It is illegal to fire someone over their religious beliefs. First Amendment and all that.
How about simply firing her because she refuses to do the job that's she's paid for?
Sure, as Rosa Parks was jailed for violating a messed up law. That is the consequence
of civil disobedience. Even Dr. King ended up in jail and was criticized by fellow ministers
who saw breaking the law as negative and not obeying civil authority. This does happen.
In this case, the rulings and laws are messed up on both sides.
If they support gay marriage they violate beliefs of opponents who don't approve of those beliefs endorsed by the state; if they deny gay marriage they violate the equal protection and free exercise of beliefs of those who do believe in marriage equality. Either way it is a catch-22 because both sides' beliefs are equal under law.
The Judiciary and the legislators before them messed up by FAILING to recognize both the religious beliefs and the political beliefs at stake here, that all are equal in the eyes of the law. Big fat FAIL and everyone's paying.
I seems that you are always trying to see both sides of the issue and to find ways to accommodate everyone. While that is commendable it is often not realistic or appropriate to do so. Sometimes wrong is just wrong. This is not a matter of civil disobedience to protest an unjust law. It’s a matter of hiding behind the claim of religious freedom in order to discriminate. I have to wonder how many marriage licenses she issued to people who were previously married. Isn’t divorce also against here religion. ? It represents the height of hypocrisy.
The constitution protects the free exercise of religion. All freedoms have their limitations and end where ones behavior in the name of the exercise of that freedom infringes on the rights of others. In addition, religious freedom has no greater value than other freedoms.
The lawmakers and the judiciary did not “mess up” in any way. The clerk still has her religious beliefs in tack and none can take that away from here. She is free to liver HER life according to those beliefs but so is everyone else, including those who believe-on religious or any grounds – should be allowed to marry.
You might want to consider this:
1.
Two meanings of religious freedom/liberty:1. Freedom of belief, speech, practice. 2. Freedom to restrict services, hate, denigrate, or oppress others.
1. The historical meaning of religious freedom:
This term relates to the personal freedom:
•Of religious belief,
•Of religious speech,
•Of religious assembly with fellow believers,
•Of religious proselytizing and recruitment, and
•To change one's religion from one faith group to another -- or to decide to have no religious affiliation -- or vice-versa.
The individual believer has often been the target of oppression for thinking or speaking unorthodox thoughts, for assembling with and recruiting others, and for changing their religious affiliation. Typically, the aggressors have been large religious groups and governments. Freedom from such oppression is the meaning that we generally use on this web site to refer to any of the four terms: religious freedom, religious liberty, freedom of worship and freedom to worship.
2. A rapidly emerging new meaning of religious freedom: the freedom to discriminate and denigrate:
In recent years, religious freedom is taking on a new meaning: the freedom and liberty of a believer apply their religious beliefs in order to hate, oppress, deny service to, denigrate, discriminate against, and/or reduce the human rights of minorities.
Now, the direction of the oppression has reversed. It is now the believer who is the oppressor -- typically fundamentalist and evangelical Christians and other religious conservatives. Others -- typically some women, as well as sexual, and other minorities -- are the targets. This new meaning is becoming increasingly common. It appears that this change is begin driven by a number of factors:
•The increasing public acceptance of women's use of birth control/contraceptives. This is a practice regarded as a personal decision by most faith groups, but is actively opposed by the Roman Catholic and a few other conservative faith groups.
•The increasing public acceptance of equal rights for sexual minorities including Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgender persons and transsexuals -- the LGBT community (); and
•The increasing percentage of NOTAs in North America. These are individuals who are NOT Affiliated with an organized faith group. Some identify themselves as Agnostics, Atheists secularists, Humanists, free thinkers, etc. Others say that they are spiritual, but not religious.
The media often refer to NOTAs as "NONES" because they are affiliated to NONE of the faith groups. However, the words Nones and Nuns are homophones: words that sound alike but are spelled differently and which hold very different meanings. To avoid confusion, we recommend against this practice and recommend the unambiguous term "NOTA."
One interesting feature of this "religious freedom to discriminate" is that it generally has people treating others as they would not wish to be treated themselves. It seems to be little noticed among those who practice or advocate "religious freedom to discriminate" that this way of treating people is a direct contradiction to the Golden Rule, which Jesus required all his followers to practice. See Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31, and the Gospel of Thomas, 6.
Source:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/relfree.htm
.
Hi
ProgressivePatriot
I agree that it is violating the law,
what I am saying is this could have been prevented in the first place.
Similar to not passing ACA mandates penalizing citizens with fines
so that if they don't comply then it CREATES a violation.
If the laws were written properly to begin with this wouldn't happen.
You act like it is impossible.
Well, I listed a number of ways the conflicts could be kept out of govt.
A. separating benefits and health care/marriage terms/policies by party
so the tax breaks and what people pay for are consistent with their beliefs
without interfering with the same of others, and everyone is required to cover
for their health care without imposing on taxpayers
B. Agreeing to word the laws so neutrally, they don't involve any reference
to the beliefs in conflict, yet still allow all people to exercise their own equally.
C. Agreeing to accept gay marriage even if it is against people's beliefs,
if references to God, crosses, Bibles, creation etc. is also allowed without
suing either even if it is against other people's beliefs.
It's not impossible. Treating it like it is
is part of the problem. That's like saying
"it is impossible to prevent abortion without banning it"
"it is impossible to avoid the death penalty without banning it"
"it is impossible to ensure gun safety without penalizing law abiding gun owners"
and then justifying one person or group's belief to write laws a certain way
just because THEY believe it is the only way. While others are screaming no it isn't.
That is what is wrong with the ACA mandates also,
which penalize citizens for not buying insurance
when there are other ways to provide for public health care
while keeping insurance an optional choice.
I agree that the violations are wrong,
what I am saying is to AVOID them in the first place
by working out the conflicts in advance.
TheProgressivePatriot you think it is unrealistic,
well, I'm saying it is LEGALLY NECESSSARY.
I have plenty of friends who have worked out these issues
without pushing it to this point. It is not only possible to work out difference
but Constitutionally NECESSARY to prevent violations on both sides.
This is unacceptable.
I find it unrealistic to expect people to change their beliefs
because govt requires them or penalizes them, that just makes it worse!
Lastly
TheProgressivePatriot
Do you or do you not make a distinction between
people who are TRULY being discriminatory and unfair against gay people
versus people who just don't believe in gay marriage and by their convictions
are not supposed to associate or do business with people who don't recognize this conflict.
Do you understand that not everyone is doing this for
unlawful discrimination reasons. There is a difference.
So as much as it is wrong to deprive others of their equal rights and access,
it is wrongful to condemn, punish or deprive liberties of people who don't have
any abusive, unlawful or ill intent BECAUSE OF THE ACTIONS OF OTHERS WHO DO.
The same way people who believe in gun rights want a SAY in how laws are written
so they don't overcorrect and impose too much, people who have beliefs against
gay marriage want to have equal say and representation in how laws are
written and implemented so they don't cross the line and impose too much the other way EITHER.
That is not unreasonable, that is just plain ETHICAL to respect
the beliefs and sides equally, or else REMOVE marriage from govt.
Marriage does not need to be through govt.
If need be, just the civil contracts can be handled through govt
and keep all the other language and terms managed locally, statewide or nationally through other means.
If people want their beliefs seriously enough, those people will pay the costs to separate them.
If they don't want to pay the costs, then they might be willing to compromise
and pool all the beliefs together under govt; and it may provide incentive to
offer to allow equal references to God, prolife, crosses, Bibles, creation, etc.
so people don't feel discriminated against for their beliefs while mandating other beliefs.
If we are going to remove OTHER references to beliefs not everyone shares,
it is only fair to remove references to gay marriage as another belief not everyone shares.
Either allow all references, or remove them all, or negotiate how to deal with the differences.
But imposing one way through govt, while others are SCREAMING isn't going to work.
Coercion does not work when it comes to people's inherent BELIEFS at stake on BOTH SIDES.
The only thing I have ever seen work is inclusion and mediation that respects
consent of all parties in an equally mutually agreed upon consensus.
Anything else is going to be contested and cause conflicts, where beliefs are involved.
Thinking this can be overridden by govt is against human nature.
Both sides will keep fighting to defend their interests until ALL
grievances and objections are addressed and resolved. That is human nature.
Nobody I know consents to govt overriding their beliefs!!!
