If you feel compelled to forgo your job duties or withhold your goods/services to a category of people based on your beliefs, that is the definition of discrimination - it is prejudicial treatment. I'm sorry you don't understand.
No. Once your religious beliefs impact the rights of another person, they are null. You're free to worship however you choose in private and the state cannot establish a chosen religion for you to follow. But you cannot infringe on the rights of others through your actions - whether they are charged by "religion" or not - as that is imposing your religious beliefs on others, thus violating their religious freedom.
Refusing service to a category of people is discrimination. It was true for the "whites only" diners of the Jim Crow era, and it's still true for bakers of wedding cakes today.
In the Jim Crow era, religion was used to justify discrimination against blacks (and it was used to justify slavery prior to that), just like it's being used to justify discrimination against gays today. It's not a slippery slope. What changed is the view of religion. Your religious views have blinded you against the discrimination.
Actually, I'm not forcing anyone to act to my belief system at all. It is possible to hold religious beliefs and not act in judgement of others who don't hold those beliefs. I'm only advocating that others do just that.
Bob is out of line on this one. If the bakers refused to bake a regular cake or bread for them because they are gay, I would have a problem with it. That is discrimination and we have laws to protect against that. The difference is that it is a wedding cake and that goes against their religion. They should be able to refuse that service specifically.
No. They are not performing a marriage ceremony. They are providing and filing a legal document, as prescribed by the state and their job duties. That is not a sin. Stop allowing discrimination.
Do they not sell wedding cakes to the public, or is that just something special they do for friends/family? Why should their commerce be allowed to discriminate against a class of people?
No. I'm not wrong. It isn't my judgement - it's the judgement of those who think it's a sin to refuse to do it.
You're right. It's intolerant of me to not allow others to be intolerant of a class of people.
I disagree. And we'll leave it at that. I think that (like many instances in the course of human history) the religious belief needs to evolve.
The slippery slope started when discrimination was allowed.
Wrong. It is intolerance through the denial of commerce publicly available to people outside the affected class. It's no different than telling blacks that they can't sit at a lunch counter and have to sit in a different section of a restaurant just because they're black.
I guess the religious aspect of marriage is lost on you. No point in arguing any further.
It's not lost on me. I respect it and am in a committed loving and religious marriage and wouldn't have it any other way. The sanctity of my marriage is not sullied by gay people getting married to each other. In fact, I'd rather they get married than run around in an orgiastic lifestyle. The church used to condemn divorce, which I think is a much bigger threat to traditional marriage than gay marriage, but now it's an accepted practice. The church has changed and can change. The church is also softening their stance on homosexuality, slowly, but it's changing. I don't think it's for me to judge the actions of others and condemn them for their legal actions or advocate for the denial of services based solely on my beliefs. I certainly wouldn't want to live in a society where my lifestyle is perceived as distasteful or immoral due to things out of my control, and as such I am persecuted by those with different beliefs.
Evolution means moving forward. Accepting people's need to cling to archaic beliefs would be devolving.
Never said I was special.
As I pointed out earlier, it used to. It has evolved.
Hardly. You keep making this about me, but it's not about me. You're attacking the messenger instead of engaging the debate.
Right. I don't, and I've said as much. They can believe whatever they want, but their actions cannot discriminate based on those beliefs.
I'm only referencing allow in the legal sense, as in what is allowed by law. I am not in authority. You're putting words in my mouth.
TOTALLY relevant. If it wasn't relevant those beliefs would not have changed.
I disagree. You keep saying that it's incomplete, but that is wrong. There is nothing incomplete in my argument, other than your unwillingness to accept that your position is wrong.
