Limits to Freedom of Religion

[McCulloch]

Churches should be allowed to 'discriminate' on their own property and according to their own doctrines. You and I might not agree with those doctrines, but (and I keep repeating this but nobody is paying attention) the first amendment was not written to protect those with whom we agree. It was written to protect those with whose opinions and beliefs we do NOT agree.

For instance: what's the difference between forcing the Methodists to allow gay weddings to occur on their property....and, say, forcing a Catholic priest to allow a divorced Baptist to get married in his chapel? Or forcing the Mormons to allow a couple of atheists to marry in one of their Temples? Or forcing an atheist to allow his neighbors to pray to Mecca on his front lawn?

For that matter... what's the difference between forcing the Methodists to allow a gay wedding on their property, and forcing a kosher deli to sell ham sandwiches, I mean, they sell every OTHER sort of sandwich, right, and isn't the reason they refuse to have ham on the premises religious discrimination?

The first amendment...the FIRST TWO PROVISIONS of the first amendment, provide that the government can't establish a state religion and that it cannot interfere with the right to practice that religion. There isn't anything there about "unless that religion is politically incorrect." Third on the list is 'freedom of speech.'

Forcing a church, or a business, or a person, to violate his or her religious doctrine in order to cater to someone ELSE'S religious opinion is doing exactly that: establishing a state religion AND interfering with the right to practice one's own.

It doesn't matter whether you think the religion involved is nutty.
It doesn't matter whether you are ethically or morally appalled by it's practices and beliefs.
YOUR ability to believe (or not) and practice those beliefs (or not) depends utterly upon THEIR being able to do so, with theirs.

This got me wondering. Can freedom of religion be absolute? What limits (if any) should be placed on the freedom of religion? Who gets to decide what is or is not a religious practice?

If my religion involved temple prostitutes, hallucinogenic drugs, carrying concealed weapons or spitting on the sidewalk, should I be allowed to practice it? Should churches be exempt from human rights legislation and property taxes, but not exempt from the criminal code and building regulations? Why the distinction?

[dianaiad]

That law, in my opinion, is wrong. I can, just BARELY, see a regulation against the company for hiring people who won't pick up single women or dogs, but against the individual cab drivers? Nope.

What's the difference?

In general, cab companies are neither owned, nor run, by religions. If one IS, then I can see making it very clear that the company caters only to those who share the beliefs of the owners, but...

if a 'secular' cab company says to it's employees, look; we pick up anybody, and refusing a ride to anyone except for legitimate safety issues (we won't make you stop for someone holding a gun, for instance) is a big no-no, then the individual can decide whether or not to work for that company. S/he can drive his/her own cab and not work for anybody else.

[McCulloch]

[Replying to post 138 by dianaiad]

In Toronto, the taxi business is regulated. You must have a license issued by the City to operate a cab. There are a limited number of these licenses. One of the requirements of getting a taxi license is that you must adhere to certain rules. These rules include regulations about how the fares are to be calculated, smoking and non-discrimination. A visitor to our city should expect to be able to hire a cab even if she is a blind woman traveling only with her seeing-eye dog. If a driver is allowed to reject her fare because she is an unattended single female, or because she has a dog and either of those conditions offends his religion, then she is being discriminated against. That kind of religious discrimination in a regulated commercial enterprise is and should be against the law.

[JohnPaul]

OK, let's take a few gratuitous slams back at them. I don't know much about Austria, but I will admit that Dusk may be a bit too liberal for my taste. Germany today is governed by a gaggle of squabbling welfare-state liberals, has an aging and declining population supported by hordes of imported non-German-speaking workers who treat German culture with contempt, and its Bundeswehr (army) is a part-time joke.

BTW Austria has relative to our GDP the least military funding fo almost any nation.
Personally I would raise an EU army and reduce all the national ones to natural catastrophe militia like the german THW. That isn't going to happen though.
In all the EU we have 2 Million soldiers and I don't think anybody knows for what. Aside from France, Germany and Britain no army is of any use internationally.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt ... _mind.html
I am most definitely very liberal by that definition. I think in a globalized world the liberal species is the more useful one. One could wonder if conservatives might become an endangered species in the long run, considering who the world changes with internet and all.

My arguments concerning the topic seem air tight with the refusal to manage any kind of serious respond by dianaiad.

Gay marriage is the least of my worries. I am certainly not qualified to argue the future of Europe with you, but that won't stop me from doing it.

Does Vladimir Putin and the ruling Russian Mafia share your opinion of the proper use of the military? We should have taken General Patton's advice and destroyed them in 1945 when we still had the power to do so.

An EU army? Disciplined like a herd of cats? Venal and corrupt parasites, completely dependent on Germany for funding?

Have you read "Deutschland Schafft Sich ab"? If your people and your country are destroyed, does it really matter whether it is done by an invasion of howling Huns, or by a geometric progression of immigrant births?

Liberalism is your answer? What has liberalism done for America during my lifetime? American politicians are self-serving idiots rushing into national bankruptcy, the American economy is uncompetitive and unstable, our inner cities are jungles, Spanish has already become the dominant language in several American states, the masses of American people are dumbed down, fat and ignorant.

Someone once said "God save us all from the do-gooders!"

[dusk]

I was in the Austrian military. It is a complete waste of money. I would abolish all military. I just would prefer one smaller but efficient force with high tech equipment that is actually actively serving something other than coffee to each other.
Our army has basically only one use and that is to start digging when some avalanche come down or we have high water or something. We had a referendum just weeks ago about whether mandatory service should be abolished.
Guess how it turned out. No they don't want to. But the fun part is why.
Because the people feared that if you abolish the army service the civil service goes too and the young people basically working almost a year for pocket money in a way which is only sustainable if you live still at hotel mama, wouldn't be here anymore to drive old people to the hospital.
70% of old people voted to keep it. 70% of young people wanted to get rid of it.
It is a waste of time and money and there actually are not that many people working in civil service and the voluntary thing the Germans run now would work too.
But an entirely idiotic campaign that acted as if our social system would break down without these 10.000 young men each year lets us keep our mandatory military service. Not because anybody feels threatened or because we wouldn't have the money for anything we want, or because we need them in an imminent war. For reasons such as it doesn't hurt them to learn some discipline and Oh my apocalypse now without civil service.

Russia isn't going to invade us. They need us as customers for their gas so they can buy all kinds of goodies from us like cars and what not. Today we need some kind of organized response to natural catastroph but that doesn't need to be a standing army. And troops for international UN missions. For the later only professionals are viable anyway. The 6 month Rekrut isn't fit to go on any serious mission. All we learned is how to clean a gun and in the event of an alien invasion we could more quickly raise a revolution force militia than without the 6 month training.

EU battle groups would run at least as efficient as any German or French army. A lot of people complain about the EU and the bureaucracy in Brussel but the truth is they are still better than what we have nationally. Brussel also sends loads of directives that keep national governments busy and on their toes. If you knew Austrian politics. It is a constant avoiding of doing anything serious. The swiss are the same. They get hung up on complete nonsense forever and push real stuff so far back until they have to lock themselves up and work until 4 am to get stuff done. If there wasn't some annoying Brussel, they would probably do even less. Through Brussel the politicians that want to change something actually can without idiots and the local media constantly diverting media and public attention to things that aren't great but really not worth 95% of media time.

Sarazzin isn't exactly my favorite author. I am half German half Austrian. I think Austria is a nice country but it is just a country. The country is defined by mountains and skiing. I doubt that goes away anytime soon. I just don't think breeding like rabbits our Caucasian population is the solution. Germany asked for cheap labour from turkey in the 60s and now they have it. They cannot very much complain now that they got the less intellectual portion of turkish immigrants.
That influx isn't the same anymore. The immigrants are here and they aren't as successful as koreans but the reaction of locking down our countries doesn't help either.

I think the liberal mindset is simply more globalization friendly than the conservative this is our bunch preserve it and those are the other bunch keep them at arms length. The solution to politics would be voters with better education. More and better political education. I personally think votes shouldn't count unless people can give proper reasons. I am also against direct democracy as in many cases such as our mandatory army service it is just a slashing of populism. If loads of people going to the polls said, "this is ridiculous, why did we vote for politicians if they cannot just do something." Lots of people didn't really seem to care either way. I did my 8 months and it was mostly boring but so what. I just think the reasons for saying no as unjustifiable.
In other cases it also simply ridiculous to ask the voter what they want when maybe a small percentage of the population even understands the consequences of option A or B. Representative democracy is better but voters should take more care and responsibility while voting.
There are lots of decent people who want to chance things but they are human beings and people simply prefer to vote for populists that promise them the world and fail at everything. We don't give newcomers really a chance because nobody can run on actual arguments if they have more than 5 words. Everybody has to go through a party apparatus that grinds people down until only a certain breed is left.
The people get the politicians they deserve. That is the simple truth.
Hardly anybody spends even the time to read a party program. They read the posters and are done with it. If people don't care that is that. The US presidential election is different at least lots of people care. The media coverage is where it goes wrong. Instead of having actual journalists picking apart programs and explaining them in detail to the public they spend 99% of their time of whether Romney speaks to robotic or his dog on the roof of a car. Yeah he ain't great with dogs but he isn't running for PETA president. Nobody actually did pick apart the economic program because they didn't really have one. It doesn't matter.
Team Stronach as a new party around one eccentric (canadian) millionaire in Austria came out with 10% in state elections. That man was a joke in any interview, has no program other than three words. He constantly repeats he has the truth not that he tells anybody what that truth would be. About comparable to your US Donald Trump. He gets 10% of votes for well nothing. The green party in Carinthia who for 15 years try to dismantel that swamp of corruption Jörg Haider left doubles their votes to now 11%. The only party with an actual program over multiple pages. The ruling FPK went from 47% down to 17%.
A lot of politicians if you meat them in smaller settings actually do their best to change things but they are only humans. The problem in our system is how we vote. Almost all over Europe it gets more populistic and dumber as a reaction to incapable politicians. If people want better politicians they ought to collectively put more brain power and effort into voting them into office. It is a democracy and every vote is equal. If 10% are extremely enthusiastic it just doesn't matter, when the remaining 90% aren't.
I think people need to take voting more seriously or just not go. Liberals or conservatives won't have any impact on that problem. It is the us vs. them mentality and media without real journalism. If people only consume a certain type of low information media, they shouldn't be allowed to vote IMO. You cannot have an educated opinion without some serious research. Maybe it just should be more trouble to vote.
Every-time we only blame politicians and never look at how we voters and our media consumption is responsible for the situation we are the part of the problem. Until people realize that it will stay the same. We are all literate and smart enough but we as in the mainstream refuse to consume serious journalistic media and prefer short sound bites.

Sorry for the long rant got a bit off topic.

[JohnPaul]

dusk wrote:

I was in the Austrian military. It is a complete waste of money. I would abolish all military. I just would prefer one smaller but efficient force with high tech equipment that is actually actively serving something other than coffee to each other.
Our army has basically only one use and that is to start digging when some avalanche come down or we have high water or something. We had a referendum just weeks ago about whether mandatory service should be abolished.

Thanks for your interesting and well-reasoned response. My only past exposure to Austria has been the movie "The Sound of Music."

I visited Germany frequently during my time in the US Air Force. I can understand that military service might be boring if it was only for 8 months and limited to your own country. Mine was different, and I see it now as the best part of my life. I served four years in the Air Force, from 1950 to 1954. That was during the Korean War, but I saw no combat and never went near Korea. After radio school and aircrew training, I was stationed with an aircrew near Tripoli in North Africa from 1953 to 1954 and made frequent flights to Europe, most often to Germany, and to other places in North Africa and Saudi Arabia. I liked the Libyan people, but the Saudis were total aliens.

We most often visited Frankfurt, Munich and Stuttgart. Germany was still recovering from the war then, but everything was clean and neat. The German people I saw seemed honest and hard-working. I hope the welfare state now has not killed that spirit in them.

I spoke no German, but many of the Germans I encountered spoke at least a little English. I have learned to read some German since then, but still can't speak it. I remember a German Fräulein once told me that she hated the Russians, but Americans were "cute." I suppose it is better to be cute than hated. Her father had been killed by the Russians in Berlin and she and her mother had escaped to Frankfurt with the help of some of her father's officers. I met one of them. He was very formal, spoke some "school English" and treated her mother with great respect.

In my opinion, all of America's wars since WW2 have been unnecessary political adventures at best, and very costly in money and lives. However, I would still recommend military service for everyone.

[Alchemy]

If you can't show that EVEN ONE church has been forced to provide services against their will or that ANYONE AT ALL is asking for it to happen, then your argument fails and your elaborate marriage scheme remains unecessary. If you could show that a priest was forced to marry two chaps or even run a funeral service for one of them, then you might have a point. Until then, you are constructing a strawman to knowck down.

The problem here is that every example I give you, you turn into a circular argument.

For instance, isn't forcing a church to allow it's property to be used for events and services (like gay weddings and receptions) forcing it to 'offer services?" How about if the problem is not just the physical space, but the catering, janitorial, cleanup and everything else that goes WITH it?

Isn't that 'offering services?" Most reasonable people would say so, but you would not; you would say that if the law says you must, then of course you aren't being 'forced to.'

Please point out the specific arguments of mine that are circular. i.e. This book is true. How do you know? Because it says it is.

These people are conducting a business and are therefore subject to anti discrimination laws. If they were not conducting a business, if they did not offer their pavilion for hire, then I would agree with you. It could be a clear cut case of a government wrongly forcing a church to go against it’s values. It would be equivalent to you or I being forced to conduct a ceremony on our front lawns against our will. Plain wrong. I’ll address your controversial idea of Wild West, anything goes style discrimination further down.

Then there is the problem of what a church actually is: that is, rather like corporations, churches are collections of people with common interests. If one can force individual members of a church to go against their core beliefs and doctrines, one IS 'forcing the church' to do so.

The first amendment, which text I've already provided, first tells the government that it cannot establish an official church. Then it talks about not being allowed to abrogate the free practice thereof. Here's the problem; a CHURCH does not 'practice.' The MEMBERS of the church do. Individuals who believe. So, if you force a member of a religion to do something against their beliefs, or provide services that are fundamentally against their beliefs, you are 'forcing the church' to do so.

It actually says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Depending on the context, religion and church can sometimes be used interchangeably but not always. Those are just semantics though. What is a little more than semantics is your incredible stretch that forcing an individual member of a church is in turn forcing the entire church/religion. Using that logic, forcing a divorce on one Catholic person is forcing divorce on the entire Catholic Church.

Now we have that photographer who was sued, penalized, and pretty much had her business destroyed because she refused to photograph a 'commitment ceremony.' Mind you, she advertised that she did WEDDINGS, not commitment ceremonies, but hey, that didn't matter. She is now forced to photograph commitment ceremonies if someone wants her to do so, whether she wants to or not. In fact, while she can refuse to 'shoot' a wedding for any reason she likes, or a birthday party, if she wants to refuse a request to shoot a gay commitment ceremony she has to first prove to the court that she's NOT refusing simply because her religion forbids it, because if THAT'S the reason...sorry, she'd better pick up the camera.

This is happening far more often that it should.

And yes, sir, I don't care how bigoted or discriminatory someone ELSE thinks it is...or even how bigoted or discriminatory I think it is...anybody has a right to refuse to do something; to allow his land to be used or to provide services for anything that is against his/her religious beliefs.

It’s really quite simple. The laws of the State always trump the laws of Religion. This logically has to be the case except in a Theocracy. To deal with conflicting religious freedoms without this concept, would require either an arbiter to judge which religious law wins in a conflict or you say, as you do, that religious freedoms do not apply if they would conflict with someone else’s religious freedom. Either way, you have a State law right there that trumps Religious law. There is no way around this unless you have a single religion Theocracy or Theocratic Anarchy where anything goes as long as you can justify it with scripture.

The State law in most western democracies says, “Businesses shalt not discriminate based on sex, age, gender, sexual orientation, religion…�. These laws are in place to protect the weak and vulnerable against a system of free for all, survival of the fittest as you propose.

The Kosher butcher has the right to refuse to stock or sell pork products, even if another Jewish deli owner will.

The Buddhist restaurant has the right to refuse to serve meat of any sort, even if another Buddhist restaurant does.

The Amish baker has the right to refuse to drive a cab, even if his brother does.

The Mormon grocer has the right to refuse to carry booze, if s/he chooses, even if OTHER Mormon grocers decide to sell it.

I’ve cut and pasted your strawmen here out of order for ease of reading. None of these examples show anyone being discriminated against and no one is arguing that a Buddhist restaurant has to serve meat. They just can’t refuse to serve someone because they don’t believe the same thing.

The Christian photographer belonging to a sect that does not recognize gay marriage has the right to refuse to photograph gay weddings, whether the competition does or not.

No they do not have that right. Plain and simple. At least in civilised western democracies that have anti discrimination laws to protect weak and vulnerable people. The courts have proven this. You might want them to have that right but the fact is, they currently do not have it.

The first amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

Please note; 'prohibiting the free excercise thereof" is aimed at the actions of individuals who want to live their faith, NOT some amorphous entity, 'the church."

The US Constitution certainly does say that however, as shown above and by yourself below, State Law (i.e. anti discrimination law) must take precedence over “free exercise thereof� to avoid Theocratic Anarchy.

Atheists should not only be grateful for this provision, but should do their level best to defend it with everything they have. After all, they are the ones whose 'religious' opinions are personal and not dependent upon any set of official doctrines, and this provision protects them even more than it does the theists.

One last thing: it has been mentioned that nobody accepts the right of someone going out and committing murder for religious reasons. This is used as a justification to regulate all 'lesser' matters. Here's the thing: one's freedom to practice one's faith is ALSO interpreted as an inability to force someone else to abrogate HIS. Could you tell me how killing someone...an unwilling someone...for one's own religious reasons is NOT abrogating the victim's right to practice his/her religion?

If I go out and shoot you to satisfy my faith, how am I not 'prohibiting' YOUR free exercise of YOUR religious (or lack of) beliefs? Therefore this argument is invalid. If I refuse services to you...such as the right to use my property or my talents...how am I harming you? If my rights to practice my faith end at your nose, your rights to anything end at mine. I do not have the right to tell you that you cannot have a wedding reception. I DO have the right to tell you that you can't do it on my property, using my services. Period.

Yes you do have the right to tell me I can’t hold a service on your property. That right is lost when you regularly hire your property to the public. At that point, you no longer have the right to discriminate.

The only example you’ve been able to provide of the government forcing a religious organisation to do anything is a church running a business that made a clear violation of anti discrimination law. ANY business whether it is run by a church or anyone else is subject to anti discrimination law. You have not been able to produce a single case of a church being forced to marry someone they didn’t want to, nor have you provided a single case where someone is arguing that churches should marry people they don’t want to. If you can provide a single case of a church being forced to marry someone they didn’t want to, I’ll consider your argument won. Until then you are arguing that the government is trying to do something which it is not in fact trying to do. Your argument is a strawman.

[dusk]

Thanks for your interesting and well-reasoned response. My only past exposure to Austria has been the movie "The Sound of Music."

At some point I have to watch that movie. Barely anyone in Austria knows. It some point Americans showed up in Salzburg and wanted to see some houses. Nobody knew where it was. Now it is a tourist attraction.
You might have noticed that Bavaria and the rest of Germany aren't perfectly alike. Austrians and Bavarians are culturally almost the same except for the flag. They had their king we had ours.

I visited Germany frequently during my time in the US Air Force. I can understand that military service might be boring if it was only for 8 months and limited to your own country.

I am not a pacifist. I could have done civil service but I thought running around in the dirt and being physically active is much more my thing than driving around old people or work some desk job or do whatever.
I applied for a Jäger Batallion which is something like the marines I think. Just basic front line soldiering. I had 1 month of actual stuff some ridiculous other stuff fun but the rest was a total time waste as I ended up in some barely manned base and aside from the 1-2h of sport we could do whenever we wanted, we did nothing but nightsguard work, helping the so called professional army in their time wasting activities of copying files that where send via email to another base 90 miles to the south and per postal service to our base because, hmm?
Among the the men who did the service most people that had like me no real work disliked it or found the army useless and while those that ended up in somewhat more real fighting troops don't see it quite as badly.
A friend of mine was in while a big avalanche hit and cut of some villages in Tirol. They went down digging all day for two weeks, the locals made cakes and stuff for the workers. Everybody likes that but I don't see why one needs 6 months of a standing 95% of the time completely useless army. That one month of basic basic training one could give any high school student. Just so organization is swift when something happens. Next simply work with volunteers who can spare the time, pay them a little (it is still cheaper) and the work will be done just the same. Snow digging doesn't require much skill.
As it exists it is simply a pointless waste of money and one reason why politicians don't like to change too much is because they don't know what to do with all those people that are now fixed.

We have also one of the best running voluntary fire department systems with about 300.000 registered fire(wo)men. Naturally most of those cannot leave their job for an extended period of time but with similar structure if one includes students of all sorts wouldn't be a problem with work that requires far less know-how. All one the nice part about the military is they can spare the time, react quickly, organized and in greater numbers.
Our army just doesn't have a point because there is no real land threat. If somebody tried to overrun us there would either be plenty of time or the army we have would help. It is a small country. Militias could form up in the mountains but the rest would be overrun in a day. We simply don't need big large standing armies anymore. We only need small fast high tech armies and the EU should pool its ressources because every little shit country doesn't need its own. We have 8 million people that is like New York City having its own army. Maybe they are scared of conservatives from Kentucky because of the unhealthy fried chicken.

Our standing armies with mandatory service are a legacy from a different time with different threats.

[JohnPaul]

dusk wrote:

Our standing armies with mandatory service are a legacy from a different time with different threats.

Maybe the army could be a tourist attraction. Recreate the Hapsburg empire, with old-fashioned uniforms, horses, parades, etc.

My visits to Germany were frequent, but only a few days each time. I saw very little of the German countryside, except from the air, of course, flying over the mountains. I confess that much of what I saw was from the inside of beerhalls, Oktoberfest, Fasching. I was young and stupid then, and my interests were not in history and museums. I am too old to travel now, but I often wish I had returned later to see the real Germany. My father's ancestors came to America in the 1700s from near Stuttgart

P.S. I still remember the tune and some of the words of the song "Edelweiss" from the movie "The Sound of Music":

Blossom of snow, bloom and grow,
Bloom and grow forever.
Edelweiss, Edelweiss,
Bless my homeland forever.

[dusk]

We do have our monarch.

He is having troubles reestablishing our once great empire.

I am not sure something like the Queen and the royal family in Britain or Sweden would make our tax payers happy. Me personally I disliked "exerzieren" (when you aimlessly prance around in sync) most. I am not sure soldiers that find it pointless now would find posing as tourist attractions very fulfilling.


If you came now to the Octoberfest I fear you wouldn't get in. The space is limited and it cannot expand anymore but it gets so many international tourists that getting inside one of the big tents is difficult. You cannot go out to smoke because you'd use your seat. It is a little overrun.

I am still young and stupid and my interests match that.