Religious Liberty

@livinglava,

What next, religion exempt from taxation? Oh no, wait, never mind.

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@engineer,

During a war, the government has the option to draft soldiers, sell war bonds, commandeer property, etc. This is justified by necessity, and people might complain that it is not necessary and thus resist. E.g. if you are a conscientious objector, you can refuse military service after you are drafted and they might put you in jail, but it is your right to refuse to contribute to a war effort you disagree with.

Would you argue that people who conscientiously reject military service should be shot? Jailed? Taxed? In what way do you think these people's right to conscientiously boycott supporting a war effort should be curtailed and/or supported?

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

livinglava wrote:
. . . why would you think it would be a good idea to pool everyone's money by government mandate to give it to them?

I have said nothing remotely like that. You are always whining about straw man fallacies (to the point that I don't believe you actually know what that means), and yet you deal out the straw man fallacies right and left.

I thought you were for universal health coverage paying for birth-control. Was that a strawman projection and your actual opinion is otherwise?

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@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

... they might put you in jail, but it is your right to refuse to contribute to a war effort you disagree with.

If they can put you in jail, you do not have a right. That is my point. You have no legal standing to break the law because of your beliefs. You might still do so and committing civil disobedience has long been a way to protest unjust laws, but there is no get out of jail free card. You are still liable in the same way as if you were common criminal.

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@engineer,

Well, the question is when penalties for honoring conscience are in conflict with the freedom of religion. Hopefully you can see the extreme case where the individual right to dissent and non-participation is completely disrespected is a problem.

It may be that in some cases the damage done by conscientious objection is sufficient to warrant suppression of dissent, but certainly not always. Birth-control is not a need, it's a luxury. Sex for pleasure is a luxury, the same as any other pleasure that you can live without.

Shouldn't the fact of whether something is a need or a luxury be considered when deciding whether to penalize people for failing to support something?

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Someone who provides a service to the public cannot discriminate against those members of the public of whom they do not approve. Get over it.

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@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Well, the question is when penalties for honoring conscience are in conflict with the freedom of religion.

And the answer is "conscience" is not a permissible reason to break the law. Remember that I can say my religion is anything I want it to be. I can say that my religion does not respect your property rights. I can say that my religion requires that I do not pay taxes. I can say my religion does not allow me to sit near women on airplanes. (This is a real thing.) The government cannot tell me the tenets of my religion, but it doesn't have to allow me to break the law either.

livinglava wrote:

Sex for pleasure is a luxury, the same as any other pleasure that you can live without.

That certainly is in the eye of the beholder. I might think that your cancer is a punishment from God and I shouldn't have to pay for your treatment.

livinglava wrote:

Shouldn't the fact of whether something is a need or a luxury be considered when deciding whether to penalize people for failing to support something?

No, the law should be the standard. When you start selectively enforcing the law, you don't have a system anymore.

2 Replies

@engineer,

Engineer,

Can you give a single example where these principles can be applied in a way that doesn't help partisan liberal causes? When you say that "selectively enforcing the law" is a bad thing, it sounds like anti-immigrant rhetoric against programs like DACA (Obama's executive order that protects people here illegally if they were brought as children).

How do you apply these principles in a non-partisan way?

(Historically there are lots of examples of people who were excused from following the law because of religious practices... including Native Americans being allowed to use hallucinogenic mushrooms).

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@maxdancona,

I don't consider enforcing the constitution or laws partisan.

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@engineer,

I am noting that the examples you are giving involve opposing conservative ideology while promoting liberal causes.

It is a fair question; are these principles that apply equally to both sides, or are they partisan talking points? If they apply to both sides, you should be able to give at least one example that doesn't fit the partisan narrative.

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@maxdancona,

One interesting case that avoids the political partisanship surrounding most of these is Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal.

The Supreme Court ruled that a religious group with "sincere religious beliefs" had a legal right to use an illegal drug. I am curious on Engineer's response to this example which seems to contradict what he is saying.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I am noting that the examples you are giving involve opposing conservative ideology while promoting liberal causes.

The examples I note are applications of existing law and hypothetical examples where lawlessness comes from allowing people to create exemptions from thin air. Your welcome to posit your own examples.

maxdancona wrote:

It is a fair question; are these principles that apply equally to both sides, or are they partisan talking points? If they apply to both sides, you should be able to give at least one example that doesn't fit the partisan narrative.

Only if "liberals" are asking for legal exemptions due to religion. If ten people insist they can break the law and all ten are refused based on first principles, it doesn't matter if all ten are of similar political bent. The rules apply to everyone, all sides. Are churches be able to shelter people wanted by the law? No. Does that work for you? Is that a sufficiently "liberal" position? Are protesters allowed to occupy private land? No. Is that "liberal" or "conservative"? It seems like both use that tactic.

You seem to want to give "conservatives" a pass just because they are conservative and bring the hammer down on "liberals" because they're the thought police or something like that. I'm don't see how that makes sense, but nothing I've said is targeted at one group or another. You can't say "my religion allows me to do ..." and use that as an excuse to violate the law. If that basic principle impacts one part of the political spectrum more than another, that doesn't invalidate the rule.

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@engineer,

What is your opinion about DACA?

DACA protects undocumented immigrants who were brought here as children. The law is pretty clear that once they turn 18, they are legally responsible for the fact they are breaking the law by living here.

Do you support the action taken by Obama to protect them even though they are breaking the law by living here?

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@maxdancona,

Unfortunately no. The Constitution is pretty clear that the President is to enforce laws enacted by Congress. There are plenty of misdemeanors that are selectively enforced and immigration has been full of them, but to make a policy of refusing to enforce the law is a direct violation of the Constitution. I was pretty sure President Obama's DACA policy would have been overturned in the courts.

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@engineer,

Interesting Engineer. You have actually surprised me (which I mean as a sincere compliment). I disagree with you on both counts. I am not a "law and order" guy. The people I most respect in history were scofflaws; Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Harvey Milk, Alice Paul.

In the cases where leaders have bent the law in the direction of justice, I support it.

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@maxdancona,

I do believe that freedom of expression, including freedom of religious expression, is an important principle. Of course, this gets messy... but a simplistic attitude of "follow the law, and religious rights be damned" is often morally wrong.

There is a balance act of course. We obviously can not allow human sacrifice in the name of religion. We can allow the use of traditional narcotics (in the case of Native American religions). We can allow people to avoid fighting in a war (and to perform alternative forms of service).

Allowing freedom of religious expression, where it is reasonable, is part of having an open and free society. Of course deciding what is "reasonable" is what makes it messy. If you read the court cases, there are terms like "compelling government interest" and "reasonable accommodation" to help make these judgement calls.

Putting "law and order" over justice and fairness doesn't work for me.

1 Reply

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

And the answer is "conscience" is not a permissible reason to break the law. Remember that I can say my religion is anything I want it to be. I can say that my religion does not respect your property rights. I can say that my religion requires that I do not pay taxes. I can say my religion does not allow me to sit near women on airplanes. (This is a real thing.) The government cannot tell me the tenets of my religion, but it doesn't have to allow me to break the law either.

The question is whether the law should take account of conscience so that people of conscience don't have to break the law to make certain choices.

If someone doesn't want to sit next to a certain person in a public place, they can just look around for another seat. If they are in an assigned seat, such as an airplane, then they can ask if it's possible to trade seats with someone else. What does it matter if their reason is because they want an aisle/window seat or because they don't want to sit next to a woman/man/baby/etc.? Yes, you can usually feel if someone is discriminating against you because of your gender, race, or something else about you, but sadly you just can't stop people from changing seats to hate you. I wish there was a magic elixir for hate that could be put into public water supplies, but then I don't because it would probably have some other health side-effects that would be bad.

Sometimes conscience is a good guide. You can't dismiss it because some people have bad consciences. If someone says their religion doesn't allow them to eat meat or kill, isn't that a reason to give them vegetarian food or not put them in a combat position in the military? Is it really necessary to force people to defy their consciences by making inflexible laws that punish people for dissent?

livinglava wrote:

Sex for pleasure is a luxury, the same as any other pleasure that you can live without.

That certainly is in the eye of the beholder. I might think that your cancer is a punishment from God and I shouldn't have to pay for your treatment. [/quote]
Maybe, but the point is that no one can legitimately argue that sex for pleasure is a need. It is recreation. If I don't have to pay for you to go to the movies, why should I have to pay for you to be able to have recreational sex without getting pregnant?

Quote:

livinglava wrote:

Shouldn't the fact of whether something is a need or a luxury be considered when deciding whether to penalize people for failing to support something?

No, the law should be the standard. When you start selectively enforcing the law, you don't have a system anymore.

This is dangerous territory. If the majority can force anything on everyone by this logic, that allows for things like slavery and fascism/nazism. Don't you think that people should have been allowed to exercise conscience in objecting to nazism and/or slavery when those things were legally protected as part of 'the system?'

Do you have any respect for the concepts of liberty or individual choice?

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I do believe that freedom of expression, including freedom of religious expression, is an important principle. Of course, this gets messy... but a simplistic attitude of "follow the law, and religious rights be damned" is often morally wrong.

There is a balance act of course. We obviously can not allow human sacrifice in the name of religion. We can allow the use of traditional narcotics (in the case of Native American religions). We can allow people to avoid fighting in a war (and to perform alternative forms of service).

Allowing freedom of religious expression, where it is reasonable, is part of having an open and free society. Of course deciding what is "reasonable" is what makes it messy. If you read the court cases, there are terms like "compelling government interest" and "reasonable accommodation" to help make these judgement calls.

Putting "law and order" over justice and fairness doesn't work for me.

So then why can't you exempt people from paying for birth control they don't believe in? Or designing a wedding cake to represent same-gender marriage?

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@livinglava,

Quote:

The real issue with this case is whether people have the right to refuse service as an act of conscience when the refusal also constitutes discrimination against someone for their sexuality, gender, race/ethnicity, etc.

I think the answer to your question is yes it would be discrimination if the reason for the refusal was based on sexual orientation, gender, race/ethnicity, etc.

Although the baker is required to bake the wedding cake for the gay person, the baker can refuse to bake a gay theme wedding cake. I think that was how the supreme court had ruled on that case. I'm not sure. I might be wrong.

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@Real Music,

Real Music wrote:

I think the answer to your question is yes it would be discrimination if the reason for the refusal was based on sexual orientation, gender, race/ethnicity, etc.

Of course it's discrimination, but you can't punish people for moving to a different seat in a movie theater because they are racist or sexist or otherwise prejudicial and discriminatory. If they don't say anything or harass you in any way, they are just mean people and using passive aggression to get away with expressing hurtful hate in a way you can't do anything about, and that gives them power.

It's like when you smile and someone and they roll their eyes. You may have just been trying to be nice but they aren't required to return the kindness. They might think you're ugly or they might not like your racial characteristics or the way you dress or whatever but they are entitled to discriminate against you by not smiling back. Mean people suck but what can you do? Punish them for not smiling back?

Quote:

Although the baker is required to bake the wedding cake for the gay person, the baker can refuse to bake a gay theme wedding cake. I think that was how the supreme court had ruled on that case. I'm not sure. I might be wrong.

That's logical to me. If you walk into a baker with a full beard and stiletto heals and ask for their standard wedding cake, what basis do they have for denying you service? But they don't have to design the cake to specifications they aren't comfortable with.

1 Reply

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