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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1471 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Gay Marriage as an attack on Christianity | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Of course you have it wrong. Matthew 5:28
But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Not only does it seem to be aimed at men, it’s about committing a sin in the heart - not redefining the sin. And indeed, it is much like equating coveting to theft in the heart.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Thanks for admitting that you were wrong. Although I have to say that the idea is pretty strange. Our desires are not within our control, so we cannot we be responsible for them. And if we are not responsible for them how can we be culpable?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I think that your reading is very questionable.
For instance you regard this part as unimportant, but it suggests that a gay couple asking for a wedding cake would be on much stronger ground.
The message was not indissociable from the sexual orientation of the customer, as support for gay marriage was not a proxy for any particular sexual orientation [25]. The benefit of the message accrues not only to gay or bisexual people, but to their families and friends and to the wider community who recognise the social benefits which such commitment can bring [33]. Thus, there was no discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation in this case.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
If you can’t understand the ruling, then speculating about how ithe judges would rule in different cases is less than entirely sensible.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
There are numerous points I could raise here, but there is one that even you cannot dispute. The U.S. Constitution is not binding on the U.K.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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The courts won’t make religious belief carte blanche to ignore the law. And I hope that will continue to be the case in both countries.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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I don’t think it is that tough.
First, there is precedent, as cited above.
in a majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court ruled that neutral laws of general applicability could not be challenged on the ground that they violated the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.
Second, the First Amendment was never intended to make religious belief a carte blanche. It recognises that government does have a right to restrict actions:
...The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg
Thomas Jefferson Notes on the State of Virginia Third, allowing religious belief to overrule anti-discrimination laws would gut them. There are still segregationists who hold that segregation of the races is a Christian doctrine. I doubt that anyone on the Court wants to overturn precedent and open a massive can of worms. And overturning the lower court’s decision would do that. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Conservatives were all against hearing it because they didn’t want to be placeD in the position of affirming that decision.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: I don’t think there is any question there. We are talking about a principle that was clearly intended against an attitude of the times.
quote: The denial of service is already an injury, if a small one. And raising exceptions obviously creates more room for argument.
quote: In most of these cases there is nothing about the cake itself that the baker disappproves of (and if there was it would be in the decoration, not the baking). The legal question is whether the baker can refuse to provide service to people of a protected class because they are of a protected class. And as I pointed out that has already been answered. He can’t.
quote: And it seems obvious to me that this is a civil rights case.
quote: Did they ? It certainly isn’t mentioned in the decision (pdf) of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Decorations are a tougher case, but unless the baker advertises that they will provide any decoration the customer asks for, it is generally accepted that there will be some limits. See also Chiroptera’s comment above - it seems that decorations were not the issue in the Masterpiece bakery case.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: See what I said above. In addition, consider the fact that hunters are not a protected class. Also consider the fact that there is no great tradition of cakes to celebrate dead deer, or dead deer as a decoration for cakes. Really, you should have been able to work that out without my help.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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quote: But there is a great tradition of wedding cakes. Singling out gay marriage in that respect is an aspect of discrimination.
quote: There is also a long tradition of homophobia, and of opposition to gay rights which had far more to do with it. Indeed, gay marriage does nothing to threaten traditional marriage, so it doesn't seem much of a motivation.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: If you read the quote it is quite clear that the “other accommodations” did not stretch to even a generic wedding cake
Phillips appealed the case to the US Supreme Court. He argued that he’s not really discriminating against same-sex couples because he would have served Craig and Mullins any non-wedding goods that they asked for.
A generic wedding cake is not a “non-wedding” good. Philips’ argument is that he is not prejudiced against gays because he would sell them other items but not any sort of wedding cake.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: So if a segregationist decides that obedience to God requires excluding Blacks or forbidding mixed-race relationships or marriages, they should be allowed to ignore anti-discrimination laws. If you really believed what you said, that is the position you would take. But you don’t take that position and you don’t believe it. It’s just an excuse, and not even a good one.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: It seems quite clear that you feel that the consequences are unjust.
quote: Or course it is neither twisted nor a trap. It is simply applying the principle you put forward to a closely-related situation. If there is a trap it is one you created for yourself by not thinking about the implications of your excuse.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17827 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3
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quote: Then why haven’t you found a real contradiction ?
quote: By which you mean it is against gay couples enjoying the same secular legal rights as straight couples. That is and always has been the central issue.
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