Are equal rights for gays incompatible with religious liberty?

[Mr Spinkles]

Read Brown v Dade Christian School. A religious institution, notwithstanding its place outside the secular life, is only allowed to discriminate if it can be proven that discrimination is doctrine. Most churches don't even have doctrine regarding marriage, let alone gay marriage, so notwithstanding a church being a religious institution, I could see them being forced to marry because they have no clearly stated doctrine on the subject.

Thanks for pointing that out to me, Aqualung. However, upon reading the first paragraph of this Harvard Law Review on this case http://www.jstor.org/view/0017811x/ap040729/04a00070/0 , I think you have mischaracterized what was determined in this case. Specifically, this review of the case says "The decision...provides no answer to the general question of the legality of racial exclusion by religious schools."

 

[lunamoth]

I was thinking it made sense until you asked if it made sense and now I'm kind of confused. Does that make sense?

I think I get your overall point though. I understand that there have been times where federal laws have trumped religious freedom, but I forget what the exact criteria was (I know there has been at least one Supreme Court decision in this area).

Glad you got my point in spite of the important typos, 'can' should have been 'can't'. I made the edit in the post. LOL, communicating is quite hard enough at times without my poor spelling and lazy punctuation!

 

[gnomon]

No, I don't think so either. That's why I asked SA her opinion about tax exemption.

Do you think that churches that refuse to perform gay marriages should be tax exempt?

Simple answer, yes.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

I never said that it was. In fact, I haven't taken a stand one way or the other in this thread. I just mentioned that it would be an infringement of religious rights.

Allowing gay-marriage *would* be an infringement of religious rights? Could you elaborate (or if you have already elaborated, please direct me to a previous post)? Thanks.

 

[standing_alone]

And I wish it had never become illegal to discriminate on any basis when it comes to privately owned institutions (like businesses), so we're definitely starting at different points.


Because people tend to apply laws as loosely as possible. They tend to apply negative rights positively instead of allowing them to be negative. For example, the negative right to the persuit of happiness is being positively interpreted as the obligation of all people to help those further down on the economic ladder. I can forsee this happening to almost any law passed, even (especially) one about descriminiation.

These are all issues for another thread and another day.

 

[Pah]

Read Brown v Dade Christian School. A religious institution, notwithstanding its place outside the secular life, is only allowed to discriminate if it can be proven that discrimination is doctrine. Most churches don't even have doctrine regarding marriage, let alone gay marriage, so notwithstanding a church being a religious institution, I could see them being forced to marry because they have no clearly stated doctrine on the subject.

I can not find Brown v Dade Christian School. at FindLaw. Please provide more (or better) information about the case. I ask because you seem to have misunderstood US v Bob Jones University

 

[Mr Spinkles]

Bright-ness' Shadow -

See this Harvard Law Review article: http://www.jstor.org/view/0017811x/ap040729/04a00070/0

 

[Darkness]

Yeah, yeah yeah, semantics. Christians have the same right as anyone else to try and influence the direction of the constitutional republic we live in as anyone else. Happy?

You have the right to try and constain the freedoms of others, just as Hitler was in his full right to start the Holocaust and slaughter ten million people. We all have the right to exercise our power, that doesn't stop it from being morally evil, however.

 

[Aqualung]

Allowing gay-marriage *would* be an infringement of religious rights?

No. Allowing equal rights to gays might allow for loop holes that state that anywhere a straight couple can get married a gay couple must be allowed to to get married. It's not about allowing gay marriage, but about equal rights (as the OP stated). Society generally takes laws in a positive sense where (in my opinion) they are usually written in a negative sense. So a negative law for equality has the potential of being interpreted as a positive law.

 

[Aqualung]

These are all issues for another thread and another day.

WRong. The question is would equal rights for gays infringe upon religious liberty.
Specifically:

In response to that trend, one thing I've noticed is religious conservatives claiming that treating gays like fully equal citizens and human beings is incompatible with the conservatives' religious liberty. Are they right?

I am posing a scenario where they would. In other words, I am answering the question the thread posed. If answering the question the thread posed is actually something for another thread, then the world has collapsed.

 

[McBell]

No. Allowing equal rights to gays might allow for loop holes that state that anywhere a straight couple can get married a gay couple must be allowed to to get married. It's not about allowing gay marriage, but about equal rights (as the OP stated). Society generally takes laws in a positive sense where (in my opinion) they are usually written in a negative sense. So a negative law for equality has the potential of being interpreted as a positive law.

Just like it did when inter-racial marriages where allowed, right?
Now all churches have to allow and perform them.
Wait a minute...

 

[Aqualung]

Just like it did when inter-racial marriages where allowed, right?
Now all churches have to allow and perform them.
Wait a minute...

You should read some of the other examples I posted. It's rather a bit of a spotlight fallacy to assume that it could never happen just be it didn't happen in ONE similar situation.

 

[standing_alone]

WRong. The question is would equal rights for gays infringe upon religious liberty.

Yep, and your remarks so far about anti-discrimination laws as applied to either business or academic institutions are irrelavent (the neighborhood church does not have to comply with them--if they did, my old church wouldn't be able to get away with barring women from certain positions within the church or from voting on church matters). You have done nothing to convince me churches (which are neither educational institutions or places of business) would suddenly be forced to comply with anti-discrimination laws aimed at educational institutions and/or places of employment.

 

[Aqualung]

Yep, and your remarks so far about anti-discrimination laws as applied to either business or academic institutions are irrelavent

No they aren't. They prove my point that especially in civil rights issues but in other issues as well laws generally are interpreted positively, not in their true (IMO) negative sense. From this general, I declare that if there were a law proposing EQUALITY to gay couples, that this law too has a good chance of being interpreted positively even if it were written negatively. Therefore, I see there as being a change that if gay couples were awarded EQUALITY that this could infringe upon the rights of religion.

would suddenly

Oh, it wouldn't be sudden, but through a process that has been seen in the past, which has taken time but has generally happened. To qualify it with the word sudden creates a straw man.

 

[Reverend Rick]

No, we want them to accept it as a civil reality in a country that values freedom, justice, and religious tolerance; it's the American thing to do.

When this country was founded, the only people who had rights where white men who owned property. Among some of those men's property was slaves. That is the reality about this country. All this talk about the founding fathers and what they intended is incorrect. They did leave us all a system to effect change however.

We have had to have a war to change some things. Why do you think YOUR rights are going to be simply handed to you? Show me one group that did not have to fight for their rights?

 

[MaddLlama]

When this country was founded, the only people who had rights where white men who owned property. Among some of those men's property was slaves. That is the reality about this country. All this talk about the founding fathers and what they intended is incorrect. They did leave us all a system to effect change however.

We have had to have a war to change some things. Why do you think YOUR rights are going to be simply handed to you? Show me one group that did not have to fight for their rights?

What exactly do you consider "fighting"? Women didn't hold the President hostage in order to get the right to vote. They simply used the political system to their advantage, and attempted to change it.. That's exactly what the GLBT community is doing today.

Saying you fight for your rights doesn't have to mean being violent.

 

[McBell]

You should read some of the other examples I posted. It's rather a bit of a spotlight fallacy to assume that it could never happen just be it didn't happen in ONE similar situation.

Fair enough.
However it is also a fallacy to assume that it will when it hasn't in the past.

 

[Mr Spinkles]

No. Allowing equal rights to gays might allow for loop holes that state that anywhere a straight couple can get married a gay couple must be allowed to to get married. It's not about allowing gay marriage, but about equal rights (as the OP stated). Society generally takes laws in a positive sense where (in my opinion) they are usually written in a negative sense. So a negative law for equality has the potential of being interpreted as a positive law.

Your point is perfectly valid. Still, I think I can safely speak for 99% of Americans when I say that I in no way support the government forcing churches to perform ritualistic ceremonies on all (willing) persons, just as 99% of Americans don't support the government forcing churches to allow atheists to preach at the pulpit on Sunday morning (although freedom of speech is a slippery slope).

 

[Mathematician]

What exactly do you consider "fighting"? Women didn't hold the President hostage in order to get the right to vote. They simply used the political system to their advantage, and attempted to change it.. That's exactly what the GLBT community is doing today.

Saying you fight for your rights doesn't have to mean being violent.

Yes, why must groups resort to violence, especially in a democratic republic? Hasn't our species figured out that violence begets violence yet?

 

[Aqualung]

When this country was founded, the only people who had rights where white men who owned property. Among some of those men's property was slaves. That is the reality about this country. All this talk about the founding fathers and what they intended is incorrect. They did leave us all a system to effect change however.

That's right. Nobody really wants the American way. And that's not sarcasm, either.