Religious Freedom?

If you're referring to the Religious Freedom Act , in a nutshell it means businesses, organizations, institutions etc have the right openly discriminate against gay or lesbians, i.e. refuse service, on grounds of religious beliefs and can do so without persecution from the law.

So if you're "blatantly gay" or "look like a man" and go a store to buy something, by law, the store is permitted to refuse you service and can remove you from the premise because their sky fairy said so.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, this is just from my understanding of the bill.

 

What counts as a religion though?

Let's say I own a cinema. Let's say believe in Phalangeism. Let's say Phalangeism is against braces. Do I have a right to refuse service to anyone with braces?

 

Technically yes because originally it was established to protect religious minorities, however it's since changed and is becoming apparent that it was only passed to allow Christians to discriminate openly.

 

As I understand it, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act enacted by Clinton allows people to use a sincerely held religious belief as an argument not to be bound by a federal law in certain cases. The main example at the time was for Native Americans to be allowed to take peyote which would otherwise be a prohibited substance.

19 states have their own RFRAs. Indiana's one was different because it allowed religious belief to be claimed as a defence for dealings with other people, rather than just with the government. It was claimed that this would allow businesses to refuse to serve gay people (or any other section of society) if they could argue that their refusal to do so was because of a sincerely held religious belief.

 

Perfectly articulated.

 

The history of people claiming "deeply held religious beliefs" as a way to justify their bigotry has some history. Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Funny how often I've heard exact the same phrases now that we're used then.

 

How does religious freedom work with regards to opposing religious views?

If for example I was a Christian and believed that it was wrong to follow and worship any other God or leader, could I refuse service to anyone displaying paraphernalia associated with a different religion?

 

I don't believe that merely thinking that someone was doing something wrong would be grounds not to sell things to them under the Indiana RFRA. I think you actually need to believe that selling to them would be wrong. That's why the emphasis has been on the facilitation of gay weddings. But if you thought it was wrong to sell anything to a gay person at any time then as I understand it the Indiana RFRA might be able to help you.

Although to take an archaic example, I 've been told that the reason why there is a cliché of Jews as moneylenders is that until about the time of the Renaissance, it was considered that the Bible forbade the charging of interest on the lending of money, as did the Quran. However Jews felt that the Torah only forbade them from charging interest to other Jews, and therefore they could lend money to gentiles for a profit.

Presumably if this was still the way that everyone interpreted their respective religions, Jews would be able to invoke a law such as the Indiana RFRA to allow themselves not to lend to other Jews, while allowing them to sell to followers of other religions.

On a completely different topic, I watched the brilliant documentary Bridegroom this afternoon. (If anyone hasn't seen it, try to find a copy. It's on Netflix.) For someone who doesn't have too many associations with Indiana beyond the RFRA, it seemed pretty easy to draw a connection between this Act and the fact that Thomas Bridegroom's family were from Indiana. That possibly seems a bit of an un-nuanced view of things to anyone who actually has any familiarity with the state and its citizens.

 

Even though I myself am a christian I don't believe in any kind of religious freedom laws. The reason is we live in nation of many religions and not one religion should have control over the nation. No religion should have a place in government and I believe in the separation of church and state. I don't think our founding fathers intended religion to be used the way it is today and they would believe in a more democratic process. I just wish most christians would believe what I believe that homosexuality is not a sin in the original bible than sadly we wouldn't have the problems we have today.

 

Don't feel bad, that's what many politicians do as well.

 

Well, no one should be able to force you to do anything against your religion. However, not selling to homosexuals is NOT in the Bible. Just because you are against homosexuality, you should not be allowed to be able to discriminate and withold services. It's pretty much bs. Oh, by the way, I read an article that KKK members wanted a cake to celebrate the birthday of the KKK or something like this. They were refused the cake and filed a lawsuit and the KKK won. Soooo a group that discriminates against people were discrimated against and won a lawsuit because they were discriminated against... confusing? Buuut Indiana gets away with discrimination? Kinda messed up in my opinion.

 

I'm a very big on Politics. Assuming you're speaking of the USA... The first ammendment in the Constitution allows people ot believe in any religion that they'd like to. That gives America it's diversity in ideas. It supposedly divides Church and State. But, sadly, with the amount of controversy on same-sex marriage, Church and State seem to be the same thing when it comes to laws. Meaning we're not free from religion. :/

 

As an atheist, I want the freedom of religion to not have Christian views codified into law.

If you want laws based on an ethical foundation, we're all going to need someething better than divine command theory. Let the professional philosophers guide us, not "god said this is sin."

~ Adrienne

 

I'm more concerned about freedom from religion, which I think is the more basic constitutional intent.

 

Here's how I understand religious freedom, RFRAs, and all that stuff:

Religious freedom is a given in the United States, per the First amendment of the Constitution:

Congress = The Federal Government of the United States.

Now, from what I've been told in history classes, this amendment was made to silence disputes between Christian Catholics and Protestants, who basically wanted a theocracy based on their religion. As time passed, more and more religions entered the US, all of which are protected by that law, not to mention more Christian denominations.

The best definition of religion I can give is faith in a belief or set of beliefs that include otherworldly or supernatural things, such as deities, afterlives, heavens, hells, all that fun stuff.

Atheism is not a religion (In fact, it's a lack of one), because there is no belief in such things.

Now, what are RFRAs? Legally and politically, they're really reiterations of the first amendment of the Constitution. The only reason they get brought up is to attack a group, or a set of groups. Usually, we are in that set of groups, especially nowadays, when they think that armageddon will happen on the first day of gay marriage. It seems their main issue is that we will end up forcing them to perform gay marriages, and so they can't fully practice their religion (and God will end up raining down meteors because of it and so forth), when church and state are separate things.

How?

First off, that bolded sentence states that on a church level, they can do as they please. Legally, they don't pay taxes, and so they are separate from everything else in the state, which takes taxes and builds roads, cities, buildings, you name it. Nothing from religious institutions goes into that.

Okay, so what about gay marriage?

In a state, if gay marriage isn't legal, that means there is no choice for any church in that state to perform gay marriages, even if they wanted to. If they don't want to, then fine. Morally and probably biblically, that isn't so fine, but religion is kept private. But those churches that do want to help LGBT people, especially Christian LGBT people who want to get married, cannot do so. Not to mention, any religion that enters the state that does practice same-sex marriage cannot do this, either. It seems only the Semitic religions (and maybe Hinduism?) are the ones that seem to oppose gay marriage. Even this is under dispute, because there's lots of debate about whether certain Biblical/Torah passages state this (ie. Leviticus 18:22)

THIS is an abridgement of religion. When there is no choice, that is when the abridgement is set. And that is why it is unconstitutional for any state to ban gay marriage. The Supreme Court recognizes this tenfold, and so have many states. So, if it's unconstitutional, why are some being upheld?

I'll let you figure that one out.

 

All I know is that it is a ridiculous law that some American states have

 

Even though I am a christian religion has no place in government. We are a nation of many religions now and it is not fair to even base our government on a certain religion. Actually it was Thomas Jefferson who fought to make it not a death sentence to be gay in the 1800's. I don't know if it was exactly true but he at least fought to get it not to be a death sentence at least from what I heard.

 

Yes, but as a compromise, he suggested castration.

Needless to say, this wasn't enough for the others, so "keep killin' 'em" it was.

 

Still just as bad. What difference did it really make! What we need is a constitutional amendment on how people interpret the bible or would that be just like communism. That would change a lot!