Posts by Steve Parks
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registered marriage celebrants, regardless of their religion, should NOT be allowed to discriminate. They're a service provider. But if priests/ministers want to not be legal marriage celebrants, but simply perform a purely religious ceremony, they can knock themselves out being picky.
Just for clarity: whenever I've been talking about not forcing churches to marry people, it is the latter religious ceremony sense I had in mind. In terms of providing a legal function on behalf of the state, they should not be allowed to discriminate.
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Hm. If you're a bigot, can you still hang a sign in a shop window saying 'no blacks, no dogs, no Irish' without legal repercussions?
I don't know, for IANAL.
Actually, I agree with I/S about the market. I wasn't thinking about the restaurant example as being a case of the trader supplying their usual goods or services. That may be my mistake.
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Here's the line. If Catholic priests want to refuse to marry gay people as part of the practice of their religion, the state shouldn't stop them. And if I want to go naked as part of the practice of my religion, the state shouldn't stop me. And if a Rastafarian wants to smoke marijuana as part of the practice of their religion, ditto. But if someone felt they needed to assault Maori as part of the practice of their religion, that's not okay, because you can't possibly do that without impinging on someone else.
But. If a church wants to be an employer, or run adoption agencies, or run hospitals, they MUST comply with all state laws in that area, including human rights law.
Amen.
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I'd be unhappy at the restaurant in Kyle's example, but I still see it as their decision. Although it's not a restaurant I'd ever go to again (under that management).
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But the state tells all sorts of groups that they're not allowed to discriminate on the basis of all kinds of things. Why should churches be exempt?
I don't think the state should tell groups willy nilly what they can and can't do. The onus is on the person suggesting the intrusion (of the state into the group's affairs) to justify that intrusion (like Giovanni may have, see below). I think it can be justified in some cases (employment), but not assumed in all. Individuals are free to be bigots if they want, and free to associate with whom they want. If you want to join an organisation with weird ideas, go for it. Frankly, why would you want to join an organisation that had weird, bigoted ideas, and then change it? What's the point?
So long as churches are empowered to perform a legal function - joining people in matrimony - you could argue that they should not be allowed to discriminate, and that if the state promulgates marriage equality then they'll need to start joining gay couples or else lose their licence, as it were.
Good point. A further case for getting the government out of the marriage business, perhaps.
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It's a bit like chemists refusing to sell contraception though, isn't it?
No, a chemist has professional obligations to the welfare of society from a health perspective.
If you're clergy and you refuse to marry two of the faithful because of the number of penises in the partnership, you *are* affecting that person's life by 'following your faith'.
Yeah, but if you refuse to get married to someone because they have/do not have a penis, or for any other reason, you are affecting their life - that doesn't obligate you to marry him/her.No one's forcing your faithful to be a member of the church. And if he's faithful, isn't he faithful to the church and what it believes? (And yes I realise when you are a member of a large organisation it's possible to want to continue membership while disagreeing with this or that particular; but surely "agree to disagree" apoplies in those cases, and life goes on.)
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My comment above directed at Tess's
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Quite.
I'm sometimes willing to allow for people to be bigots on their own terms. I don't want the state telling any particular church, or any other group, that they have to perform same sex marriages. I just want the state to marry same sex couples if it's going to be in the business of marriage - or alternatively, get out of the business of "marriage" altogether.
And I agree with Craig.
What's wrong with me - I keep agreeing with Catholics! I need a beer.
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But Mrs Skin quoted Tess in order to say "Disagree" and I'm agreeing with Mrs Skin on that.
Mrs Skin's disagreement was directed at the notion Tess had just put forth. So she was referring to Tess, and Giovanni was saying 'not sure that it’s what Tess is saying” in response to that. (It wasn’t a reference to the 'someone' in: “As someone noted upthread…” if that’s what got you confused.)
Does the state give such a preference? It looks to me that marriage so defined and civil unions providing the same rights and opportunities are there as options, with no formal preference for either.
The state gives two choices for formal state recognition to ‘two sex’ couples, but only one to same sex couples. If anything I understated it: the state doesn’t just give a preference to “marriage with a two-sexed essence”, it actually doesn’t allow for any other kind. The state shouldn’t discriminate. However, I’m okay with the idea that the state cease this discrimination by dropping any recognition of any particular form of marriage; or as Tess put it, not defining marriage for anyone; or as Giovanni put it, “stripping [marriage] of its legalistic definitions and making it a wholly cultural construct”.
By the way, if you agree with that post by Giovanni, I don’t see how you can also continue to agree with Mrs Skin on that issue.
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And I agree with what Giovanni said last post on previous page, too.