That is what happened in this case. This woman has made cakes for gay people but not a wedding cake for a gay marriage which is against her morals. The gay person she had made cakes for is suing her for refusing to make a cake for the gay marriage.
The state isn’t interfering with her right to operate a business. The state is interfering with her discrimination of a gay couple.
It shouldn’t. Not everyone in Washington is Catholic, and Washington law is not based on Catholic teaching. Religious freedom is important to me, so I would never support the government regulating everyone by the rules of one religion.
If that is correct, then it seems that the business would be entitled to demand proof of marriage. If the law holds all marriages equal, then are business owners compelled to treat any two people who claim to be married – regardless of whether or not they are actually married – as though the two people are married?
What it all boils down to is this: Which law takes precedent? Freedom of Religion or Freedom from Discrimination?
But it was a point you failed to actually make. You asked what the difference was between a gay wedding and a straight wedding, as if no reasonable answer could be given. But there is a reasonable answer to your question. That answer is that a gay wedding is not a wedding, if you understand a wedding to be a joining of two people of the opposite sex, which until quite recently, was the common understanding of people. The courts have declared them to be the same thing, but do the courts have the authority to redefine our language? Our laws, sure, but our language? I think the courts have gone beyond what they can reasonably do by declaring two things to be the same when people understand them to be different things. What if the courts decided that you could marry a cabbage, and that such a union is the same thing as a marriage. Would a florist be obligated to provide a “cabbage-themed” wedding?
Except that political jurisdictions and religious systems are BOTH subject to moral principles so, in principle, these cannot be separated out as if political systems can operate under one set of moral principles and religions under another. Sound moral principle should prevail in both – and simply disqualifying any religious system purely on the grounds that it is religious is a prejudice and NOT an argument.
The guy is kind of an idiot though. I saw an interview in which he called the students he opposed “neo-Marxists.” I really feel like a professor of psychology should know what neo-Marxism actually is instead of just using it as a silly Alt-Right buzzword.
Yes, are choosing between events.
What if a Lebanese Muslim florist in Sydney refused to sell flowers to a gay event?
I made the point. I didn’t ask because there’s no difference between the two, there is. The difference is that in one straight people are getting married and in the other gay people are. Providing a service to the first couple that you refuse to provide to the second is discrimination.
Yes.
The florist in this case had that right. The right to religious freedom in this country is a fundamental right not to participate in things that violate your religious beliefs. Is your religion pacifist? You can’t be forced into combat. Disagree with the public schooling system? You can homeschool. Your religion forbids insurance policies? You can opt out of Social Security. If the florist doesn’t want to participate in gay weddings then she doesn’t have to offer wedding services, she can just sell flowers. But if she offers wedding services to straight people and not to gay people she is violating the law.
She can have whatever views she wants. The florist in this case is not defending her views, she is defending her discrimination of people because of their sexual orientation.
If discrimination based on sexual orientation is unacceptable, then two straight men have the right to get married to each other for tax purposes. That they are both straight cannot be taken into consideration by the government authorities.
Which reminds me, I’m still waiting for an answer to this: If those two straight men were refused service by this florist for their “wedding”, would she still be discriminating against homosexuals?
It is not discrimination against gay people for the following reason. If a gay person decides to marry someone of the opposite sex, their wedding would be a real wedding and the florist would of course participate if asked. But of course the gay person does not want to marry someone of the opposite sex. The right not to be discriminated against applies to people, not couples. If the law were to allow two people to get married, just not to each other, that would not be discriminating against either one of them. It would be discriminating against something they want to do. Something that straight people would not be allowed to do either. Straight people just don’t happen to want to marry someone of the same sex.
Really? If the court said you could marry a cabbage then such a wedding would be a real wedding? Now you have jumped off the deep end.You are still glossing of the assumption that a wedding between straight people is the same as a wedding between gays - something I do not accept. If the law said that offering floral services for weddings is the same thing as offering plumbing and roofing services, and someone wanted to be a florist, but not do plumbing and roofing, your solution is that they should find some other line of work? Come on!
Except that as a highly qualified psychologist who has spent a number of decades studying the deeper meanings of Marxism and Nazism in terms of their roots in psychology, he is a recognized expert in the field, which, I would suppose, you are not.
And that is far more instructive about your prejudices than it is about his capabilities.Honestly I’d fire him just for that.
Exactly. Surely charity would be to leave them in peace and go get flowers for your gay wedding elsewhere. I would not turn the tables flanked by the ACLU and target some liberal small business because I knew the owners thought Christians were intolerant, bigots, just to take them down. Gives the Hell’s Angels a real run for their money. I will be very interested to see what happens here legally, but my hopes are not high. I think maybe in a few years’ time people will see how surreal our social, cultural landscape has become. To be more serious, it is intimidation and oppression of religious liberty. We’re still too deep in it to start to think outside of the box - to actually start to practice real responsible social justice again.
So, in your view is discrimination – i.e., making distinctions between people or groups of people – NEVER warranted?
Yes.
No. She would be discriminating on the basis of sex, which is also against the law.
Weddings between any combination of two people of any gender/orientation/whatever as long as one or both of the people aren’t already married, no one’s being coerced, and they are both old enough are real weddings under Washington law. You don’t have to think that, the Church doesn’t have to think that, but if you run a public business you don’t get to discriminate against any marriages.
It would be a real wedding in whatever jurisdiction that court had say over. Do you think that’s going to happen? Do I think that’s going to happen? Have any courts indicated that marriage between a human and a cabbage is possibly legal? Are they going to? No.
You don’t have to.