• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious belief?

Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious belief?

  • The Jewish owned bakery can refuse to make a Adolph Hitler birthday cakes.

    Votes: 16 84.2%

  • The Jewish owned bakery has to make Adolph Hitler birthday cakes.

    Votes: 2 10.5%

  • The black hardware store owner can refuse to sell 4x4 lumber and gas cans to the KKK

    Votes: 11 57.9%

  • The black hardware store owner has to sell 4x4 lumber and gas cans to the KKK

    Votes: 5 26.3%

  • The pro-choice owned print shop can refuse to make pro-life pamphlets

    Votes: 11 57.9%

  • The pro-choice owned print shop has to make pro-life pamphlets

    Votes: 3 15.8%

  • The anti-2nd amendment owned convention center can refuse to rent space to the NRA

    Votes: 11 57.9%

  • The anti-2nd amendment owned convention center has to rent space to the NRA.

    Votes: 4 21.1%

  • A christian,Jewsih or Muslim owned restaurant can refuse to cater a gay wedding

    Votes: 12 63.2%

  • A Christian,Jewish or Muslim owned restaurant has to cater a gay wedding.

    Votes: 5 26.3%
  • Total voters
    19
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


Joining a group or signing a contract is no more "an intrinsic part of a person's identity" in the one or the other case. So if I may refuse participation in the pagan rite for reasons of conscience in the one case why not in the other? I do not see your argument. As a matter of fact, by your logic it might even be worse to refuse the KKK pair your assistance, as you would not even be acting on religious conscience but personal dislike.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


Me too. I would allow refusals on all the other possibilities.

I would quickly allow a refusal on the black owner / KKK kustomer example as well if the klansmen directly told the owner that the gas can and lumber was for as cross burning "ceremony", or if he showed up in a KKK t-shirt or kustomized kkk "regalia".

But... a KKK member or a gay simply wanting to buy lumber or cake mix and not telling the owner what it is for? I would say the business is obligated to serve them unless they can show a negative business impact. Maybe, KKK customer later boasted on his Face Book page where he bought the stuff from, and what he used it for.


Unoffically, I think that is how refusals have been discretely handled for a long time. Either that or:

Customer: "Hey Soul Food owner, I want you to cater my rollicking red neck party (we love ribs). You are going to love the "Bow Hunt'in 'BO game we have planned"
Soul Food Owner: Wow, I"ll call you back some time later....
Customer: Hey, you never called back
Soul Food Owner: Guess I forgot- probably make me pretty unreliable huh?
 
Last edited:
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


Here's the problem I have with the poll, you list along with gays, Hitler and the KKK. Being gay harms NO ONE.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

Redress said:
Business != person. That is, businesses do not have a brain, nor a conscience.
Click to expand...

Indeed. It is well known that once you decide to engage in business, you give up all of your Constitutional protections. That's why if you run (for example) a small business out of your home office the police can conduct what would otherwise be illegal search and seizures, and you can be forced to quarter troops in it, and if you are an employee of a business, you have no complaint against the NSA tapping your phone (after all, you are engaged in business, are you not?).



Oh. Wait.... It turns out that in fact, legally, businesses are indeed people, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly and recently reinforced this doctrine.



Seriously. The argument that "No no no, small business owners aren't people, so it's okay if we trample their rights" argument is one of the weaker items I've seen brought to bear. You'd be better off shifting to the "everyone who doesn't agree with me is secretly racist" argument.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

AliHajiSheik said:
How about a real example where a hooker decides she doesn't want to do black people.

It doesn't get more personal or discriminatory than that.
Click to expand...

Hm. Now that would be an interesting conundrum to put them in. A good poll question, methinks.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


You're right. You don't understand what I'm saying.

Cardinal said:
I'm not confused about the issue of asking a business for a specialized product, but whether there's any difference between discriminating against an individual or an organization that represents that individual.
Click to expand...

Organizations and individuals have different rights. They also conduct business differently. An organization doesn't go into a shop to buy something. A person does.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

Paschendale said:
You're right. You don't understand what I'm saying.
.....
Click to expand...

Ahh! That is the problem. You don't worry about the meaning of words like where you refer to my saying that I "do not see your argument" by assuming I had said that I did not "understand" what you said. That is a fun game children like to play. But usually they boar of it by the time they can read.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


Thank you for correcting me. You are right, of course. The Bill of Rights does protect the individual from such encroachment from the government.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


You probably should have read your links. In the first link, Justice Alito refers to it as "a legal fiction". That fiction only applies to certain types of businesses, and nowhere in the two rulings referenced does it say that businesses have a conscience. In fact, your links fail altogether to counter what I pointed out, which is essentially, words have meanings. A business does not have a conscience. It's owner does. This might legally allow them exception to certain laws, but not others. Would you care to try again, with less fail?
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

cpwill said:
Hm. Now that would be an interesting conundrum to put them in. A good poll question, methinks.
Click to expand...

Right, we should dream up hypotheticals all day long with which to pigeon hole people with, or play gotcha. People can and do refuse to do business on stated reasons other than the real reasons, all the time. That can never be eliminated all together.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


You assume that the business owner wants to insult anyone or is seeking some kind of satisfaction. Why do you think that they feel this way?? If there some part of you that empathizes with this kind of thing??
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

Paschendale said:
The problem stems from some people's religions wanting to attack people based on their identity.
Click to expand...

Being unwilling to participate in and support that which one knows to be immoral is not the same thing as “attacking” someone else who engages in that immorality. One certainly has more rights and authority regarding one's own conscience, and how one will act in accordance with it, than one has over someone else's conscience.


And, as an aside, why should someone who chooses to make blatant immorality part of his identity not expect to be “attacked” for it?
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

Mycroft said:
Thank you for correcting me. You are right, of course. The Bill of Rights does protect the individual from such encroachment from the government.
Click to expand...

At least that is its intent.

Unfortunately, it doesn't do much good when government chooses to openly disregard it, and those who make that choice are not held properly accountable for their malfeasance. In my opinion, the greatest weakness in the Constitution is that it lacks “teeth”, such that corrupt public servants feel free to disregard it with impunity when they have an agenda that cannot be reconciled therewith.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


Let us say a business will not discriminate against gay people, just gay weddings. So a gay man walks into the bakery, they have no problem filling his order for a birthday cake. A straight person walks in and asks the bakery to make a cake she is bringing as a gift to her gay friend's wedding. The bakery refuses, stating it is against their religious beliefs.

Since the bakery is not discriminating on the basis of the customer, would you find this acceptable?
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


There is no such thing as a gay wedding. There is just a wedding, and if your problem is based on the genders of the people getting married, then you are discriminating based on identity.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

faithful_servant said:
You assume that the business owner wants to insult anyone or is seeking some kind of satisfaction. Why do you think that they feel this way?? If there some part of you that empathizes with this kind of thing??
Click to expand...

Because that is always the reason for bigots to discriminate. It wouldn't make sense for them to turn down money if they don't get to put people they don't like down. It's not as if they are on a mission to purge the world of sinners. You don't believe that do you?
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


I think you are barking up the wrong tree here.

A person doesn't have to be actively working against a class of people to decline to do business with them. And, maybe unlike you, some people might not place earning money to a higher regard than their personal convictions.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


Give me a break. This not a case of people not doing business with sinners, that is never a problem. Personal hatred is the reason for all discrimination and that is why they always tell them the reason for the rejection. There would no point in it if they couldn't feel superior and make gays out as second class citizens.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


"personal hatred"..."feel superior"..."second class citizens"...Yep, you got all the buzz words in there. Feels good to project, doesn't it? Anyone with personal convictions that you don't agree with are guilty of all those things, right?

Reminds me of that other stupid thing...

 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

Paschendale said:
There is no such thing as a gay wedding. There is just a wedding, and if your problem is based on the genders of the people getting married, then you are discriminating based on identity.
Click to expand...

I think saying there is no such thing as a gay wedding, for purposes of this discussion, is merely semantics.

And you may be discriminating, but you are not discriminating against the identity of the customer, as you had previously stated. So the question becomes, is it discrimination against the customer that really concerns you? If a baker says, no matter your sexual preference, I will not make a cake for a gay wedding, is there really discrimination against the person? Are you not then discriminating against someone for their belief/idea in the sanctity of gay marriage?

If I walk in and say I'd like a cake celebrating Pearl Harbor as it is considered a holiday in my religion, and you refuse... Are you not discriminating against my religion? If you have a policy that you do not serve to anyone who believes that, and an entire religion believes that, are you discriminating against the idea or the people? At what point does your idea vs. people argument become so entangled that one cannot decipher between the two?

And if you argue you don't have to serve because it is the "idea" that you wish to discriminate against, are you not opening Pandora's box for all sorts of discrimination?
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


The business and it's owner are indistinguishable as regards rights, which is what both I and my links pointed out to you. People do not lose their rights when they either open or business, or band together in an organization.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

Montecresto said:
Right, we should dream up hypotheticals all day long with which to pigeon hole people with, or play gotcha
Click to expand...

Well, no. But I think it is usefull to demonstrate that many of those willing to ride roughshod over Christian business owners are not (I suspect) coming to this from a logical series of deduction, but rather supporting the side they empathize with the most. You see a homosexual being "discriminated against" by a Christian business owner, you sympathize with his or her plight, you find justifications for your desire to support them. The actual principle of suborning others closest, most personal, areas of individual sovereignty to your desire to make sure that no one ever has to feel different or unwanted, ever, isn't (see thread results) something that receives universal support.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli

cpwill said:
The business and it's owner are indistinguishable as regards rights, which is what both I and my links pointed out to you. People do not lose their rights when they either open or business, or band together in an organization.
Click to expand...

That is not what the law says. You need to try and read a bit more. Let me give you a helpful example: let's say you are Amish, and very much so. You run a butchershop. You have religious opposition to modern technology. Does that exempt you from having to use modern testing and cleanliness equipment?
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


Well sure, I won't disagree with that. That's why there's final arbitrators like the Supreme Court and lower courts, which we then all have to abide by, and the unhappy ones need to then use political means to force a change, if they can.
 
Re: Should businesses be allowed to not violate their their conscience/religious beli


our Rights of Conscience, like all our rights, are not limitless - they have endpoints when they reach a certain level of burden on others. The famous example is that you can't yell fire in a theater - you are not allowed to exercise your right to free speech in ways that irresponsibly creates risk to the lives and limbs of others. Deuce has brought up his pilot retesting (he's not allowed to fly without it) - the risk of a dangerous pilot to others is enough to justify overriding his individual objections, whatever they stem from; exercise of Deuce's rights do not overcome that level of burden to others. When creating public accommodation laws in order to break Jim Crow, we had to override individual rights because the burden placed on blacks by Jim Crow was systemic - an entire legal and social framework designed to bar Blacks from being able to access entire industries / services. Depending on the particulars, the butcher in your example is imposing such a burden on others - risking their lives and certainly their health. What is the comparable burden being placed on Homosexuals that would justify overriding individual rights?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…