Ministers Threatened with Jail/Fines For Refusing to Officiate at Gay Weddings

[FatAndFaithless]

When it comes to the legal code that all businesses follow, yes Woody, religion stays out of it. They're running a business, not a church, they have to follow the legal codes for business, it's very simple.

Just because a bakery owner thinks interracial marriage is a sin beacuse of their faith, they still have to serve those couples. Just because an accountant thinks homosexuality is against their religion, they don't get to turn away gay people because of their faith. Renting out their space in a for profit business is no different, and these pastors have to play by the same rules as everyone else.

If you think that law should be struck down, fine, vote on it. But you don't get to break the law with impunity until then.

There is no principle which says religion cannot be entangled with business.....you're just making that up. A lot of people make their living peddling religion. They engage in the business of religion.

There are a lot of people who engage in the business of speech. Just because they try to utilize their constitutional right to speak to make a living doesn't mean they lose it.

Last, no one is breaking the law with impunity. A lawsuit was filed so that they wouldn't have to choose between breaking the law or engaging in religious ceremony mandate by the state.

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How very easy to say. I'm going to take a wild swing in the dark and say you're...probably a white, straight, married Christian living in a western country? Easy to say that man.

It would be easy for anyone to say if the government didn't pass discriminatory laws or laws that enabled discrimination in the first place......but that is the subject of another thread.

You keep saying 'entangled with business' as if that grants them special privilege. It doesn't. They can hang corsses in their business, stick up posters about how you're going to hell if you don't accept christ, plaster "God Bless You" all over their place of business if they want to. The law doesn't prohibit them from performing or expressing relgious beliefs or rituals, it prohibits discrimination based on the protected statuses of the non-discriminitaion laws. This business is offering a product for purchase, and they have to follow the same rules as any other for-profit business. I don't know why this is so hard for you to grasp.

You can't have it both way Woody. You can't run a business with the same financial aims as any other business, but then claim that you don't have to follow the same rules as everyone else because of a religious objection.

You don't get to play tennis without the net, and you don't get to worm out of business law that applies to everyone else.

Oh, and don't even try to start with the 'anti-discrimination laws are discrimination against Christians' shit.