Arizona has brought a bill to the Gov.'s desk that will allow businesses to refuse service based upon religious beliefs.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/25/us/arizona-brewer-sb1062/

I personally find the way of thinking that the people who brought this law extremely stupid. Just because you do not agree with something does not mean that you do not work with others. That is TOLERANCE.

The other side of this issue, is why would ANYONE who wanted to shop at a business choose an intolerant one?

As much as people want to make this an issue of legality, it should be an issue of capitalism. It is a true "let the market decide" case. If fewer people shop at a business because of the intolerant behavior and positions of the owner, the owner will lose business and then go out of business. (Deservedly so, I might add)

As a business owner myself, I would NEVER refuse business because of my personal opinions. It is just fiscally irresponsible.

In summation, people are stupid, and I support their right to be stupid.
People have choices, and I support their right to have choices.

Brad, I thought you supported that bakery that did not want to do a gay wedding?
The civil rights bill of 1964 required public accomodation not to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, etc. This bill appears to try to give cover to people who discriminate against gays. If you have a business you can refuse to do business with someone but not because they belong to a particular group. And, no, capitalism is not the answer here. It is really essential in a free society that people be able to transact business without being discriminated against. It sends a signal that a group is second-class when a society allows a business to discriminate (think how offensive it would be if a business put out a sign saying no blacks, or no Jews,or no gays wanted here--but that's what this would allow as long as their religion sanctions such conduct). By the way, does any religion actually forbid doing business with another group?

This strikes me as a very silly bit of legislation with dangerous implications. Who is the ultimate arbiter of whether something is sanctioned by religious beliefs ? It's not like the Bible says "Thou shalt not provide catering services to homosexuals". There's no way for the law to distinguish between one set of 'religious beliefs' and another, since everybody's religious beliefs are different, so effectively this is a blank cheque for any and all forms of discrimination by business owners just so long as they're religious. Do we really want that ?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark piece of civil rights legislation in the United States[4] that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

(From the wiki page of Civil rights act of 1964)

The sex listed above refers to gender.

I support the bakery's right to be stupid. I do not agree with their actions. It is fiscally detrimental.

Just like a Wiccan has the right to refuse service for the flowers provided to a Christian wedding, a Christian has the right to refuse service to a Wiccan wedding.

It does not reach out to the non-evangelized. It is poor witness, and is fiscally a bad decision.

People have the right to make bad decisions. How do you think "Jackass the Movie" was created?

I do not think it is right to say that someone should have to perform actions against their religion. The government has passed a law saying that people have the right to refuse service based upon religious reasons.

https://www.guttmacher.org/statecenter/spibs/spib_RPHS.pdf

GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE
FEBRUARY 1, 2014
HIGHLIGHTS:
In addition to the federal laws related to refusal (see above),
46 states allow some health care providers to refuse to provide abortion services. All of these states permit individual health care providers to refuse to provide abortion services.
44 states allow health care institutions to refuse to provide abortion services;
13limit the exemption to private health care institutions and 1 state allows only religious health care entities to refuse to provide such care.
13 states allow some health care providers to refuse to provide services
related to contraception.
10 states allow individual health care providers to refuse to provide services related to contraception.
6 states explicitly permit pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives


If people have the right to refuse service based upon religious or conscience reasons, how is this different?

These medical professionals have the right to make the choice to not work at a facility that would require them to dispense services or meds that they disagree with. The government validated their actions through law. These professionals have made themselves less marketable through their actions not opening themselves to a field of medicine that could be lucrative. Again, it is their choice.

If a Baker or Florist choose to not provide service should they not have the same rights as medical professionals?

The difference is that a medical professional who does not wish to provide abortion services (or other medical treatment based in religious belief) is not discriminating against a particular group. There are issues with medical providers being allowed to not provide needed health care based on religious beliefs (e.g, in some areas women have to drive long distances to get an abortion), but clearly it is not as bad as refusing to do business with a particular group of people. A doctor cannot refuse to treat someone who is gay or who has HIV--that would seem to be a more apt comparison.

The doctor is discriminating against pregnant women who want to kill their fetus (how is that for a group!). You are correct.

Freeman, I appreciate your view. However, it is a person acting upon their religious belief's in both cases. To externalize the result, takes away from the internal right that each of us has. To say that one person's rights ends at the tip of another's nose can be applied here, I agree. One person's right to choose to not perform an abortion ends at the entrance of the woman's cervix. The abortion doctor that chooses to perform abortions, does not have the right to have every pregnancy end in abortion. So does a doctor that believes Pro-Life. He just has the choice to NOT PARTICIPATE. Same with a baker... They should be able to choose to not participate, just like every wedding does not need to have two men/two women on the top of the cake. If you like your baker, you should be able to keep your baker. If you don't like your baker, you can find another...

AND YOU SHOULD!!!!

Both are choosing to refuse service due to religious reasons. Both "offended" parties are being refused service for religious reasons. Do people have the right to act upon their religious beliefs, as long as it does not force others to worship the same way? To me, that is tolerance.

Intolerance is expecting others to support and believe the same way as you do, or else there will be a lawsuit.

Do you think that is tolerance?

The other aspect of this that I find a little distasteful is that it's only applied to religious beliefs, as if this is the only source of personal morality which is worthy of consideration. Why is it ok for a Christian (or a Muslim, Scientologist, Zoroastrian etc) to discriminate against people but not for anybody else who might have equally strong personal beliefs ?

Sassenach wrote:The other aspect of this that I find a little distasteful is that it's only applied to religious beliefs, as if this is the only source of personal morality which is worthy of consideration. Why is it ok for a Christian (or a Muslim, Scientologist, Zoroastrian etc) to discriminate against people but not for anybody else who might have equally strong personal beliefs ?

My point exactly, Sass. There should not be ANY restrictions other than what the market chooses. If you want to shop at a business that sells sex toys in every aisle, I am fully prepared to support the business in their right to do that. I would choose to not shop there, but who am I to restrict others?

If you choose to not shop at a bakery that chooses to not sell cakes for gay/lesbian weddings, I would support your right to do that.

That's not really my point though, is it ? What you're saying is that everybody should be free to discriminate and let the market decide whether they're right to do so. I've never said that. My point was simply that there's nothing inherently special about religious beliefs as opposed to any other form of strongly held personal morality that should entitle them to special treatment under the law.

Well, actually the gay person who is being discriminated against by the baker has lost freedom of choice. I fail to understand the difference between a baker telling someone who is gay that they will not do their wedding and a German business in the 1930s telling a Jew they will not serve them or a business in the South in the 1960s telling a black person that they would not be served.
As for a pregnant person being a member of a cognizable group, I disagree. First, a cognizable group for discrimination purposes generally is of a permanent, not temporary nature (though I don't believe discrimination should be allowed against even temporary statuses) More importantly, a doctor refusing to perform an abortion on a pregnant women is not discriminating against that women because of her status (who she is) but is refusing to provide a certain service to anyone. A baker who refused to provide services to a pregnant woman because she was unmarried would be discriminating, because he would be offering that service to other people.

Sassenach wrote:That's not really my point though, is it ? What you're saying is that everybody should be free to discriminate and let the market decide whether they're right to do so. I've never said that. My point was simply that there's nothing inherently special about religious beliefs as opposed to any other form of strongly held personal morality that should entitle them to special treatment under the law.

There is nothing more special about religious beliefs or personal beliefs. I do get your point. And I agree with you. There should be nothing that puts one person's preferences above another..

freeman3 wrote:Well, actually the gay person who is being discriminated against by the baker has lost freedom of choice.

Hasn't the person who is forced to provide a service to someone they would rather not also lost freedom of choice?

I believe the constitution protects the "free exercise of religion".
Not religious freedom, or freedom of belief.

Why does discriminatory behavior against others become "free exercise of religion" ? It doesn't.
Free exercise means the right to worship and congregate but not to force one's beliefs on others...

When a shop keeper decides to exclude classes of people he is discriminating whatever motivates him to do so... Period.
The fact that religious belief has been used to justify slavery and segregation in the past, but no more, illustrates that society decided that religious interpretations and convictions have limitations. You can't exercise your religion at the expense of another's liberty.
Denying service to gays and lesbians is denying them liberty. If everyone in a region denied them service, because of religion, it would be just another kind of segregation justified by religion.

Not performing abortions for anyone, does not put people into classes. If one performed abortions for black women but not white ... that would be discrimination. Refusing to practice abortions at all is an act of conscience and effects everyone equally.

ARJ - yes. They lose the choice to unfairly discriminate. They lose the choice to project their values on to other people. They lost it with the 1964 Civil Rights Act when they could no longer exclude black people or treat them 'lesser' as a class.

On the other hand, they have a different choice - concentrate on providing a service and ignoring moral judgement on who they serve, or not proving that service at all and do something less likely to give them conniptions simply because a gay person wants to procure it.

Looks like the Arizona governor will not sign the bill into law. Kansas also failed to get a similar law passed. Several other states are going over this (it seems to be a concerted effort by a relgious group who explicitly want to bring "Christian values" into the secular law, despite the 1st Amendment and its interpretation over the past 200 years), and we will probably see the debate pop up again.

It is not as bad as Uganda's recent law (also, it seems, inspired by US based religious lobbyists as well as local chauvanism), but I would not say that is the bar that a modern western democracy should be aiming for.