Religious Conscience Must Be Protected
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Independence Day is more than fireworks and barbecues. It is a wonderful time for Americans to reflect on the true foundations of our great country. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court has reminded us of one of the most fundamental of those ideas: Americans should not be forced to participate in activities that violate their religious beliefs against their conscience.
As attorney general, it is my duty to prioritize and defend the rule of law, including our constitutional rights. Over the past few years I have been closely engaged in several legal cases that touch at the heart of Americans' fundamental right of freedom of speech.
Last week the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) by striking down a California law that required crisis pregnancy centers to provide information on abortions, a position that was contrary to their religious beliefs. The Court found that California lacked justification to force pro-life entities and counselors to speak a message with which they disagreed. The Court, therefore, invalidated California's attempt to force pregnancy centers--entities specifically set up to provide an alternative to abortion clinics--to post large advertisements providing information on the existence of free and low-cost abortions.
Likewise, in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Supreme Court criticized and ruled against a state agency that appeared to be penalizing the thoughts and speech of religious persons. It found that Colorado's Civil Rights Commission failed to give consideration to the religious-based reasons that prompted a baker to refuse to design and bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. Since the baker designs cakes for LGBT clients for occasions other than marriage, the Court found the Civil Rights Commission to be unnecessarily hostile to and dismissive of the baker's religious objections.
Justice Kennedy's majority opinion was particularly concerned that the baker's religious reason for refusing to design a cake for a same-sex wedding was treated more harshly than the Commission treated non-religious reasons for not designing cakes given by other bakers in other cases. The Court found that the differing standard of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission disfavored religion and persons of religious conviction.
The lessons that emerge from these cases are the same lessons about our Constitutional rights taught in civics classes around the country. Each of these cases is about liberty of conscience--the inability of the government to dictate how citizens think and feel without punishment for believing something different than others believe.
Retiring Justice Kennedy, in one of his final concurrences, scolded the California Legislature for its self-proclaimed "forward thinking" by forcing individual speech and beliefs. He suggested the state gain historical perspective on the Founders' foresight for the First Amendment created during a time of suffocating "authoritarian regimes." Ultimately, a liberal state's policies should never insult the beliefs of religious persons and require such persons to act contrary to those beliefs in a misguided attempt to purify society of such beliefs.
Based on its decision in Masterpiece, the Supreme Court has already sent another religious liberty case, in which I led a multi-state supporting effort, back to the Washington Supreme Court to reconsider. Arlene's Flowers is facing massive state fines for refusing to design unique and artistic floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding despite the owner's history of serving LGBT customers for other occasions.
The state Supreme Court's decision to punish the owner for refusing to use her artistic talents to celebrate a message that violates her religious beliefs should meet with the same fate as the state of Colorado's position in Masterpiece. I similarly led another multi-state effort to support a small business owner of faith in Kentucky. In that case, Hands-On Originals, a small family-owned T-shirt company, is being punished by the state for refusing to design shirts supporting a gay pride parade. Thus far, the owner has prevailed, and it is my hope that after Masterpiece, the Kentucky Supreme Court will rule that the state may not force a person to write something that conflicts with his or her core beliefs.
Each of these cases is about conscience, the ability for a person to refrain from doing or speaking against deeply held beliefs. These cases are not about same-sex marriage or LGBT rights. No one thinks it would be acceptable for a state to force someone to make a proclamation of faith. Why should anyone be forced by a state to make a proclamation that is in opposition of their faith?
I am proud of these recent victories as they underscore our founding principles to ensure liberty for all Americans. Protecting opposite viewpoints — even when we disagree with them — is as important now as it was on that first Independence Day.
Editor's note: This column first published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Leslie Rutledge is the attorney general of Arkansas.
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So, when can we expect the first witch burning, in wilder but permissible religious freedom, and then stone some sinners at the city gates?
Religious freedom seems to have a lot of freedom for them at the expense of other people's freedoms. Didn't Christ say something about you shouldn't be upset about the speck in your neighbor's eye while ignoring the splinter in your own eye? Treat others as you want to be treated?
I wonder how many actual Christians there are in the world, and how many use the bible and Christianity as a tool or a excuse to do...anything!? Looks like religion failed at everything except crowd control and a "good" excuse to be mean and rotten.
Makes you wonder about the "human" race, don't it?
Religious conscience? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?
Religious nutjobs look forward to the day when it is permissible to for any clerk to ask any customer why want to purchase anything. At Home Depot it will be, "why do you need these nails, sir?". If you're using them to build a wedding arch for a same sex wedding, you are going home without nails.
"Religious Conscious Must Be Protected." ? ?
Protected from what? Itself?
Religious conscious? First, it would have to determined that---that conscious existed in the real sense.
Just another way these assholes can discriminate.
So why would a gay or lesbian couple insist on patronizing them, when the baker down the street will decorate the cake any way they want?
Lawsuit shopping perhaps??
"On February 1, 1960, four African American college students sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Carolina, and politely asked for service. Their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Their passive resistance and peaceful sit-down demand helped ignite a youth-led movement to challenge racial inequality throughout the South."
But they could have gotten lunch elsewhere, why would they do such a thing? Lawsuit shopping? /s
Commerce clause, ever hear of it.....
why should they be forced to go down the street to another baker when this public business owner agreed to serve the public and refused to do his job he voluntarily chose ? do you think that "religious beliefs" should be a valid reason to legally discriminate against the public ?
do you think that "religious beliefs" should be a valid reason to legally discriminate against the public ?
Of course it is valid. The state or consumer can't force you to against your beliefs and moral code. Unless the customer was a trouble maker and itching to file a lawsuit, they would understand and respect that. They have other options, and can go elsewhere.
The recent ruling said he was not bound to violate his religious beliefs, and it was wrong for anyone to ask him to. Go back and read it.
so why did the whole lawsuit with lunch counters happen ? didn't those people also have other options and could have gone elsewhere ? do some research on religious discrimination rulings sometime.
wouldn't it have been pointless to stop segregation since all those people had other options and could have gone elsewhere as well ? or is legal discrimination ok with you if you think those being discriminated against are " icky " ?
i did - and you don't seem to understand what you read ( unless you are looking for confirmation bias then i understand how you came to the erroneous conclusion ) - it stated that the current public accommodation laws in place in the state were sufficient and had the commissioner not treated the religious beliefs aspect poorly - you would have had a different ruling altogether . Try reading it and comprehending the ruling this time.
why aren't you upset that a voluntary public business owner isn't serving the entire public as he voluntarily chose to do for his job ?
You're free to hold those bigoted beliefs, you just can't use them as an excuse to violate the law by illegally denying service.
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Actually it said the exact opposite. You obviously didn't read the ruling and I seriously doubt you could understand it.
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You'd have done very well in the Jim Crow south. LOL. Your sort of mentality was rejected by our society, our courts and our Congress over 50 years ago.
Conservatives said the very same thing when Anne Neuman went to Piggie Park BBQ when she could have went somewhere else that served "her kind". Apparently, Rosa Parks should have shut up and moved to the back of the bus where she belonged. In the minds of conservatives "those people should know their place in society and not expect equal treatment from others". Separate but (un)equal is now a platform of the GOP.
I just want to note how that description is technically inaccurate and is a common misconception, I myself hadn't understood the truth until a few years ago.
The facts: Rosa Parks refused to obey bus driver James F. Blake 's order to give up her seat in the "colored section" to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled.
She was already sitting in the "colored section", she merely refused to be forced to give her seat up to a white passenger who had just gotten on the bus. She refused to be forced to ride the bus standing while allowing a white passenger to sit in the "colored section". It wasn't even "separate but equal" in this case, it was "whites are more important than you" and "whites are separate and superior".
Sadly, there are still many xenophobes and white supremacists who believe that nonsense today and they all seem to gravitate towards supporting Trump and his anti-immigrant, anti-minority, anti-American ideology.
Maurice Bessinger of Piggie Park BBQ said the very same thing when he was forced to serve black customers as equal to whites. He also claimed that he was a BBQ artist.
The only act of hatred is the desire to treat others as less than equal in a public business. Jack Phillips knew what the law was when he opened the bakery so either sell the bakery to someone who isn't a religious bigot or stop making wedding cakes. He'll have a lot more time to pray if he sells the bakery to someone who isn't recycling discriminatory arguments from 1960s racists.
(gag) you're going to need a case of crackers and a 12' wheel of cheese to go with that much whine...
What possible difference does that make?
How is a business transaction forcing anyone against their beliefs?
How are beliefs automatically worthy of respect?
Why should they have to, especially when the business they are patronizing provides the service they are looking for?
So far scientists have been unable to detect consciousness in any member of the Christian Taliban.
They have "Christian Organization Mental Affliction" or "COMA" and there's no estimated date when they might recover.
"Religious Conscious Must Be Protected."
Social repercussions and secular laws forbidding such bigoted behavior. They appear to want us to ignore the fact that Jesus told his followers to do the except opposite, but Jesus only matters to conservative Christians on Easter and Christmas.
Gorsuch on the court. The winds are changing. Prepare.
Nobody possibly has the right not to be criticized because that would involve gutting the 1st Amendment's free speech protections.
The Constitution is at stake here. Russia didn't do all of 'this' for nothing.
Too bad the Dems just HAD to nominate Hillary.
Just as we need to be protected from religions
There have been three public accommodation rulings in the lower courts since the Masterpiece ruling (Arizona, Oregon and Hawaii). All three concerned a denial of service because the customers were a same-sex couple, in all three cases the bigoted owners cited their loony superstitions as an excuse to violate the law, all three cited the Masterpiece ruling as precedent, and all three rulings went against the dumb bigots. Too bad so sad for the superstitious, eh?
The best part is that the ADF anti-LGBT hate group lost two of the three cases. They're the same hate group behind the Masterpiece ruling......and they still rather naively think they "won" that. A closely related anti-LGBT hate group (First Liberty Institute) lost the other case. LOL.
from your last link (oregon live)
this is what it boils down to, but for some reason many of the conservative minded feel that a voluntary public business owner (who has voluntarily agreed to abide by public accommodation laws) should be able to legally state "we don't serve your kind here" and throw us back a few decades.
I swear, some of the conservatives here are so dumb that they're literally incapable of comprehending what SCOTUS plainly said. It's only the erroneous Breitbart and Faux News spin which they understand.
Interestingly, SCOTUS did not rule that CO's anti-discrimination law was unconstitutional but that the state agency enforcing it acted without adequate due process (or words to that effect). So, it really wasn't a victory for the forces of bigotry and evil as they're wishing to call it.
What the ruling amounted to is an instruction to the courts not to laugh when the dumb bigot makes their superstitious and legally irrelevant argument.
are you stating that the forces of bigotry and evil are people who expect voluntary public business owners to do their job and serve... the public ? why do you advocate that people don't do their jobs ?
Bigotry and evil also disguise themselves as religious beliefs too.
Atheism is the rejection of religious belief. A(anti)-theism.
As in not-acceptance. That is, not being convinced.
Be complete TiG! You copyrighted this, didn't you?
Four possibilities:
1) Gnostic theist: Certain that God exists
2) Agnostic theist: Believes that God exists, but recognizes the possibility of error
3) Agnostic atheist: Believes that God does not exist, but recognizes the possibility of error
4) Gnostic atheist: Certain that God does not exist
Both the first and last are faith-based, and therefore unarguable. The second and third allow discussion.
The "A" prefix actually just means "away from" or "without", not exactly anti. It's a variant of the Latin "ab". So atheism is just being without theistic beliefs. But that's where you get into positive (stronger) vs negative (weaker) assertions of atheism, or even apathetic-atheism.
Yes.
That's why two words are needed.
I don't look at it that way. Either you have a particular belief in a particular god or you are an atheist-not a theist. Atheism is nothing; it shouldn't even be a word. It's like calling someone who doesn't drive a car, an 'adriver.' You don't describe a person by what they are not. Atheism is merely the default position of all humans. We are all born atheists, god belief has to be taught and learned.
That would be logical. But some atheism - gnostic atheism in TiG's classification - is not logical, since it is a form of "proving a negative". I've met quite a few online. They are just as insensible to reason as religious fundamentalists.
Except atheism isn't a religion. hence the term, A-theism. it's rather funny (and willfully ignorant) how some people to equate atheism as a religion. It's a contradiction in terms.
It is nothing more than a mindless talking point. Just something to repeat instead of formulating a thoughtful, original comment.
That's why two words are needed.
If theists weren’t so concerned about the fact that not everyone is like them, then there would be no need for the word atheist. You would either be theistic, or you wouldn’t be. We have a special name because theists have a need to label us as an inferior class.
Semantics, Hal.
It depends on what degree of precision you want. Personally, I think it's significant that there are people who do not recognize any possibility of being wrong... on both sides of the question. That distinction requires a second word.
You can’t be ‘wrong’ when to be right requires proof of a negative. It is the burden of those making the claim to provide evidence to back it up. Atheism is just a natural reaction to theism. If someone confidently said to you that there is intelligent life on the moon, it is not your duty to prove them wrong, it is their burden to prove themselves right. In the meantime, it makes no sense to come up with a special name for those who don’t believe the claim.
Key word there being "mindless," which leads directly to the second part of your statement.
Chances are, it's the theist who will not admit or even consider the possibility that their beliefs may be wrong. They're convinced they're right because they read (or were fed) the "truth' from some "holy" book. If any evidence or argument contradicts or challenges that "truth," it's the opposing evidence/argument that must be dismissed and not the "holy" book or associated "truth." It's the perfect balance of intellectual dishonesty and laziness.
I don't think I'm getting across to you.
There's an essential difference between "I very much doubt there's a God" and "I am certain that there's no God". The first is a rational reaction to a lack of evidence. The second is an act of faith... exactly like the act of faith of a gnostic theist.
We often hear theists say that atheism is a religion. That's obviously not true for agnostic atheists... but it's a defensible proposition for gnostic atheists.
You always find a way to make me think even less of you. In what way is atheism a religion? I really want you to list them because I can use a good laugh.
I have yet to meet or see an actual gnostic atheist. Even guys like Richard Dawkins or the late great Christopher Hitchens allow(ed) for the possibility that they are wrong. I heard Dawkins once say that on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being absolute certainty, that he is a 9.5. Pretty far, but still allowing for error on his part. I do agree, a gnostic atheist would be just as insufferable as HA.
I've met several online.
I have, fortunately, never had the displeasure.
I think Mocowgirl claims to be one but I'm not sure how anyone can honestly make that claim. I'm with Dawkins on this one.
I’m with Dawkins too, except 9.999. I promise that I will believe it when I see it.
There's an essential difference between "I very much doubt there's a God" and "I am certain that there's no God".
This is where FSM comes in handy. Replace ‘God’ with ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’, and see if you still feel the same way. There is exactly as much evidence for one as the other.
Yeah, we can be pretty fucking sure... but never positive.
Those four categories are functionally complete. They cover 100% of the cases.
To illustrate, let's take just atheism and theism.
One is either a theist or an atheist. A true dichotomy.
The agnostic dimension simply distinguishes between certainty and uncertainty. Applied to belief in a god, one is either uncertain that their belief/lack is true or certain that their belief/lack is true. A true dichotomy.
We all fall in one of the categories whether one wishes to acknowledge that or not is a different matter. And if one wishes to generalize to 'agnostic' that is a vague reference which includes the agnostic theist and the agnostic atheist (as a continuum with varied degrees of certainty). It is vague because one either believes in a god or one does not believe in a god. (If one 'does not know' if one believes then one does not currently believe, by definition.)
I do not believe you are trying to understand this framework so I am moving on.
Okay, will respond to this.
Correct. It depends upon degree and only you know the degree.
Most theists (I strongly suspect - especially for Christians) believe in a god but also acknowledge that the belief is not proven - they could be wrong. Agnostic theists.
The majority of atheists do not believe in a God but also acknowledge that they might be wrong. Agnostic atheists.
The question, really, is whether one has crossed the threshold. Does one honestly say I do not know but I think there is something out there or does one say I do not know but have not seen sufficient evidence to think there is a god. There is more than 'I do not know' when one introspects. If one privately concludes to oneself that 'I do not know' is the end of it then that is lack of belief in a god. That truly is by definition.
Like all extremists, this one loves to pervert the language. The euphemism of "protecting religious conscience" really means imposing religious bigotry and fanaticism on everyone and putting the entire country under the yoke of a fundamentalist nightmare.
Yep. For ( deleted ) ,religious freedom, religious conscience or any other way they want to phrase it simply means they want the right to impose their beliefs on everyone, by force preferably (we all know Christianity's history), and murder those who don't go along.
I guess I'll be dead then.
(Deleted)
(Deleted)
The only “fundy” I see here is the sweeping generalization of Christians being made here. Lots of crazy talk from internet badasses I suppose .... but if they really are serious, I suggest packing a lunch, as it will not end well for you.
Threat noted .......
The comments to the original article in the "Arkansas Democrat-Gazette" are surprisingly good and worth reading. It seem that most people recognize that the article was written by a dumb bigot who doesn't belong in public office:
Translation: "If a religious person wants to be a bigot, and mask it with, "religious freedom", they should be able to do so."
I wonder if this baker realizes that he has in all likelihood served many gay people over the years. Does that mean he has to repent or.....whip himself or some shit? Is he now condemned to burn in hell?
All of those who stand with The Deceiver will 'burn in hell.'
just think of all the people who have gone against this baker's fragile, sensitive, religious beliefs that he has served !! oddly.. he only singled out a same sex couple
Should members of the Southern Baptist Convention have been allowed to own slaves until the official revocation of that part of the Southern Baptist Religious Conscience?
If one's Religious Conscience conforms with the Puritans of the 1600's, should one be allowed to burn witches at the stake?
What if my Religious Conscience is informed by the Satanic Bible? Am I allowed to do as I wish?
What if my conscience isn't informed by religion at all? Am I allowed to even go out in public? Should I even be allowed the right of existence?
Should we bring back the auto de fey?
This is the type of thinking that says, we want tribalism, and our tribe must be FIRST.
This is the type of thinking that shows exactly why it is so difficult to run a nation-state without authoritarian rule.
This is the type of reasoning that leads to:
Yes, a thousand times YES! Here's an auto da fe with some help from the neighbors:
Always the same old song with these folks. Whine that you don't get to impose your own religious mores onto the rest of society, then play the role of the persecuted when you get pushback.
Conservatives, religious or otherwise, cannot tolerate the fact that other people have equal rights to their own. They will pay lip service to equality, but in the end, they always want just a few more rights than everyone else, so they can keep the traditional social order as it is and feel superior about themselves.
Well, there are many conservatives who claim to be socially liberal but fiscally conservative. Not to paint all conservatives with a broad brush, but I'll just say these particular folks are bat crap crazy if they think they are going to drag the nation back 50 years or more.
As soon as it bumps up against my rights your religious conscience can go fuck itself.
If God was real and cared if we believed in him, then God would show himself again
I think it's hiding because it's afraid. Or because it's a product of the Bronze age it doesn't know how to use Twitter.
I'm not at all sure that logic is... logical...
IMNAAHO, we cannot want "Free Will", and desire an "active" God at the same time. I do not want to imagine that we are puppets, so...
This buggy software is a sick joke because the last 3 replies of mine have been deleted. Two of the replies were multiple paragraphs.
FIX IT!