Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
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.
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?
Torture is also illegal
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
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.
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.
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.
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".
Surely the fair thing to do is to let every other bigoted group ban who they want.