Normally if you have a ceremony officiated by a clergy a civil ceremony is not required. What I am saying is that the state could make it so that clergy who oppose same sex marriage might have their civil authority removed by the state. Under this they might still have the marriage ceremony, but they'd have to go to a judge and have it performed there as well. Wouldn't be the end of the world from my perspective considering what we've seen already, but that's where I see this headed.
Except no one is going to do that?
Yeah, I don't see the problem here. You can't abuse religious freedom as a trump card so you can violate others' secular rights.
Really pathetic that you have to outright lie about this now.
I and many others on this forum have explained to you several times that 1.) the Indiana law was not a "generic" RFRA, otherwise this would've been an issue in the late-1990s/early-2000s. The Indiana law specifically granted corporate personhood and extended the "religious freedom" defense to civil suits, in addition to the people who helped write the bill openly bragging that it will allow discrimination, and 2.) the reason it has no precedent is because this is the first time an RFRA law was passed with such provisions.
Why do you keep ignoring these arguments? This is the third time I've had to explain this to you. Do you not want to acknowledge them? Are you unable to mentally comprehend what I am saying?
No, because discrimination is a pretty serious issue, and supporting it is not a legitimate "concern".
At some point I get tired of the raw hostility surrounding my beliefs on this on this site and have other things to do so I'm sorry I haven't adequately addressed all your points before. I recognize you think I am some sort of a bigot because I've been a consistent defender of freedom of conscience and religion on myriad issues as they relate to a wide variety of spiritual and humanistic traditions. That's fine if it makes you feel important or whatever. So, can we dispense with the argumenta ad hominem?
By generic RFRA law I meant a RFRA law that does not go outside the framework of the Federal law to specify that it covers cases of discrimination. The Federal RFRA law was written in response to
Employment Division v Smith's removal of the substantial burden test in favor of letting laws stand if they were of general applicability regardless of burden. The features of Indiana's RFRA laws were clarifications to make it function as a pre-
Smith version of the First Amendment. A constitutional right cannot be violated by the government, nor can it be violated by any person or nongovernmental org suing to enforce a law. The fact that Hustler Magazine was a for-profit enterprise sued by a private individual Jerry Falwell did not mean that they were prevented from raising the First Amendment as a defense.
As Prof. Douglas Laycock, influential in the drafting of the Federal RFRA,
explains:
So Indiana's RFRA was not something different than what had been a respected interpretation of the Federal RFRA law, or expected under pre-
Smith 1st Amendment law. If religious freedom were to allow a Jim Crow against gays, they would be some evidence - such as allowing the actual Jim Crow to continue back when the 1st Amendment was interpreted as having a stronger protection for religious freedom. But there is no precedent here to speak of.
In the post you responded to here, I was explaining why we could expect that we haven't seen yet the full extent of erosion of religious liberty. I surmised a possible extension of this, which you assured us would never happened, even as you took a look at the reasons why I thought it might and declared them all positive developments you hoped would have no limit. Afleitch has posted in this thread a detailed explanation of why he believes discrimination against same-sex relationships by churches are unlike those against other religions, so it's not strange for me to think that someone would at least try to change the law in this area. If I can take you at your word that you believe anti-discrimination should always trump religious freedom, then there's no reason why you too wouldn't want to force clergy to marry a same-sex couple against their wishes.
What we have been seeing is an attempt by reproductive and gay rights groups to fundamentally alter the relation of religion to public life. There's no reason to think the effects will be limited to discrimination even broadly defined. The move is from the pluralism and freedom of conscience tradition that has its roots in this country in Roger Williams and William Penn, to a secular
laicite coming out of the French Revolution. The idea that religion needs to hurry back inside the walls of the church/synagogue/mosque/temple etc as soon as it offends certain sensibilities strikes against what so many religious groups have found valuable about America in the past. The idea that as soon as you enter the marketplace you have a fundamental legal duty to please your customer regardless of your own values is a novel one - at least in a non-monopoly setting. The EEOC is currently representing a complaint brought by Muslim truck drivers fired for not wanting to deliver beer. Pretty soon it may be the Muslim truck drivers being fined by the government for harming the nation's beer drinkers.
