Couple fined for refusing to host same-sex wedding on their farm

Discussion in 'Gay & Lesbian Rights' started by Philly Rabbit, Nov 18, 2014.

  1. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Many laws are perverse because they were drafted and passed by those with a vested interest rather than with wisdom.
     
  2. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Utter nonsense! My civil rights end where your's begin and vice versa.
    The 9th amendment covers all rights not originally stipulated.

    Furthermore the constitution was designed to be amended.

    - - - Updated - - -

    The constitution originated with a legal penumbra with the 9th and 10th amendments.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Laws like DOMA end up being overturned because they violate the Constitution.
     
  3. JIMV

    JIMV Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Again, BS....the 9th and 10th amendments have so little force under law that they might as well not exist and the rot that is 'penumbras' produces a legal stench we have not removed in almost half a century.
     
  4. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    You are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.

    History proves that society is constantly moving towards a more liberal and enlightened state. Yes, we do have the occasional setback but the long term prognosis is always towards more civil rights.

    To want to reverse that trend and go back to a white male dominated society with slavery and women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen is just not going to happen.
     
  5. JIMV

    JIMV Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You do realize that the only part of your statement that was true and not simply ill informed opinion was "History proves that society is constantly moving. If you were right then explain the rise of IslamoFascism all over the world.

    You also misuse the term 'civil rights' as though they are part of the natural law and appear as if by magic from the ether. Unless you have a society that values the 'right' discussed it is simply a privilege that government allows and is not really found in most of the world. It is why a strong rule of law is so important and is not simply the capricious pandering to the noisy special interest of the moment.

    Unless the people having the 'right' foisted on them approve it, in the long run it will go away or be watered down to simply a societal custom.

    AS to your last sentence, well that is too silly for words. The left panders to groups who do exactly that under the guise of multiculturalism...

    What do you think this is

    [​IMG]

    You folk (the left...sorry if I malign you by association) revel in letting the very sort of folk in who do in fact support your strawman.
     
  6. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    They won't get the recommended daily amount of vitamin D dressed like that! [​IMG]
     
  7. dixon76710

    dixon76710 Well-Known Member

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    As a service provider they can refuse to provide the service based upon their own personal prejudices as long as its not on the basis of their "race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, or disability or marital status". Revealing that you believe that ANY discrimination based upon religious beliefs is somehow prohibited.
     
  8. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    If you had bothered to read the complete sentence you would have had the answer to your inane deflection.

    But kneejerking is always the first response when having to face reality.

    As far as your strawman goes that was duly noted and ignored.

    Have a nice day!
     
  9. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Thank you for admitting that you don't know what the term creed means. :eekeyes:
     
  10. JIMV

    JIMV Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I read it, just discounted it as leftist propaganda coupled with normal hubris....sorry if I took the post too seriously.

    Oh, I was not trying to create a strawman, just an observation. I will be thrilled to know you do not believe the invasion is good for leftist values. I would love to hear that rationale.
     
  11. dixon76710

    dixon76710 Well-Known Member

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    I know what creed is Einstein.
     
  12. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The core problem with the topic of forcing professionals to service a same sex marriage ceremony is that the ceremony is solely an ideological/religious ritual and nothing else, ie a theatrical production. Yet there is no other area where actors, theaters and production personnel can be REQUIRED by government to participate in productions they do not want to participate in.

    Could Westboro Baptist Church hire DiCaprio, Gaga, or any other actor offering their typical fees to produce a Westboro Baptist Church speech for which the actor would be fined for refusing as religious discrimination? Yet that is exactly the principle being applied to theatrical professionals in regards the gay marriage ideological/religious rituals.

    In fact, a marriage ceremony does not create any marriage in the eyes of nearly all states or in the eyes of the federal government. A marriage ceremony is only a theatrical production and nothing else.
     
  13. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Why are you having trouble understanding the difference between a private home and a business?


    True hypocrisy is enjoying legal protection for your beliefs while pointing a righteous finger others saying “We don’t serve your kind here!”


    I don’t believe in religion or any of the silly stories that go with it, but it would be wrong for me to discriminate against my fellow Americans for their beliefs.
    The public includes many different types of Americans. Open to the public means open to all citizens.


    If you don’t like it, open a business where freedom and equality is not valued.
     
  14. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Interesting take. You have reversed roles. An actor, like anyone else looking for employment can accept or decline any offer for any reason. The individual is acting as an individual and should not be forced to take a position. This issue is on the other side. An employer cannot reject an applicant because of their religious beliefs. It wouldn't matter if the position was a role in a movie or a clerical job. The law protects individuals, not business entities.
     
  15. Battle3

    Battle3 Well-Known Member

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    Still astoundingly wrong.

    Equating refusing to sell a product to a person with killing someone is a ludicrous exaggeration.

    You cannot separate a person from their religious and political beliefs, people are not automatons who switch off their emotions and beliefs when they enter their work space.

    And if you demand the employer and employee leave their political and religious beliefs outside the work place, then you must demand that the customer do the same.

    Yes, it does. If you believe in the Constitution and the larger issue of natural rights and property rights (they are all actually closely related), then you can refuse to sell a Christian a cake, rent a room to them, or hire them in your private business.

    None of those actions infringe on the Christians property rights, natural rights, or Constitutional rights.

    And the Christian cannot force you to serve them - that infringes on your property rights.

    But you cannot physically assault someone, you cannot harass them to force them to sell their house and move from your neighborhood, you cannot physically block people from entering the Christians business, you cannot force them to use their skills to benefit you. Those actions do infringe on their property rights.
     
  16. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I am surprised no lawyer has argued it from this perspective. Now essential no state recognizes "common law marriage" - either by publicly declaring to be married or by living together as married. If the couple has a legally obtained license signed by someone authorized to sign it - and both of legal again and either already married, it is ONLY the marriage license that created the "marriage" in the eyes of the law. A wedding ceremony, no matter how formal, does not create a marriage. Sign a valid marriage license, regardless of whether there is any ceremony at all, does create a marriage.

    I attended one of the shortest marriages possible - the couple having obtained the government marriage license. They both stressed they did not want any ceremony and just wanted the license signed. The officiant asked "do you both want to be married?" They both answered "yes." The officiant replied "done" and signed the license. It was ONLY that signed license that created the marriage in that state - and the basis of the feds recognizing a marriage is based upon if the state does. Some states now don't even require any public acknowledgement before anyone - they can just file a marriage license themselves with one else signing it other than the clerk who issued the license.

    Wedding ceremonies legally have nothing to do with marriage in the eyes of the law in virtually every state and, therefore, also in the eyes of courts and the federal government.

    You could spent $5 million on a marriage ceremony occasion, but in nearly every state and to the federal government you are not married by it. ONLY a signed legally issued marriage license creates a marriage. The ceremony and everything about it just a theatrical production. Maybe it is ideological. Maybe it is a religious theatrical production, but that is all it is for purposes of law. Curiously, many ministers will do marriage ceremonies but will not sign government marriage licenses even though authorized to do so - drawing a 100% distinction between the religious commitment before God and totally unrelated to government regulations, supervision and laws about marriage. This is particularly common for Buddhist and Hindu priests, for example.

    So, in such situation, where the priest/minister/officiant is not doing ANYTHING of any legal consequences and it is only a theatrical production, why would the same exemption apply to them as any other actor, producer, theater or other professional in the field of acting and supporting roles such as stage hands, cameramen and videographers on a movie set or stage theater production - since that is what a marriage ceremony is - a stage production only?

    In fact, there are many couples who DO want a wedding ceremony but do NOT want to be married in terms of government. This is particularly common for the elderly and people on social benefits who would lose benefits if they become government marriage as now income is combined for government calculations. Many know without a license there is no government marriage - and many professional officiates offer non-official wedding ceremony for personal commitment, but of NO legal effect.

    I do think this "but it is only acting and theater, not marriage" is the "loophole" so to speak. For such facilities to publish the "script of the production" they perform. They will perform it for anyone who pays, but they will not perform nor allow any other script to be presented in their theatrical production of a wedding ceremony. If that pre-set script stated "man and woman" and was of such absolute language, while a same sex couple maybe still could hire the production, they could not compel altering the script of the performance.

    Seriously, could a gay couple demand a singer alter the words of a heterosexual love song as a "public accommodation concert" so not to offend them? Since they paid as much for a ticket as everyone else demand a love song for them as a same sex couple? How is a non-official wedding ceremony production any different?

    What people are not grasping is that a wedding ceremony is only a theatrical production irrelevant to legal marriage status. It is theater, nothing else.
     
  17. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I understand your opinion on this matter, but the law doesn’t agree with you. You are still failing to see the difference between a business entity and a person. Customers and employees represent themselves. Someone acting on behalf of a business is not acting as an individual; they are representing a company, and must adhere to the laws governing business practices. The line could not be any clearer.

    If you think you can refuse to rent a room because someone is a Christian, you are wrong. It is neither legal nor ethical to refuse employment, housing, products, or services on that basis.
     
  18. Doofenshmirtz

    Doofenshmirtz Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Interesting. I believe that the difference is in the business practice and making a service available to the public. A bible store cannot be forced to carry an item, but cannot refuse a gay customer. A restaurant cannot be forced to put a gay sandwich (Yuk!) on the menu, but cannot refuse gay customers. A bakery cannot be forced to make a cake with two penises on top, but cannot refuse to sell a cake to a gay couple. A singer cannot be forced to change their performance and I guess a business can protect themselves by having a set religious ceremony and not allowing customers to customize their wedding. The gay couple would be the one declining the service in that case.

    Thank you for that.
     
  19. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It would really be cool if that is how it really works.

    Look, a homosexual has a right to not host a wedding I could have. I have the same right too.

    A fine for that farm was far out of bounds.
     
  20. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    If you are in the business of hosting weddings, as the OP was, then they can't refuse to host one based on their personal religious beliefs because that is illegal discrimination.
     
  21. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You don't get it - nobody is blaming homosexuals for their beliefs, rather for what they do in their spare time. I just wish I couldn't think about it, but there you are - once something is in the human mind then short of a lobotomy there's nothing that can erase it.
     
  22. cerberus

    cerberus Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's just a part of the social engineering we're all being subjected to, where freedom of expression takes second place to political correctness. The bigots have become predominant.
     
  23. JakeJ

    JakeJ Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Except it wasn't decided by "we the people" at all. Justices accountable to no one declared that the actions of the elected representatives of the people are irrelevant and that the exact opposite will be required of everyone with punishment for non-submissiveness - like it or not.
     
  24. Robert

    Robert Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And not all justices ...

    We in CA changed our state constitution

    It declared marriage is defined (MALE TO FEMALE)

    State judges accepted it

    State supreme court accepted it as a legal change to our constitution


    This was we the people speaking with the justices not stopping us

    Then came the US Supreme court

    It is amazing what they do that the Left delights in them doing.
     
  25. Battle3

    Battle3 Well-Known Member

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    The law is wrong in these matters, just as it was wrong about legalized slavery, government imposed racism referred to as Jim Crow, Citizens United, Kelo v City of New London, and so many other issues.

    The law can be manipulated and co-opted for corrupt purposes, just because it feels good or agrees with a persons personal bias does not make an improper law correct. Just because an unjust law can be forced upon people via police with guns does not make the law correct.

    An employee is not acting as an individual but is representing the business. The customer is engaged in a business relationship with the company, the customer is in effect a sole proprietorship. By your logic, none of these people can force themselves on the other.

    Can WalMart force you to engage in business with them, and force you to buy their product? Of course not. By the same reasoning, a customer acting as a sole proprietorship cannot force anyone including WalMart to do business with him.

    Can you refuse to rent a room in your home to a person actively advocating for Nazism in the USA, or white supremacy and the return of slavery? Be honest.
     

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