Jophiel wrote:
lolgaxe wrote:
Disney Marvel threatening to boycott if Georgia passes their "Free Exercise Protection Act" into law, which would allow faith-based organizations to deny services to anyone who violates their “sincerely held religious belief," [...]
The first part sounds partially okay, a church shouldn't have to do the service. Not so much random cake shop. It's the whole fire employees part that's the nose dive off the cliff too far.
The issue isn't forcing churches to conduct weddings, the issue is religiously affiliated businesses (schools, hospitals, etc) discriminating against patrons on the basis of se
xuality.
Except that, while touting the possibility of discrimination in other areas, the effect is to do exactly what many religious people have been worried about: Forcing churches to perform gay weddings, or to provide gay adoption, or otherwise be forced to engage in activities in violation of their faith. The law in question has language that specifically states that it cannot violate existing federal or state bans on invidious discrimination.
This is more about half truths and speculation than fact, but along the way, what a coincidence that it's yet another case where the outrage just happens to prevent passage of any law protecting the rights of religious organizations. I've
read the act in question. There's nothing particularly unusual there. The primary effect of the law appears to be to prevent nuisance lawsuits from being eternally filed against faith based organizations for failing to do something that everyone already seems to agree they should not be forced to do.
I'm curious what horrific discrimination you think is going to happen. First off, I'm not sure it applies to hospitals, and certainly would not apply to normal emergency care (they can't refuse to set a person's broken arm because of their sexual orientation, for example). I think we can all agree, however, that forcing a faith based health center to provide contraceptives, or perform abortions should not be allowed though. Also, what do you mean by "patrons" here? Student enrollment in a private school is always subject to admissions rules, and a faith based school absolutely can (and always have) discriminate based on whether the person is a member of said faith, and/or how well that person exemplifies the tenants of said faith.
It just seems like you're touting some really vague but scary things, but when we drill down the specific cases, it's not so scary. Can you give me an exact example of some form of discrimination that you think this law will allow for, but that you don't think should be allowed? Cause I'm not seeing anything in the law itself. I hear tons of people speculating though. Which, I suspect, is part of the objective.