"The right to say No" or the choice to be selective?

[Ray]

I disagree with the "popular vote will force it" idea.

I can't say if you're right or wrong about that

If 99% of people thought 2+2=6, they'd still be wrong. This is of course why the FF didn't build a democracy.

But I can respectfully say that this is completely the wrong anology. Math is based on a few axioms and everything else is proven with a strict set of rules.

Even "scientific fact" is because "most" of the scientists evaluate the data and accept it. This ain't a bad thing; usually we end up with a good explanation, and it lasts for a very long time before being replaced with something closer to what truely is.

 

[Ray]

Will someone sue Victoria's Secret because it does not make sizes for transvestites?

Come on guys, we can make this work. A little nip here, a tuck there; skip a meal or two....
:whip1:

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I can't say if you're right or wrong about that
But I can respectfully say that this is completely the wrong anology. Math is based on a few axioms and everything else is proven with a strict set of rules.

Even "scientific fact" is because "most" of the scientists evaluate the data and accept it. This ain't a bad thing; usually we end up with a good explanation, and it lasts for a very long time before being replaced with something closer to what truely is.

Let me put this another way.

Democracy is majority rule.
In a democracy what they don't tell you is that the minority loses (no racial pun intended, minority here meaning those who lost to the majority votes). You have no rights in a democracy. You only have privileges which are granted to you by the will of the majority.

Example: So if the majority votes to let you keep your house, you can keep it. Otherwise, we're going to take it away from you. Let's assume everyone is a landowner and we all have about the same amount of land. John, however, has water on his land. I want some of that water so I go to John and ask him if he'll sell me his land. John says no it's been in my family for generations and I don't want to sell it. You say, alright, well we're a democracy and so I'm going to put it up to a vote with all the other landowners. So landowners, if you want to take John's land and divide it up among all of us landowners then everyone will get a little piece of John's land. Go ahead and vote. Oh, John, don't worry you get to vote of course but it's only for one vote of course because this is a democracy. John loses. Democracy is mob rule.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Let me put this another way.

Mind you Ray, I'm not arguing about changing proven things here. All I'm looking at is, what the Majority say.

 

[FearlessFreep]

I think it's interesting that this conversation talks about what is legally allowed, but I admit that I'm more curious about whether we think it is *right* for the laws to work this way.

What you basically have is law that force someone to conduct actions for which they find morally or ethically objectionable, for whatever reason.

What does that mean?

"Conscientious Objector" is dead. Your moral objections to killing no longer apply if the law says you must kill.

A vegan caterer who specializes in catering vegan events could be forced to serve meat if hired to cater an event for non-vegans.

It's not really a matter of discrimination against blacks or gays or whomever, it's a matter of the principal of forcing a person to violate their ethical standings.

Somewhere down the line we crossed a line from using law to protect ourselves from each other to using law to coerce each other into action. Which means your personally liberty only extends to the arbitrary point that someone has not passed a law to force you to do what they want you to do.

I noticed that in all cases, the person who dues was not without recourse to conduct business with someone else. 'voting with your feet' works. I don't see how suing someone to get them to do what you want, or as punishment for them not doing what you want, builds anything but ill-will and an atmosphere of behavior-modification through fear

 

[Ray]

Mind you Ray, I'm not arguing about changing proven things here. All I'm looking at is, what the Majority say.

Forget the majority. Sure the majority, with it's rules, mores and other ways of enforcing group think will shape the way visible society looks. Just keep doing what you think is right. Heck, I conform to some things because it is a trade-off to obtain things I want...everyday, there is someone kept alive because it suits my needs.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

If I listened to the Majority, there'd be no MartialTalk, no KenpoTalk, no FMATalk, and I'd be stuck in a boring 9-5 job.

 

[Gordon Nore]

What does that mean?
"Conscientious Objector" is dead. Your moral objections to killing no longer apply if the law says you must kill.

Is that legally the case? This article suggests CO status to be very much alive, but I understand CO as applying to the draft, and I may be wrong in that. I know it gets trickier in the US if you volunteer for the military and voice your objections later when you've been deployed to a combat zone. Canadian courts recently rejected requests for asylum from US deserters on this basis.

Currently, the U.S. Selective Service System states, "Beliefs which qualify a registrant for conscientious objector status may be religious in nature, but don't have to be. Beliefs may be moral or ethical; however, a man's reasons for not wanting to participate in a war must not be based on politics, expediency, or self-interest. In general, the man's lifestyle prior to making his claim must reflect his current claims."[26]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector#Current_legal_situation

A vegan caterer who specializes in catering vegan events could be forced to serve meat if hired to cater an event for non-vegans.

Has this occurred? There's a difference between saying, 'We serve vegan food,' and 'We only serve vegans.' Are non-vegans an oppressed minority... in America... I've seen the buffets down there...:deadhorse

It's not really a matter of discrimination against blacks or gays or whomever, it's a matter of the principal of forcing a person to violate their ethical standings.

I disagree. In the cases sited in this post, the service providers have argued against providing services to gays based on religion. If they claimed a religious argument against serving Blacks, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Is that legally the case?

Has this occurred?

No, in both cases. The point I was illustrating was that when you reach a point that the law can, for a perceived greater good, force people to violate their moral convictions, then ethical beliefs no longer can be a legal rationale for your actions, or lack thereof.

It may be a slippery-slope argument but I don't see anything in the history of our laws that suggests that the next slide down the slope, or even pure arbitrariness as ever been avoided for immediate political benefit.

Is there anything you consider immoral that you would not do that you could be force to do by law should someone decide that your morally is offensive?

 

[Gordon Nore]

No, in both cases. The point I was illustrating was that when you reach a point that the law can, for a perceived greater good, force people to violate their moral convictions, then ethical beliefs no longer can be a legal rationale for your actions, or lack thereof.

It may be a slippery-slope argument but I don't see anything in the history of our laws that suggests that the next slide down the slope, or even pure arbitrariness as ever been avoided for immediate political benefit.

I have to ask, what was the last slide?

Is there anything you consider immoral that you would not do that you could be force to do by law should someone decide that your morally is offensive?

Before answering your question, I have to point out your interesting choice of words. If you presuppose that the courts in the cases named above decided that the morality of those sued was offensive, then that is a very different conversation. The persons indicated in these suits, to my understanding, used their Christian faith as justification for withholding their services from gays and lesbians.

The courts held told that personal religious beliefs are not grounds for discrimination. Without having read the documents, and in the absence of actually being a lawyer myself, I can guarantee you those judgments did not say that Christian beliefs are offensive. The judgments probably said they weren't arguments. Because neither Christianity nor religion in general is on trial; although I understand it might feel like that to some religious people.

Essentially, in my narrow view of the universe, religious beliefs are opinions and are of no greater or lesser value than any other opinion. However precious they may be to the person who holds them, regardless of how many like-minded people there are who share these beliefs, they do not make that individual more precious socially or legally.

To answer your question, I will first qualify that I am not a religious person, and therefor am not subject to conflicts of faith and duty. Speaking as a citizen, there are plenty of things my government or the courts have done that I find objectionable, but I'm hard-pressed to think of anything I've been compelled or forbidden to do legally that causes me the sort of discomfort that people in the above court cases profess to feel.

Laws have expanded to include a previous disenfranchised minority -- your 'slippery slope' is my 'social evolution.'

 

[CanuckMA]

I think the issue is a sliding scale.

Religious organizations should never be compelled to perform actions that are against the tennets of their faith. Ever.

Private businesses should not be compelled to perform actions that are against the reasonable religious beliefs of the owners.

Public servants should be compelled to do their job, or find a replacement that does not inconvinience the public.

 

[Gordon Nore]

I think the issue is a sliding scale.

Sliding down to what?

Religious organizations should never be compelled to perform actions that are against the tennets of their faith. Ever.

Generally agreed. Separation of church and state. I also believe such organizations should not recieve any governmnet funding, nor should they be allowed to donoate to political campaigns, etc.

Private businesses should not be compelled to perform actions that are against the reasonable religious beliefs of the owners.

What's reasonable? Is is still reasonable to refuse service to a gay? Obviously, large firms like Apple or Sony are not going to write a policy against serving gays, but let's say the manager of a Denny's in East Tree Stump decides to turn away customers s/he knows/believes to be gay. Well... Now there's a slippery slope.

Public servants should be compelled to do their job, or find a replacement that does not inconvinience the public.

And if public servants can withstand providing services to homosexuals, everybody else can get on with it too.

 

[jks9199]

I think the issue is a sliding scale.

Religious organizations should never be compelled to perform actions that are against the tennets of their faith. Ever.

Private businesses should not be compelled to perform actions that are against the reasonable religious beliefs of the owners.

Public servants should be compelled to do their job, or find a replacement that does not inconvinience the public.

And if the beliefs aren't "reasonable" or aren't religious in nature?

This isn't an easy issue. I don't believe that a private business should be required to take any and all customers, especially when it involves something that the business owner is opposed to, like compelling a photographer to accept a commission to photograph a gay couple's wedding/committment ceremony. I definitely don't believe that a pharmacist or doctor should be compelled to provide services that counter their beliefs, unless those services are not available elsewhere. In other words, a town in Alaska with only one pharmacy and no others available for several hundred miles doesn't have the luxury of denying birth control services...

But it does create a potential for belief-based discrimination. Can a white supremacist be compelled to provide their services to a black person? Their denial of service IS based on their religious belief in many cases... How different is it really from telling that photographer that they must shoot the gay ceremony? Personally, I wouldn't have wanted a wedding photographer who was forced to shoot my wedding, for example.