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Apple's Tim Cook Calls Out "Religious Freedom" Laws As Discriminatory
An anonymous reader writes It will come as no surprise that Apple's CEO Tim Cook doesn't agree with so-called religious freedom laws. Cook says, "[they] rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear," and has penned an op-ed piece for The Washington Post which reads in part: "A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law. Others are more transparent in their effort to discriminate. Legislation being considered in Texas would strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — even if the Supreme Court strikes down Texas' marriage ban later this year. In total, there are nearly 100 bills designed to enshrine discrimination in state law. These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear. They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality."
This is another power grab by the religious right. It is connected to their efforts to restrict sex (through access to contraception, sex education, abortion, etc) and control the lives of Americans in the bedroom. But you know what? Every article, every boycott and every protest is pushing them back. Similar bills are stalling or failing. The outrage at actions like these are causing more and more Americans to leave their religion in disgust. The more we drag this bullshit into the light, the more the theocrats feel the heat.
"Religious freedom" in all its guises empowers and gives "freedom" to religious assholes and oppressors to take away the freedom of others.
Religion is a Trojan Horse for other backwards notions, like giving superstitious and ignorant people the right to silence speech they deem "offensive". The most fucked-up countries are the ones where somebody can use take arbitrary "offence", and use that office to attack somebody. E.g. the offence of "insulting a Muslim" in most Islamic countries.
Anybody propagating the idea that it should be illegal to "give offence" should be stabbed in the head, imnsho.
I just don't buy iPhones because I don't agree with the poor working conditions in Apple factories. See how that works Tim?
Either that, or "Treat others like you would like to be treated."
Honestly, the self-righteousness of the "religious" is getting to be annoying.
Bestiality is illegal. Homosexuality is not.
If you and your religion wish to be able to discriminate against someone on the basis of your religion, then you and your religion should correspondingly lose the legal protection of being discriminated against.
If you are such a whiny idiot that you think it should be OK to say "we don't serve your kind here", then you should have no legal or moral basis to claim that someone shouldn't be able to do the same to you.
This is giving religion an extra special place in law ... protected from being discriminated against, while getting a special exemption to discriminate against someone else.
So either shut up, and accept that you have no other ways you're legally allowed to discriminate against someone ... or accept that it should also be someone else's right to refuse you because of your religion.
There is no in between, and any claims your religion is so precious as to require you receive rights nobody else has is complete crap.
Sorry, but the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIL want to have a society based on religious exceptionalism.
Which makes people who want to have religion be a special thing in law are full of shit, self entitled people, and are actually the enemies of a free and open society.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Probably strongly and vocally oppose this bill.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
Are stupid.
Religion is not something innate, like sexuality or race, and it's not something that people have no choice over (disability, for example). It's something people have a choice about, and if they choose to be religious, they should have to deal with the consequences of that. Generally, I think religious people are closed minded and less intelligent, and if they were more open minded, they wouldn't obey a book blindly or believe in things that have absolutely no basis in reality (for example, God created the world 6000 years ago). It should not be a protected class like something like race is.
In short, people choose religion, so people should be able to choose discriminate against people because it.
This is blow back for overreach. When we as a society conluded that we cannot employ common sense to indentify and negotiate grey areas (BECAUSE THERE ARE NO GREY AREAS!!!) like the difference between a religious wedding service provider declining to service to same-sex 'marriages' and a coffee shop refusing service to a same-sex 'couple,' people decided to legislately protect their human agency, and we may well wind up the worse for it.
A free market solution never worked in the Jim Crow south and it wont work now. Sure if you live in a big city or town, if one shop refuses to serve you, you can go to another, but what happens to a person who is in the minority who lives or visits a small town that is predominantly made up of religious bigots? There may be one gas station, one food market, one diner? Should the minority have to leave town to protect the rights of the bigoted religious majority?
Also, will the religious rights head explode when Muslims try to use their faith in the same way the Christians are trying too?
I wonder if a cinema owner should be forced to sell tickets to black men.
Oh wait, I don't wonder that at all, because I'm not a bigoted idiot.
I choose who I do business with or have over my home all of the time. It's not based on religion I just don't do business with people I think are jerks.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Your analogy is completely wrong. Of course a pet store owner would be within their right to refuse the sale of an animal to a person that's going to abuse it.
A better example would be a shop worker refusing serve a gay man because the shop worker's religion says that homosexuality is a sin.
Religious Freedom is about the freedom to practice your religion, not to use it as an excuse to be an asshole to people.
Unfortunately, that's exactly what religion is about these days.
Summation 2
if the government can compel companies to do business with people they don't want to, how long will it be before the people are compelled to do business with companies they don't want to?
lose != loose
This is all just a distraction and pandering to a political base. No business that likes money and wants to continue making money will be discriminating against anyone. Big corporations surely don't care who or what you sleep with in bed at night if you want to give them money. Small businesses can't afford to lose a sale. And if a small business decides to put their own religious beliefs in front of making money, then so be it if they go under.
This is another "look over here; be outraged!" political move by the establishment to make sure no one is looking at any of the important issues facing us on the world stage while at the same time furthering the "left/right" political divide and causing more animosity amongst the LGBT community that the "straights" are trying to oppress them (even though no one, straight, republican, or otherwise actually supports legalized discrimination).
I think something irreligious non-libertarians miss in these discussions is the notion of harm.
I'm guessing that they see clear harm to a gay person in having a business refuse to perform a particular service for them.
But they see no harm in forcing a religious person to choose between being faithful to God and making their living.
In reality, gay people can usually find another place to get a cake decorated, and religious people can actually write the requested message on a cake. But irreligious people are making the value judgment that the former is less tolerable than the latter.
As far as I can tell, that prioritization is itself a religious judgment. It's saying that it's more wrong to refuse to blaspheme, than to blaspheme. That strikes me as very much an Enlightenment era notion of morality.
You are ignoring that homosexuality is between consenting adults (the type that is legal anyway - homosexual rape isn't legal for example). Whereas bestiality and pedophilia are not. Which is a pretty significant difference making your "only difference" claim absurd.
Feeding the troll.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Its so clear then please point out in the constitution where it says "separation of church and state." I'll wait go and find it.
Having trouble finding it? Here is a link to the constitution I'm still waiting for where "separation of church and state" in the constitution. When you find it let me know how that is more clear than "Shall Not Be Infringed" in the second. Oh you think its in the Bill of Rights well go look and let me know where. Show me the quote.
Conversely you can let me know how respecting the religious views of others (i.e. not " prohibiting the free exercise thereof") is Congress making a "law respecting an establishment of religion."
If you ask very nicely I may actually tell you where the phrase "separation of church and state" comes from, but if/when I do the whole quote will undermine your beliefs.
So does this mean that as an anti-theist I can refuse service to those who practice religion?
As a Pastafarian can I refuse to serve noodles to those not wearing a colander?
As a Dude-ist can I refuse service to those that don't abide?
Seriously, I am curious to know how much these wingnuts have thought about the possibility that non-Christians might use this crap against them. Imagine the uproar is a Halal butcher turned away some Catholics, or a Jewish deli turned away some Baptists on religious grounds. Faux News would have an outrage-gasm.
How many Eddie Murphy movies should the owner be forced by law to screen?
How many Eddie Murphy movies should the owner be forced by law to screen?
Torture is also illegal
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Good grief, so many people are piling on and hating Indiana for this, but they are mistaken. This is not about saying "we don't serve your kind here". This is about establishing guidelines for government to avoid reflexively punishing religious individuals over their scruples of conscience.
If you want to talk about brainless and/or dishonest liberal media, today would be the day, because the NYT, CNN, and any number of other outlets are acting like this is something new and unnecessary that Indiana is doing, when in fact the opposite is true. There has been a very similar federal law on the books since Chuck Schumer proposed it and then-President Bill Clinton signed it into law. The only reason Indiana enacted a state law equivalent is that courts have determined that the federal law doesn't protect religious individuals from non-compliance with certain local laws.
This is not to allow the local deli to refuse to serve gays, and in fact will not allow them to do so. This is to prevent bullies and jerks from picking on people who happen to be small business owners over their religion.
Example: if a Christian goes to a kosher bakery and asks for "holy cross" themed rolls for an Easter party, and the proprieters kindly offer to refer them to the secular baker down the street, should the Christian sue those dirty Jews for all they've got, and attempt to bankrupt them and destroy their business over this scruple of religious conscience? No, of course not. The Christian would be a jerk in that case. So why are so many gays being jerks about the exact same kind of thing?
It's weird how some on the left are so eager to push "diversity" that they'll compromise our own liberal western values in the process of pandering to people who do not share these values.
Fair enough. Explain to us then the rational opposing position then. Explain to us the pro-discrimination position whereby we should be permitted to discrimination on the basis of race, gender, age, or even sexual orientation when none of those things should matter. Explain how these laws trying to push laws purporting to support "religious freedom" are actually anything other than an attempt by bigoted people to discriminate against others.
It sounds to me like you have an ideological issue with "some of the left" and are trying for some reason to justify what is plainly an attempt by right wing religious conservatives to codify bigotry into state law. 50 years ago those laws were called Jim Crow laws. This is just a later day version of separate but equal. Freedom of speech does not equal freedom to discriminate particularly on a religious basis.
As I live in Arkansas I actually got around to reading the bill (HB 1228) this morning. Everything people are complaining about is complete FUD. It's really quite mundane... and LOTS of other states already have similar laws on the books. It _basically_ instructs the courts to take into consideration sincerely-held religious convictions in discrimination cases except where there is an impracticality in enforcing the laws without the state encroaching on them.
This does NOT mean that teh gheys will be denied service at restaurants.
It DOES mean that I may be spared legal consequences if I decline to build a gay porn website for somebody and am sued for discrimination.
"If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." - Sir Karl Popper
Hate to break it to you, but homosexuality is not a paraphilia any more than hetrosexuality is. It is not even a sexual practice.
How to Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions.
Just pick "A" or "B" for each question.
My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.
2. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.
3. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others to not use birth control.
4. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to pray privately.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.
5. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.
6. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.
B) Others are allowed to have access books, movies and websites that I do not like.
7. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.
B) My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.
8. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.
B) My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.
9. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.
B) A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.
10. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.
B) Public school science classes are teaching science.
If you answered "A" to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law.
If you answered "B" to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others.
Edith Keeler Must Die
The problem is most of the people do not like a group of people, and such business are allowed to refuse services, we can create a situation where the outcast group cannot use the goods and services they need to function/survive in society.
We need business to offer goods and services for us to function, otherwise we will spending all of our time on our own survival. Having businesses refuse business based on aspects people cannot control means your are forcing people from the society.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I can't believe how many people are can't wrap their heads around businesses being able to choose their own customers. Being a 'jerk' is a moral offense and should not a legal one on par with robbery or murder. People already are allowed to be jerks for a million other reasons, why is orientation so special? If the government needs to go after bakers not baking a cake for someone why not also jail and fines for adultery or cutting in line?
The correct balance is probably to allow it for sole proprietorships but not parternships or corporations. That way individuals aren't forced to violate their conscience while groups are required to conform to societal norms. If Joe's lawnmower service center or Sally's cake shop is discriminatory it's probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things (distasteful as it may be to some), but if you have the same problem with Toro or Albertsons it's a major issue. This makes both sides unhappy, so it's likely the best compromise solution.
I just finished Reza Aslan's "Jesus the Zealot," and much was said about the Roman occupation, and the Levite collaborators, even in the sanitized gospels that were whitewashed for a Roman audience.
"Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's," is actually a direct challenge to throw the Romans out of Judea, a statement made within the Court of the Gentiles on the temple grounds. Tearing down and rebuilding the temple in three days, as a challenge to the high priest Caiaphas, also directly threatened the Roman order.
The Roman governors of Judea were alternately viciously efficient or incompetent, and a spirit of rebellion reached a crescendo after the crucifixion, when Judea was free from Roman rule for four years, then crushed by the armies of Vespasian and his son Titus, who utterly destroyed Jerusalem.
...after what happened to Mozilla CEO. I wholeheartedly support same sex marriage and plural marriage. I especially support alternative lifestyles entered by choice rather than because you were "born this way", because this country is about freedom of choice. I personally enjoy my choices and would hate to deny this to others. If an adult gay man wants to try conversion therapy to marry a woman he is not attracted to, it's no more our business than a woman who marries a rich guy she is not attracted to.
What I can not support is this notion that the only way you can be free is if nobody else is free. Brendan Eich was bullied out of his job just because he, as a private citizen, made a legal donation to a political campaign that most CA residents supported at the time. This is as reprehensible is a female CEO getting sacked because she had an abortion, and yet not a single gay rights organization came out against this. So despite donating money to oppose Prop 8, I will never again financially support these causes. I just can not be sure than my contributions will be used to promote equality rather than discrimination.
So I see how folks in Indiana would feel they need the law to make sure all personal beliefs are equally respected, not only most politically correct ones of the day. If I run a family IT shop and a bunch of Republicans show up wanting help with their campaign website, I don't want to serve them. How can I deny the same freedoms to a florist next door who doesn't want to participate in a same sex wedding?
This is all just a distraction and pandering to a political base.
No it is not. It is an attempt to enshrine bigoted ideology into law against a group of people who have done them no harm. Just because it is pandering does not mean it will not do real harm.
No business that likes money and wants to continue making money will be discriminating against anyone.
BULLSHIT. Plenty of racist homophobes actually support this nonsense. This is legislation that specifically targets minority groups that by definition do not have the population to fight back directly. "Ohh, 1% of our customer base is angry with us, whatever will we do..."
Big corporations surely don't care who or what you sleep with in bed at night if you want to give them money.
Do you seriously think that the owners of Chick-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby wouldn't force their religion on others if given the chance? Companies are guided by people and people have biases. It's not even remotely difficult to find examples of companies discriminating against entire classes of people including women, blacks, hispanics, asians etc even when doing so is explicitly against the law. Ask women how that equal pay thing is going these day.
And if a small business decides to put their own religious beliefs in front of making money, then so be it if they go under.
If it were a fair world I would agree with you but reality frequently doesn't work that way.
If you assume that their religious view is false (which is a judgment the government is not supposed to make), then I'd say the religious person is being harmed in precisely the same manner as that of a gay person who can't get his/her cake decorated with a certain message: it's simply a matter of hurt feelings.
If a religious person's view is true, then you're forcing them to have an alienated relationship with God (the Christian view), or by apostate (I think a Muslim view, but I could be wrong), and at a heightened risk of eternal damnation.
A religious person could argue that an atheist's imaginary world view should not be his problem either. My point in saying that I can't see how to have a clear separation of church and state in cases like this. Secularists win and religious persons lose, or vice versa, as far as I can tell.
I see a lot of people throwing around words like "bigot" and "hate" on here. The thing is that the people displaying the most hate and bigotry appear to be those accusing people of believe of having those traits. Believe that something is wrong does not mean the person with that believe hates the person that commits that act.
I will start a new religion, where upon "dark" and "light" days will alternate. As a member, you will be obliged only to serve somebody of darker skin or lighter skin, depending on the day, all others will be turned away.
For example, If Tuesday is a "dark" day, you only are allowed to do business with or assist people with darker skin. The next day, you will only do business with those of a lighter skin shade.
Those without skin, or matching your own skin color are not to be dealt with, ever, as it is sinful.
Religious freedom!
Everyone discriminates. You choose physical / personality traits that you require in someone to date / marry / have sex with. You choose your hobbies, bands, etc. You say "I love McDonald's" or "I hate White Castle". EVERYONE DISCRIMINATES.
Not one of those forms of discrimination causes societal harm. Whom you chose to date does NOT cause the same problems as denying someone basic civil rights because they are a woman or a minority. There are some forms of discrimination that are plainly harmful to society so we protect classes of people against discrimination. No it is NOT ok to pass over someone for a job or pay them less because they have a vagina. No it is NOT ok to refuse service to a well behaved patron in a restaurant because of their skin color. Do not confuse basic consumer choices with civil rights.
Then with the Civil Rights movement, they decided that for blacks to have equal rights, business owners had to lose their rights (yeah, I don't get the logic either).
Say what now? You think it is ok for a business owner to refuse service on the basis of skin color? Business owners merely were required to actually follow the constitution (not to mention basic decency) which they could have been doing all along but didn't. "Don't get the logic"? Are you seriously that daft?
The only reason that people currently are opposed to the "religious freedom" law is because they don't like THAT religious view.
100% wrong. These "religious freedom" laws are simply sneaky attempts to enshrine and protect bigotry. Someone's religion should NEVER form a basis to refuse economic transactions because economic transactions are the domain of the state. That is a plain violation of the separation of church and state.
Past supporters of RFRA acts include Barack Obama (who voted for one as Illinois State Senator) and Bill Clinton (who signed one into law as President). So Tim Cook's position is not in the political mainstream and in fact it is even outside the liberal Democrat mainstream. The news here is Tim Cook inappropriately dragging Apple into a political war to endorse his own radical politics, not anything going on in Indiana.
Cooks' statements are also not based on any actual facts. See background on RFRA here.
Not long ago Apple stood for fanatical devotion to great design. Now it stands for tasteless bling and Tim Cook's political agenda. We all know the heartbreaking history of that company. It is made even sadder by Cook's failure to stay true to the vision.
from:
Apple: Insanely great design.
to:
Apple: Indiana is a bunch of Anti-homosexual Christian Bigots.
Tim Cook is not qualified to lead Apple. Not because he is gay (nothing wrong with that in my opinion) but because he is ruining the corporate image by putting his personal politics ahead of Apple's interests. If any other employee at Apple used the Apple name to endorse his own personal political views, that employee wold be fired. The same policy should apply to Cook.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Its so clear then please point out in the constitution where it says "separation of church and state." I'll wait go and find it.
It's right next to "freedom of speech", which I'd lay down cash that you claim to cherish.
Grownups understand that things like "freedom of speech" and "separation of church and state" are phrases that refer to an enormous body of legal rulings that collectively establish and define those concepts. Grownups also recognize that "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins", and that a law keeping you from being an asshole to people you don't like is not oppressing your religious rights.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Those laws were passed with little or no opposition from Southern society. They weren't forced on the South, they were an expression of the fear and general disdain for Southern blacks by the white majority.
You're trying desperately to let Southern whites from the end of Reconstruction until the 1960s off the hook for a general and pervasive racism by claiming the State legislatures were at fault. It's absurd and bizarre, but it's the kind of idiocy I've come to expect from Libertarians.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The word right is used today to denote two very different kinds of things. People talk about the "right to freedom of speech" but also about "the right to a living wage". Unfortunately, these are two very different kinds of legal arrangements.
Rights of the first kind (exemplified by the freedom of speech) are negative rights: rights to be free from interference by others. You can do as you please as long as you don't harm anyone. Respecting and protecting such rights is, in my opinion, a principal function of government.
"Rights" of the second kind (exemplified by the "right" to have your employer buy you a specific form of health insurance) are positive rights: they amount to an imposition on someone else to do something for you. In other words, they cannot be fulfilled without infringing someone's negative right to be free from interference. Positive rights are properly aspirational statements ("wouldn't it be great if people could have X even if they don't have X now?"), and are called "rights" as a rhetorical device: since we all agree that negative rights ought to be protected by the government, calling something a "right" creates the impression that it should be protected too.
When speaking about positive "rights", I use the word in quotes to highlight this distinction, and avoiding the rhetorical trap set by the proponents of such "rights".
In the case at hand, the employees of Hobby Lobby have every right (without quotes) to use their salary to buy contraception. They don't (and shouldn't) have the "right" to have Hobby Lobby buy them contraception. The owners of Hobby Lobby (acting jointly through the company) have a right to freedom of thought, and a right to dispose of their property (Hobby Lobby and its money) as they please, including by refusing to buy someone contraception.
Religious Freedom, or Freedom of Conscience, originally meant that the government wouldn't try to impose a particular brand of religion on the people.
The concept has been abused and mutilated until now it's interpreted as "My religion gives me freedom to trample all over your civil rights".
So yeah, my freedom of religious expression is protected by the Bill of Rights, while your "choice" to like the same sex isn't.
But at the same time, your right to throw your fist ends where my nose begins. That's where legal technicalities get interesting.
But let's look at it from a different point of view, let's say that I own a large restaurant with attached back room that I will let out to various parties. As a private citizen, do I have the right to not let to the First Church of the Unredeemed? Am I really a private citizen at this point, or am I company doing business with the public? Am I allowed to discriminate against your religion? If not, why not? The constitution restricts what the government can do, not what I (or my business) can do.
The bottom line though is, people wanting to discriminate against gays doing normal things like hold weddings or lease an apartment are on the wrong side of history. In 50 years discriminating against gays will be as repugnant as discriminating against blacks today.
Will all anti-gay attitudes be wiped out? No. People are people. Just as there are open racists today, there will be open anti-gays in 50 years, but the majority will look down on the bigots.
Anyone can claim to Christian.
Jesus stated: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your might, AND Love your neighbor as yourself"
If you claim to be a Christian, and can't love those who you believe to be are "lost" (or bake them a cake), you may as well claim to be a Super Sayijin.. as both claims are pretty farfetched.
Awesome!
Also, as the Gay lobby has pointed out time and again, sexual orientation is genetic. These people can't help that they are attracted to 12 year old boys, it's who they are.
Homosexuality != Pedophelia
Die in a fire, troll.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
If Joe's lawnmower service center or Sally's cake shop is discriminatory it's probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things (distasteful as it may be to some), but if you have the same problem with Toro or Albertsons it's a major issue.
There are many flavors of "Religious Freedom Law,"but at least the Indiana law applies to the employees as well as the businesses. So, Joe's lawnmower service may refuse people on the basis of religion at the policy level, but Joe, the employee of Starbuck's, may also refuse to serve people on the basis of his personal beliefs. The law is intended to prevent Starbuck's from firing Joe for his expression of personal religious freedom.
But I will contend the state is become atheistic. So the state is acting on behalf of atheists constantly and it is disadvantaging all other religions.
This is because while courts do in fact acknowledge that Atheism is a religion, they are applying a Separation of Church and State doctrine to prevent any religion or mention of God from the state.
And no God is Atheism.
Thus my problem with the courts ruling based on a nonexistent separation of church and state in the constitution rather than the clear freedom of religious express and prohibition of the establishment of a state religion(which the courts have established defacto instead of dejure, re atheism.)
No. They're not discriminating against gays. They won't cater for anyone on a Friday and they won't cater a pig roast for anyone.
If they refuse to cater a gay wedding with Halal food on a Sunday afternoon, then yes... that's discrimination.
...isn't this the guy whose products are built by labor force that is for all intents and purposes, slaves?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Surely the fair thing to do is to let every other bigoted group ban who they want.
First off, selling a wedding cake to a gay couple has nothing to do with accepting gay marriage. No one else going in to buy a cake has to pass a test before being allowed to buy one. If someone came in and wanted a wedding cake for their two cats (so they could stop living in cat sin together), is the baker going to refuse on the grounds that cats can not be married in the eyes of the church, or is the baker just going to laugh and humor the kooky cat lady? Is the baker being a hypocrite for refusing service only to gay customers while accepting anyone else?
Second, let's say hypothetically that this is a Christian church, there is no religious edict or teaching against selling a wedding cake to a gay couple, so there is no religious freedom being suppressed here. The baker is not being forced to officiate at a gay marriage, not being forced to engage in any gay activities, not being forced to sin in any way whatsoever.
What is happening is that some groups can not keep distinct their religious beliefs from their political beliefs and their cultural beliefs. They're as mad as hell at gay marriage being legalized so that they're using a knee-jerk reaction against it and falsely claiming it is about their own religious beliefs being violated.
In funny a way it's a good thing the society has reached a point where people have completely, absolutely, totally forgotten what religious freedom fundamentally means and why it's important.
Three or four hundred years ago, expressing your personal religious belief in the privacy of your own home could lead to soldiers dragging you off to prison and all of your wealth being confiscated by the state.
Religious freedom is the absence of that happening.
Corrupting [marriage] into something purely based on decadent sex is not wise. For anyone.
But that's generally not what people who are gay are doing. I know two women that raised two or three kids together. Their marriage would not have been "just" about sex. Their marriage would have been a statement to the world that this is the person that comes first for me, which is pretty much the same statement that my hetero marriage does.
But, based on your statement, what about hetero marriages where the couple find they are infertile? At that point is their marriage "purely based on decadent sex"? If so, should we force their marriage to be annulled if they find they can't have children? What if they get married past their childbearing years?
If [one of] the purposes of marriage is to declare monogamy towards one other person, why shouldn't gays be able to publicly declare such a thing? Wouldn't encouraging gay marriage be a means of reducing promiscuous sex?
Honestly, go through and write down all of the reasons that marriage (of any form) should be recognized and then objectively ask yourself if that reason would also apply to a gay couple. Keep in mind that with artificial insemination and adoption, gay couples can be parents. If you get over your own revolution to the gay lifestyle, you might find that your objections to gay marriage start to fall away.