally complicit in whatever it is I don’t like about them.
But baking a wedding cake for what I consider morally repugnant makes me complicit and forces me to join in something I consider immoral.
I could bake cakes for homosexuals all day long, and let them add the trim to turn it into a wedding cake. I don’t have to know. But don’t ask me to bake it explicitly as a wedding cake because now you’re making me a party to it. I could take picture of a gathering that includes homosexuals and as long as everyone behaves I’m not party to whatever they do behind closed doors. But don’t ask me to photograph something I consider morally repugnant which makes me party to it.
Someone else might feel differently and if they do, feel free to hire them. They could even advertise for that business and put me at a competitive disadvantage and thats their right.
I think thats how I draw the distinction.
Freedom of Association implies the freedom not to associate, we don’t even need to bring religion into it
I frankly feel a business owner should be able to deny service to anyone for any reason they choose.
But that’s just me.
If the baker doesn’t have the right to refuse, does he have the right to do a shoddy job? Would the court find the baker guilty above the price paid for the cake if the quality doesn’t meet the patrons standards. Or do we all lose our businesses because the activists insist on patronizing us to their expectations?
You've just put your finger on the distinction and the problem. Once people lose their moral compass, the law loses all rationality.
I don’t remember and Divorce Pride movements and people throwing Divorce into your face, demanding you affirm it.
These gays can buy cakes all day long without telling anyone they are homosexuals.
Should a black-owned bakery be forced to bake a cake for a KKK meeting?
If a gay bakery denied a cake for a Christian function, would that be okay with these same liberals?
Of course it would.
—However, Jesus, when he talked about marriage, never considers same-sex relationships to be marriage.
When we taught marriage preparation a priest once told us Jesus could have come in any time and in any social construct. He chose to come to mankind in the shelter of the Holy Family - a man and a woman. This choice affirms the definition.
Consider also that a Marriage was the first of Jesus’ miracles.
God is very interested and present in marriage and the creation of new life and want us to affirm it.
“No Soup for You!”
RE: Legislatures and courts are ruling that “gay” is an identity category, like race or physical handicap, and not a behavior category, like being drunk-and-disorderly.
Even if it were an identity category, do we force someone to service it simply because it is an identity?
Let’s take an example — is Pedophilia a behavior or an identity? If a Muslim man someday wants you to service his wedding to a girl twelve years old ( I take that back, he does not have to be Muslim, all he has to do is insist that he was ‘born that way’ ), should you be forced to do it?
BUMP
Also, a man and a woman in an unsanctified marriage could still both theoretically repent and remain in the marriage. The two members of a sodomite “marriage” could never do that.
That’s the question I have asked. How consistent do people want to be, if consistency is everything? It was said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, and this scenario with sodomite “marriage” proves the truth of that statement.
I would guess that in order to do this, a business must delve more deeply into a couple's personal issues than most people feel comfortable with. Generally, when processing an order for cake or flowers there is nothing particularly obvious about a couple who are violating God's law when they are a male/female couple. A male/male couple is obvious right off the bat.
Sure, we can probably assume the couple is engaged in fornication- they could have children accompanying them, which would make it obvious, but in that case most of us would be glad to see them "making it legal".
Aside from the divorce issue, a male/female couple have the capability to build a Godly union over time, if the union does not begin in that manner. And even in the case of divorce, would God demand that a person who divorced and re-married and then became a Christian un-do the second union and dissolve a family created? My guess is no, this is where grace comes in- where before you did not understand, acknowledge that you violated God's law, ask forgiveness and move on.
A same sex union has none of these possibilities.
Well, fine. I’d rather have chicken anyway!
Funny, posting the Ten Commandments on a wall constitutes an Endorsement even if it was put there 50 years ago... Yet they seem to want a different standard here.
By the way, it was years and years ago that I refused to attend the wedding of my husband's scummy boss who had an affair and then left his family to marry the other woman.
For years I have been quietly resistant to treating my brother's live-in girlfriend as my sister-in-law. The end result is that I don't have any special relationship to my other brother's wife because I don't wish to highlight any difference in treatment between the two.
Fortunately for me, they all live very far away and the issue is largely moot. But I mightily resent being put in a position where I am expected to treat their relationship with far more respect/credibility than either of them do. If my brother does not want to make her a part of the family-or if she is choosing to not become my family, how am I the bad-guy by treating her like just another girlfriend?
I think you’re making a defensible distinction between providing service to a person and participating in an event.
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