Conventional collectivist created authority is a deception in consciousness. You are your own Authority!

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Holy Homophobes!

Suppose a bunch of religious extremist lawmaker Neanderthals decided to pass laws permitting state licensed agencies, organizations and businesses to refuse services to mixed race couples, or mandating that a separate category of marriage license be issued to them.

If you thought that kind of treatment is unconstitutional you would be one-hundred-percent correct. The government can’t get away with making laws which deny equal protection of the laws to mixed race couples.

Never-mind all that, declare the Holy Homophobes. Yes, the Holy Homophobes are back in Georgia and Kentucky! And when it comes to the matter of gay couples their religious beliefs inform them that they have a perfect right to deny gays their Fourteenth Amendment fundamental rights to equal protection of the law.

Georgia's governor indicated that a bill is in the works allowing faith-based organizations which are licensed by and receive financial grants and other generous benefits from the state to refuse service to gay couples without repercussion.

The legislation is intended to prevent religious adoption agencies, schools and other organizations from losing licenses, state grants, or other government benefits on account of exercising their religious beliefs about same-sex marriage. The measure as approved by the Senate allows individuals and faith-based organizations to decline service to couples based on religious beliefs about marriage.

Of course, if faith-based organizations and individuals want to continue their discrimination practices against gays, there is a perfect solution – stop taking state money.

Meanwhile, Kentucky's state Senate approved a bill that creates different marriage license forms for gay and straight couples, because, as one homophobe senator explained: any form that does not include the words "bride" and "groom" is disrespectful to traditional families.

The original purpose of the legislation was to remove the names of county clerks from marriage licenses, a response to the controversy surrounding Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis and her refusal to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. But the Republican-controlled Senate amended the bill as a way to show their support for traditional marriage. "Quite frankly… That has nothing to do with bigotry, nothing to do with discrimination,” deadpanned Republican state Sen. John Schickel.

The American Civil Liberties Union observed that the Senate was "setting a dangerous slippery slope precedent by catering to one specific religious belief and privileging that over others… Separate forms for gay and lesbian Kentuckians constitute unequal treatment under the lawPure and simple, this bill is motivated by the desire to accommodate discrimination against same-sex couples."

Democratic Sen. Gerald Neal of Louisville said creating two marriage licenses is taking the state "down a path that has already been paved in this commonwealth that has a tendency to reinforce bigotry… Separate has never been equal," he said.

One must understand what we’re dealing with here – a bunch of religious bigots who’ve yet to learn their lessons about the United States Constitution Fourteenth Amendment and the guarantee of equal protection of the law.

Holy Homophobes!

5 comments:

  1. Regarding licensing:

    The state requires a license to perform Activity X.

    The state then asserts that applying for a license to perform Activity X constitutes surrender of the applicant's rights to freedom of religion and association.

    You consider that reasonable?

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    1. My point is mainly directed at faith based organization that take state money whether licensed or not.

      As far as I know, the state would only require a license for an adoption agency because it has an interest in the welfare of children. The children have a rights which the state is obligated to protect.

      Religious schools do not require a license and can discriminate.

      Other faith based organizations are free to discriminate as long as they are not public accommodations. I consider that reasonable, yes.

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  2. Well, you were fine with that first sentence.

    The following two paragraphs contradict each other.

    And then in the final paragraph you go back to the old "public accommodation" dodge where anyone who interacts with anyone else has to do so in accordance with your beliefs rather than with their own.

    It's not so much that you're wrong, although you are at least partially wrong, is that your position is completely incoherent.

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    1. First sentence, check.Thanks.

      Public accommodations dodge? you believe that a hotel open to the public ought to be free to discriminate based on race and sexual orientation. You paint with a wide brush, Tom.

      Explain incoherent. Should a faith based adoption agency be free to discriminate against fat people. Gluttony is a sin you know. How about other businesses open to the public? Should they be free to discriminate based on any "sin?" Should they be free to deny service to blacks? If you believe that then, once again, we must agree to disagree.

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  3. I believe that if someone owns a room or rooms and rents them, that person is entitled to rent or not rent that room to any person for any reason.

    "Open to the public" is the same thing as the "public accommodation" dodge -- an attempt to turn private property into government property so as to forcibly impose one group's morality on everyone while pretending that's not what's being done.

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