So Bobby Jindal on Meet the Depressed. Seems Louisiana is wanting to pass a law that will allow a business owner to refuse service if such service is at odds with their religious beliefs.
Evidently somebody in Louisiana is trying to pass such a law but Jindal waltzed around it....says let him wait and see.
I suppose my thoughts on this might not be popular in the Conservative community but I seriously wonder if this is a battle we want to fight.
I lived through the Civil Rights movement of the mid-60’s. Back then it was fine for a business to not serve someone, say in a restaurant, if they are black.
So the Civil rights act made such discrimination illegal, as well it should have as we know now some almost fifty years later.
Why on earth would somebody object to arranging flowers, or catering, or photographing....a same sex wedding?
PLEASE! this is a Devil’s Advocate question. I would not want to have anything to do with a same sex wedding I’m thinking. But if I owned a business that would make money on same....I really don’t think God would get mad at me if I provided a service.
I also think a decent argument could be made that if America was ready to ban denial of service based on race they should do the same based on sexual preference.
I don’t think passing laws to allow denial of service based on sexual preference is a good idea for the Republican party to go diving in to. My guess it’s probably very few businesses that turn down paying customers for such rigid beliefs.
In other words, I am conflicted.
Because they're opposed to gay marriage?
It's not refusing somebody based on their homosexuality, but rather a service/event.
How about gays being married by Baptist ministers? If they refuse, should we punish them?
What about gays wanting/demanding to take the Eucharist in a Catholic Church? Will we need government troops in it to force the priest to give them the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ?
The civil rights era was one thing indeed, but we really need to think thru how we’re going to enforce this on the religious community. After all, the church does not condemn the homosexual, just the act of homosexual sex. This is where the issue does not follow the civil rights legacy and argument. Being black is indeed something you are born into. The argument that gays are born that way could be made (I do not agree—I believe it is cultural, and some men I know, frankly, would have sex with a stump if they could). Having gay sex is a choice.
Christ told us that even desire in one’s heart—without even consummating the act—is sin. We are commanded to ask for our sins to be forgiven and go and sin no more. How can our government—or the mores of other people—force us to sin? Either people have a right to believe what they believe and follow it, or they don’t. And if they do not, then they do not have religious freedom.
Why should a pastor object to marrying a same sex couple using the same logic. That is the end game of this little charade is to put the churches out of business by suing them out of existence.
Because it an abuse of individual liberty and conscience and is a longer camel's nose under the tent of government sponsored enforcement by law for it's favored groups - not to mention it is a direct infringement on our 1st Amendment rights which are not merely "civil rights", but God-given rights enshrined and partially enumerated under our Constitution.
There is a huge difference between the widespread government Jim Crow laws of the Old South (which were designed to prevent the free exercise of rights and liberties of a minority) and the current demands for more laws and enforcement to favor certain favored groups and abridge the rights of genuine liberty and conscience - particularly religious conscience.
Taking it a step further, if the government can so easily abridge individual religious and moral sensibilities on those not supporting homosexual behavior (a learned sinful behavior and not an immutable human characteristic), then what is to prevent (for example) the government and favored groups from requiring doctors and nurses to perform abortions or euthanasia against their will? After all, being these livelihoods require government licensing and are money-making businesses. Or what is to prevent them requiring pastors/priests perform homosexual marriages and publicly "celebrate" this and other abhorrent life-styles? After all, churches enjoy tax-exempt status and other legal privileges? Use your imagination. The list is endless.
This is a slippery slope and one Liberals plan to use to remake America into their own twisted image and moral vision for their own goals. It is not one based on anything resembling Christian conscience and morality and it is contrary to a free people and society which our Founding Fathers envisioned.
Well, first of all...because they don't believe in it, there isn't such a thing. A marriage is a tenet of religion, a union of one man and one women. The RATs always screaming "seperation of church and state"....well, the government can have no standing on Holy Matrimony.
Secondly, because this is America, where we have freedom of association AND freedom of religion. The Constitution tells the government what it can and can't do...not the people.
Regarding business and "public accomodation" the federal government has no right to tell the private sector what it can and can't do.