Does it seem hypocritical to you that gays demand the right to marry, but deny the right . .?

These lawsuits are simply evidence that gay marriage has nothing to do with the right to get married. IT is about using the states police powers to force people to accept the gay lifestyle as normal... that is all it has ever been about.

No, freedom of *worship* is guaranteed by the Constitution. To quote the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" You are free to worship as you like.

However, if you open a business, you fall under the laws that govern those businesses. That includes laws prohibiting discrimination against clients based on race, sex, religion, national origin, and yes, sexual orientation. You want to open a bakery? The law says that you have to serve everyone who comes through the door unless you can show, in a court of law, a good reason to deny them service.

Allow religious fanatics to sidestep the law would be an establishment of religion. So all those bakers, florists, and photographers who refuse to serve gay couples have two choices: 1. Close up shop now, or 2: Go broke when word gets out that they are bigots and they stop getting any work at all.

Nowhere does the Constitution mention god in any form, nor specifically recognize Christianity. James Monroe, the primary author of the Constitution was a Deist; he believed in a remote deity who had little interested in daily affairs. It was a common thread among the founders. Most were products of the Enlightenment and held religious views that were hardly orthodox Christianity.

No one's right to be a Christian is being trampled upon. However, you cannot run a public accommodation and discriminate based on your faith. Simple enough for you?

Let's begin, first, with the reality that all unmarried adults, including homosexuals, have the right to marry. Marriage is a pledged mating union, and it requires a mating partner who, biologically, is a person of the opposite sex. An eligible spouse must also be an unmarried adult non-relative.

There can be no right to enter a biologically impossible situation. Further, rights are conferred by endowment of the creator, and they extend to everyone, not just sexual adventurers. Rights include life, liberty, property, and freedom of religion, speech, the press, and assembly.

The actual right to freedom of religion prohibits government from overruling a religious conscience. For example, freedom of religion means that government cannot establish a national church, extracting its support from those who do not consent to that religion. How much more is it restrained from forcing Christians to participate in pagan rituals such as rites of homosexual sodomy?

Yes, it is completely hypocritical to demand nonexistent rights, while denying the actual rights of the religious to dissent.

Cheers,

Bruce

Edit: There seems to be confusion about what kind of discrimination is prohibited. The civil rights laws demand that we not discriminate on the basis of either innate characteristics, such as race, or protected choices, such as religion. We can certainly discriminate on the basis of behavior choices that are neither innate nor protected, such as a preference for sodomy.

I think it's fine if a certain church or a synagogue doesn't wanna do it, and you can always find a church that does marry gays. Besides, churches are private institutes and not service providers. Don't get me wrong, I still think being homophobic is bad but that's what some churches are all about, and I believe in freedom to express yourself.

But if you chose a job as a wedding photographer, or bake wedding cakes for a living you chose to work in the wedding business and you can't just discriminate. Are you also free to deny ugly people their wedding pictures then?

That has been the reservation some Christians have had about gay marriage. Even George W Bush agreed to civil unions

At one time.churches would not marry persons who divorced without a cause they felt was valid. Some preachers will not marry a person who divorced when there was no adultery. No one sued the churches over this but so many people divorced that pastors began to marry people after several weeks of pre marriage counseling.

A photographer is being sued for refusing to take part in a gay marriage .

'While I support equality in marriage, I also support the rights of people to conduct themselves in a way their understanding of faith dictates.

A church I attended fired a woman who was living with her boyfriend because they felt she was a poor example at a Christian daycare. She decided to sue. The daycare closed its doors to escape a lawsuit.

On the question of where is the evidence of this, in the state of New Mexico, a photographer turned down the job at a gay wedding. The court awarded the "couple" damages. The State Supreme court upheld the judgment.

No. It does, however, seem to be hypocritical for supposedly loving Christians to deny service to an openly gay couple.

Edit: Jim, the Westboro Baptist Church is spreading hate and bigotry. A gay couple getting married is sharing their love. That is a poor analogy.

Those who base their morals on a collection of ancient myths, songs, poems, narratives, and oral tradition which teaches “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” are the hypocrites. They should follow their irrational beliefs and allow their brand of God to do the judging as they instructed to do by the supposed Word of their brand of God.

This is another fine example of how irrational, religious beliefs divides this planet’s population and pits side against side in yet another irrational battle. Your brand of God may be Love, but his followers seem to be, at times, pure hate.

To answer your question, no, I would not provide my services to a group of hate mongers, but I would have no issues helping a loving couple share their love with the aid of my services.

Ah yes, the "Jim Crow argument".

So you are saying I should have the right also to discriminate against christians? Cool.

Actually no, no public business can refuse service to anyone on personal grounds.

Is your last name really Crow?

No awareness of the different between human rights and discrimination.

Some people DISGUISE their homophobia under a veil of supposed religious beliefs by PICKING AND CHOOSING “OUT OF CONTEXT” passages to fuel their ANTIGAY hatred. Guess what? The bible also bans the following! >>

Divorcing Someone -MARK 10:8

Cursing -EPHESIANS 5:4

Football on Saturdays -EXODUS 20:8

FROM LEVITICUS:

Shaving & Getting Tattoos On Your Body 19:27-28

Gossip 19:16

Eating Lobster or Pork 11:10

Wearing Cotton/Polyester Blends 19:19

Associating With Women Who Are On Their Periods 15:19-20

Further, heterosexuals have DESTROYED the sanctity of marriage with a 50% divorce rate, 1 out 3 straight women MURDER babies through abortion, MILLIONS of heterosexuals DEFY God's "Ten Commandment" to not "commit adultery," 1 out 5 women in the USA will be raped or sexually assaulted by straight men in their lifetime, millions of heterosexuals have MULTIPLE marriages, or marry for wealth, opportunity and other UN-Christian reasons, and 40% of children in the USA are born to parent's "out of wedlock" (unmarried).

Moreover, the bible has lead to the slaughter of more people than ALL wars combined "in the name of God.” The bible has been used to persecute Jews, to prove that Whites can OWN Blacks as slaves, and now individuals want to "butt" into my life and say I can't marry who I want. All of the aforementioned has been sanctioned and is currently being instigated (anti-gay animus) by Christianity.

In his book, "Holy Horrors," James Haught chronicles 1,000 years of RELIGIOUS HATE (the Witch Hunts, Crusades, Holy Inquisition, and anti-Jew sentiment). Also, Richard Rubenstein wrote in, “After Auschwitz: Religion and the Origins of the Death Camps,” that the Nazis "did not invent a new villain...they took over the 2,000-year-old Christian tradition of the Jew as a villain. The roots of the death camps must be sought in the mythic structure of Christianity."

Here's just one biblical passage that fueled Jewish hatred: "You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, "WHO KILLED THE LORD JESUS" [...]. The wrath of God has come upon them at last." (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16).

Throughout history, people have also used biblical passages to VALIDATE slavery. The book, "Noah’s Curse" by Stephen Haynes explains that the biblical passage, "A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren," reads Noah’s CURSE on Ham. Ham is later identified as the ancestor of black Africans, and historically, this biblical passage has been used to JUSTIFY Black slavery.

Also, many Christian clergymen SUPPORTED SLAVERY. Larry Hise says in his book, "Pro Slavery," that ministers "wrote almost half of all defenses of slavery published in America." He also lists 250 religious men who USED the Bible to say that Whites were entitled to own Blacks as slaves.

James Haught says, "Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of the coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites."

In 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled interracial marriage bans as unconstitutional, 72% of Americans were AGAINST "interracial marriage." Most Americans did NOT want Whites to marry Blacks, Whites to marry Latinos and Whites to marry Asians. MOST Americans believed that interracial marriage was immoral, unnatural, and contrary to God's will.

Further, marriage has NEVER been between 1 man and 1 woman. In the bible: King David had 6 wives, King Solomon had 700 wives, and Rehoboam had 18 wives. In Exodus 21:10, it even says: "a man can marry an infinite amount of women without any limits to how many he can marry." So, yes, the institution of marriage DID change and HAS evolved over time.

As it relates to LGBT rights, people can spin their "erroneous" interpretation of religion all they want. However, thankfully, I can choose to believe what they believe, or NOT believe what they believe, and I can be a part of a religion, or NO religion. That's MY right as a US citizen.

Also, a religious book DOES NOT "trump" our US Constitution. NOWHERE in our US Constitution does it say Blacks and Whites couldn't marry (when it was ILLEGAL at one time), nor does it say same sex couples cannot marry. As such, all "bible" arguments are INVALID. Our "country's bible" is the US Constitution, NOT a religious book!

Lastly, as long as our government IS involved in marriage, religion has NO place in these discussions. We DON'T live in a theocracy, we live in a DEMOCRACY. Equal rights belong to EVERYONE, including LGBT Americans!

So if the same service providers refused to work for you because you're Christian, and they thought that was against their personal convictions, you wouldn't be SCREAMING "oh, oh, I'm being persecuted for my beliefs!!"

Or can we refuse service to Christians now, that's ok?