Regarding religious beliefs
Sep. 4th, 2015 12:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kengrA lot of talk is going around about people's religious beliefs being denied by various laws.
I'm sorry, but in none of these cases are their beliefs or their right to express them being denied.
Instead, their right to *inflict* those beliefs on other people in the course of their job is being denied. That's a very different thing.
Kim Davis (the county clerk in Rowan county, Kentucky who just got jailed)? She took an oath to carry out the duties of her office. When those duties conflicted with her beliefs, she wanted to be able to keep the job and at the sdame time *not* do the duties she disagreed with.
Sorry, doesn't work that way. She could have issued the licenses, but that conflicts with her beliefs. Fine
She could have resigned the job and protested the issuing of licenses by whoever replaced her.
But she chose to keep the job (and the $80,000 a year salary) and *not* carry out a duty of the job. Even after a federal judge ordered her to. So now she is in jail. That's the way it works.
You either follow the law, or you do your time. As I've commented in the past, many people these days seem to forget that civil disobedience *is* breaking the law and that you should be prepared to take the consequences. You don't get to say you shouldn't *have* consequences.
Same goes for all the other folks trying to play games with marriage equality.
The businesses that don't want to serve gay customers in places where that's a violation of antidiscrimination laws. They can either serve everyone equally, or they can close the business. Or they can deal with the legal penalties. Those are the choices.
And it's *not* discrimination against their beliefs. Again, it's that we have these laws for a reason, and it's so you can't treat certain types of people as second class citizens. You are free to *nelieve* that they are inferior, sinful, or whatever. And to talk about your beliefs. But you are required to treat them like anybody else if that's your job or your business.
I'm sorry, but in none of these cases are their beliefs or their right to express them being denied.
Instead, their right to *inflict* those beliefs on other people in the course of their job is being denied. That's a very different thing.
Kim Davis (the county clerk in Rowan county, Kentucky who just got jailed)? She took an oath to carry out the duties of her office. When those duties conflicted with her beliefs, she wanted to be able to keep the job and at the sdame time *not* do the duties she disagreed with.
Sorry, doesn't work that way. She could have issued the licenses, but that conflicts with her beliefs. Fine
She could have resigned the job and protested the issuing of licenses by whoever replaced her.
But she chose to keep the job (and the $80,000 a year salary) and *not* carry out a duty of the job. Even after a federal judge ordered her to. So now she is in jail. That's the way it works.
You either follow the law, or you do your time. As I've commented in the past, many people these days seem to forget that civil disobedience *is* breaking the law and that you should be prepared to take the consequences. You don't get to say you shouldn't *have* consequences.
Same goes for all the other folks trying to play games with marriage equality.
The businesses that don't want to serve gay customers in places where that's a violation of antidiscrimination laws. They can either serve everyone equally, or they can close the business. Or they can deal with the legal penalties. Those are the choices.
And it's *not* discrimination against their beliefs. Again, it's that we have these laws for a reason, and it's so you can't treat certain types of people as second class citizens. You are free to *nelieve* that they are inferior, sinful, or whatever. And to talk about your beliefs. But you are required to treat them like anybody else if that's your job or your business.
