Disney Sues Desantis

While I think DeSantis went too far with Disney most people believe Disney shouldn't get special treatment.

 

The religious discrimination argument is actually far easier than the free speech argument. Employment Division v. Smith, an opinion written by Justice Scalia, says that requiring the religious to follow laws of general applicability does not violate free exercise rights. Allowing them to use the Free Exercise Clause as an opt out of these laws "would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself."

So no, generally applicable civil rights laws do not discriminate against the religious.

 

interesting. Overall, more gov intervention and regulation of businesses doesn’t poll well. Obviously repubs are the big swing in this particular poll. Ironic they are backing anti business efforts here and it’s a culture war that made them flip.

 

I think it's the weirdest political shift I've seen in my life. Not only are they backing anti business efforts, but anti- free speech efforts. Would have been unheard of prior to like 2016. This was fundamental GOP stuff almost minutes ago.

 

Bullshit. RD "retaliated" by revoking a special privilege WDW enjoyed.

Colorado forced a private citizen to choke on their religious freedom, in order to assent to what... *the fundamental right* to compel someone to make a damn cake to their liking???

 

^^^and to clarify, i think Ron was dead wrong to go that route vis a vis WDW. Was never on board with it.

 

It's not Govt control for this issue for most independents. I don't think Disney should have special treatment from other companies. It's why Independents also agree. I don't agree with how DeSantis went about it.

 

overall support/opposition to gov regulation by party

 

Fr. Jim certainly doesn’t speak for all American self-professed Christians. He doesn’t even speak for all self-professed Catholics. He will likely be suppressed in the next papacy with extreme prejudice. But I think we will find in the next life that he is speaking for the oppressed as called to do, with Divine imprimatur.

And of course, that he is speaking for other marginalized humans is the point, albeit one often omitted. So many frame it as a two party issue, what can the Government force the so called Christian, the Christian that follows a dogma where the highest Christian orthopraxis is stigmatizing gender nonconformity, to create when the business is ostensibly open to all? There is a third party in that analysis, an actual human, even if dehumanized, and that is the patron seeking equal treatment in public facilities, who seeks societal participation without stigma. The “government”, when enforcing equal protection, is doing so on their behalf.

It is not a role our Government always had. As Garry Wills (a former Jesuit novitiate, BTW) showed, Gettysburg and the Fourteenth Amendment changed us from a “liberty” Constitution to one of equality for the polis. And reactionary movements have been trying to reverse that ever since, to reclaim the “greatness” that preceded it, which requires denying true equality. As the President that inspired those changes stated, let us hope we are on God’s side. But to do that we have to, at a minimum, consider all the humans in the interaction, without writing any of them out as unworthy of consideration.

 

If memory serves from that 1,000 page thread, I think he would have sold them a cake off the shelf so it was solely the content he didn't want to do. Now, if he refused to sell them anything in his store, that is an entirely different story and he should be held liable for that.

 

Says the person of no faith whose belief is not violated.

And I have argued from the onset of the baker case that it was a speech/artistic expression case far more than a religious one.

The government should not dictate artistic expression or use of ones creative skill. Those are inherently personal ownerships that the government should not be dictating.

Blocking out gays/minorities/the disabled etc is wrong and evil. Blocking specific content however is a fundamental individual right.

 

Because the right that we once knew has been kidnapped by big personality and not big ideas.

 

And in general terms I agree with much of this, BUT when something goes contrary to the common interpretation of the scriptures a person should have the basic freedom to not support that activity.

We can both not support a specific act while still loving others and treating with respect and kindness.

I believe that as a Christian (protestant, Catholic, otherwise) we can and should maintain certain standards, while making every possible attempt to limit how it impacts our treatment of others.

For instance, if someone wants a poster design done for a gay pride parade, I can say: "thank you for your consideration, and while I certainly support your right to celebrate as you see fit, this subject matter is not something I am comfortable using my artistic ability on. I will gladly offer you my services in any number of ways but unfortunately I cannot in the specific promotion of this specific event."

There is nothing "dehumanizing" or "hateful" in that statement.

I tend to think love and compassion are not bound to an "anything goes" approach, but also in how you handle the things that your convictions do not allow.

As a Christian, on the very rare occasion that I feel compelled to decline, I should do it with a great deal of effort to show my love and compassion for the human being that I am declining the service to.

I will admit that many do not do this.

I have had on two occasions specifically had to do something very similar and was thanked on both occasions for my handling and was hired for other work by the same clients. I even offer them a discount on new work to show them that it is not an issue with offering them my services in a general sense.

Mutual respect plays a role here, and my experience (anecdotal as it may be) tells me that it is a minefield that can be navigated in a loving way.

 

Agree and I think content is the only issue here.

 

Oh I'd loooove to hear the process for determining the "common interpretation" of 2,000 year old texts that have been translated many times. How do you define "contrary"? And who gets to be the final arbitrator? Politicians, religious leaders, scholars or judges? What if there's disagreement? Is this standard applicable to non-christian religions?

In your world, does that mean atheists have fewer freedoms not to support activities? Doesn't sound very fair.

I'm just being rhetorical. You don't need to answer.

 

I would think they would have the same as @tilly said it was more about speech and artistic expression rather than religion.

 

I was speaking to his assertion that one should have the basic freedom not to support scripture contrarian activities. See below:

 

"BUT when something goes contrary to the common interpretation of the scriptures a person should have the basic freedom to not support that activity."

I will outsource the response to President Bartlett

 

Sort of. He said he would sell a cake off the shelf, but refused to make a new wedding cake, of any kind, for the gay couple. So it wasn't the "content" in the cake itself he objected to, but the orientation of the purchasers and their intended use of the cake.

As Kagan put it in her concurrence:

The cake requested was not a special “cake celebrating same-sex marriage.” It was simply a wedding cake—one that (like other standard wedding cakes) is suitable for use at same-sex and opposite-sex weddings alike. See ante, at 4 (majority opinion) (recounting that Phillips did not so much as discuss the cake’s design before he refused to make it).​

The reason SCOTUS punted and ultimately declined to decide on the free speech issue is because the content just wasn't there. Colorado, in reality, did not compel the baker to "say" anything. Instead they just told him to make a cake, in the same way and of the same type of the cakes he makes straight folks.

The baker didn't even deny that, but instead claimed that the mere act of baking and selling a newly made cake to a gay couple somehow infused the otherwise generic cake with the vendors "approval" of how it would be used.

But that logic has no real boundaries, because you could make the same type of argument about literally any commercial interaction. E.g., selling groceries to a person your religion disapproves of (whether religiously, racially, orientationally, or any other protected characteristic). Or employing them. Or renting to them. All of which could be viewed on some attenuated level as tacit "approval" of their conduct. IOW, allowing every person to become their own law, something the First Amendment was never intended to allow, as Scalia warned about in the quote @gator_lawyer posted.

Without that content-based hook, the decision would have effectively abrogated the civil rights act. So SCOTUS, wisely, hit the brakes and instead decided, much more narrowly, that Colorado was just kind of mean to the baker, and that they should be more respectful of religious beliefs moving forward.