If people cannot follow their consciences and are not allowed to not perform a service that goes against their religion we are doomed. I fear for our country. This is not North Korea or Cuba.
Where is this person's freedom of religion and freedom of expression? Have they fallen by the wayside? It surely looks like we are heading in this direction and it is truly frightening. Those who oppose this must speak out and protest.
23
@KMW People who apply for a job generally know what duties go along with it. Failure or refusal to do those duties is and ought to remain legal grounds for dismissal, regardless of what your "beliefs" are. Anyone who knowingly takes a job, part of which their beliefs forbid them to do, is breaking the employer-employee agreement and should forfeit their job.
100
@Gene Bivins
I suspect that the baker started his job long before the Supreme Court changed the rules. In fact, I read that the argument started before the ruling on gay marriage even went through. So how can the baker be criticized for "violating" a future ruling?
6
@KMW - pastors not too long ago used the Bible to tell their faithful that segregation was God's will, encouraging perpetuation of injustice against, in most cases, their fellow Christians.
But where does selling a wedding cake, for example, "go against religion"? How much meddling in other people's lives are those who feel like their conscience is the best allowed to go?
And how much of imposing one's own conscience on members of the public is really just discomfort with someone different - wrapped in fake piety?
The ACA includes birth control in covered services. I'd not seen it REQUIRE individuals to use them, so where do those in power get the right to impose their view on employees - and why should our laws impose that religious restriction on those who don't observe that viewpoint?
There are countries where faith is the law. We're not one of them.
So what services can someone deny to anybody they please? How meddlesome does a "Christian" have to be in other people's lives in order for them to follow the teachings of Jesus rather than the teachings of so many many politicized, rich preacher men?
The baker in Colorado had corrected a wrong after he denied a couple a simple wedding cake (a cake is not a form of blessing). Told he couldn't discriminate, he stopped making wedding cakes.
How about if a woman's wearing a man's shirt? Forbidden in the Bible, you know. Could storekeepers deny her service for that transgression? The Bible's packed with that stuff.
75
I had a conversation with a conservative Christian pastor’s wife last week. She told me she was exploring religious exemptions to vaccines because of her pro-life views. Yes, you read that right. She was willing to put her own child or someone’s else’s child, or an immunity system compromised adult, at risk of death because she believes vaccines that may have been developed or manufactured using fetal cells are against her religious pro-life beliefs. I guess the “pro” part of her life beliefs are situational.
She was also surprised that it is difficult to find physicians who agree with this and would sign off on her religious exemption.
Sadly, it seems we are re-entering the dark ages.
195
@Suzanne:
be very clear that the belief that "fetal cells" would be in any vaccine, or fetal pig cells either are a lie and is anti-vaxxer propaganda.
TELL her that, have her look it up or contact the CDC for that info.....
24
@Suzanne
Another example of someone who claims to be "pro-life" actually being "pro-fetus". So long as the life is still in the womb she'll spend huge amounts of energy and even money to protect it but once it emerges... someone else's problem. Now of course, if the mother is exposed to measles while that fetus is in the womb, well that we don't need to think about.
27
@Suzanne
"she believes vaccines that may have been developed or manufactured using fetal cells ".
"May have"? Why hasn't there been any investigation of this? Is there a top secret about how the vaccines are made? Has the media been avoiding looking into the issue in order to make the objectors look like uninformed kooks?
6
Some folks believe religion gives them the right to stop using logic.
7
SO, can ANYONE actually tell me EXACTLY what’s in a “vaccination injection”??.. I know of a nurse and I have a very good friend who’s an ex-nurse, and even they wouldn’t go near the stuff and with the advice not to let it near your children!.
Don’t attack the Christians!, because a lot of people JUST use “religion” as an excuse to keep that poison away from their children!.
A lot of these infections and diseases nowadays are either man-made, advanced or controlled, THEN they ask you to inject their “man-made” vaccinations (poisons) to overcome their man-tampering, advanced diseases and infections! It’s funny how ‘now’ at a time when a lot of people are refusing vaccines that an “Outbreak” has occurred!..
Hmm 🤔 one does wonder?!
1
All religions are fundamentalist. As a tool to control and exploit, they have no choice.
3
Apparently, the author isn't familiar with that verse in the Bible saying vaccinations aren't kosher. I'm sure it's here........lemme see......um.....
You know, it's right next to the one that says abortions are a sin.
I'll find them......gimme some time...........
9
Why is no one highlighting the incessant anti-orthodox coverage? These "orthodox jews" are simply anti-vaxxers that are using the religious freedom law as cover for their unwillingness to vaccinate! Orthodox Judaism compels people to take care of their health --you may even take vitamins containing non-kosher ingredients if they are necessary and there are no comparable kosher alternatives. There is NO jewish law that dissuades vaccinations. Stop categorizing these people's actions as born of their religiosity. Stop promoting this anti-religious, anti-ultra orthodox canard.
4
Would you also require actors to play roles that are morally objectionable, a devout Catholic to perform an elective abortion or Jewish bakers to create a cake celebrating Hitler's birthday? There are reasonable exemptions for moral or religious convictions. The anti-vaccination choice is not one of them because it endangers the health of another person, a child. Chose another baker or photographer for that non-essential service, but society should not allow one to put a child's life in danger.
2
when I was growing up there was a saying- your right to swing your arm stopped at my nose.
7
The article says, "Conservative Christians are forever trying to inject their personal religious beliefs into the public sphere." Some of what's going on here is the notion of "spreading the gospel"--aggressive evangelizing. Among many Christians, YOUR religion (and your behavior and lifestyle choices) is indeed THEIR business.
The rest of us can chant "Butt out!" at them, over and over, but they can't and won't hear. In consequence of the core beliefs of Evangelical Christianity, their Facebook Status is permanently set to "butt in." The end result: Court and legislative protections are turning Christianity into a government-sanctioned religion.
8
It wasn't too long ago, two newborn boys died because the moiles performing their bris, had herpes.
Even if there is a community of the religious, they are not required, nor should they, impose on people who are NOT members of that religious community.
However, if they have a contagious disease, there is no requirement by their religion to spread illness and death.
It's no surprise that those suffering the most religious discrimination ARE females and gay and trans.
Vaccines, and other miracles of modern medicine are a gift from God. As are the committed and smartest human beings who have engineered it.
Ignorance and fear, are worse viruses the religious welcome more than change.
4
I have a right to play and enjoy music in my home but I am not allowed to do so to the extent that it disturbs my neighbors and prevents them from enjoying their space. The sound of music does not kill anyone.
So why are certain people allowed to exercise their religious freedom to the detriment, inconvenience and even death of others? It is time that we came to our senses and start thinking about the greater good.
Worshipping in your churches, temples, mosques and synagogues does not bother me. But when your so-called religious freedom can cause the death of my baby then we are witnessing the tyranny of the minority.
13
On a personal note, I grew up in the era of school prayer, and the Lord’s prayer and religious oriented Christmas carols were regular part of the school day. My first public grammar school was in a predominately non-Jewish neighborhood. My 3rd grade teacher loved to point out that “Asher” did not have to recite the prayers or sing along. I am still alive today to write these ridiculous comments, but if looks could kill I wouldn’t have made it to the 4th grade.
Then, and now, as now exemplified by the so-called exercise of religious freedom laws, the purpose is for the majority not to exercise the benevolence of it’s faith, but it’s dominance over minority interests. As the courts have expanded the civil and human rights of many categories of minority citizens, those threatened seek to shield their anxiety under cover of law. Their hope is that he Trump Supreme Court will endorse their quest for religious freedom” at the expense of the “others”. They may be right about that...but it will also be at the expense of our Democracy.
7
There is a factor in the measles outbreak that seems to go unnoticed -- or at least unmentioned. Measles can spread only to the unvaccinated. Those who get the measles are no more victims than the people who gave it to them.
There is one category of measles contractors who are victims: Children. Excepting the cases where the child was still too young to be vaccinated, the parents of every child that gets the measles through lack of having been vaccinated should be charged with child neglect -- and religious belief is not a mitigating factor.
3
This is a brilliant and intensely thoughtful piece.
You are courageous, Margaret Renkl.
Thank you, thank you.
7
We should be a lot more cautious when we use "freedom" of any kind and "too far" in the same sentence of any of our publicized pronouncements.
1
In the early 1950's, one trip to the beach would be followed by a polio scare, and no more beach trips that summer would happen. In 1956, Jonas Salk's vaccine was made available and brought about nearly miraculous avoidance of a terrible scourge. I also remember going to the local county fair in the early 1950's (I was a young teenager) and there was an exhibit in a trailer of 2-3 people in iron lungs who had been struck by polio. These people, most of them near my age, would never walk or move, or breathe on their own again. This "exhibit" was presented by an organization that raised money to fight polio and provide medical treatment for its victims. It was a shocking thing for a young teenager to see, and I will never forget it.
When I had children of my own, I always got them vaccinated with whatever was available at the time. People tend to live in bubbles of mis-information that skews their ideas and their sense of responsibility.
8
On April 26 John Berman interviewed Rick Santorum. The conversation pointedly illustrated how 'freedom of religion' has become an excuse for bigotry. This article approaches the same issue in terms of one's personal religious beliefs in relation to the larger community. Thank you for continuing this important discussion.
8
And another thing.....these same people who declare themselves victims because their religious "freedom" has been taken away, are the same people who have given us Trump.
Some say the religion of a political candidate for office shouldn't be considered - well, I beg to differ. It definitely should be considered when far-right religionists want to convert their beliefs into laws for the rest of us.
Same goes for judges and especially SCOTUS candidates. We need more agnostics at SCOTUS.
14
This is so obvious it shouldn’t need to be said.
Unfortunately, in this country, these ideas must not only be said but fought for with our effort, speech, money and votes.
5
@David: This issue is the most enduring foundation of money-raising politics for perpetual paralysis in the US.
3
Although I see why the following interpretation of the ban on religious discrimination is not being pursued by the current administration, I do understand why previous administrations have not vigorously pursued it.
It seems clear to me that these exercises in "freedom of religion" are, in actuality, violations of the federal ban on discrimination based on religion. The baker who fails to provide a wedding cake to a pair of gays or lesbians is, in fact, discriminating against a couple who are not practicing the proprietor's religion. Likewise for an employer's health insurance not providing birth control, based on their religious choices. They are enforcing their religion on others, against whom they are legally barred from discriminating.
9
@John Vesper: The "Free Exercise" clause of the first amendment mandates that participation in religious rites and activities be strictly voluntary and consensual.
2
Not all vaccine deniers are religious. Political beliefs have become become just as unreasonable and anti-science. The extremes of both parties strive to impose their ideologies regardless the cost to our species' future.
5
Monotheistic religion NEEDS people to judge, kick, hurt, imprison and, yes kill for it to work.
Show me a monotheism without discrimination.
A better world?
Overfed egos....
5
Religion and morality do not go hand in hand. Religious people are immoral for the precise reason that they derive their morality from a book or because a “god tells them to”. The problem is that book encourages slavery, rape, murder, incest... the list goes on. The very book they claim to derive their morality is in itself a repugnant and absurd book of immoral Bronze Age myths.
The absurdity continues to become reprehensible when those “godly” believers use their belief in an imaginary being to justify ridiculous behavior like discriminating against gays or racial minorities, or denying vaccines to their children. Don’t they believe that if there was a god it would probably make some updated proclamations about modern society? He showed up 5000 years ago or so to let mankind know what he felt only to abandon the earth and just let his so called creations duke it out? Seems like it could all be settled with just one visit tomorrow.
I am disgusted when I read stories about the deluded professing proudly and ignorantly that they stand for x or y because of their delusional beliefs in a magical being in the sky who refuses to be known or show itself mainly because none of it exists.
Then the question becomes what makes people believe in nonsense? Is most of mankind simply of such low intelligence that they are unable to shed Bronze Age myths?
13
Thanks, we are living in inane, nonsensical times. This is another twisted stupid ruling by our Supreme Court, where nonsense finds a home. The only thing missing for this Court is Justice for all citizens of this country.
6
Superstitious faiths are not just private matters, as soon as they impact others. In a Republic, the default religion is the Republic itself: it ties (ligare) people again (re). Being in a Republic requires to believe in the religion of the Republic, and other faiths are tolerated only when they don't contradict the Republic and its laws.
History provides with many examples of what happens when a superstition takes over. The Judea war of 66-73 CE is an example: fanatical Jews didn't just attack Roman soldiers, they heavily fought each others. Jerusalem in the end was sieged by Titus and his legions, while inside the capital, Jewish sects were fighting each other to death.
The Roman empire had become tolerant to all religions... Until the "Catholic Orthodox" took over under Constantine (323 CE). Soon enough heretics could be executed (380 CE), libraries and books were burned, freedom of expression and reflection were outlawed, the justice system gutted, and rendered mad and stupid by Christianity, the empire collapsed.
Thus, it is important to draw the line: superstitions cannot run amok, they cannot override the tying up together again of the Public Thing (Res Publica).
As the Romans used to say when they still had a Republic: the law is hard, but it’s the law. Not to vaccinate a child is a crime, against the child, and against other children and all citizens (as vaccinations protect all). Crimes against the Republic should be punished for all equally.
5
Kudos for this editorial. I am tired of the self righteous telling me what is and what is not acceptable in public institutions and the market square. I find this especially troubling about religious bigots in practicing medicine. Believe I do not want to be treated or served by someone in the medical field who is judgemental. You religion does not give you the right to question my decisions or medical needs.
8
Believe in any ridiculous fantasy you want but keep it to yourself. Having lived in the south for decades after growing up in NYC, the easiest way to spot a com man is when they declare their christianity.
Anyone wearing their religion on their sleeve will get no business, assistance or even conversation from me.
12
I believe the biggest mistake this country ever made was passing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the 90's. We definitely need a "Freedom From Religion Act." Practice any belief you like, but that freedom ends at your nose. And if you don't vaccinate your child, and your child gets measles, I do not need to bear even a nickel of any long term health costs incurred, and if by chance your child infects someone who has a medical reason for not being vaccinated, then the parent must be prosecuted and sent to jail.
15
If only Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Roberts agreed with you, but they don’t. Elections have consequences and the freedom to spread measles is now protected by the First Amendment, just like the right of businesses to discriminate against gays and lesbians. Watch for the return of forced Christian prayers in our public schools, along with polio and chicken pox. They’re coming, thanks to bigots and the politicians who feed off of them.
12
Ah, yes, the "religion is a private matter" ideology. What a convenient way to "pretend" that people of Faith should shut up and disappear. Such tolerance. Such open mindedness.
People of Faith don't belong in certain jobs, it seems. People of Faith shouldn't be bakers. People of Faith shouldn't be doctors. People of Faith shouldn't be in certain lines of work.
I'm a Southerner so it's easy to see the ugly beginnings of ignorant prejudice.
@Charles
No, you are welcome to be as vocal and visible as you like. And to perform any job. As long as your beliefs do not impact my rights. It's not complicated.
5
@Charles--So you believe you have the right to tell me how I must live?
5
Tell it like it is Sister!
3
What a slanted item.
Clearly anti-Christian feeling is offered here, 'believe what you like but keep it to yourself' is what the author is really stating.
She is happy for gays to demand what they wish from a baker but unhappy when he is refusing this demand.
This does not make sense.
The implication is a gay person can demand from a baker a cake he disagrees with and therefore discriminate against his beliefs if he refuses? What a twisted view of acceptance and tolerance that is.
1
I completely concur with the author. Mandating Christianity is no different than mandating Sharia Law. It is unconstitutional and we need to stop electing people to our local, state and federal governments who do not understand the Constitution!
18
Should the government force caterers of the Moslem faith serve non Halal food at non Moslem weddings, which is repugnant to observant Moslems, in the name of civil rights for non Moslems?
Why can't non Moslems simply use non Moslem caterers for their weddings, except to harass Moslem caterers?
How does this differ from the wedding cake catering case?
It appears to be a similar situation.
1
@David
You are confusing the product with the customer. A Kosher deli or a Muslim caterer will sell or serve their Halal or Kosher food to whomever wants it. But no one can force them to sell a product they don't normally sell (non Kosher/non Halal food).
The difference is when you withhold your product (like a cake) from one particular group (gays).
5
George Carlin said it best - "For some people religion is like wearing lifts in your shoes. If it makes you feel good that's fine. Just don't ask me to wear your shoes."
9
I once heard an anti-vaxxer say: "No one, not even the state, has the right to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her own body." And I suddenly realized how idiotic that argument is.
1
"Likewise, if you’re a baker whose religious convictions prevent you from baking a wedding cake for a gay couple, then you need to find a line of work that doesn’t involve selling wedding cakes from a public storefront. "
Unless you're a Muslim baker, then it's ok to discriminate against gays.
https://www.newsweek.com/lawmaker-says-jews-and-muslims-should-refuse-bake-wedding-cakes-other-713154
Praying is a bad habit invented to reinforce the delusion that nature has a humanoid personality. There is no public benefit to reinforcing any delusions. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is the wisest injunction in the US Constitution, as amended.
7
do it the American Way. Stick the man with measles with the bill for all the damage. The Almighty Mammon will do the rest.
3
The absurdity of allowing religious exemptions to basic medical care for children and basic education, while complaining about gay couples who couldn't get the cake decoration they wanted, is what makes liberals seem contemptible. These idiotic hypocrisies are costing lives and may very well cost the Democratic Party the next Presidential election.
1
Right on.
2
I agree. Keep the unvaccinated out of public places.
But about the cake baking. The Supreme Court upheld Masterpiece Cakeshop in their refusal to design and bake for a gay wedding. I will exploit that loophole if asked to bake a white supremacist cake, or an anti LGBTQ cake, in violation of my Christian conviction that we are all created in God's image. I will not put a swastika or other anti semitism on a cake.
2
The people promoting religious freedom are doing what all Koch initiatives, and Putin's too, by the way, do. They are trying to take control of people's lives under the guise of benign divinity. PS brings them one step closer to reinstating the divine rights of kings, er ... well, billionaires. They have no interest in religious freedom other than white Christians' freedom to kill mothers and doctors who abort, brown people, people who speak other than English, people who chose to love whom they disapprove, their workers. It's a sham.
2
Perfectly stated!
2
Whilst it's OK to endanger others with their consent, which is why consensual SM practices must be legal, it is not OK to endanger others without their consent, and having a religious or other ideological reason for such morally wrong behaviour cannot more make the bad good than can saying some magic words turn water into wine.
Just because people follow Judaism, communism, Hinduism, fascism, Christianity, Wicca, Islam, capitalism, or whatever ideology does it for them is no excuse for engaging in bad morals that actually endanger others, for which there can be no just legal exemption.
If your preferred god teaches what is morally bad, you need to improve on your god's moral defects, not seek an exemption from just law that protects others.
8
Do not these "Christians" read the teaching of Christ? As in Matthew 6? Why the importance of public prayers?
5And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites [are]: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
This is not some minor boilerplate either. A few verses later comes the very well known "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . . "
3
Look......
I personally believe in personal nullification by a sovereign person on religious grounds.
I can nullify the 13th amendment.
The bible is replete with slavery.
And adulterers should suffer the biblical consequences.
And there is no Office of Legal Counsel opinion protecting ANYONE!!
Ask Graham Jr.
Revoke RFRA.
Keep faith where it belongs: home and the house of worship.
Make it illegal for faith to carry weight any where else.
9
The photo appears to be scapegoating Jews.
You can be assured that it is NOT Jewish belief to go unvaccinated. These are anti-vaxers, who happen to be religious Jews, who were originally exposed in Ukraine. The level of noncompliance in the Orthodox Jewish community is similar to the rest of America.
There has been one authoritative Jewish ruling on vaccination, and that is by the ultra orthodox Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach who said that if there is a danger of not being vaccinated, and you can only be vaccinated on the Sabbath, then you should get immunized on the sabbath. It is considered to be equivalent to saving an endangered person.
This is a rather forceful comment on the importance of immunization in Jewish law. Vaccination is not only allowed, it is considered to be equivalent to saving the life of an endangered person.
10
Someone needs to enforce the TN State Constitution, it makes the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution look wimpy.
2
I STRONGLY OBJECT to the NYT's image selection in this article. The NYT makes it seems like these women--who are just going about their everyday lives--are the ones who are not vaccinating their children. Sure, some people in their community are not vaccinating their children, but those people are a minority within their community.
In general, I object to the use of images involving private citizens, especially when those citizens clearly belong to a particular race, religion, etc. and ESPECIALLY when something negative is being associated with members of that group.
Such images only serve to foster xenophobia and bigotry. The Times should know better.
The Times needs a better policy for what images they use.
News organizations like to think of themselves as value neutral, as just messengers of the truth, but they often fail to consider the ethical impact of what they do.
How much antisemitism has this image fomented? How many negative sentiments towards Jews, especially very Orthodox ones? I have seen plenty of negative sentiments expressed in this very comments section.
These women did not ask to be photographed. They live in relative anonymity I suppose. Then the NYT publishes a picture of them for the world to see, and portrays them (at least implicitly) as the culprits behind a measles outbreak. Has the Times given any consideration to the consequences of such actions? Does the times even have an ethics team?
10
Anti semitism? The orthodox community is pretty much responsible for the latest measles outbreak. It’s literally numbers. Secondly, when in a public setting, there is no expectation to privacy.
It’s pushback on data, lack of common sense and denial of accountability that leads to these situations. Instead of crying antisemitism, figure out how to help unvaccinated kids and adults.
6
@Angelica
Complete non sequitur.
You demonstrate what I point out exactly by claiming the orthodox community as a whole, rather than a few bad actors and ill-informed parents, are responsible for the outbreak. You are blaming a group for the actions of the few. This is what is problematic. What you do is equivalent to blaming all Black Americans for the murder epidemic.
Saying the orthodox community is responsible is problematic. For example, modern orthodox Jews (who are considered orthodox Jews) have far more physicians and scientists per capita than the general population. They vaccinate at higher rates too. Are they responsible???
This outbreak began in a very particular subset of the orthodox community. All major orthodox figures (even within that community) support vaccinations. There was a deliberate misinformation campaign within a particularly insular community (one in which most people lack access to internet) to convince people that vaccinations are not ok.
I very well understand what caused this outbreak and how outbreaks work. That was not the point of my post, however. My point was that the image used in this article contributes to xenophobia. A measles outbreak does not excuse the NYT's irresponsibility.
4
Like Ms Renkl I was raised a Catholic, attended Catholic schools and prayed into my early twenties, before losing all faith and abandoning the church.
Religious belief is as noted a belief without any proof to lift it from that state of belief to the realm of fact. Comforting and with guidance of the sort which keeps those who follow the tenets on a decent social path, but without any basis in fact.
All good until it, like any other belief, is taken up by numbers sufficiently large and vocal that privileges which can easily mitigate against non believers are granted, which is the very basis for our purported separation of church and state.
What we as citizens do not understand is the acceptance of religion, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is a choice made for us over which we as infants have no control.
My children were raised without religious belief, but one chose to follow the teachings of a faith from which he, according to the tenets, will forever be a member. A powerful and haunting thought without any basis in observable reality which, like some of the Ultra Orthodox community may affect him throughout his life
Early on the acceptance of religious beliefs beyond those of the ruling class brought a power to the men who opposed the rulers, claiming a higher unearthly power to be in real control of humanity.
We may never free ourselves of the fear accompanying the knowledge of mortality, but we are the only animals in our kingdom who have this need.
1
@Ian MacFarlane: Perhaps our awareness of mortality drives our passions to create legacies.
@Ian MacFarlane: This is why the insertion of "under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance by Congress in 1953 was so seditious. It brainwashes people to become unresponsive to reason because magic is more credible to them.
2
What a wonderful piece. Glad to know that others understand the Constitution and the rights, privileges, and obligations it confers in a way similar to me. Thank you so very much.
5
Whoa. Protecting a business person rights to freedom of consensus in no way compares to endangering public health. If someone cause physical harm to those he comes into contact with, than his religious expression does not meet the standard of protection.
If someone seeking a service can go next door, and receive it from someone whos conscious allows it, than no harm is being done.
Uncommon sense. Thanks.
1
So-called "religious liberty" legislation and rulings establish a privileged class of Americans - religious people - who get to disobey laws they don't like, via a conversation-ending "because God (or my priest) (or my rabbi) (or my imam) says so." This recourse is completely unavailable to atheists, or for that matter to any Americans who don't adhere to one of the recognized religions. It therefore privileges both religion over non-religion and recognized religions over a supernatural belief that someone came up with earlier that day. Lots of people might have lots of reasons for discriminating against LGBT Americans. Why should a man be allowed to discriminate because his reason for doing so is that he believes Christianity, Judaism or Islam requires it, when a different man isn't allowed to discriminate because his reason for doing so is that he just doesn't like gay people, or he's been bitter ever since his wife left him for another woman, or he's simply a jerk? All these (garbage) reasons for discriminating may be just as deeply held as theists' beliefs in the inviolability of whatever medieval or Iron Age practices their parents taught them.
4
And just wait for the time when government dictates the religion and its terms or dictates the terms of each religion then it will be too late for liberty.
3
@Sally: Misinterpretation of "establishment of religion" lies at the root of the present religious coup d'état in the US. This phrase means "faith-based belief". The first amendment outlaws official ratification of any faith-based belief. If it cannot be substantiated, it cannot be legislated.
1
Then there is this excellent idea:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/06/german-parents-face-fine-for-refusing-measles-vaccination
Personally, I think any religion benefiting from or trying actively to change or affect the laws of the U.S. need to lose their religious tax exemptions.
6
@RLiss: Any organization actively seeking to influence public policy is effectively a political party.
@RLiss: The whole scheme of laws governing federal subsidies for local civic-improvement organizations needs secularization. The requirement to assert belief in a deity to qualify is ludicrous.
1
It's about time someone said this! Thank you.
3
Religious freedom is an oxymoron. Time being enslaved to a demanding imaginary source of reality could be better spent in just about any other way.
1
Bravo (from a teacher at a religious school).
1
The “acid test” for restricting free speech is whether the so called “speech” harms others or immutably violates their rights. Not getting vaccinated does. Arguably, requiring non-Christians to read the Bible in school violates religious rights of those that do not use the Bible as it’s sacred scripture.
Not decorating a cake for a homosexual wedding does not if your religion deems homosexuality to be a sin. People are not limited to or required to use said baker. Would a Muslim “deli” be required to sell BLTs or put any pork product on a sandwich? People have choices re where to eat or what baker to use.
1
@James R Bowers: People's sex lives are usually private and irrelevant to the conduct of business.
1
Very well written.
I totally agree!
1
"Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God." You mean it is a private matter between the deluded and the delusion.
3
"...between that believer and their god." FixedThatForYou. The author said herself that evangelicals (fill in as necessary) are always trying to inflict their beliefs on those around them.
Difficult for me to understand, especially when we have a constitution and bill of rights that is supposed to guarantee equality for all, as well as freedom of and from religion, that the courts allow any form of inequality or refusals to serve because of race, creed, religion or anything...but such is our fake law and order repubs who are also fake Christians
2
Some facts:
* Before measles was declared eradicated because of the MMR vaccinations 40,000 to 60,000 contracted measles in the US - most of them children, every year.
* Of these, 4000 to 6000 developed serious conditions (beyond the rash most associate with the disease).
* Of these 400-600 died.
Many people know of Helen Keller. But what many don't know is that she was born hearing and seeing but contracted Rubella when she was one year old. And the infection destroyed those two vital senses.
2
I often refer to Christian Fundamentalists as "Alleged Christians".
If they really knew anything about Jesus, they would realize, fundamentally, that he was the "Prince of Peace". He didn't have a long list of people that he hated. He didn't embrace militaristic politicians, and didn't constantly support the Rich over the Poor.
When faced with an issue, they truly should ask themselves, " What would Jesus do?" and not pull some ridiculous, obscure story from the Old Testament.
1
You have the logic backwards.
The Constitution clearly states that it is unconstitutional for the government to create laws that prohibit the free practice of religion.
A person or persons who have a business cannot be required to participate in behavior that violates their religious beliefs.
If a gay couple walking into a luncheonette and order a meal the staff must serve them. Black letter law. The staff may disapprove of their life style but serving a meal is not participating in that “sin”.
The baking of a “wedding” cake is participating.
Your argument fails because you are compelling the baker to violate his/her religious beliefs by participating in the event.
The same applies to religious beliefs with regard to vaccinations, participating in the military, mandatory prayer, and half a hundred things.
1
@canis scot
There is a difference between the public sphere and the private. A business open to the public should be required to serve all comers. Regardless. Otherwise you're discriminating against those on "The List". (Age, race, color, sex, religion, ect). If you want to start a private membership club, then you can restrict your services to whom ever you want. For whatever reason. If you choose to teach at a private religious school you should expect to have to teach religion, and not to receive medical benefits that that religion is known to disavow. If you open a public bakery you should expect to serve all manner of people who hold beliefs different to yours. If not call yourself a private Christian bakery open ONLY to those you have vetted and registered as Christians according to recorded rules and regulations. Then you won't have to face any of those sinners.
3
I look forward to that near-future day when the response to an essay like this one would be a universal "of course." But when that day arrives, the arguments and conclusions Ms. Renkl has expressed here will be too obvious to everyone to merit their being repeated at all.
2
And yet the readers of the NY Times applaud when credit card companies refuse to process fees for right-wing groups, or when hotels and convention facilities refuse the NRA. But compelled speech for a bake shop, that's just fine.
As often noted, if not for double standards, the left would have no standards at all.
3
@HMI
Actually it was for having the NRA logo on the credit card along with discounts. Any NRA member can still use cards from that company. The hotels didn't want guns in their facilities. If it had been just a convention without weapons there would have no problem. But they don't travel without their weapons. Do they? No one should be forced to accept guns.
1
@Gil
So it's that your,"no one should be forced to accept..." is aimed at a constitutional right you dislike.
You underline my point for me.
2
It is true that the religious right wants to codify its dogma into law, to replace the constitution with the Bible. That is going too far. But freaking out too much over small, reasonable religious accommodations is playing into their hands. They use these wedge issues to unify religious people who otherwise completely disagree with each other and thereby win elections.
Sometimes it is only cake and not a slippery, icing-clad slope.
2
Religions are based on "faith," a term which means "belief in the absence of knowledge." Religions, then, are based on the most unreliable of sources, such as ancient scripture written by people who were ignorant about our world or by ranting showmen clergy on TV who want you to send them money. In other words, of all the sources of opinions, religions are the worst. So why should they be privileged in law? If your reasoning tells you to break the law, that is not allowed. If your knowledge tells you to beak a law, that's not permissible. Yet logic and knowledge are much better sources of opinion than faith. People rightly have freedom of religion only because they have the freedom to be wrong. That should not extend to a freedom to hurt or endanger others.
1
Oh. I've always felt that religious belief is is, at least in part, all about exposing "innocent people to unnecessary suffering".
1
Margaret Renkl is correct, Americans are taking religious freedom too far. It's often cited that Americans are some of the most religious people in the world. Last year Kurt Andersen's NY Times bestseller "Fantasyland - How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History" describes how religious fanatics shaped USA & its politics. No wonder the adulterer-in-chief has many evangelical Christian fans. He gets no love from Muslims though.
By contrast, China has the most atheists in the world according to numerous global studies on atheism. The Chinese government and Communist Party is officially atheist. Despite limitations on certain forms of religious expression and assembly, religion is not banned, and religious freedom is nominally protected under the Chinese constitution.
If China is to stay on course to be the most advance nation in science and technology, and fend off the worldwide virus of terrorist attacks, it should eradicate superstitions more forcefully. As expected, China's action is criticized and under attack from American politicians, media and institutions, may be with the exception of Trump himself.
Perhaps it explains Kiron Skinner's much criticized China policy idea. She is the current State Department Director of Policy Planning. Recently she claimed that because China isn’t ‘Caucasian,’ the U.S. is planning for a ‘clash of civilizations.’ Interesting: believers versus non-believers.
2
I'm an American Christian. I believe in Jesus Christ and I accept the Constitution as the foundation of civil law.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"; which means:
a. I'm free to practice my religion as I see fit; and
b. there is no official state religion, because the First Amendment prohibits it. Your religious rights are equal to mine, to believe and worship or to disbelieve and not worship, as you choose.
I go to church and I also pray in private. I've seen more demonstrative Christians preaching on street corners, and that's fine with me. I'm glad they have that right, just as the Krishna chanters in Union Square have the right to publicly worship and I'm equally glad of that. That's what freedom of religion looks like. And when Ron Reagan advertises the Freedom From Religion Foundation on TV, that, believe it or not, is also what freedom of religion looks like. Essentially it's freedom of thought.
You won't find that in Saudi Arabia; and if you doubt it, try handing out Bibles on a street corner in Riyadh. Conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death in that country.
I don't want what some are trying to establish in America: a Christian-dominated theocracy that trashes the First Amendment. Those who do are fools. Tear down the laws protecting your neighbor's freedom and one day, when the wind changes, you'll have nothing to protect your own.
1
@MisterE: Jesus purportedly said that all public prayer is fake, directed at other people, not God.
1
Maybe it's time to revisit the Constitutional treatment of religious liberty.
The Constitution guarantees the Government will not interfere with your right to worship as you see fit.
It does not guarantee your right to interfere with the Government.
This article and the ongoing discussions about bigotry and hate speech are both part of a growing movement that has come to realize that there must be limits on free speech and free exercise of religion. As crazy as that sounds, when you take Isaiah Berlin's notion of negative liberty, and put it into the realm of speech, the result of limiting speech seems inescapable.
Negative liberty defines the unstated notion in our republic that our actions are unrestrained up until the point of harming others; it is at that point that we rely on our representatives to construct laws that restrain specific harmful actions in the future.
It is completely clear that not immunizing yourself or your family members is an action that needs legal restraint. Likewise, hate speech, in its demeaning nature, especially when used by the majority against any minority, harms and damages the possible life outcomes for those on the receiving end (as in Brown v. Board of Ed. when social tests showed that African American children had come to view dark skinned dolls as ugly--this was enough to nullify segregation throughout the land).
There are too many unrestrained, selfish and self-involved, notions and life paths out there that take no account of the society that has let them flourish. It is far past time for our governments to act to restrain the harms that arise from these choices.
1
My mother and others in her generation were taught that the Curse of Ham explained why Blacks were considered inferior — and the Hamidic Curse justified treating them as inferior. It was a sincerely held religious belief — and it was also immoral and (eventually) held to be illegal. Evangelicals don’t talk about those beliefs any more — but they invoke the same justification (the Bible, as they read it) to hurt LBGTQ people.
1
What irritates me more than one group weaponizing religion against other groups, is when that one group doesn’t even understand their own religion. That’s the case with the evangelical christianists.
1
"Religious Freedom" for the True Believers is nothing more than the state-codification of interpretations of heavily-edited dubious translations of Bronze Age dogma created by ignorant, frightened and superstitious people who believed that the Earth was flat (in order to subjugate other ignorant, frightened and superstitious people — now, as then) to use as a weapon against those who do not share their beliefs, and a shield to hide behind.
1
Amen. Individuals that feel that their faith requires them to discriminate against any of their fellow human beings are certainly not practicing Christianity. They are masquerading their prejudices in a costume-ball of religiosity.
2
Great points. Religion is out of control in this country. It is ludicrous that churches are tax-exempt while preaching politics from their pulpits every day. It is ridiculous that religious beliefs allow discrimination in the public sphere. The laws of this country come before the laws of the Bible, the Koran, the Kama Sutra, or whatever old book of tenets you elect to follow. If you feel cannot run a business without violating this country's discrimination laws, get out of the business community. You cannot legally run a business if you discriminate. If you cannot perform the duties of your public job because of your closely-held beliefs, get another job. That is what religious freedom means. You can choose to comply with this country's laws and/or the requirements of your employer, or you can choose exercise your closely held beliefs and do something else. Something that does not require you to discriminate or goldbrick. And if you don't want to vaccinate, emigrate. We don't need your illness on our shores.
4
Your freedom to discriminate, threaten, and cause harm is far from religious. It is an act of extreme selfishness, the kind of selfishness the world's religions all extol as evil...an act of hate only Satan himself enjoys and celebrates.
If you want a Christian theocracy, take a look at how Jesus made his vision known to the world. Hint: it wasn't political control and subjugation of any part of the populace; he didn't make campaign speeches and he didn't lead a mob to pass laws creating a state of terror over oppressed and minority communities.
Jesus didn't require any proof of insurance before healing a person, and he didn't verify gender, sexual orientation, or adherence to specific doctrine below he felt compassion. He approached women with reverence, and men without a view to domination.
Religious freedom is what you already have in America, the freedom to pursue the spiritual realm without hurting or endangering the lives of others. That's already more than most people on the planet enjoy...and it's enough to have your own freedom, without taking that freedom away from others.
4
I couldn’t agree more.
1
I feel this article fosters misunderstanding and contempt towards religious people -- particularly Jews and Christians. There is no attempt whatsoever to understand -- only criticize. Why not personally talk to the religious leaders or individuals within the community?
I would understand an article saying that vaccines are a must. You could present the clear scientific evidence. However, the tone of this essay creeps me out -- especially as it puts a picture of Jewish people at the top of the page alongside the caption about the "measles outbreak." Then, it goes on to rant against Christians and what is wrong with them since they have been known to refuse to bake cakes or give out abortion pills.
It's shamelessly anti-religious. Yes, a relationship with God happens in private, often in prayer. However, the fact is that when someone is wholeheartedly, 100% seeking to follow God and to please Him, their perspective and behavior will be different than those who are seeking to follow others or satisfy their own impulses.
And may God bless and heal the community in Williamsburg -- particularly those women and babies pictured in the article photo who may not have been aware that a photo for such an article was taken.
2
We are all free to believe anything we want, even outside of religious beliefs, but our actions are restricted when those beliefs are in conflict with and restrict the exercise of legal and Constitutional rights of others, in a nut shell.
3
It is my fervent prayer that the conservative orthodox extremists of all three religions of Abraham make immediate great endeavor toward achieving their professed desire to be next to God. Please proceed, in all due haste, BY YOURSELVES, and leave the rest of us blessedly alone.
2
For centuries, beliefs stemming from confusion, deception, and ignorance have plagued mankind. This article points out a few of the problems caused by beliefs, but leave out the many wars and dialing suffering of millions caused by beliefs. It is now time to end fixed beliefs forever; our very lives depend on it.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
1
This essay is bang on. You just have to visit very old cemeteries and see the many little graves of children who died from diseases that are considered rare in modern medicine to realize what a burden these infectious diseases was. To be able to prevent them is miraculous. The commonest cause of death in the early 20th century was infectious diseases, with TB heading the list. Today in developed countries only influenza remains on that list. In underdeveloped countries, measles is a constant killer.
Our next epidemics are upon us: multi-resistant organisms are killing more and more Americans every year. We have no vaccines for those and our antibiotic pipeline is running dry.
So, there is no excuse, other than a medically legitimate one, for infecting innocent bystanders with a disease like measles which is 95-98% preventable with a safe vaccine, because you can hide behind an individual “freedom”. In this case, it’s more like a license to kill.
1
Religious exemptions fall in a gray area of constitutional rights and law.
I agree that no one has the right to use personal faith as an excuse to discriminate in a place of public accommodation, though our right-wing Supreme Court is eroding that prohibition.
But just as religious or philosophical refusal is recognized as legitimate in military service, it must be recognized as legitimate in agreeing to put a foreign substance in one's body or that of one's children. Nothing can be more personal than that.
It may be appropriate to exclude non-vaccinated children from public schools and adults from public transport, though that is also highly discriminatory.
It would make far more sense for medical science to aim at attacking the disease vector (the infectious agent) rather than the vehicle (human beings).
And the national response to a mere 700 or so cases of measles is hyperbolic, when just a couple of generations ago we had 3-4 million cases per year.
Every child of my generation acquired measles, mumps and chicken pox, which were considered normal childhood diseases.
1
@Riversong
I think you are confusing measles with German measles, also known as Rubella, which is a different disease altogether and does not cause severe side effects in most cases (although it can cause severe birth defects in a fetus if a pregnant woman catches it). Measles can be fatal and also cause things like blindness and deafness. The vaccine for it was introduced during the 1950s (the same decade as the polio vaccine), thus making measles uncommon in the Boomer generation, thankfully.
I would also point out, as a Boomer who had chicken pox as a child, that getting a case of shingles from the same virus that lives on in your body is no fun, and depending upon where it occurs and your age at the time you contract it, can cause things like blindness and on-going pain. (Hence why I took the shingles vaccine last fall and will take the pneumonia vaccine when I turn 65.). My children had every vaccine available, including HPV. I considered it one of my most basic responsibilities as a parent to protect them from any disease I could. I cannot understand shirking this basic responsibility on either religious or (even worse) pseudo-scientific grounds. I consider it child abuse.
1
@Clare : And other people, at least as rational as you claim to be, consider 26 childhood vaccinations before the age of 2 to be child abuse.
The US requires far more childhood vaccinations than any other advanced nation and yet has the worst infant mortality rate of them all.
2
@Riversong
Infant mortality occurs due to the lack of access to prenatal care. It has literally nothing to do with the number of vaccines given to infants and young children and it is irresponsible to suggest otherwise.
2
Constitutional rights do not extend to threatening public health and safety. Period. Nor do constitutional rights extend to compelling others to share in your exercize if your rights. So, anti-vaxxers and public school prayer advocates are both are on the wrong side of the constitution. The cake maker, however, has every right to deny making a cake for a gay couple. The court has recently decided as much. We liberals may not like it but it’s within the law. The constitution doesn’t protect against hurt feelings, and religion isn’t required only to preach love thy neighbor platitudes.
2
@David B: In fact, the cake-maker has the least claim to religious exemption, since baking cakes is NOT a religious act.
If you are engaged in business to the public, there can be no discrimination. That is a long-established American legal norm, in spite of recent attempts by SCOTUS to chip away at it.
4
However, said cake baker needs to make this policy apparent from the get go or it might impede a gay couple from properly planning their event. This policy needs to be advertised up front even though it might risk putting off potential customers who would not want to deal with such a cake baker.
2
@David B
First of all, the SCOTUS decision you describe did not rule that it is acceptable to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. It was a much narrower ruling that basically said the Colorado Human Rights Commission showed animus toward the baker’s religious beliefs. It did not grant a blanket exemption for religious peoples’ businesses to refuse service to GLBTQ people.
Second, you seem to have a poor grasp of the way Public Accomodation Law works. Being refused service on the basis on an inherent characteristic is much more than “hurt feelings,” as any black persons who lived through the Jim Crow South would tell you. A cake baker may be one thing, but what about an EMT or an ER doctor who refuses to treat someone who is gay or transgender because of their religious beliefs? Does the person have to wait for another ambulance with a crew that will help them or be driven around to find an ER that will treat them as they bleed out? In many places, thanks in part to the Republicans’ success at hollowing out the ACA, there is only one ambulance service and one hospital. What then?
1
The founding fathers went along with a broad respect for religious freedom. At that time Christian diversity continued to develop. It was a serious matter as to where an individual aligned with a faith, whether deist or not. Some might agree that religious faith is more reliable than convictions arrived at through personal reasoning. So many things are done, good and evil, that seemed like a good idea at the time.
The faith the vast majority professed was not informed by the scholarship of the inner core of religious institutions. Much in the way that the overwhelming faith in science is held by the many with scant knowledge of it.
My own opinion of the bakery case runs against the bakers. I'm willing to concede that baking and selling wedding cakes is not sufficiently harmful to rule it out as right livelihood. For the sake of the world, I'd like to see such bakers take pride in making such cakes; it is a step too far to concern themselves with the dangerous uses such cakes might occasion. Failure to immunize decidedly discomforts others. The problem is exposing others to the virus. Public opinion might well support charges of negligence if not reckless endangerment in the event of a spread. So, penalties. Thought or faith policing has been tried and many will say it works But an act is clearly an act and can be dealt with lawfully.
I am 100% with you, personally religious but I don't impose my views on others. On the same sex wedding cake thing, we may have a problem, and the person writing this is an unabashed gay man. Unless the denial takes place in an area covered by some ordinance that makes it illegal to discriminate against LGB and usually but not always T,(and the Jack Phillips case did occur in Colorado where voters had indeed granted protected class status) bakers and others can discriminate. I sort of find it hypocritical to do so since Jesus reached out to all, but nothing stops them, unless of course SCOTUS rules that discrimination against Sex also covers sexual orientation and more.
1
If measles had been eliminated, vaccines would not have been needed.
We all had measles and mumps as children. It meant we stayed home for 2 weeks. It is the nasty rush in our society to send sick people to school and work that causes outbreaks. Ot the lack of vaccines.
2
@CitizenTM
It should read '- not the lack of vaccines.'
(I gotta remember not to comment on the ipad app)
@CitizenTM Wrong!! People are contagious before they have any symptoms.
It is a devil's bargain the GOP make with the Christian right: we give you a say in governing and you give us your votes.
It goes further than that. The GOP is always screaming about individual rights and freedom, usually to prevent any restrictions that could impact corporate profits. What is has led to, however, is an attitude that 'may right beats your right.' Sadly, lost is all this is the public good.
I think the title of this column needed to be "We Are Taking Religious Freedom Wrong". Besides, the concept isn't "religious freedom", but "freedom of religion".
Your freedom of religion must also admit my freedom from your religion. Otherwise one of us has a privilege not allowed the other. One of us has a right to do harm to the other, as is now manifest in the current measles outbreak, where some persons have refused to be inoculated against measles on religious grounds. There are no valid religious grounds for refusing to be inoculated and compromising the health of the community.
12
I believe 100% in an INDIVIDUAL or PRIVATE ORGANIZATION's right to discriminate for ANY reason. I find the practice abhorrent, but feel that it's 100% wrong for anyone to tell me who I must associate with or include in any endeavor, business or otherwise.
That said if a parent does not want to vaccinate on religious grounds, then by all means, prohibit their children from attending public school, with one provision: the state expenditure per student for education must be returned to the parents for home schooling. You do that, and you can knock yourselves out "discriminating" against the parents' religious beliefs.
1
@RJ
Your approach is unfeasible because it will lead to rampant sectarianism, the precursor to political and social and secession unrest. Communities and nations are founded upon contracts, small and large. Besides, it will be an administrative nightmare.
You take your state motto a little too seriously. It is better to survive and fight another day.
5
A timely and thoughtful piece.
As many observe, religious practices are fine as long they do not harm or discriminate against others. But this homily can be difficult to adjudicate in real-life situations—a task, ultimately, for the Supreme Court.
Margaret could have benefited with some decent mentoring when she was a child. Somebody to tell her that study and application are a form of prayer and lead to greater self-confidence. Also, that a bit of flirtatious chit-chat might seduce the “red-haired boy in Alabama History to smile at [her].”
Margaret goes somewhat awry toward the end of her article, when she observes, “Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God.” This is a statement of the Protestant creed, the attitude that led to the Puritans’ break from the Church of England and eventual flight to America. Some would argue that it is the sophomoric and fickle antithesis of religion, a contemporary byproduct of the freewheeling ‘60s. It is also an apt description of spirituality rather than religious faith.
Religion is nothing if not about doctrine and ritual, those practices and habits established over time. It cannot be based on the private relationship between a believer and God because such relationships sanction relativism and a proliferation of beliefs—unanchored sectarianism.
That is why I am a lapsed Catholic.
When I was young it was normal that you got the measles at least once in your life. Your parents knew that there was a very small risk connected to it but that was what it was.
Vaccinations are not without a risk. But there are risks everywhere in life. For example, you are allowed to drive very fast with 2000 kg of steel. Every year a lot of people are killed that way.
2
Freedom of private speech and private religious practice end when safety, health, and basic public laws are violated.
A private company/school/other institution can do what it wants as long as it does not violate safety or American national and local laws.
I do not agree that the bakery discussed in the article is obligated to serve a customer, as long as a law is not violated. The owner cannot discriminate racially or based on religion, but as a private enterprise, can refuse to provide its private service to whomever else.
The point is that they are violating the law. In one's personal sphere, one can pretty much be intolerant; however, when you operate a business, open to the public, you enter the public sphere where we have laws protecting people from some types of intolerance. So I don't understand your point.
4
@Glenn Thomas
There is no law in most states that says that a private enterprise must provide a non-essential, NON-HEALTH-RELATED service to everyone, as long as he is not discriminating ag race or religion, which IS AGAINST THE LAW.
Functioning in a public place has nothing to do with it. If I operate a private beauty parlor and do not want to treat people with straight hair, I am not legally or ethically required to take care of those with straight hair. I am violating no law and endangering no one's safety.
Trump’s need for Evangelical election support is incalculable. That many of his theocratic orders will (or ought to be) struck down on appeal to the Supreme Court is immaterial. The Evangelicals will only support him all-the-more for the trying.
@Lewis Sternberg
I will also support him. He cannot, however, violate a law, -which he has not.
I do not care if Evangelicals like him. If his actions are consistent with my opinions, I will support him. Free country.
The supreme court solved this problem for us long ago (1878) in the case Reynolds V US, involving a Utah man who sued over that state's ban on polygamous marriages:
"Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?
So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this 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. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances."
9
At last, a voice of sanity. Thank you, I wish I had written this.
7
The right to practice any religious system does not include the right to impose it upon anyone else. The religious right needs to read the Constitution and for that matter so do the courts.
11
@Fredric Kleinberg
Is the religious right imposing its creed on others?
Anyone can stand on a soapbox and scream his beliefs as long as he is not standing in the middle of a busy street, thereby endangering human life, his and those of the drivers. He is also not violating any law, unless his practices are illegal or threaten safety.
The public erasure of word God from public swearings-in and from a publicly-issued coin is now being contested. These practices are legal and 200 years old, which means there is the weight of history in their favor. Separation of church and state does not mean elimination of the importance of basic religious standards of morality [Noahide laws] necessary for the healthy functioning of society. The Founding Fathers recognized this truism, and it has held firm against moral relativism.
@complex subject "Is the religious right imposing its creed on others?" YES - ask any woman.
3
Yea. Freedom of Religion implies Freedom From Religion.
1
Sadly, the obvious solution is to engage lawyers and sue individuals and organisations that through their inaction regarding vaccination, endanger the lives of others. Hold the assorted churches, synagogues etc, that typically have tax exempt status responsible and go after them and their precious money.
5
Everyone can adhere to the faith of their choice (or upbringing). If they want to live strictly within their own group according to their rules, then I don't care, as long as it doesn't violate legal rules or endanger others. But it goes too far for me if they want to impose their version of religious rules on others.
6
Wonder, how do Muslim countries and communities in non-Muslim countries manage to follow the dictates of religious practices and texts in both public and private life? Are there no secularists and activists to advocate against these old practices and discrimination against religious minorities? Can non Halal meat, leave alone pork, be sold in a Muslim country?
It’s an odd argument to make that religion is a private matter. For some people it may be but for most it’s not. Most share their beliefs and doubts with others, many pray in houses of worship, attend religious schools and institutes, volunteer their time for charitable work.
Religion, like politics, is part of the public fabric of the country. The nation was quite literally set up with such freedom in mind. There certainly are times, though, that some religiously inspired actions need to be curtailed for the general welfare but the nation needs to very cautious and judicious in deciding what to put a damper on. The standard shouldn’t be based on an assumption that religion is solely a private matter, any more than we should claim that politics is solely a private matter, just between the voter and the voting booth.
3
@Chris
I would like freedom from your religion and everyone else's. Our country was founded on the separation of church and state for good reason. We can have a moral, decent and fair country & further humanity in general without religion. The sooner we get about it the better.
3
@Chris: Projection of human nature onto the whole universe is narcissism in the raw. Where it prevails, much of human activity becomes idolatry unrelated to natural causes and effects. We are evolved social animals who both cooperate and compete. Claiming to know what God thinks only takes its name in vain.
@Steve Bolger Freedom of religion is a basic tenet of our democracy. It's protection is built into our constitution, into the founding of the country. You didn't address that because you couldn't get beyond your attack on religion.
The universe view of humans may be different but you have a right to yours just as much as I have a right to mine. In truth, yours is as good as mine and is as good as anybody else's, they are all just guesses based upon hugely limited knowledge. We exist on a drop of water in a vast ocean. Our arrogance leads all of us to believe we have all the answers.
"...remember that banning prayer in public school never stopped any child from praying. It just prevents students who don’t belong to the dominant religion from feeling ostracized."
Oh, no, it's a much more important aim than that. It prevents proselytizing to a captive secular audience, who are of easily impressionable age.
22
I think the First Amendment is just fine as it is.
Religion has arranged for its own demise in the United States. I ought to know. I'm an officer in a local "progressive church" that doesn't mind that I'm an agnostic. Nevertheless, I do some volunteer work for them. In the process I've become acquainted with many pastors and other religious workers. Most of them are underemployed or unemployed. Most are broke. Most are generally sincere, with notable exceptions. Sincerity doesn't prevent being misguided.
Millennials appear to have no use for religion--they don't conceal this. Really, I think most Americans have no use for religion. They use it to dominate people, but it's a transparent scam to the point where no one takes it seriously anymore. The coffin got heavy with nails when Trump was elected.
I know quite a few "liberals" from other progressive groups I associate with, and many "moderates," too. If we suggest a political meeting at a church for convenience, half of them won't set foot in one.
What I'm trying to say is that religion has committed suicide in the US so often that the loathing from many people is incurable and intense. I know people who were Catholic for 70 years and quit the church, too. Organized crime, in another parlance.
The fact that the Bible mentions slavery a lot, admonishes to treat slaves well but never condemns it speaks volumes. That fact alone justified two centuries of oppression here. Fascists always turn to the Bible, in times of need.
10
Your observation rings true.
And a major accelerant in the great migration out of organized religion is the sordid public embrace by white American evangelicals — the most loudly, ostentatiously “Christian” demographic — of a corrupt, philandering, cruel and narcissistic bigot as their new saviour.
Rarely has the hypocrisy and cynicism hiding behind professed values been revealed so dramatically.
2
“It’s time to stop giving believers a pass just because their beliefs happen to run counter to the laws of the nation they live in. Human lives may depend on it.”
Thank you for this article.
I live in Texas.
Today I heard about the latest onslaught of anti-LGBT legislation wending its way through the state legislature.
Not surprising as we've been here before. But, seriously disconcerting. Senate Bill 17, for example (as NPR reported) “specifically allows licensed professionals to discriminate based on sincerely held religious beliefs…state licensed professionals of all stripes — from doctors and pharmacists to plumbers and electricians — to deny services on religious grounds.”
It seems to me that certain ‘religious beliefs’ in certain red states take center stage and these are the bills that make it out of the calendars committees and into debate. Again and again.
So, I pay taxes. I still paid my taxes when I was morally opposed to the Iraq war. Do I get to not pay my taxes because I have moral objections to where the money is going?
Just who decides which religious beliefs get to be front and center, worthy of policy and perhaps a bump up to SCOTUS?
To end, I am the mother of gay son. But invoking this waters down my outrage – making it seem specific and personal.
I object broadly to actions that are blatantly discriminatory, highly judgmental and cherry picked/targeted at certain communities.
I am tired of the whole charade.
27
In short, could not agree more.
3
Reinhold Niebuhr observed: “There is no deeper pathos in the spiritual life of man than the cruelty of righteous people. If any one idea dominates the teachings of Jesus, it is his opposition to the self-righteousness of the righteous.”
14
"...Widespread misinformation..." 1st Am., “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Freedom of religion = free exercise clause (fec) and establishment clause (ec).
Fec, people can believe what they want; Congress can't infringe on beliefs, but can regulate illegal conduct furthering beliefs. Congress can't infringe or prohibit beliefs, only illegal conduct furthering beliefs (R., 98 U.S. 145, (1878); S., 494 U.S. 872, (1990)). What about, believe what you want, but don’t harm regarding conduct furthering beliefs supplemented by no illegalities furthering religious beliefs? Consequently, courts need only interpret harm & legality.
Ec, government (gvt) can't pass laws preferring or aiding one religion over another. Ec is relevant when gvt is accused of granting a special benefit or deference to religion or a particular religion. Constitutionality = courts must find the primary purpose of law to be secular, primary effect of law must neither advance nor inhibit religion (effect of law is incidental), law must not foster excessive gvt entanglement, supplemented by O’Conner’s Endorsement Test analyzing whether law appears to an ordinary person to endorse a religion over other religions or religion v. being agnostic (L., 403 U.S. 602 (1971)). Don’t discriminate nor hate, invoke religious neutrality. Courts would only need to interpret whether a law discriminated against religion or a non-religion.
1
The core weakness in this piece is the line "Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God." This assertion has no link whatsoever to US Constitutional jurisprudence or to a couple of centuries of ordinary American life. She just made it up and assumed that I'd go for it. I don't. Like other parts of the Bill of Rights, religious liberty is constantly negotiated by each generation in culture and in law. I'd be likely to agree that a business owner shouldn't legally be able to turn away customers based on race or sex (already federal law) or sexual orientation (not yet federal law) - but I don't think that I want to see government officials compelling artists to make unique and custom works of art (and a good wedding cake is a unique and custom piece of art). Is the author willing to be viewpoint neutral on her cake example? For example, if we compel the custom cake for the lesbian wedding, do we ALSO compel a bakery owned and staffed by black people to make a custom super racist celebration of white supremacy cake? Confederate flags, happy slaves, the whole deal? Because that would be the logical implication of "If you can do it then you must do it." Or does the author simply seek power to bend others to her will? More likely the latter, I think.
5
If the bakery makes wedding cakes for sale to the public, they must make the cake for any member of said public requesting such a cake. If they make cakes adorned with symbols of white supremacy they must make one for anyone requesting such a cake. The bakery need not make a white supremacy cake if they do not already offer such cakes for sale. Therein lies the difference.
2
There is an obvious distinction between a celebration of love and a celebration of hate.
The law — and you — should have the wisdom to know the difference and act accordingly.
2
Oh my. The contortions of this mind are painful.
1
As a non-religious person, I become very frustrated at religious people pushing their beliefs to the detriment of others. More so when people of the same faith cannot even agree what the beliefs are. How can society offer them a reasonable degree of latitude when there is no consensus of what is a "religious belief" or what it is in relation to a particular issue.
Personally, I disagree with religious exemptions to laws. But if we are going to allow them, religions need to settle on what their beliefs are before any exemptions are considered. If most Christians don't believe that vaccinations are evil then exemptions should not even be considered.
If exemptions are granted for religious beliefs, then protections (and compensations) must be offered to others who will be adversely affected.
3
I think that this author's linking of the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, the school prayer issue and the Measles outbreak is flawed in both logical and legal ways. First off, the baker case only involves two parties and has no effect on the broader community, while the measles outbreak does, and second, the school prayer issue question turns on whether or not the government becomes involved in imposing religion upon a child. They seem to be willfully ignorant of the realities of the case at hand.
Another point: I have seen many opinion articles from many major news articles that all trivialize the work done by our federal and state judges. Even NYT writers, who are usually pretty good about this, interject their own policy views into the discussion of a legal matter where it should not belong. For example, I read a death penalty op-ed that argued for the abolition of the penalty because of a number of valid and reasonable policy claims. But this is the problem. Everything they said, while completely reasonable, did not give proper weight to the precedent and legal arguments that judges actually use to decide cases. This is particularly terrible because every time policy arguments are thrown into a legal debate it politicizes an already over politicized issue, putting at risk the rights of American citizens. Unfortunately, I don't see this ending in the near future, despite the efforts of many lawyers and judges.
4
@JH - "First off, the baker case only involves two parties and has no effect on the broader community".
Well, no, that's not true. Suppose other store owners and tradespeople also felt they could claim that selling their flowers or their fabric or their dishwashing service in aid of a wedding was also somehow a religious blessing of the event - as the very politicized group that brought the baker's case to court promoted?
You could then find all sorts of the "faithful" out there, cheerfully claiming that they'd also block service to interfaith marriages, or to - like an accountant I'd read about recently - announce to her client that she doesn't do taxes for same-sex couples.
No. If you claim that law and judges are important, and they are, because cases create precedent. One time the Supreme Court says descrimination in commerce is allowable based on the tender conscience of the proprietor, then you have everyone permitted to act against anyone if it offends their (or their corporate) "conscience".
Try and explain how a corporation can have a conscience, since Hobby Lobby* found that, then explain how any of these cases isn't important.
That's why the religious right litigated and why we have to fight back. These same pious people present Sharia as a threat to our system of CIVIL law, while they try to impose their religious law instead.
*Of course, Hobby Lobby's "conscience" was fine with paying terrorists so they could smuggle stolen Iraqi artifacts here.
18
This article chooses easy examples to tackle a complex problem. Hardly anybody would argue that spreading measles should be part of your religious duties. Actually, most people who refuse to vaccinate are inspired by Goop rather than by God. The ultra-Orthodox vaccination refuseniks are breaking the most important commandment in Judaism, pikuach nefesh, which is to save a life. Similarly, St. Augustine would no doubt be be astonished to hear that abstaining from cake-baking is now a Christian duty. But what about the burka? Quebec is now considering a law to prohibit conspicuous religious clothing in public spaces. No burka, no kippah, no cross. A similar law existed in Turkey before Erdogan where, arguably, it helped to preserve the secular character of the state. I would be in favor of a similar law in the US. Would you? And if no, why not? What about circumcision? Should it be outlawed, just like FGM is? But then, why should we allow tattoos or ritual scarification? The state inevitably encroaches on the private practice of religion. The question is how to decide which religious practices are legitimate and which are not.
5
That reasoning is trying to create a problem where there is none.
The deciding factor is, Does it harm anyone else? It's a simple matter of human rights.
Clearly, wearing a religious symbol harms no one, and prohibiting it is an unacceptable form of behavior control by the state.
The same goes for discrimination against same-sex marriage.
1
Other than being motivated by religious belief, the refusal to contract to make a wedding cake bears little similarity to causing a public health crisis by refusing to vaccinate.
The former ethical offense can be tolerated since the potential harm to others is minimal, while the latter offense, is a form of reckless endangerment.
What happened to common sense?
7
The potential for harm is not minimal to those affected.
Allowing the abrogation of the rights of a minority portion of society is ethically unnacceptable.
3
While there may be some religions that frown upon vaccination, Orthodox Judaism is not one of them. The picture of Orthodox Jews in Williamsburg which accompanies this opinion slanders Orthodox Judaism by suggesting that the reluctance of some Orthodox Jews to vaccinate their children is based on religion. It is not. That reluctance is based on ignorance or twisting of the facts, both of which exist among many different groups including some Orthodox Jews. For Orthodox Jews, refusing to vaccinate is not a matter of religious freedom. If anything, Orthodox Jews do not have the religious freedom to forego vaccinations.
10
Most of the unvaccinated children now at risk for measles and other diseases are the children of parents who were vaccinated years ago by their caring parents. Do they ever complain about having been vaccinated? I'm old enough that most of the vaccines now available were just dreams for the future and let me tell you having polio or any of the other diseases is far worse than an imaginary fear of autism.
What religion says it's okay to deliberately risk your child's life when it isn't necessary?
5
The most graphic definition of Freedom is you have the right to swing your fist, but that right ends before it hits my nose.
Many Christians, especially the evangelicals and devout, as the vast majority Religion in the US, have been trying to ram it down the throats of the rest of us. How many declare, in direct contradiction to all evidence, that we were founded as "Christian nation", despite the fact that many of the Founding Fathers were Deists, and that the very first Amendment says the exact opposite.
Yet they persist, because, ultimately, ALL religions are jingoist, seeking to convert, or, in lieu of that, force people by force, to follow THEIR religion.
As a boy, in a Hudson River town, every year someone would push to put a nativity scene on the High School lawn, despite there 4 churches surrounding the school. But that wasn't enough! They wanted more--and that was the 1960's! Nothing has changed for those jingoist "Christians" forcing conformity on the rest of us, and howling when they are stopped that they are "persecuted" and it violates THEIR freedom of Religion.
What about MY freedom of Religion? and every other non-Christian in America?
11
This editorial doesn't even touch on the ways medical workers and religious-based hospital systems are threatening people's health and safety. The stories of the disregard for women's health needs coming out of Catholic-run hospital systems are terrifying.
Your religion is precisely that: Yours. It is not your right to inflict it on others.
25
@Gail Schipper
"The stories of the disregard for women's health needs coming out of Catholic-run hospital systems are terrifying."
You know, the stories I hear about the goings on in the Schipper household are just terrifying! It's the talk of the neighborhood!
1
If someone wants to open their own business and serve only select members of society, that should be their prerogative. It doesn't mean we need to grant them any federal subsidies. I'm free to not use their services. If you want a cake, go somewhere they will make it for you. Let the free market sort it out.
4
@Ben. No. If you decide to serve the public, you serve all of it.
You are demanding the rights to reestablishing discrimination, be it drinking fountains or health care or whether you can use a particular gas station, etc.
We fought a war plus effort for a hundred 150 years afterwards , to move beyond that sort of stain on our country and that attitude for our people.
7
And if a gas station refused to serve you because you’re a man and they only serve women? What if you live in a rural area, and there is but one accessible mechanic to service your vehicle, but the business owner found out you’re divorced, and, oh shucks, that’s against his religion and he doesn’t serve divorcees. I’m concerned you think the issue applies only to gays and dessert cakes. This issue pertains to vital areas of public life—access to housing, employment, and the goods and services of the marketplace—and it’s deadly serious to anyone wanting to live in a free society. Don’t like it? Do as the Amish do...withdraw from wider society, live your purity in solitude. Sorry, the capitalist marketplace can’t sort this out.
3
@Ben So if you owned a grocery store, you should be able to hang a sign in the window that says "No Blacks or Jews"? Of course not. So why is it okay to deny service to a gay couple? When religion foments bigotry the religious freedom ends, full stop.
3
On 25 June 1962 the landmark Supreme Court ruling overturning school prayers in public school enraging Rev. Billy Graham, Cardinal Francis Spellman; both favoring Constitutional Amendment countermanding the decision. President John F. Kennedy, upholding his primary Presidential Campaign promise regarding separation of church/state providing a most soothing elixir: "We have in this case a very easy remedy and that is to pray ourselves...we can pray a good deal more at home, we can attend our churches with a good deal more fidelity". (Full passage lifted from my senior undergraduate thesis.)
7
Doctors who refuse to treat patients or cops or firefighters who refuse to help people or theater majors who refuse to play parts of people they don’t like confuse a role with their personal concerns. It is outrageous that we allow this.
9
The problem discussed in this essay is further compounded by the open-ended nature of religious belief.
By this I mean that anyone can create a new religion and fashion its tenets and moral rules, whenever he/she/they choose to do so. Subsequently, the founder(s) or later members of the congregation may freely add/subtract/modify the tenets and rules. Even individual members of the congregation can selectively choose which extant principles they will abide by and which they may ignore. Probably everybody has either seen these things happen and/or actually acted them out.
This open-ended nature of religious belief has also allowed a great deal of really evil stuff, along with the good. History provides multiple examples of religions that condone or even require human sacrifice, torture, slavery, murder of religious adversaries, discriminatory treatment of others, and, of course, unhealthy practices.
This open-ended reality is often ignored due to the human tendency to equate "religion" with one's particular beliefs.
4
Absolutely right. Religious freedom has nothing to do with imposing one's own conscientious convictions on others. It's about being able to profess one's faith (or lack thereof) without fear of persecution. No one's conscience is violated by having to obey generally applicable laws that everyone is asked to obey, as for example laws prohibiting discrimination and laws protecting public health. Religious faith is not and ought not be a license to violate the civil rights of those persons whose lawful conduct one deems sinful. Nor is it reasonable to think that in exercising one's liberty of conscience one may place an entire community at risk of contagion.
Mutual tolerance requires mutual regard, which limits what men and women of faith may ask of society at large and of the state. To see this limitation as a restriction on religious freedom is to insist that the requirements of one's own faith be obligatory for everyone. This is not a defense of the liberty of conscience. It is a form of imperialism and one suspects that its aim is not access to the kingdom of heaven but rather the acquisition of power here on earth.
12
Great article. I couldn't agree more. People seem to be impossibly incapable of being reasonable when it comes to their evangelistic tendencies. What about my rights? Freedom of religion should include my right to be free from religion. The framers of our constitution understood explicitly that religion influenced government is incompatible with a truly free society. Religious people should appreciate the fact that they have more freedom to practice their religious "brand" as long as they respect everyone's right to do the same...including our right as a society to make and enforce laws for the benefit of all even when it runs contrary to whatever dogma they follow.
12
This all points out a fundamental truth that most are unwilling to accept. Namely that "freedom of religion" is in fact impossible. The culture and laws we live in effectively prescribes a form of secular religion. To the extent that that "secular religion" is compatible with the dominant religion(s), no one really notices.
Elements of religion break down into two categories -- ones which are effectively irrelevant, such as things like how many gods you believe there are, what God looks like, etc. And ones which affect your behaviour and interaction in society.
For that latter category it again divides into two segments. Some elements could be (but should not required to be) easily accommodated, such as offering several food choices, others can not be reasonably accommodated for all religions (even simple things like having a different "day of rest" is impossible to accommodate for a very small employer who needs to remain open on that day).
If I want to pray 8 hours a day, that's unreasonable. If I believe I deserve a 6 week holiday each year that's not reasonable to force upon an employer paid or otherwise, irrespective of what my so-called religion says. (But this would be a great idea to adopt from the "secular religions" of Europe).
Freedom of belief - yes, freedom of practice - impossible.
(This also doesn't even touch on the fact that trying to allow "freedom of religion" requires the government be able to define religion which is in itself unconstitutional)
2
Freedom to practice your religion or beliefs is guaranteed by the First Amendment. Nothing should ever change that, not the bellyaching by the 45th, not by the white supremacists or anyone else for that matter (esp. when it isn’t as common as Christianity or Atheism).
However, just like everything else, that freedom comes with a responsibility. The responsibility to enjoy this ‘freedom’ without endangering public safety or the well-being of others.
From something as simple as a person driving ‘while drunk’ and putting the public and other motorists’ lives at risk to an individual or a family deciding against vaccinating themselves or their kids on religious or philosophical grounds, but all the while insisting on using public services, thereby exposing the public at large to infectious diseases.
Both are unacceptable and demand immediate rectification.
Otherwise, we run the risk of having these freedoms and privileges taken away from everyone, including law-abiding, socially-conscious people, who fully understand the ramifications of ‘misuse and abuse’ of said freedoms.
As the expression goes, ‘a rotten apple spoils the barrel.’
5
The whole notion of religious exemptions is wrongheaded.
If a law is just, then a religious belief, however sincere, cannot make that law unjust so as to warrant an exemption. If a law is already unjust, then everyone should already be exempt without any need for a religious exemption. For example, if a law mandates not covering your face, that law is just or unjust on its own merits, and either devout Muslim women suffering under their veils of male dominance cannot be excused by a bad religious excuse, or everyone must be exempt on request. If a law to protect all citizens justly mandates vaccination for measles, then a fanciful religious excuse cannot override the good morals of the law.
The law should make no mention of religion. All that matters is whether the law just or not. If just, religion is no excuse. If unjust, any excuse or none is equally good.
9
The strangest and most dangerous methods are often used to establish ego when it is weak. What is the characteristic that these people, like the radicals of contemporary politics, from both ends of the spectrum, that only can espouse strength by employing dangerous, conflicted, self-destructive and illogical reasoning.
3
This is a discussion we need to be having in a much more high profile manner than is currently happening. Thanks for writing this piece. I think you totally nailed it.
16
When will we learn in a civil society the Constitution is more important than the Bible.
The Constitution is public, the Bible is private.
20
If you want to exercise your religion to the point of your own illness or death that’s fine with me but when that decisions means that an infectious disease will run rampant and kills others then your decision is no longer your own.
Your religious freedom ends at my nose. Keep out of my home and my doctors office and keep your beliefs away from the medical care that has proven effective and helped save more lives than all your allleged pro life marching.
This supposed to be a country with NO RELGIOUS PRIVILEGES. Exemption from the law on the basis of your religions IS A RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGE. It is unconstitutional and it’s wrong.
443
@Justice Holmes: Religious exemption is fully constitutional, as the law has recognized religious prohibitions on military service from our nation's inception.
One could argue that a draft exemption might put another person at risk of dying in battle, but that does not mitigate against the constitutional right of refusal.
Similarly, no law can force a person or a child's parent to put a foreign substance in the body. It's not the person's refusal to be vaccinated that causes disease transmission, but the infectious agent. It is the latter that medical science must attack.
1
@Justice Holmes
"Religious privileges" have been granted to the Amish and other minority religions, now jeopardizing public health and safety. Public schools and US Congress should legislate a policy to ban unvaccinated children and adults from enrolling in their schools (make it illegal), to avoid what looks like, excuse my language, a measles terrorism, as a ploy of biochemical warfare. Let's keep our schools and communities safe.
10
@Riversong Until science can eradicate the agent, prevention is the only option. And for the parent that decides against vaccinations, don’t think your entitled to send them to public school to endanger the health of the children of responsible parents.
22
It is very simple, nothing more than the story lead after the headline, "We have a right to practice our beliefs, but we don’t have the right to discriminate against others, or endanger their lives.". There should be nothing else needed. Your rights to practice your religion do not include impinging on my rights and freedoms.
18
We have to discuss private versus public sphere. Public health has no place in the private sphere, and as such the discussion of the baker and the anti vaxxer is actually 2 different discussions.
The baker's refusal to bake a cake is private matter.
The anti vaxxer refusing to vaccinate is a public health matter.
In my opinion, the baker has freedom in their private business to say no to a cake. The people who live in the baker's town also have the freedom to patronize or not patronize at the baker's store. The baker, however, does not have this freedom if they work for a public entity like a school or hospital, where they are subject to the rules and regulations of that public institution and can not act based on their personal opinions and beliefs.
If we tell this baker in the private shop that they have to bake a specific cake, aren't we restricting the freedoms of the baker to practice their private business as they see fit? This seems anti-thetical to our basic freedoms.
Public health, on the other hand, requires that individuals who live in our very interconnected society must do their civic duty (vaccinate against highly contagious diseases) in order to continue to participate in this society and partake in all of the amazing benefits that come with it. In the public sphere, one's individual freedom stops where harm to others begins.
6
@Endocrinologist No, the baker's refusal to provide a cake is NOT private. If that business is labelled a public accommodation (a specific legal term) under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it is required to serve all the public.
33
It did serve all the public. It did not discriminate based on any characteristic of the customers.
1
@Paul,
Being gay is just as much a personal characteristic as being black or white, male or female.
When I was in public elementary school - in the 1950s - we had
a "devotion" every morning. I had no idea there was anything
other than Christianity. They certainly didn't waste any
resources teaching us that part of the real world.
By age nineteen I was in the military and overseas in a place
where NOBODY was Christian~! Based on my narrowly
channeled education it was clear to me that these people were crazy.
Fortunately I was there long enough to reach enlightenment.
245
@Zetelmo
Did your enlightenment extend to realizing that all religions are equally crazy?
13
I remember the measles and the summer scares about polio. Polio was eradicated before I began kindergarten but I still remember the fear before the vaccine was available. Believe whatever you’d like but do not endanger others. No vaccination no school in the absence of a health issue that renders vaccination dangerous or impossible. I have friends who scoff at flu shots but a friend lost her husband (who had an underlying health issue) to flu this past winter. Never take health for granted.
203
There are so many people who have misguided beliefs about the flu shot....it truly amazes me. My husband’s grandmother was ill two years in a row with the flu because she refused the shot. (It will give me the flu.) She died the 2nd year after contracting the flu again.
19
@Retiree Lady
I was one of the first people in the world to receive the Salk vaccine. A "Polio Pioneer." Polio was such a scourge, I had friends with it, my parents didn't hesitate to let me be a guinea pig. When the results came back positive, they revealed who got the shot and who got a placebo.
I got the real deal. And I support mandatory vaccinations except for the few who can't have them. No religious exemptions. No Ignorance exemptions.
13
"Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God."
I agree with all of this piece except for that sentence, or at least how it could easily be interpreted. Try telling that to Martin Luther King, Jr. Try telling that to William Sloane Coffin, Jr., the no-nukes activist. (I had the privilege of hearing him speak once, and remember him saying: "Many people believe that if God rules through love, the devil rules through hate. That is not true. The devil rules through fear.") Try telling that to the Jewish, Muslim and Christian clergy who took to the streets to protest against racism here in Charlottesville on August 12th, 2017.
Religion cannot be used as an excuse to break the law, except insofar as the law might compel one person to harm another (e.g., Fugitive Slave Act, Nuremberg Laws). It cannot be used as an excuse to discriminate. But it does have a vital public role to play in appealing to the conscience and a higher moral order to which we are all subject. It does not have a right to impose, but it does have a right to speak, in public, and join its voice to all the others that make up our democracy.
3
The Founding Fathers were skeptical of a religion/state nexus. I think they saw how that caused so many wars and so much suffering in Europe. Over the years since we reinforced the separation. Until maybe the 1950s when we made our national motto "In God We Trust". That was the camel's nose under the edge of the tent. Now the whole camel wants to climb in side.
Religion needs separation from state for its own good because religions differ in their beliefs about many things, secular and religious. Whose religion shall have the last word? Millions have died in disagreements about the answer to that question.
In our country today there are too many diverse religions and subsets of religions to allow any one of them to co-opt the power of the state. Religions, hands off the state. And state, hands off religions.
253
@Charles Tiege The smartest thing our founding fathers did was to separate politics and religion. Too bad some of our politicians don't heed that lesson. As you point out, millions have died over whose interpretation of the bible was the correct one. I don't think that is what Jesus meant.
35
@Charles Tiege . I am not at all sure why you would say 'And state, hands off religions.' I have never seen it as a problem. It is only religion in politics that is problematic.
15
@Charles Tiege In addition to "In God We Trust," the words "under God" were added to "One nation" in the Pledge of Allegiance, which itself gained predominant societal adherence as a rote ritual during the McCarthy era. Popular indoctrination and regimentation.
Much of the greatly-manipulated fright about Russia and Communism was that they were "GODLESS communists!"
It's quite obvious now that since Russia has returned to Russian Orthodoxy as its state religion, Christianist rightists in the US feel more affinity for Russians than for the US. Ergo, Trump shenanigans get a free pass from Christianists and therefore also GOP tacit acceptance of them. It's a devil's bargain, but short-sighted thinking never hurt anyone - anything to get Roe overturned. Their Cyrus is just doing bidness with their new religious ally, what's wrong with that?
15
I teach ethics and can tell you this: it's unethical to refuse service based on someone belonging to a group. Ethics require that you provide the best possible service to anyone regardless of whether you perceive that person as akin or foreign to you. That does NOT mean that you, personally, must do so but that you must ensure that someone within your enterprise does, so if you have a religious objection, it's ethical to pass a client or customer along (provided it's done in a manner that doesn't reveal your objections). Can any person claim to be religious and yet unethical? If you accept the work, you accept the ethical requirements. You're free to reject that employment. If an employer requires that you say that Swiss cheese from Switzerland is made from milk from inferior cows, you say that whether you believe it or not OR you pass the person to someone who will say it or you DON'T TAKE THE JOB. Finally, if your objection is based on Christian teaching, then take these words to heart: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
133
@EL
I'm afraid you are conflating religious laws and secular laws and this gives rise to your several problems.
1) Murder is a crime under American law. Selling a gun to someone you know intends to murder someone with it is aiding in the commission of a crime. One should not aid in the commission of a crime. Gay marriage is not a crime; in fact, it is a right. Selling a wedding cake to a gay couple to be used in their wedding is not aiding in the commission of a crime. Your analogy breaks down. The seller's religious beliefs are not society's problem.
2) Until someone can demonstrate that any god exists, the discussion of whether that god has a better understanding of ethics than we do is a bit premature. Certainly, the morality of the god of the bible is inferior to that of virtually everyone I know (well, Benedict Donald, probably not so much). In any case, if your religion's edicts don't even make sense to you, why should the rest of us respect them to the degree that we excuse you from obeying the laws of our country because you hold nonsensical propositions to be true?
3) Religious strangers I randomly encounter in my life are not my parents and I have no need for their attempts to make me conform to their beliefs. As long as I obey the laws of our country I should be able to live my life as I please. Someone else does not get to dictate my beliefs to me. If I am to be free to practice my religion, I must be free from any coercion to practice yours
40
@EL That is a fatuous conflation of parental duties and engaging in the public marketplace of commerce.
Unless you view commerce as a paternalistic/ maternalistic exercise - in these days of corporate ascendancy in the Reagan Restoration, in which case that would be an understandable conceit.
5
@EL
You, not Peter Quince, miss the point entirely. We live in a secular nation, governed by the rule of law. A bakery, like a hotel, restaurant, or other businesses offering services to the public, is a public accommodation, a type of facility, public or private, open to use by the public. Under US federal law, public accommodations must be accessible to the disabled and may not discriminate on the basis of "race, color, religion, or national origin." Many states also add sexual orientation and/or gender identity to that list.
Your baker, no matter how deep his religious beliefs is, under the law, a bigot. His private faith has no sway in the public realm. And millions of right thinking, ethically and morally upright people believe that bigotry, whether it comes with your mother's milk or your Sunday sermon, is wrong -- and more importantly, it is illegal.
As for your bringing in the issue of love, Christian or otherwise: love has nothing to do with this issue any more than faith. It is the law that rules.
Even more inappropriate and insulting to those who do not share your narrow beliefs is the comparison of love for one's children, and how we seek to teach them what we may believe is wrong according to our religious or other private beliefs, to the baker's or any other person's right to discriminate against a fellow citizen's right to "live however they want" if they abide by the laws of the land.
18
There are quite a few laws/rules in our religious texts that were common sense in the age of no refrigeration, biological control, or informed hygiene. We’re better educated and informed 2000 years later (at least some of us). Trichinosis isn’t prevalent in pork, we can homogenize and pasteurize, we can disinfect. And, we can vaccinate.
These old rules were meant to protect ancient society, if everyone went along. Vaccination serves the same purpose. But forcing your beliefs on me if mine are different and fundamentally of no impact to you is an expression of oppression and out of bounds.
89
Except that most religious rules concerning food did not come about as common sense regulations due to food-borne illnesses. The entire Middle East very happily ate pork until the Jewish religion banned it for their members.
These restrictions are distinguishing features that set apart your group from the neighboring people. Which, in the heterogeneous area that is the Middle East, was a cultural, rather than a public health measure.
2
@Julia,
I don't think we know anything about the origin of religious laws about diet and male circumcism.
The fact that they set certain groups apart may be a result rather than a cause.
5
@historyRepeated
This is a myth that will never die. Strange how those who did not follow the dietary mandates of kashrut (??) weren't dying.
They were instituted to differentiate their tribe from other tribes.
Nothing to do with bad meat.
I have been an evangelical since I was in my 20s - I am now retired. If one is an evangelical it means, among other things, that one has a high view of scripture and that their relationship with God is a vital personal relationship. Jesus said we will have trouble in the world if we follow him. When he was attacked he did not plead with the Roman governor for an exemption. Instead he told Pilate that he (Pilate) had no authority to attack Jesus unless it was granted from heaven and left it at that. If we follow Jesus' example we won't be seeking exemptions from anyone, especially the government. Instead, we will serve each person in our sphere with love and kindness. Serving a gay couple doesn't shake one's own relationship with God - God did not set us out to judge our neighbor. Seeking and depending on an exemption for "religious liberty" is contrary to scripture (our liberty is in Jesus) and ties one to a worldly institution.
234
@David Weinschrott: Not sure I followed the details of this, but basically you are saying that churches should not be tax-exempt?
13
@David Weinschrott
while serving each person in your sphere, you should not also encourage them to move away from God (sin).
@David Weinschrott
Your beliefs describe how evangelicals used to be, before the 1980s when they were corrupted by pursuing politics and becoming part of the GOP " brand."
I know many evangelicals who have beliefs similar to yours; and most of them have found that their churches have gotten way into right-wing politics and they've left.
40
I am a teacher. I have taught LGBTQ students. I guess it's a good thing for them that I don't object to the people they are. Suppose that God whispers in my ear that they are all evil and I really shouldn't give them services because He told me not to. As absurd that that sounds, it's no different from other circumstances listed in the article. If your religion tells you to hurt others, it's time for an new religion, or perhaps none at all.
296
@George
It's not crazy. Michelle Bachman ran for President because God told her to. Still small voice vs kindliness, tolerance, duty.
6
@George
A popular Christian phrase is "punish the sin, not the sinner". We are all sinners after all, and to think we are not is itself a sin.
3
@George The bakers in question are not denying ordinary customer service ("one dozen brownies, please!") to people based upon sexual orientation. They are refusing to take custom design gigs in which the content of the gigs run counter to their faith. That is at the core of the argument about a lot of this stuff. Nobody that I know of really claims that a public accommodation ought to turn customers away because they happen to be lesbian or gay.
4
The erosion of bodily autonomy that the author argues in favor of nodes poorly for other classes of persons she might wish to see protected. Would she, in the 1980s, have favored banning gay men from public transportation and public schools because the mechanism of HIV transmission was at that time not well understood? Does she favor banning newly vaccinated children who receive the live measles vaccine until they are not shedding virus or have not contracted the disease from the vaccine itself? Would she have favored Japanese internment camps when the majority believed Japanese citizens to be likely disloyal? Does she favor forcing gay bakers to bake cakes with anti-gay slogans for conservative parties? How about forced sterilization for conservative Christians or other undesirables?
A free society (and I say this as a liberal progressive whose children are vaccinated) demands that persons have the freedom to exercise their right of informed refusal to medical care. I presume she is all about “my body my choice” - where is the choice?
2
People should absolutely have the right to refuse medical procedures on their bodies. BUT they need to be willing to accept the consequences. On an individual basis, this first of all means accepting a risk of illness (and possibly lifelong damage to your health). If you don’t want to get a tetanus vaccine, suit yourself. You’re going to be the only one who will potentially contract that horrific disease and die that horrific death, because tetanus is not contagious.
But in the case of contagious diseases, your decision to forego vaccination also means funding the bill when other people get sick because of your refusal to vaccinate. Paying for the hospital stay of your kid that contracted the measles and developed complications and any person you or they infected. Unwilling to do so? Then your refusal becomes society’s problem and that’s where your freedom stops.
If and when society deems your actions and behavior an unacceptable threat to the wellbeing of the community, society can - through the proper channels i.e. laws - force you to comply with the will of the people, thus protecting vulnerable members. Since most people do not want their babies to be irreversibly damaged by diseases against which we have protection in the form of vaccines, this should be reason enough to make vaccinations mandatory. Except in those cases, of course, where vaccination would cause certain damage to the individual receiving the vaccine, in which case they would receive a medical exemption.
2
@Pamela Pilch,
I would have thought that most thinking people can distinguish between actions that harm others and actions that don't.
You have enumerated both without making any distinction.
I suggest that you give it more thought.
@Pamela Pilch When your choice harms others, no, you don't get to use that excuse. And your examples are false equivalencies. The baker has the right not to put hateful sayings on a cake, but refusing to serve the cake at all is something different.
Hallelujah, exactly on target. I couldn't have said it better. This most current discussion on religious freedom, regarding keeping youngsters from any school if they have not been vaccinated is convoluted. This is not about religious freedom, it is about public health. If one cannot understand that, they have bought the kool aide. America separates church and state for good reason.
9
Amen!
3
Too many believers, especially those who are socially and culturally conservative, lately seem to insist on defining their freeedom of religion much too broadly. Some of them claim that their religion compels them to discriminate against gays and lesbians, to prevent their children to be vaccinated. These practices, to me, are not "religion." Believe whatever you want. Worship as you please. But stop invoking the First Amendment and "religion" to justify behaviors that are by no means religious.
15
We are a country full of people who apparently believe that religious "freedom" trumps all other freedoms of all other people, so long as those practicing religious freedom are Christians, of course.
18
Isn't there a certain tension between the view that Facebook may censor Alex Jones (see Kara Swisher's piece) and the view that the baker may not refuse to supply the cake? Facebook thinks that Jones's speech is reprehensible, and refuses to provide a forum for it. The baker thinks that there is something wrong with celebrating a gay marriage, but may not decline to contribute toward that celebration. What's the difference?
3
@Mark. Facebook didn’t ban Alex Jones because they thought he was reprehensible. They have ALWAYS felt he was reprehensible.
It was because allowing him to use their platform was causing society great harm, e.g., dishonestly and maliciously influencing elections, getting people to take a gun to shoot up Ping Pong pizza, etc.
1
@Mark,
I cannot believe that you do not know the difference between advocating hate and advocating love.
What if I’m part of a canibalistic religion where eating other people is a rite? Where does my right to practice end and your right to life begin?
Honestly, the rights to practice religion seem to trump all other rights these days. Same with the right to bear arms.
13
Religion has nothing to do with god.
Religion's goal is power, trbal power of one group over other groups. And absolute power of the leaders over their followers.
But religion does have a practical consequence: the reduction in human populations through war, hate, disease, and uncooperation.
Don't worry, you have god on your side.
8
@cr - Exactly. It was about 45 years ago when my husband and I took our toddler and baby to a family reunion. A relative asked when we were going to have the next child. We explained very earnestly that we believed in Zero Population Growth and didn't plan to have more children. She assured us that if the world got overpopulated, god would send another war to thin the population.
9
"Your freedom ends where my nose begins."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
9
I couldn't possibly agree with the author more. Conservative Republicanism is teaching a virulent form of willful belligerence to their flock, so much so they're emboldened to believe their own personal narrowly defined idiosyncrasies should be shared by all. I wonder if that idiot baker fully understands the nature of all the marital relations enjoyed by everyone he buys supplies from and sells cakes to? Is he certain some of those birthday cakes aren't for a member of the LGBT community, an interracial couple or someone who's sinned? The current VP, when governor of Indiana, signed legislation making it legal to discriminate based on one's twisted interpretation of whatever book of faith they hold most dear. It really is disturbing how an element in this country are so bent on ripping rights, access and status from folks they simply don't recognize the inherent dangers of their wrongheaded policy run amok. I mean really, do they really want to live in the back-biting, discriminatory and judgmental world they're attempting to cultivate?
11
A plague on all religions. Without exception they exacerbate divisiveness because “ My religion is the only true religion and you must follow my beliefs “.
9
Religious freedom is a lame excuse for a reason to be bigoted, prejudiced, or just plain ignorant. Usually a socially conservative person or persons who use religious freedom as a bogus shield for bigotry. Nothing more and nothing less. Can’t say a prayer in public schools but our money declares: “In God we trust.” The hypocrisy in this country is so obvious.
8
Is having 10 kids irresponsible and selfish? Most likely, others will have to foot the bill for any shared public resources including health and education. What are the consequences of population explosion? Do you know what uncontrolled growth is called at cellular level?
Is leading an unhealthy and reckless lifestyle nobody's business? Don't we all have to pay for the consequences?
1. Religion based on ignorance is blasphemy.
2. Your liberties end where your neighbor's begin.
Amen!
3
Actually people’s 10 children will pay the Social Security ans other costs for the present child-free.
1
@Pamela Pilch
Having children to sustain elder population is a pyramid scheme because it assumes that all will have jobs. In the face of automation, labor is rapidly loosing its value. The growing service gig economy is low paid and non-essential. Economy would not halt if car hailing and food delivery services stopped.
3
Except for those of that 10 who go on to be “scholars, housewives and clergy”. They won’t be contributing much to social security coffers. And the welfare they consume offsets even that.
And Republicans are cynically lined up to exploit the religious crazies - from Orthodox Jews to Southern Baptist’s to new agers. The right is so desperate for power it will sacrifice our children and grandchildren at the altar of its greed. No religion says not to receive vaccinations. It’s all a sham and is endangering our lives. They do not have the right to endanger all of us.
8
There IS NO legitimate reason to refuse vaccines on "religious" grounds: not for Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists.....
Refusing vaccines now are based on wildly untrue social media anti-vaxxer propaganda. For instance, some say there are fetal pig cells in vaccine (a lie); others say there are fetal human cells in vaccine (a lie).
In the year 2000 measles was believed to have been eradicated in the U.S. No longer. And, contrary to the image the NYT shows, UltraOrthadox Jews are NOT the main group against vaccines.
By the way, at least when some medical aid workers, in Pakistan to vaccinate kids for polio, were killed recently, (polio is common there) no one said it was for a religious reason. They were killed because the vaccine providers were WESTERNERS.
see; https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/world/asia/polio-vaccine-pakistan.html
6
Amen, Margaret Renkl.
4
For the 99th time there is NO NO NO Jewish proscription against vaccination! Or against a tattoo necessary for cancer radiation treatment! Or taking pig insulin if it is the only choice ( admittedly that one is a bit dated). Or anything else that keeps Jewish and other people healthy which IS a commandment! Anyone who tells you vaccination is against Judaism is LYING! They are using religion for their own selfish purpose!
18
Amen.
3
Yes!! Yes!! Yes!!
3
Hallelujah
3
Religion is an individual right and is subservient to social responsibilities. When a society losses sight of this, as we seem to have, we begin the descent into hell. The separation of church and state is what distinguished Western societies, defined us and made us the benchmark for the rest of the world. Extreme conservative thinking, as a reaction rather than principled wisdom, is fueling the race to the bottom like much of the middle East. Ignorance, like gravity, is so irrestible.
14
Whatever happened to the Golden Rule? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" (Matt. 7:12).
Would it be OK if my religious beliefs differed from Evangelical Christianity and I refused to bake wedding cakes for Evangelical Christians?
21
No, that would be persecution of Christians.
3
@DAK: The question is not what is OK but what should be required by law. Adultery is immoral but not illegal.
4
@Lennerd But it's ok for christians to persecute others? WHen the shoe is on the other foot, it doesn't feel too good, does it? Christians are perpetual victims.
Thank you. This is why I subscribe.
12
Nor do we, as humans, have the right to determine which god others have to worship.
11
Bravo! My religion, your religion, my dog's religion, have no authority over anyone else.
8
Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.
8
Would it now be justafiable to decline service or product to an evangelical christian?
12
I am finding all this hating on religion and requiring people to act contrary to their belief system alarming. Our religious beliefs go even deeper that those political ones. Were I a cake baker, party planner, ice sculptor or musician, I would not want my government to compel me to participate in DJT’s next inauguration party. Would you?
3
@JK. DJT is not a protected class. You would never be required to offer him any service.
9
@JK. I wouldn’t like it, but if I provided those services for any inauguration, I shouldn’t outright refuse it to Trump. Mind you, I would probably find myself too booked to do it. I certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to admit I was discriminating, let alone be all self-righteous and public about it.
5
@JK Then you shouldn't open a business that is considered a public accommodation. You don't have the right to own a business. It is a privilege. The business owner agrees to abide by the rules of the state issued license. You don't get to pick and choose!
3
Thank you for this rational essay. Too often, hypocrisy rules.
13
Amen to that!
3
The fact our supreme court is dominated by ultra right wing, ultra fundamentalist religious fanatics is the worst thing to happen to this country in many decades. The will ruin any chance we have at building a civilized society. These ultra right wing fanatics are simply spoiled brats -indeed, the entire Republican party is the party of Spoiled Brats, led by their Brat in Chief. They want what they want NOW and throw tantrums when they don't get it. It way past time we stop coddling these brats and drag them into the 21st century.
18
Just, yes.
3
I have a problem with folks whose "strongly held religious beliefs" are used as a shield to prevent accusations of bigotry or hate. If you really have a problem with homosexuality, don't blame the God who made people that way - just tell everybody you meet that you hate homosexuals and wish for a return to the days (or countries where it still exists) of ritual stoning in the public square. That should help you define the market you hope to cater to. With Yelp and all the other rating services, once you are known as a gay stoner - um, let's try Stoner of Gays - all of the really fine people will make a beeline to your door. Although, you might get a couple of broken windows from people who think YOU are the menace, and if those people are in the majority, and energized in your area, you may have to go to court to defend your right to hate in public.
13
OK, a white nationalist, a Rabbi, and an evangelical walk into a lower east side deli.
The Rabbi orders kosher chicken soup. The evangelical orders a pastrami on white with mayonnaise. The white nationalist arranges for catering for a Hitler Birthday Party. Two of these orders are completely inappropriate for the establishment. What should happen?
Oh, kindliness and tolerance make a comeback!
1
Sadly, it is all about politicians afraid of special interest groups who do not care very much about broader public health issues, and who vote.
6
The core reason for refusing to vaccinate has nothing to do with religious beliefs. Religion is just a cover for mistrust of authority.
it's a very selective mistrust because same people who refuse vaccination do accept other medical treatments for their ills.
it's like trusting results of addition but being suspicious of multiplication.
Maybe the only mandatory faith that should be taught in school is faith in scientific reasoning.
Ignorance is not a license to make decisions that affect your neighbors.
15
The religious right never has respected freedom of religion in the sense of tolerating beliefs which contradict their own because all of them think that freedom of conscience and freedom of expression are excuses to commit sin if it is not the right ways, their ways. Each of the believers in each of these religious communities think that God likes what they believe and not what anyone believes that is different. They want society to validate their true way, each of them, and they consider that to be freedom. It's simple as that. Recognize that fact and you understand what the religious right means when it says religious freedom.
17
I am stunned that the author conflates the issue of religious objections to participation in a same sex marriage with the issue of not vaccinating your children. They are not remotely related, not in the least. A baker who would gladly bake a cake for a women who entered the store and asked for a cake is not, nor should the baker, be required to bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple. Now to be clear, I have been an advocate for same sex marriage for 40 years, I have never been opposed, it never entered my mind. It was people who influence government to make certain actions illegal that prevented legal marriage between two people of the same sex. Should a Muslim store owner be required to carry alcohol or pork for sale to the general public, of course not. The persons desiring alcohol can easily visit a store selling alcohol. When the media makes an issue of these situations they cause the friction that, on its own, would not be present. As for vaccinations, a large, densely populated society has a right and an obligation to require vaccinations, this is not a religious issue it is an issue of government having the discipline to require an obvious necessary step to protect society at large.
9
@Steve O
If a store owner of any stripe doesn't carry something you want, no law will or should force him to start carrying it. On the other hand, if a store owner advertises wedding cakes for sale, he ought to be prepared to sell a cake to whomever want one. If he wants to be picky about his customers, maybe he should start a membership only bakery. That might work.
22
@Steve O The author does quite a good job of indicating how they are not conflated. Both are examples of using religious viewpoints to avoid following laws. In the case of vaccinations, laws regarding public health and requirements for attending public schools. In the case of same-sex wedding cakes, the issue is in states (or municipalities) that have non-discrimination laws that protect sexual orientation - as was the case with the Colorado baker. In both cases, people are using their religion as an excuse to not follow a law the rest of the population in that jurisdiction are expected to follow. To be honest, those that oppose these so-called "religious freedoms" laws might make a better case of arguing that these type of laws actually violate the First Amendment by favoring the establishment of a special "religious" class at the expense of the non-religious.
7
@Steve O Agree
very well written!
4
While there may be some religions that urge participants not to vaccinate almost all vaccine refusals are because of fear, ignorance, and new age stupidity. By new age stupidity I mean that people will choose to believe a celebrity or a blogger or a random pamphlet spread by people whose major religious belief is to spread ignorance and anti scientific reasoning. It's time to stop pretending otherwise.
11
@Ceilidth
Some religious communities reject vaccinations due to the doctrines of their faith. It's a rejection of facts determined to be facts scientifically in favor of truths from divine revelations. It's like new age rejection of modern and material ways, equally based upon revelations of a personal kind that rejects facts offered by science. People who consider man and man's understanding of God always dubious consider denying good science to be magical thinking.
You mean like a baker being forced to bake a cake...?
2
@Mystery Lits Nope. The baker is a public accommodation, a specific term in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If the baker doesn't want to serve all customers, then they should find another line of work. Owning a business is a privilege, not a right.
7
While we are focusing on certain groups of people who for good or bad reasons they do not inoculate against diseases, such as measles, what is the policy about visitors to this country?
Are they vetted? Must they prove they’ve been immunized?
Is it a real issue of public health or another opportunity to vilify the “other”, in this case certain religious Jews.
Which is it?
If it’s real, then the right thing needs to be done.
Immunize!
Or are we willing to endure an epidemic for political correctness?
I’m sorry, but I don’t think you know Ms. Renkl.
2
Visitors can always be restricted at the border if there is a sudden uptick in a dangerous disease. For example, the US Gov could restrict visas to only those visitors who can show vaccination records, but what can the authorities do about people already living here?
I agree with the author that the law should be that if you don’t want your child vaccinated then you need to keep them away from others and not use public schools, parks, transportation.
2
And if your religion prohibits abortion, you should not have to have one. But if my religion permits me to have an abortion, you should not be able to tell me I can't have one.
33
It is against my religion to accept any religion that tries to impose its beliefs on others. Hate and bigotry in the name of one's religion is still hate and bigotry, and most often it comes with a good dose of ignorance and hypocrisy.
15
Maybe there is some island where people who don't want to vaccinate their children can go to and live among like minded people. They could then infect like minded people. There could be unlimited guns and large magazines. The could then protect themselves against others. There would be walls to segregate the different groups that want to slaughter each other.
And where does this all end. Why doesn't god just appear and straighten out this mess? I have faith that someday he or she will pop up.
Is this why god gave us intelligence? To do this kind of nonsense to kill and infect each other, pollute the planet, make plants and animals extinct?
It just all makes me ill.
Vietnam Vet
10
This is just another way in which religion continues to wreak tremendous harm upon humanity.
10
I believe in the religion of common sense.
10
So, what about the red headed boy? Don't leave us hanging. We have a right, albeit not a religious one, to know.
5
Completely agree. amen.
1
Very well said. Now it is up to our conservative-stacked judicial system to enforce the law.
5
"Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God." This is the inner purpose of religious practice that transcends cultural and social norms which change over time and differ from place to place. The outer practices of religion are imbedded in whatever form culture takes at the time.
The fight about religious freedom in this country is a fight over the outer practices of religion. You don't need a first amendment to practice inner religious teachings. No one can stop anyone from praying silently and with no outward expression.
We need the first amendment to protect outward practices of religion such as building a place of worship and gathering there or other places to hear religious teachings.
The problem comes when religious practices cross over from sacred places of worship into secular activities such as commerce or education. Reasonable accommodations should be made. I do think "reasonable" is the right approach. What was "reasonable" in the 1930's Jim Crow south isn't reasonable today. "Reasonable" changes with cultural and social norms.
The dominant culture of the U.S. is not religious. We should be careful to allow religious expression as long as it can be reasonably accommodated.
4
"Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God."
Except when the believer's faith makes him/her a proselytizer. Any religion that proselytizes, considers its Way the only Way, its Truth the only Truth and that its duty to God is to impose that Way and Truth on Others can not be considered reasonable, reasoning or reassuring.
Nor can that religion's adherents.
17
If an unvaccinated child causes me or my family to become infected then I want the right to sue that child’s parents if I can prove they deliberately chose not to vaccinate. Any attorneys know if I can?
28
@SDTrueman
If you and your family are vaccinated, then you will not become infected and there is no lawsuit. If one of your family members is medically unable to be vaccinated (due to age or a compromised immune system) and they get infected, talk to a California attorney about suing for negligence.
6
Well said! I couldn’t agree more!
6
Those who advocate prayer in public school are assuming that it will be a Christian prayer; however, what if a community becomes primarily populated by believers in another religion, for example, Muslims? What if a majority of the seats on the school board are Muslims who decide that several times a day, the children should be compelled to break out their prayer mats, face Mecca, and offer up an Islamic prayer? How will they feel about their Christian child having to adhere to that new school board imposed rule?
The schools are run by the government, and the Constitution prohibits Congress from passing any law promoting religion. It's for our protection, not to restrict us.
559
Better yet, how about if the Scientologists took over and passed a law that school children must have regular Auditing sessions and require schools to offer dianetics courses?
58
@Larry Griggers
This used to be a problem at a school I worked at and people were always trying to get me to join the group who was trying to get prayers back in (open and/or close meeting, etc). My answer was always the same: "Sure, no problem, where do I sign?" and I would pick up the pen, then stop. "But wait" I would say, "I'll need a guarantee that all the prayers will be Congregationalist prayers (what I am). I certainly don't want any of the Baptist or Methodist,etc. nonsense". They would always grab back the pen, glare at me, and leave. And I would peacefully return to my work.
42
@Larry Griggers Indeed I believe that the Church of Satan has tried this sort of thing and been refused. It's not about religious freedom at all, it's about using Christianity as a tool to enforce whatever the person in charge thinks you ought to do. This sort of thing is a stepping stone to Christian Sharia law.
47
Ms Renkl:
We tolerated two decades below the Mason Dixon line in the Athens of the South, but the slumbering racism awakened and unleashed by Obama’s election drove us back (small-n) north.
I was a fan of your writing in the Nashville Scene; I’m so glad to be able to follow you now in the NYT.
Please keep the faith. Now, more thsn ever.
10
On the heels of the tragic death of Rachel Held Evans, this column is especially timely and profound. Why is it always the Evangelicals and Religious Zealots who are first to preach the need to infringe on or limit the rights of others in order to prohibit the rights of others to even be considered? It appears to me that Hypocrisy is one of the primary tenents of the religions of the Evangelicals.
20
I understand that part of the Jewish community in NYC was taken in by the antivaxx movement but here in Oregon we have the highest kindergarten vaccination exemption rate in the country according to Kaiser Health News. It is not religiously oriented as we have a small Jewish population, few orthodox. Mostly it seems to be based on the “ I don’t want government telling me what to do with my kid’s body” idea. Lots of commenters seem to want to hate on religion re the measles situation but here they would need to hate on something different causing the anti vaccine movement.
12
Amen !
So many times in the last few years I'm reminded of Isaac Asimov and his quote regarding willful ignorance:
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States . . . . nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
29
I'm so sick of religions and the practitioners of these archaic belief-systems. Tax these institutions like the political tools they have become and refuse to allow them to discriminate against their fellow citizens. Go live in a commune if you want to participate in these fringe beliefs and hateful practices. We don't need you.
16
@boognish Thank you. Organized religion is pretty much the root of all evil.
6
@will b Really? I wonder if you've ever stopped to think about the amazing societal contributions religion has made. For example: the idea of murder, adultery, theft, lying, etc being immoral. The idea that *anything* is moral or immoral. Women's rights. Inheritance rights. Court system. Community. Solace and comforting rituals in time of need. Helping others in their times of need, and sharing in their celebrations. The simple act of praying - being grateful for the many things you have, while being other-centered enough to know that you cannot control your destiny alone. Being part of a greater whole that goes beyond oneself. I'm leaving out theology because even an atheist should appreciate religion's contributions.
Why is it that so many people today (or at least NYT readers) are hyper-attuned to the possibility of prejudging someone based on race, gender identity, etc, yet these same people are willing to, in one fell swoop, dismiss every religion, and presumably the billions of people who practice one, as "evil"?
1
C's daughter,
I have never seen a gay wedding cake but I am assuming it is one with two same sex people on top. Doesn't this make sense to you? A heterosexual wedding cake has a man and a woman on top so my description sounds pretty accurate.
1
@KMW
My wedding cake didn't have anybody on top because that is so incredible tacky; does that mean I did not get married? I think not.
Also, the mental image of a "gay wedding cake" is really quite amusing. Does it taste as fabulous as it looks?
1
SB,
I have been to many heterosexual weddings and have never seen a plastic man or woman on top and agree this would look funny and ugly. I have seen pictures of homosexual wedding cakes with displays of two men on top of the cake from New York Times articles. I have never been to a homosexual wedding so have no idea what the cake looks like. I was responding to C's daughter's question to me.
I can only guess. I would imagine there is some indication of two same sex people getting married otherwise the religious man would not have objected to baking this cake. It was a special wedding cake for two same sex people and the man objected for religious purposes. He refused to go against his religious beliefs. I think that is his right still in America.
We keep thinking that church and state have some intrinsic relationship as obvious as love and marriage, yet never really accept that they never really had, never really do and never really will. Accepting such truths might actually, ironically, make the most sense to practice.
3
This all sounds really nice. But it ignores the "superior orders" precedent set at the Nuremberg trials. That is, if lawful orders cause one to commit crimes against humanity, one is guilty for cooperating with and not resisting these orders. And one can be executed for that.
So now you ask people of good conscience who resist and do not actively participate in what they are convinced are crimes against humanity (e.g., abortion) to do it anyway; and you tell them: tough luck. Just do what the state tells you to do or lose your job and your livelihood. You must follow the superior order; you have no obligation to a higher moral order (even though we executed people in Germany for following a superior order and not following a higher moral order).
That is to say: this is not a simple issue, and not easily resolved. we can't just say we really didn't mean what we said at Nuremberg. We can't just dismiss the entire rationale we used to execute people. But clearly, there is a real problem here that needs resolution.
We need better arguments than this. Twitter, NYTimes comments and OpEd columns are poor and inadequate fora for serious discussion.. Let's stop being so facile and glib and positional. You are not at all helpful when you are.
5
@CFXK As a physician, I can say that no doctor can be forced to do an abortion. Your statement is incorrect. It is not an emergency procedure and the patient can always see another doctor.
15
@Bill
A pharmacist can be forced to dispense an abortifacient and a pharmacy owner can be forced to stock one. It, similarly, is not an emergency and the patient can always seek another pharmacy. The same goes for contraceptives and plan B.
2
@CFXK
How to say this, so as not to offend CFXK, whatever happened at Nuremberg, for better or for worse, is not part of the corpus of American law.
We can work this out independent from Nazi influenced precedents.
1
Yes. We are taking it too far by not making them pay their share. They should be taxed so that we could have oversight and they pay for the benefit of the freedom they are given. Many are run like big corporations who grift off of those with incredulous beliefs. Kind of like a ponzi scheme.
12
What is missing from this discussion is a list of the religions that actually object to vaccination. Although there is under-vaccination in the conservative Jewish populations, their rabbis say that that Jews have an obligation to vaccinate.
Christian Scientists object to evidence-based medicine, but this is a small sect that has not been implicated in these outbreaks.
So who are these people claiming a religious exemption? An what are their religious arguments?
6
Religion may be the worst idea ever created by human imagination. Science is likely the best. Science relies on evidence. There is no solid evidence for supernatural concepts. Religion can play a valuable role by emphasizing charity and compassion for all. The values taught by Jesus are wonderful regardless of whether he was Devine or not. But what did we get? The two major branches of Islam despise each other. The two major branches of Christianity fought cruel and bloody wars. In the US, Christians fought bloody wars in favor of and against slavery and segregation. Some religious beliefs are utter nonsense. There is no doubt that the earth is over 4 billion years old and dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago. There was no global flood that covered the entire earth. If you hate homosexuals, why not hate left handed people. Both conditions are due to genetics. Finally, our country was founded as a secular Nation by enlightened founders, wary of religion.
16
@JSK
Yes and no. Physics and Buddhist mystical ideas about space and time, for one, intersect pretty nicely.
@JSK Science is our way of modeling the natural world. As the famous quote goes, "All models are wrong. Some are useful". Scientists thought the world was flat, till we found out it was round. Physicists thought all of nature obeyed Newton's Laws of Motion, till Einstein discovered relativity. We thought DNA sequencing would tell us the entire genetic story, till we discovered DNA has secondary and tertiary structure not reflected in the simple sequence of A,C,T,G's, not to mention epigenetics which turns genes up, down, or off.
My point is not to abandon science. My point is that you are extremely arrogant if you think all of today's science is correct (this is NOT an argument against vaccines, which are well worth the benefit even if there is some minute inherent risk). Much of science will be improved or discarded in the future. Religion has made many contributions to society (ex. morality, legal systems, gratitude, humility, and kindness, ritual and comfort) which have stood the test of time. Certain truths, especially regarding human nature and society, are everlasting. Science simply reflects our best understanding at the time. Let's be honest: wars existed before religion did, and will still happen even if religion goes extinct.
1
@Free to Be Me - Ever since early man began living together in caves, they developed rules for living together: Don't steal, don't kill, and the stronger help the weaker. Basically every society came up with the same basic, logical rules totally independent of religion.
4
I remember as a child we would mockingly provoke, defy and taunt one another by protesting, “Its against my religion!” Little did we know that our absurd attempts at irony would become the way of the world.
5
The lack of empathy for the health of the community is just another manifestation of a religious orthodoxy that seems unable to willingly coexist with others who hold different faith based conceptions of humanity’s place in the world. This is un-American.
11
@MOG
The outbreak is not limited to orthodox Jews, and their leaders are urging the faithful to vaccinate their children.
Many of the non Jewish antivaxxers are followers of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who advocates against vaccination because he believes it causes autism. No facts are going to dissuade his followers.
2
@MOG - In fairness, I don't believe the majority of anti-vaxers arrive at that decision via religion.
There is a very straightforward test with regards to acts of commission
1. Is the act itself legal?
2. If yes, then is the service provider being asked to actively participate in an act that is contrary to religious belief? A doctor would not therefore be required to perform an abortion.
3. If no, then any refusal to provide the service should not be allowed. The cake maker is not being asked to participate in a religious ceremony, or condone sodomy, merely to make a cake for celebrants in a civil ceremony, who, for all the cake maker knows may be asexual.
The refusal to make the cake has absolutely nothing to do with religious freedom. It is a political statement based on pseudo-religious precept and reinforced by self-righteousness.
18
@Roger C
It is also unmitigated silliness for a same sex couple to demand a baker put the figurines on the top of their cake instead of doing it themselves. It's not even skilled work.
1
@ebmem
It is also unmitigated arrogance to require a member of the public to declare a religious preference, or to address a Gay couple in a public business regarding their personal request for a specific decoration on a cake. If you are benefiting from public financial support for your establishment, then you are servicing the general public. If you do not want to serve the public, locate in a private venue, e.g. a church or private home. If my taxes help pay for the costs and maintenance of the sidewalk in front of your business, you don't have the right to discriminate against me for my sexual preferences, or my religious beliefs. It is called The Social Contract, necessary for any civilized free society.
2
What the constitution forbids is a state religion. Which means that any state granted religious exemption is unconstitutional.
9
tell this to large landowners, such as the Catholic Church.
3
@Audaz
What the constitution forbids is the federal government from creating a federal religion or from interfering with the practice of any religion. So if your religion requires adult women to cover their head, the government cannot prohibit it without a countervailing need.
3
Wrong. The free exercise clause does not mean that you can use religion as an excuse to harm others. You can think anything you want, but you cannot act on it. Simple saying, your rights end where my nose begins. Free exercise is not blanket excuse to ignore the law.
4
Like the air and water we all share, herd immunity is a COMMONS of enormous value to our society. By maintaining immunization rates sufficient to keep susceptible individuals at a low share of the population (about 5% in the case of measles), we are all protected. To degrade ANY commons is the epitome of selfishness, whether by wanton pollution of the natural environment or by erosion of herd immunity by negligent parenting.
15
@Peter
The outbreak of measles in SoCal was an example of diminished herd immunity. Measles is a virulent disease; it can be transmitted from sneezes in a confined space, e.g. an airplane. It can also be transmitted in crowds, as it was at Disneyland.
1
I couldn’t agree more! The “pendulum” has swung too far towards individual freedoms and too far away from the public good. The fabric of society is showing the result, tares throughout.
22
1) The Jewish faith does not prohibit vaccination. For members of the ultra Orthodox Hassidic Sect to claim an exemption from vaccination based upon a religious requirement is bogus.
2) A significant number of members of ultra of the ultra Orthodox community, I believe, are looking for a boggie man upon whom to blame the number of children born with birth defects. When they might do better to examine the closed nature of their community, and the number of closely related individuals who marry.
20
@jarudman610
Thank you for addressing a controversial situation which has produced clusters of birth defects. Religious beliefs are private; when those beliefs threaten the public, there has to be redress for the public good. When I lived in NYC, I rode the subway and buses with Hasidim, mostly men. Were they carriers? Who knows.
2
Beautifully written. Thanks, Margaret.
10
Today’s movement in support of “religious freedom“ is a thinly disguised politically motivated form of religious oppression.Those pursuing this fraudulent policy are frightened to death of real religious freedom.
18
"Conservative Christians are forever trying to inject their personal religious beliefs into the public sphere."
Does the author realize how ridiculous this sentence is?
Any belief system is going to be propagated in the public sphere. Any idea propagated in the public sphere will have some religious (including the idea that there is no God) dimension to it, even if not explicitly, then implicitly. Like "all men are CREATED equal."
5
@Paul
Conservative Christians are forever trying to inject their personal religious beliefs into the public sphere in order to deny others the right of their own convictions.
More accurate; requiring something of more substance than your bizarre straw-man of a response.
You're basically arguing, "Oh yeah, if you're so concerned with religious freedom, how come I'm not free to force my religion on you? "
Nice how you take the occasion to interject CREATED into the stew. You may believe so, and I hope it brings you confidence and comfort. But I don't have to, and you can't make me.
Your religious freedom stops at my nose, or something.
Evangelicals, a prototypical case, are funny people.
They couldn't be more free if they lived alone on an island with nothing but other Evangelicals. Here in the US they can practice as they want, believe as they want, meet as they want, live as they want without interference or inconvenience.
But that isn't what they want. They want to dominate. They want to bring everyone to heel. They want their (Godforsaken) convictions to outweigh everyone else's.
They're willing to abandon the founding principles of the country to do it. They're willing to break the laws. They lust to prejudice our courts and our Congress.
That's not religious freedom, that's political and social engineering. And it is an unholy perversion of the religion of which they claim to be the unquestioned masters.
I checked with my God, s/he agrees with me.
21
@oogada
Practitioners of secular humanism decided that the Little Sisters of the Poor had to provide free contraceptives to their employees. That seems very much like the secular humanists were imposing their religion on others than that the Little Sisters of the Poor were imposing anything on anyone.
Very similar to the Democrats deciding that there was a human right for insurance companies and prosperous hospitals to increase their profits. Had they proposed universal healthcare, they could have possibly claimed the moral high ground. Instead, they thought it OK to penalize a family that didn't buy the specific policy Democrats wanted them to have, even if it had a $6,000/$12,000 individual/family deductible. For the families that had catastrophic health costs, that made sure the hospital got paid.
@Paul
when all people have is "faith" instead of evidence, everything is a religion. unproven belief systems are not the foundations for anything real. ask measles, ask cancer...ask pedophiles- none of them are deterred by any sort of "faith"
1
I am perplexed by this, to me, absurd demand for forced medical treatment from pharmaceutical companies who have managed through a 1986 court decision to have no financial liability for the safety of vaccines that they are profiting from. How many vaccines will be enough to satisfy? Even a cursory study of this subject raises serious doubts. Last night I came across a 2011 article on Pub Med in the Journal of Human &Experimental Toxicology. It reads “The infant mortality rate (IMR) is one of the most important indicators of the socio-economic and public health conditions of a country. The US childhood immunization schedule specifies 26 vaccine doses for infants aged less than 1 year—the most in the world—yet 33 nations have lower IMRs.” The title asks the question “Is there a biochemical or synergistic toxicity?” In other words, we have the most vaccinated kids in the planet yet serious health concerns have arisen. Yet anyone who raises doubts about allowing citizens to be forced to medicate by a for profit industry with barely any liability and an army of lobbyists at the ready is barraged with insults about his or her stupidity or selfishness. I am not a religious zealot of any persuasion but it is clear to me that the main religion offered protection in this country is greed.
3
@LI - what's missing from your argument is any support for the claim that US infant mortality is only related to vaccines rather than to most advanced countries having some form of universal healthcare, while access to healthcare in the US is rationed by money.
1
@LI
Is the infant mortality rate linked to health care in general? Vaccines are given free in CA. I would assume the same is true for all States required by Federal law to vaccinate for MMR, Measles, Mumps, and Rubella. Small pox vaccination is also required. The only expense incurred might be the costs of documenting medical reasons for exemptions. Smallpox killed thousands of children. Measles left a lot of children deaf, or sight impaired. Polio left thousands crippled before the Salk vaccine. I can think of no reason to bring religious beliefs into the public sphere when lives might be at risk. Private exemptions are available with medical documentation. I can see no reason to provide those exemptions to religious beliefs.
Oh Amen Amen Amen. A breath of common sense. Too bad the Supremes don't have any.
13
Is "no shirt, no shoes, no service" OK? Do you think that's a violation of your rights?
6
@Raz - Business owners are totally free to refuse service to someone for what they DO on the premises, whether it's violating health laws llke wearing no shirt or shoes, or for being belligerent and disruptive, or stealing. It's not okay to deny service to someone because WHO they are - because of their perceived membership in a protected class.
3
@Raz. Hey, if the sign is outside the door, and I walk in anyway, I am agreeing to those terms. More importantly, the terms are the same for all people and all groups.
If a service provider doesn’t want to provide some of his services to gays, he/she should be required to put a sign outside the door to that effect. Regardless of whether we agree this discrimination is illegal or not.
1
@Raz
No. You have the right to find another establishment. A place of business has the right to post its clothing restrictions. How many shirtless or barefoot individuals would be admitted to those restaurants which are not casual. I don't recall any barefoot people in wifebeaters drinking and dining at the Rainbow Room, or Le Central et al.
With this topic, one thing always comes to mind. It the parable of the good Samaritan. The "good" was significant because at the time Samaritans were viewed as bad untrustworthy people. The "good" people of the day all walked past the poor soul in need, but the Samaritan stopped as gave aid. If Christ told this story today the Samaritan would be Muslim and the "good" people would be the Evangelicals. I say sometimes of today's Christians that Christ wouldn't know them, but thinking on this parable I think he would know them all too well.
13
I wonder what would the Founding Fathers think about the "prayer breakfasts" that are now apparently part of the political life!
12
@Lagrange
James Madison thought that congress hiring a pastor/minister was an abomination and said that it ran contrary to the constitution.His protests were ignored because "what did he know about the constitution or the will of the people?"
10
Too many adults think that "freedom" means not having to be responsible for their actions.
Rights = Responsibility
Freedom ≠ Do whatever you want with no repercussions or responsibilities
Far too many people use religion as a cudgel to strike with impunity, especially X-stians. They want to dictate reality according to their beliefs, and then attack others when they don't get their way.
FWIW, Jesus never talked about firearms, or abortion. Yet there are millions of Americans that have accepted whatever lie a greedy evangelist told them.
13
This world would be a much better place if we didn't play make believe.
7
Christian and other fundamentalists, whose greatest fear seems to be Shariah law, are blissfully unware of their own version of Shariah law, which they are trying to impose on the United States. This behavior is not only morally offensive, it is positively unAmerican. We have fought wars for our freedom, and a Civil War against 1860s conservatives and Christians who were willing to shed blood in order to preserve their unGodly enslavement of people from Africa. If called upon to serve, I would be willing to fight if necessary to keep these religious extremists from imposing their ideas on our great nation.
22
This strikes me as a mirror-image to Congress' recent move to modify, and thus render toothless, an anti-Semitism bill by diluting it to condemn all forms of prejudice....false equivalence serves no one, and as you rightly point out Judaism doesn't proscribe vaccinations... ignorance and fear are non-denominational, and in this case life-threatening......
7
Well stated. Thank you.
4
So now when you interview for a job, be sure to inquire about the corporation’s religious beliefs.
10
So we have the right wing scapegoating immigrants and the left wing scapegoating anti-vaxxers. Truly the authoritarian wave is in full force. How depressing that the NYT writes editorials advocating censorship (yesterday's ed) and today the revocation of religious liberty. Never mind that the mortality rate for measles in this country is zero (In fact the childhood mortality rate from measles in this country has been zero for the past fifteen years). Lets whip everyone into hysteria so that they willingly give up their liberties. Fear has always served tyrants and autocrats well. In this case, that tyrant is the medical establishment, specifically Merck, which posted a half billion dollar profit this quarter on astronomical sales of MMR alone. Meanwhile we're the unhealthiest we've ever been, with more that half of all Americans with some sort of chronic condition. Expect it to get worse.
3
@Alex
Required vaccines are based on science, e.g. clusters of birth defects in anti-vax communities. Smallpox was a killing disease until vaccines were available. Polio killed and crippled before the Salk vaccine. It might be time for public educational warnings as are now on cigarette packs. When I was young Polio was in evidence in schools; leg braces and shriveled muscles were not uncommon. What was the cost of a child in an iron lung? What was the cost of smallpox which scarred and left impaired hearing? Vaccines would not exist if there was no history of serious childhood diseases.
1
My religion prevents me from paying taxes, try that out with the IRS. The rest of this religion stuff is forcing them on the rest of us. I bet Alabama is ready to read to the rest of the class, Koran passages. By the way I am Christian, but don't think I should push the government to push my religion onto someone else.
12
If my religion says I should not pay taxes which might support war does this mean I will not have to pay taxes in the future?
13
Freedom of Religion Acts (FRA's) which allow people to violate law because of religious objections violate fundamental freedoms of others.
If you want exemption from law, you should leave the country.
8
It is my right to be free from your religious beliefs and associated meddling. Sure believe what you want but keep it to yourself and don't try to force it on others via politics, government and bakery grandstanding.
12
Apart from the superstitious Judaics of Williamsburg, if all the world always thought like Ms. Renkl, there would have been no Christians devoured by lyons in Roman Coliseum, no Wars of Religion, no Inquisition, and no persecutions of those whose beliefs are different from the theocrats promoting "the only true faith".
4
What’s a Lyon? A large feline that respects truth as trump does?
Thankfully, someone gets it. Well-said!
2
Interesting - so, per the Author, your rights end when they start jeopardizing the health of others. Now, let’s apply that same concept to the right to abortion .....
6
@SAL
An abortion for an individual has absolutely no effect on your rights guaranteed by the Constitution and Amendments. In fact, Roe v. Wade was based on the right to privacy. If a woman you do not even know has an abortion, that procedure has no effect on your life. It does not jeopardize your health. However, the woman has a right to privacy which you want to breach? That might have an effect on her emotional state, given you are not a member of her immediate family. You have no right to invade her life, or to have any power over her personal medical decision.
Shame on you for suggesting the Orthodox Jewish reasoning for not vaccinating has anything to do with Kashrut! Most of the anti-vaxxers in those communities are concerned with the side effects of vaccines as are those in other anti-vaccine communities. I’m concerned that OPEDs like this will lead to more anti-Semitism which I have already been the recipient of. “Why don’t you people vaccinate?” A woman on the street asked me and my husband? (Btw, we are pro-vaccine and do not identify as Orthodox.)
2
The pendulum has swung too far back in the direction of theocracy. It is well past time to push it back in the opposite direction.
9
Freedom is complicated. It implies responsibility and thinking of others. Unfortunately, there are people who do not measure up to this.
I have found that the law protects the rights of some individuals even to the extent of allowing them to kill others.
According to witnesses, the investigating detective and the state attorney, my mother was killed on her front porch by a neighbor with an Alzheimer's diagnosis and a documented history of violence against neighbors. He was charged but not prosecuted due to his medical diagnosis. His wife, who repeatedly checked him out of mental facilities, had no legal responsibility for his actions and no responsibility to protect the public from him, according to FL case law. Just as an aside, the care she provided for him was unacceptable. He had been removed from the home more than once once due to this issue. He was removed again due to cause and was returned to the home about a month before my mother's death.
The family appears to have sufficient resources to have taken better care of him. After my mother's death they put him in a private facility at their expense.
The police and social services have told us there was nothing we could have done, and nothing they could have done.
The individual freedom of the people who killed my mother was and is respected by the law.
What about her right to life?
Those who choose not to vaccinate, by doing so, may also cause the death of another person.
12
@Eloise
I regret your Mother's death, Eloise.
I suspect you may have had the right to sue on infringement of your Mother's civil rights.
A great tragedy.
3
@Eloise
FL has a Stand Your Ground law; was the neighbor standing his ground when he invaded your mother's property in an impaired state? Surely there must be some civil remedy for your mother's loss of life. There have been public discussions regarding the dangers of this law. Individuals with Alzheimers have been known to be aggressive, because they have lost the ability to make rational judgments.
1
@rosa We did try the civil suit route, but our lawyer did not follow through in a timely manner. The perpetrator died 10 months after, and the lawyer then filed suit against just the wife. FL case law protected her. Apparently, in FL, an adult family member has no responsibility for the actions of another adult (however incompetent), and, because the wife was not a caretaker for my mother, she had no obligation to protect my mother. Our lawyer did file a caveat on the estate of the perpetrator, but his estate closed without our being notified. I believe all his assets had been transferred to his wife anyway. Also, FL has a homestead policy where you can move all your assets into your home and protect them from suit. The family was self-insured, so there was no option of an insurance settlement.
The fact is that the freedom of this family to live the way the wanted was and is respected in spite of flagrant red flags.
Freedom of speech and freedom of religion do not mean that we can say or do whatever we "believe" without consequence. Which is why it's illegal to shout fire in a crowded theater. You or I are free to shout fire but we will face legal (and possibly social) sanctions. Prohibiting individuals who choose (or whose parents choose) to decline vaccination from public spaces is a reasonable consequence for the choice.
I would suggest it's a vital part of our social contract very much like losing one's license for driving while intoxicated. We do not prohibit drinking just driving in the public space.
11
Should a medical doctor be required to perform abortions against her religious beliefs or lose her license to practice medicine?
Should a pharmacist be required to fill a prescription for assisted suicide against his religious beliefs or lose his pharmacist’s license?
Should a lawyer be required to represent a party seeking a divorce against her religious beliefs or lose her license to practice law?
Should a Muslim real estate broker be required to represent liquor stores in buying or selling property or lose her brokerage license?
And once you are done saying that doctors, pharmacists, lawyers, real estate agents, teachers, and any other state-licensed worker can be compelled to provide their labor against their religious beliefs, or be fined or imprisoned, what is left of religious freedom?
10
@Frank
In answer to your questions, YES.
If you have a moral objection to such things, get another career.
(Let me add, I've been in enough Muslim-owned liquor stores here in Nashville TN to know that not everyone lets religious belief get in the way of earning a profit.)
12
really, just the freedom part.
1
@Frank
Yes, yes, yes, and yes.
Should a religious cloak that covers whole body be allowed and a criminal use it to hide from law enforcement.
First amendment is very clear.
4
The only time that people should be given a "pass" to avoid the strictures of a civil law based on their religious freedom is when the civil authority (in its own complete discretion) is willing to grant an "accommodation" to the religious complainant. Otherwise, the free exercise clause of the First Amendment should be read very narrowly. "Religious" views, by their very nature, can be so nebulous and crazy that virtually any law can be avoided on the grounds of religious freedom. Let's agree to limit religious freedom to the freedom to worship- and not the freedom to disobey the civil law and control other people.
51
I would like to be free of religion and its oppressive and illogical view of the universe. After so many decades of debate with regards to a woman's right to choose an abortion, many of us Americans are being held legally captive of religion and its adherents. These people, and their delusions, are determining public policy, and are repeatedly forcing their unscientific
and prejudicial viewpoints on non-believers. It's freedom from religion that's in danger in this country.
108
Check out the vaccine insert for the laundry list of known side effects of each vaccine. I chose not to vaccinate my child because I have done extensive study and determined that the risk to her from measles, chicken pox, polio etc. today is less than the risk of exposure to large doses of aluminum and the many other adjuvants in the vaccines. If vaccines are so incredibly safe why is the US government awarding money for injuries done to claimants by vaccines?
I am pro choice.
6
@liza
If your daughter's risk of contracting these communicable diseases is low, it is because of the herd immunity provided by the vast majority of us who have been vaccinated and have had our children vaccinated. How ironic that you feel these vaccines are too dangerous to give your child, yet you rely on others being vaccinated to keep her safe.
Should the rest of us behave as you have, there would be no herd immunity, and we would all be at risk. And if you don't think polio is anything to worry about, Google "iron lung".
61
@liza The WHO reported that, in 2017, 110,000 people died of measles - usually from measles related encephalopathy (inflammation of the brain). Mostly children under 5 and people who were immunocompromised. Measles also causes a phenomenon known as "immunity amnesia" in which every antibody to every illness a person has ever been exposed to is wiped out. This leaves patients recovering from measles vulnerable to minor illnesses becoming life threatening. It can cause birth defects in children whose mothers were infected during pregnancy including blindness and hearing loss. Measles is not a benign "childhood illness". It's a killer and should be treated as such.
41
@liza
“I’ve done extensive study....” Don’t tell me...you’ve also “done extensive study” on climatology and, contrary to the consensus among actual climate scientists, you’ve decided anthropogenic climate change is a hoax. It’s the steady erosion of our commitment to science, and to the expertise of scientists, by people like you that threatens the future of life on this planet. Go ahead and choose...to be selfish and irresponsible.
18
I invite all of the discriminatory fake religious zealots to find another country where their right to discriminate will be protected. We have the U. S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights so, obviously, you won't like it here in the United States. I suggest Iran for some of you, or maybe Saudi Arabia. For women who want to discriminate against men, well, I guess you're out of luck because I don't think there's a country where that's allowed. Funny, isn't it?
17
Religious freedom is only appropriate in ones home and place of worship. Public display is likely to offend some.
There are limits to religious freedom- no religion can be allowed to make animal sacrifice of cats or dogs in this country.
Religious freedom in public is oppression by majority.
11
The argument that anyone should be able to discriminate against anyone else because of sincerely held religious beliefs is not about religious freedom.
It's about religious tyranny.
Doesn't matter what you call it, it is tyranny. What kind of "god" would demand this of any follower? What kind of people would continue to follow a god that small? What kind of follower would decide this is a good Christian activity?
This is one of the big reasons people are deciding to forgo religion altogether. This version of religion and god and worship makes people realize that belief is the death of intelligence and civility, and perhaps even civilization itself.
What's the antidote? Faith in being human and faith in the social conventions that require kindness, equality, and common decency in our interactions and laws. Faith that we can lift each other up instead of drag each other down to have a good life.
I have my doubts as to how many of the fundamentalist, ultra-conservative religions would pass that test. They all seem like cults to me.
My wish for humanity is to forgo belief and embrace intelligence for a while. And that as a result of even a few moments of enlightenment, religion would either die out or adapt into something useful and civil.
Right now I just wish that fundamentalist religion didn't exist at all and I know I'm not alone.
46
Relative to student led prayer.
I think _a_ solution could be:
All interested students enter their names into a (weekly?) lottery to deliver the prayer. The winner delivers the prayer. If an atheist won, I guess it would be a moment of silence?
Seems democratic (lots of Baptists, lots of Baptist prayers. lots of Catholics - ditto) and fair.
Yes, social prayers and other things could game the system.
I would love to be at a Texas football game when a wiccan or Muslim won, and delivered the payer :-)
6
@rsercely If you want to pray out loud at school, go to a religious school. Simple solution to not really a problem.
7
@rsercely
"The tyranny of the majority" is never a good thing for those in the minority. How would you like to be the Muslim kid who lead a prayer after school when the Christian bigots corner him on the way home?
3
The saddest thing is that this has to be said at all.
16
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Too many of our elected officials, at the federal level and lower, are showing too much deference to religions in terms of allowing their believers intrusion into others personal lives when it comes to medical decisions, health insurance, education, and even at work. I have always viewed this amendment as protecting me and others from unwelcome religious expectations. I don't have to worship any god, go to any place of worship, or believe in the 10 commandments. However, I do not have any right to impose my beliefs or lack thereof on any other person in America. Neither does anyone else.
I sometimes wonder if we should have had another amendment about respecting others no matter what their skin color, beliefs, sexual preferences, or medical desires are.
5/6/2019 6:35pm
13
@hen3ry I agree with the simple principal that no one's religious beliefs can threaten the safety of children. Why is that not obvious? Why are we letting these fools jeopardize the public health because of their beliefs? Instead we are now shifting the burden to everyone else to get booster shots, keep babies out of the public, closing public schools, etc. when all we have to do is make a relatively small number of children get shots that will protect them and all the children around them. What a mess we have come to when the politicians are powerless against fools and fanatics.
7
@hen3ry "No Establishment of religion" means that the US cannot have a state religion, like the Church of England was the state religion, aka "established church" of England.
It doesn't mean that politicians cannot consider morals deriving from religion, nor that religious groups cannot attempt to influence policy.
2
@hen3ry, It is called the 14th Amendment Section 1, equal protection under the law.
1
Society and world would be so much better without the ideology and cultural rigidity of religions. We have had too much of inquisitions, blasphemy-charged murders, territorial wars and terrorism in the name of religion, and suppression of evidenced-based science because of alleged scriptual beliefs. Even in the U.S., being a self-declared atheist is ten times as politically lethal than being LGBT. Recently, the DoD denied an atheist from being a champlain for the benefit of troops. Granted, religion has its merits such as inducing indvidual spiritual strength, being a social-connecting force, and organizationally being charitiable to the needy. However, when religion with government assent, prevents the freedom of others, restrictis the belief of others, and endangers people by inducing disease and even death because of opposition to medical practices, it is time for society to impose its will for the greater good. Religion ideally must be an individual practice not imposed upon others (as someone said," your freeedom to believe ends at the beginning of my nose".)
8
As someone raised in an extremist evangelical environment, I can say with certainty that school prayer and other issues are not just about their 'freedom's, but converting the sinful non believers to their religion. Bringing back school prayer does just that. Would they accept reading of the Koran in their schools? Of course not.
An acquaintance who is a right wing conservative evangelical refuses to be vaccinated against the flu, because 'My God will protect me'. This 70 year old lady did, indeed, come down with a severe case of influenza this past season. She calls herself 'pro life' yet her actions endangered babies, including her own great grand children, and immunocompromised adults who have no or limited immunity. And for whom the flu may be deadly.
People such as this (very nice, btw) lady live in a bubble where they refuse to listen to science, and of course follow the anti-science right wing Republicans and the occupant of Our White House.
They have been brainwashed by their extremist churches and as a result have put many in danger. I've often thought how great it would be if one could 'tag' virus particles and follow their progress, in some cases leading to people for whom it takes their lives. These people are responsible for the deaths of others because of their beliefs. No, not Pro Life at all - they sacrifice the lives of others for the sake of their religion.
14
This article is quite flawed intellectually in two important ways.
1. It attempts to draw a comparison between the anti-vaccination movement and mainline conservative Christian beliefs. Of course, opposing vaccines is absurd from a scientific perspective. Anti-vaccination beliefs have nothing to do with any mainstream religious belief or any meaningful historical belief. Those vacuous beliefs have no basis in a sacred religious text. Vaccines are one of three reasons human life expectancy doubled during the twentieth century and few argue they aren’t important. Only a disingenuous person would attempt to transmute anti-vaccination into an unrelated argument.
2. You seem to argue that a religious group defending its long held orthodox beliefs is unacceptable in our civil society.
It is quite shameful that you are either ignoring or haven’t read our history as a nation. The reason the founders guaranteed the freedom of religious expression is that the pilgrims fled religious persecution. The constitutional protections for religious expression are in place so that any person/any minority may defend their freedom of conscience (whether or not society finds it tasteful or offensive).
This constitutional principle should always be protected regardless of which party or ideological philosophy is in power or popular in society.
Your myopic view is a danger to our founders’ intent and to religious freedom.
3
once here, the Pilgrims continued the model from which they'd fled. their holy objective was not just to escape the religious persecutors, but to become them. and they did so quite successfully through the late 1960s in the North, and their more Baptist brethern in the Soith and West continue the tradition and its politics until this very moment. have a blessed day.
6
@Pottree
From what I've read England was happy to be rid of the pestilence known as Pilgrims.They were obnoxious,pushy and very noisy.England was happy to see them go,
4
Thanks for your willingness to engage.
However, your comment doesn’t make sense.
The founders wrote protections against religious persecution into the constitution as a result of the experience of their forbearers.
They certainly did not intend religious persecution as you suggest.
Those projections for religious expression were a tremendous leap forward in human history. They remain intact today. It is one of the greatest legacies of our republic.
I am happy to discuss where you think they are abridged. However, it is quite clear to any student of history that these rights have been consistently protected (except for the rare exception) in our nation’s history. There is no better example of religious freedom in the history of human history.
1
Long term, the rend is not good for organized religion in general in this country. The Pew Research Institute has done some excellent studies and conducts frequent surveys on this topic.
What they found in a 2015 survey is that "...a growing share of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, including some who self-identify as atheists or agnostics as well as many who describe their religion as “nothing in particular.” Altogether, the religiously unaffiliated (also called the “nones”) now account for 23% of the adult population, up from 16% in 2007." https://www.pewforum.org/2015/11/03/u-s-public-becoming-less-religious/
If that trend were to continue, about 1/3 of the adult population of the U.S. would claim no religious affiliation at all by 2022. The percentage of older adults that still maintain a religious affiliation is is declining at a much lower rate, but this group is aging out.
We may be seeing the last attempts to get around the clear and concise 1st Amendment language that "...prevents Congress from making any law respecting an establishment of religion..." inasmuch as even evangelical sects are also seeing a decline in membership - not as steep as so-called mainstream Protestant and Catholic sects, but a decline nonetheless.
The leaders of these sects know that demographics are inexorably working against them and likely in panic mode.
10
In the 60's and 70's when I was in school the freedom to worship meant you got to go to whatever church etc you wanted to and adopt whatever religion you wanted to. That was it. You did not get to break the law or violate the rights of others with thin arguments about how doing the job you chose to do would violate your right to worship. That lie was invented by the republicans as a way to undermine and undo the Equity rulings the courts were handing down that were undoing the institutional unfairness our nation is famous for. Ditto the invented idea of "activist judges" to justify appointing corrupt judges to the courts who had already decided pretty much every case that will come before them.
As always in America it is about racism and classism.
15
Of course it is unfair and should, if it is not, be illegal. I cannot understand why it is pertinent to any religion that one's praying must be done in a specific place. If you think that a prayer is required or desired before you go to school or work, you have ample time to do so before leaving your home. But the point here is not religious rights but a desire by religious people to impose their convictions on others and to achieve this, they are willing to inflict on others their practices. And politicians who try every subterfuge to make this possible are guilty of unconstitutional behavior. Moreover, the last I heard is god sees in your heart and he doesn't need to hear your voice to know what you need. Silence is golden, if not devine.
10
Religion: I can't eat pork.
Religious freedom: I'm going to get a job in a restaurant and make sure you can't eat pork, either.
25
I agree...and I disagree. A private business can choose who they do business with. Renki points to "conservative" Christians, but Catholics and many mainstream religions also do not approve of homosexuality. Tolerance is not the same as approval. We had a situation in Colorado where a gay couple harassed a baker. They could have gone elsewhere but they thought it was cute to publicly humiliate this baker. Many of us were disgusted with them and stopped supporting their cause!
However...I don't think any religion should be permitted to break the law that safeguards others, using the excuse of religious freedom. And this is where we, in American, are weak. We are very weak when it comes to the Mormon rogues and bigamy. And this vaccination issue is the same.
2
@J. G. Smith No, a business cannot choose who they do business with. They cannot decide they serve only white people. But you think they can decide they serve only straight people, because . . . ?
3
Your definition of private business is not correct. Private and public accommodation are specific legal term defined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The baker's business is considered a public accommodation. He was granted a business license by the state and agreed to follow the rules of that license.
2
And while we're at it, they can stop singing "God Bless America" at baseball games, too. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" is all the 7th inning stretch has ever needed.
11
@Observor
That started with Eisenhower after WWII. It was nonsense then, and it is still nonsense. I cannot think of any less religious place than the bleachers in a baseball stadium where some are throwing full beer cans down on others within reach.
What I don't understand is the utter hypocrisy of it. For instance we go out of our way, backward somersaults to make sure that not one taxpayer dollar is used to help a woman end her pregnancy. But taxpayer dollars for weapons of mass destruction? Absolutely no problem.
My point is that's it's always the religious fanatics who get their way and the truth is it's not about religion it's about being able to discriminate with a smile on your face and superiority in your heart.
18
Here's city councilman Jim Cleveland from Hoschton, GA in another of today's new stories: “I’m a Christian and my Christian beliefs are you don’t do interracial marriage. That’s the way I was brought up and that’s the way I believe. I have black friends, I hired black people. But when it comes to all this stuff you see on TV, when you see blacks and whites together, it makes my blood boil because that’s just not the way a Christian is supposed to live.” That's an elected official who would love some "religious freedom" to force his views on others. Of course his county went 80% for Trump in '16 and 82% for Gov. Brian Kemp last year. So this is not just about gay marriage, abortions, and vaccines. This is about being able to indulge ALL the prejudice. Laws like the proposed SB17 in Texas help make that happen.
11
All of our treasured civil rights, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and freedom of association, have downsides. For a few examples, consider the burqa, hate speech, and discrimination, respectively. The upside of these civil rights is freedom. You cannot get the features without some of the bugs. So we have tradeoffs, and nobody's rights are absolute, including Christians like me who pay taxes that fund endless wars, or the gay activists who morphed from "live and let live" into "bake the cake you bigot, or else!" in a matter of a decade.
A genuine attempt at persuasion by Margaret Renkl would try to navigate these tradeoffs, perhaps by acknowledging the sincerity and gravity of religious belief and conscience. But instead, religious freedom only comes in scare quotes with her and so many progressives. It is mere prejudice cloaked in faith! How convenient when your opponents are motivated by hate, because then you are relieved of engaging them in any kind of argument.
Somehow, I have the feeling that when Renkl's crusade of religious privatization is complete, her rebranded religion will be the convenient public substitute.
3
What one does in these contexts is contact the Freedom From Religion Foundation for legal support and Satanic Temple for prayers. FFrF sends letters threatening legal action. Satanic Temple sends people to assist with student led prayers to Satan. It usually works itself out after that.
6
Don't hold your breath waiting for zealots to leave other people alone or take responsibility for their actions.
6
I will quote from the publication "Tzim Gezint", which was created for the Hasidic community and is now available on the New York City Health Gov website on the measles page.
On page 34, this from the UTA Hasidic school administrator:
"Currently 2% or 175 children have an exemption [from vaccines]. [...] A lot of parents are worried about confidentiality. They don't want the community to be aware of their child's illness, so they'll bring a religious exemption instead of medical. Only a handful of parents have come forward with an actual medical exemption."
In other words, Hasidic religious exemptions will most often be cover for true medical exemptions (to save face, especially not ruin reputations for marriage).
The high measles numbers in the Hasidic community do not correlate with high numbers of religious dissenters from vaccines. Remember, Hasidim have a very low median age (about age 13-14) and there are more babies in its community. They are also more close knit, making transmission more likely. The Times is hounding an incorrect narrative.
I'm not a religious person, but I think we should be accurate in our reporting.
1
So I became a US citizen last month. During the naturalization ceremony, you must declare to renounce your fidelity to the country you are from even though the US allows dual citizenship, and in the end of "Oath of Allegiance (to the United States)," there is a phrase "so help me God."
I am an atheist. I thought I have a right not to practice any religion.
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Margaret, you ignored the issue at the Muslim American Center here in Philadelphia. That would have been really appropriate to include in this article. I'm surprised that you missed it!
2
"It’s illegal for a store owner to discriminate against customers because they happen to belong to a group against which the shopkeeper harbors a personal prejudice."
Please grow up, find another bakery, and make sure you bad-mouth this bakery to all your friends.
I'm Jewish. If the baker didn't want to bake a cake with Jewish symbolism, that is exactly what I would do.
2
@Erik There is a distinction between objecting to the product and objecting to the customer. The baker can say that he doesn't bake cupcakes, layer cakes, sugar cookies, etc. but he can't say that he will bake them for some customers and not for others.
4
@Erik
Yes, once upon a time people discriminated against had no other options. Blacks couldn't just walk out the door and find another counter. The baker agreed to sell them everything but that wedding cake.
These bakers have been sued again. They are being targeted for their religious beliefs.
2
@AACNY
They are not being targeted for their religious beliefs; they are being targeted for their refusal to serve some members of the general public based on religious beliefs the public knows nothing about. If they had a sign on the window stating they did not serve homosexuals, they would be subject to whatever laws apply to having a license to serve the public. They don't want to lose business, so they discriminate in a secretive way. The woman who refused to issue marriage licenses to Gay couples was fired. These bakers should make their discrimination public and risk loss of business. As it stands they have been free to humiliate customers who request a Gay decoration on a cake without consequences. If they made their policies public, then Gay couples could avoid their discrimination. I'm not Gay, and I would not buy a cake from them. That is their real fear.
1
I believe that you are now feeling the consequences of the atheists with their suit, Engel v. Vitale.
They had a legitimate and legal right to bring the question to the Court, and the court made its ruling.
But since then, many on the left have chosen to read Engle with the view that all such practices are illegal when that is NOT what the Supreme Court held.
And now, since the anti-prayer faction continues to redraw lines to favor their position, it is both legitimate and legal for those who do not agree with what is being done in the name of Engle to seek redress.
We are a nation of laws, ma'am, and following the law is the obligation of all in our nation. Your whining exposes you as someone who is unwilling to afford others the rights and privileges that you claim for yourself...
There are words for that describe that sort of duplicity, and all of them are somewhat not exactly kind.
Once again Jews are targeted unfairly in the New York Times, this time with a misleading picture in an Opinion column. While it is true that some ultra-Orthodox members of the Jewish community have not vaccinated their children resulting in the spread of measles in that community, the fact is that it's not because they are ultra-Orthodox. It is because within every community their are anti-vaccination people and it just happened that to strike the ultra-Orthodox community.
As the writer herself noted, the Rabbinic leaders of the community have all come out calling for full vaccination by the community. The fact that some have not heeded their call is a reflection of personal choice, not an issue of religious freedom. Misleading articles like this which erroneously focus on the ultra-Orthodox population this only heighten and strengthen anti-Semitic tendencies within the general populace.
3
The discipline of immunology did not exist at the time of JC, so how is this a religious thing at all ?
4
Not freedom of religion BUT free of religion is the direction we should be going.
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Thank you, You have not conflated anything. The people are not following the logic are the ones who you are addressing. Keep up the good writing.
2
Though I agree with writer's point and feel public health comes first always, I noticed she still needed to get her shots in at Christians. Would not be a NYT article without bashing Christians even when they have nothing to do with reason for article.
@Garth In a column about people using a claim of religious freedom to act in ways that harm others, you think Christians should not be mentioned? Do you mean that no Christian ever does that, or that Christians should have the privilege of doing it without being called out for it?
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To my knowledge, and I am an orthodox Jew, there is no objection to vaccinations. In fact, in the present time we are being strongly encouraged to vaccinate by our Rabbis. Those that do not, are misinformed, or have been wrongly convinced it is sinister and deadly.
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@Abcdef if Christians should be mentioned then so should Muslims but that will never happen as those on left are petrified. For the record I am Jewish and agree with writer but just dislike piling on Christians
I do feel that asking someone to *create* something is different. Christian bakers should be made to *sell* cakes they already have made to gay couples. (In the same way that Christian pharmacists should be made to sell the morning after pill.) But I don't think Christian bakers should be made to *create* wedding cakes for gay couples. (Wedding cakes aren't just desserts; they're symbols.) In the same way, white supremacists should not be asked to *create* wedding cakes for mixed race couples.
Obviously homophobic and white supremacist sentiments are deplorable and wrong. I wish Christians would recognize the goodness of gay unions. But again I think we can draw a pretty neat and clear line with "Don't ask people to create symbols of things they reject."
1
@bess No one bakes an array of wedding cakes in the hope that someone will happen along and buy them before they go stale. Wedding cakes are always made to order. If you don't want to sell "symbols," go into a different line of work.
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Ms. Renkl states that the vast majority of NYC measles cases are in Orthodox Jewish communities where some view vaccines as a violation of kosher restrictions. This claim also appeared last week on a previous NYT article by Donald G. McNeil Jr.
That there are Orthodox Jews that have an issue with the non-Kosher ingredients in MMR vaccines is untrue. It’s as incorrect as attributing the lack of any Orthodox Jews in the NFL to the fact that footballs are made of pigskin.
The anti-vaxxer movement decided to "convert "Orthodox Jews . Knowing nothing of Jewish law they thought that the fact that the vaccines contained non-Kosher ingredients would turn Orthodox Jews against their use. That the “The Vaccine Safety Handbook,” published by the anti-vaccine group Peach lists non-Kosher ingredients proves that it was not written by members of the Orthodox community and that Peach is run by outsiders.
When Orthodox Jewish mothers bring up “religious” reasons for not vaccinating their children they only mention that exposing their young to the supposed health risks of vaccination as being against Judaism. They never refer to the non-Kosher ingredients in the vaccines.
Secondly, Mr. McNeil pointed out that the rabbis who supported vaccination never addressed the non-Kosher issue That should have raised doubts about his claim that some Orthodox Jews had such an issue.
Unlike Ms. Renkl, Mr. McNeil never uses the pejorative ultra-Orthodox in his article. I thank him for that.
1
@MenachemP
Israel is a Jewish State. Israeli children are vaccinated against childhood diseases. How much more Kosher can you be?
Your "right" to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose. If you want to live under arbitrary religious rules enforced by the government, move to Saudi Arabia, Israel, or Ireland. We have freedom FROM religion in this country, under the First Amendment, which set us apart from most other nations in 1776.
6
Make measles great again.
8
We wouldn't even be talking about this if we didn't elect a bigot as president. Once and for all - you do not have a right to affect others by your beliefs, just as others have no right to affect your beliefs. So, if you think you have a right to discriminate, you are wrong and if you do what's wrong, you should pay a penalty.
5
The nonsense perpetuated in the name of religion is truly and utterly amazing, if not bone-chillingly frightening, After centuries of hatred, wars, abuses, and unspeakable atrocities committed in the name of God, whomever he may be, we in the 21st century still cling to the fears lurking in the caves of our very long dead ancestors. Adding insult to injury, now we endanger babies and others to a very preventable disease due to some ridiculous notion. Unbelievable!
8
I would like to see what happens when an atheist refuses to bake a wedding cake for an evangelical couple. Straight to court I assume! The fur will fly. How dare they judge???
8
The issue that confuses me the most about people who for any reason refuse to vaccinate for measles. Is that a great many of them are willing to take their child to the hospital when complications develop from the measles.
5
Freedom of religion these days is about discrimination, about denying rights and services to people who don't look like you, who don't pray like you, who don't love like you, who don't live like you.
Thomas Jefferson wrote about the wall of separation between church and state for a reason, and the protection to worship and believe as you wish is enshrined in the First Amendment for a reason. The First Amendment protects religion and people's right to practice their religion from government interference, oversight, etc. The Founders did not want to replicate Europe, where the governments picked which religions they favored, and often harmed those who didn't practice the state religion. But the Founders didn't foresee that the Constitution would need protection from religion and those who seek to impose their religion on others, to discriminate against those who don't worship and believe as they do.
I'm appalled that doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others in the healthcare profession can opt out of treating those who want and need services that offend the healthcare practitioners' religious believes. If you don't believe in birth control, fine. Have 30 kids. But if you're a pharmacist, you shouldn't be allowed to deny me birth control pills because it is against your religion. Nor is it always easy to go to another pharmacy and hope that its pharmacist doesn't harbor similar beliefs. What if you live in a rural area and the next pharmacy is 75 miles away?
10
We have the right to practice our beliefs and we have the right to not believe. This right has evolved in our democracy such as the 1962 ruling and it needs to continue to evolve. If certain religions cannot accept today that being gay is not a choice then they will continue to lose numbers. What is to stop a Christian owned business to refuse to serve muslins or someone of the Hindu faith? Perhaps asking if you are a believer or not and refusing you based on your answer?
Our democracy is ever evolving and it’s not about society falling apart , it’s about society understanding the human condition more thoroughly.
3
Religious freedom is a balancing act. We all have the right to practice our faiths, and we all have the right not to have other people's faiths thrust upon us.
Right now our pendulum is swinging towards allowing people to thrust their own beliefs upon others - as an act of freedom - and devaluing people's right not to be impacted. That is a legacy of our strongly conservative Court (and the tilt to the right that Catholicism has undergone as we add more and more rigid Catholics to the bench.)
I feel sympathy for the people who cannot figure out how to line up their own moral certainty and world views with the reality of the modern age. To them a cake apparently is a permission, an approval, rather than a pastry. But my sympathy stops when we give permission to discriminate: sure, the couple can go to another baker, unless that baker too chooses to discriminate.
We are out of balance. A minority of fundamentalist Christians are driving our national interpretation of one of our most fundamental rights - rights we fought to get established, as we founded many of our colonies in response to flight from nations with national religions.
One of the reasons that Trump can count on the support of the most ardent of religious, despite his obvious flaws, is that he gave them the right, and the court, to pound their own views into everyone else's ;ives.
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@Cathy
We also have the right to have no faith. Faith is wishful thinking. Concepts supported by evidence require no faith. I don’t hate religion. My father’s side of my family are Protestant. My mother’s side is Catholic. We all get along..
1
Show me the public square that has no beliefs at all. Everyone believes something, and they act on it. Believe a fetus is just tissue? The is a law for that. Believe that a fetus if protected life? There is a law for that. This piece, like all the others that take the same premise, pretends that only certain people force their beliefs on others, when in fact there are usually competing beliefs trying to win space over the other.
5
@TD
Belief- that is a state of mind that exists when one does not have knowledge of the thing. It is closely connected with faith another adjective describing lack of knowledge. Belief is frequently described as "strong" in spite of lacking knowledge to prove it.
Knowledge- the state of being where you know a thing and have no need to believe in it as you know it to be so and can prove it with the knowledge you have.
@TD
You're probably just pretending to be rational, but in case you are sincere, and specifically with regard to abortion, there is a law of the land. It is not just a "belief." And most polling indicates that though there may be some questioning of gray areas, the vast majority of Americans support that law as laid down by the Supreme Court, and support the idea that an abortion decision is a matter of private moral values in most instances.
3
@Pete
But not in all instances, and that is because a strong majority does not belief it is moral very far into the 2nd trimester. What people believe eventually takes over, so thank you for proving my point. It is about beliefs and value systems, the private enacted through public consensus.
Group prayer in public schools is absolutely not a matter of people practicing their faiths. It is a dominant group imposing their beliefs on others, so those others must participate in rituals that contradict their beliefs or be ostracised and humiliated. It is using public schools to make the dominant faith a decree of the government -- the state. It is abhorrent in a supposedly free society.
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@Thomas
Not the "dominant" faith. The majority of the population faith.
Still its wrong.
1
Non profits also do not have the right to involve themselves in politics. Why doesn't someone revoke the non profit status of churches that do?
They pay no taxes and buy tv stations and broadcast not just religious material, but political commentary. They should be stopped. No one is enforcing the law about this.
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@David Jacobson
Not only do they purchase TV stations, they twist FCC regulations to make these stations "must carry" which stuffs them into cable TV contracts. I cannot begin to count how many "must carry" Christian sermons are on my local Comcast basic lineup, which then includes all higher priced packages. They are not a public service.
6
The New Testament addresses this issue. Luke 4:5-7 describes lust for political power (literally the "authority of kingdoms" as a temptation of Satan.
Unfortunately, all too many church leaders have determined that leveraging the mighty coercive power of the state to criminalize non-adherence to dogma is just too alluring a temptation to pass up.
25
A business and/or corporation can not have religious rights.
Those that argue to the contrary (at least four current justices on the Supreme Court), are disingenuous.
Individuals have Rights; corporations must follow the established rules set by a Constitutional Government.
To confuse the two, betrays the bias of those attempting to rationalize divine holy rights.
Corporation can not have religious rights. Money is not Free Speech. A State Militia is not an individual.
We want our Country back. Stop the lying.
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@Fred Armstrong
I'm sorry but an individual doing business is still an individual and afforded the protections of free speech and freedom from religious persecution.
A corporation is really nothing more than a group of individual(s), and afforded the same protections.
2
@SSS
You are completely wrong about a corporation. The only reason for a corporation is that it is not a group of individuals. It is a legal entity set up to protect those individuals from individual responsibility.
30
@SSS: Well, an individual doing business that's open to the public is subject to public regulations. Among the regulations are, that he is not allowed to arbitrarily turn away some customers and not others without legally justifiable reasons.
And, a corporation is not just a group of individuals, that's the whole point, individuals may come and go, while the corporation stays the same: there is a huge body of law defining all the benefits and obligations involved.
17
Margaret Renkl, whether you write about Mother Nature, birds, dogs, grief, politics, human nature or ethics, you are, hands down, my favorite writer. At a time in our lives, and most especially with this particular government, when I feel truly fearful and depressed, I read your Opinion in the NYTimes and find humanity and human dignity.
34
Freedom of religion has become synonymous these days with "I am free to practice my religion, and practicing my religion allows me to prohibit you from doing anything I don't like." The religious right has claimed the mantra of freedom of religion for its own, and in our current climate the courts are allowing them to have it.
62
Vaccination and a childhood disease outbreak are not bigotry and racism. This article conflates two unrelated things in a dangerous and skillful way. It is still a very wrong confabulation of ideas.
5
@Sherwin Kahn
It is a factual article. The conflation of religion with public welfare is what we see happening in real life.
1
@Sherwin Kahn: This article isn't about bigotry and racism at all. Someone operating a bakery shop is perfectly free to harbor the worst kind of bigotry and racism, as long as he or she serves all customers without discrimination. It's not the thoughts, it's the actions that are regulated.
Similarly, you don't have to believe in the value of vaccination, but it makes sense to require you to get your children vaccinated anyway, to prevent the risk of disease.
8
True, perhapa, but the sting of a strong association between these separate issues is similar to that between smoking and lung cancer.
2
I'm remembering part of a debate I was party to back in those wonderful days of staying up all night arguing in a college dorm. At one point, one of us noted that there are three possibilities when it comes to the question of god. Either there is only one god, in which case the majority of human beings are wrong in their beliefs, or there is more than one god, in which case the majority of human beings are wrong in their religious beliefs, or there is no god, in which the vast majority of human beings are wrong in their religious beliefs. I am not here to specify which I think true, but to note that given these three possibilities, it is hardly justified for one set of believers to suggest that another set is wrong, to act as if they were, or to demand that any government favor their practices. No one should be deprived of the right to believe as he or she chooses, but in the end it is a private matter and should remain so.
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@James Quinn
Religion is a private matter, and prayers are private matters. Keep religious beliefs private; keep public actions by those who hold private beliefs public. No citizen has the right to yell Fire! in a crowded theater, because that would endanger all in the theater, and prevent an orderly exit in case of a real fire. No private citizen has the right to endanger the lives of fellow citizens. That is why armed citizens are not allowed to threaten others in public spaces. Armed citizens are not allowed in public parks, shopping Malls, churches and schools. When armed citizens have breached these legal protections, other citizens have died. Measles were a lethal disease, causing death, blindness, deafness, and serious illness. Vaccines have eliminated those risks. If a child remains free of required vaccines, that child can be a carrier of virulent diseases wherever that child goes: stores, parks, public sidewalks: the Commons. If the parents who hold these extreme beliefs were quarantined, they would protest that. When I was a child there was no measle vaccine; I did get mumps. When there was a measles outbreak at school, I was kept home. A little boy on my block had measles, the house was quarantined. Now we have a legal and required vaccine to prevent the spread of Measles. The only exception to required vaccines is a medical one requiring medical documentation from a licensed medical professional.
8
@James Quinn: See, you guys had fallen into the old logic trap. Easy to slide into, late at night in a college dorm. But consider the old wise man story: I forget the details, but they don't matter. Person A maintains P. The wise man says, "You're right". Then Person B maintains Not-P. The wise man says "You're right." Then Person C says "Wait, they can't both be right!" The wise man says "You're right." And so it goes.
1
@James Quinn Right on! In Allah we Trust, In Jehovah we Trust in Buddha we Trust etc etc etc..... or none of the above!
1
Nice try Margaret, but most readers recognize the logical over-reach in this piece. No one ever died from not getting a wedding cake. And on a practical note why would you want a cake from someone who has the honesty to tell you up front they don’t agree with your life style. Wouldn’t it be prudent to find a baker who does?
13
@James
If a bakery operates on a public tax supported byway, that commercial enterprise is not free from laws governing commerce. If a bakery wishes to discriminate against a specific group of citizens, that enterprise is in violation of commerce laws and regulations. Perhaps the bakery can limit its sales to church basements, or private homes. If the bakery is open to the public, any member of the public has a right to enter and buy from that establishment.
12
@James
There were separate water fountains and bathrooms during the Jim Crow era, but that doesn't mean the policy was right or just or kind. People are, in fact, dying all over the world from religious extremist practices: LGBTQ populations have a much higher suicide rate than the general population; women are denied access to essential health care and contraception; and your "friendly" neighborhood pharmacist can refuse to fill your prescription. No other pharmacy in town? Too bad.
This is about so much more than a cake. It's about people's right to make their own lifestyle and medical decisions.
14
@James
As someone who has faced systematic discrimination from retailers, the effect can be far greater than "just one item from one shop". Though I find this behavior mostly something to laugh at, I suspect that mine is not the typical reaction.
A legal system tolerating this form of exclusion from one vendor would let every vendor in the area do the same. The net effect could easily be the couple cannot get married or the person cannot shop as easily as everyone else for any other items because of some form of prejudice or retaliation.
7
"...banning prayer in public school never stopped any child from praying. It just prevents students who don’t belong to the dominant religion from feeling ostracized."
But shaming, pointing out, and ostracizing children whose families don't practice the dominant religion is the entire point of so-called student-led school-wide prayers in public schools.
62
@Nancy
There is a thing called separation of church and State. If a parent wants a child to pray at school, there are private schools devoted to prayer in school. I went to a Catholic school for the first three years of school. Then I went to public schools. There were no prayers in the public schools. A child's religion was neither identified, nor practiced in school. The Founding Fathers fled enforced religion, even if some of them tried to enforce their own. The Puritans did not succeed in forming a new country with Puritanism as a defining factor. There were Salem witch trials which led to that separation. There should be no school enforced praying in any tax supported public school. Atheists and Agnostics pay taxes, and have children, too. Their children should never be forced to pray at school.
6
I don't remember the Bible passage but the message was to "pray in silent," or in secret -- don't make a show of it or it isn't sincere. They've been making a spectacle of themselves for most of my adult life. Their God is power and control. They may get their way, but it won't be enough because it isn't from God.
29
@Tom J
The passage is from Matthew 6:5-6. The person speaking is Jesus.
5 “And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. 6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7
@Doug Amen
2
The bottom line for the larger issue applies here and now to this one: Freedom of Religion implies Freedom From Religion.
60
@Glenn Thomas
Atheism is a classic religion, an organized one as well.
2
False equivalency. Endangering lives is not the same as not baking a cake. If a cake baker told me they couldn't bake a cake for me, I'd find another cake baker.
15
@Edgar
A wedding cake baker who won't do one for a gay wedding should be required to put a sign up on the outside of their business. I'm sure they wouldn't like that as they would lose a lot of customers.
2
@Edgar
So you think a "Green Book" for LGBTQ people is a good idea? I think it's reprehensible.
1
@Edgar
In my America, the baker would obey the law and bake for all comers or find another line of work or stop making wedding cakes.
People in this country have become exceedingly small minded and selfish whether it comes to cakes or measles.
4
If parents don't want to immunize their children they should not be allowed to let those children attend public schools. That's not being anti-anything. It's being a responsible, concerned parent.
57
@Panthiest
I agree they shouldn't be in a public school but they are nonetheless entitled to the public educational funding. So give them a voucher to fund their education.
@SSS, that isn't how it works. We set up a public education system. Follow the rules and enroll your kids. Don't follow the rules and don't enroll your kids. They are entitled to the education, not the funding.
21
@SSS
Why should taxpayers who fund education for all be required to also fund education for those who choose to send their children to specific religious schools. Private schools charge tuition; public schools don't. If you want private school education, pay a tuition fee to that school. Don't ask your neighbors to pay for your child's private school.
5
When we start giving religious exemptions for behavior that would otherwise be prohibited or regulated, we head down a dangerous path. Should Abraham get a religious exemption for sacrificing Isaac?
26
He never sacrificed Isaac. God called it off.
Thank you, Margaret Renkl.
Conservatives are anything but conservative when it comes to involving Freedom, Liberty, and Equality.
30
Very well stated. Bravo.
7
You are conflating non-analogous issues. Not having a particular bakery bake your wedding cake does not endanger you nor anyone else. Nor does insurance coverage denying individuals an elective birth control procedure put you or the public in danger. Refusing vaccination does statistically, demonstrably endanger you and others.
9
@BJ
Insurance is governed by laws and regulations under the Commerce Clause. Insurance cannot prohibit a specific group of citizens from buying or using that insurance. That is why the Hobby Holly case for discrimination failed. They could not offer insurance to some, and deny coverage to others in their employ.
1
@BJ
Refusing birth control puts people in danger too: danger of leaving in poverty, homelessness, lack of opportunities, ..... Why would someone "religious" would want that happen to others?
1
@BJ
When they refuse to bake you a cake because of who you are, that's against the law. Doesn't matter if it endangers anyone. It is treating some people as less equal than others. And we are all equal in this country. You can believe whatever you want but you can't inflict your beliefs on anyone else.
2
Judaism does not teach that science is to be rejected or that education in the sciences, literature, history and other things secular are to be rejected. Regrettably though the ultra-orthodox in their great isolation and fear of contamination of their belief system greatly limit traditional education. Some Hasidic sects go beyond the norm (in my view) and fail to properly educate young women, keeping them subjugated, ignorant and all too often pregnant forever. Drive into the wrong neighborhood in Israel on the Sabbath and you're likely to be stoned. In New York the Hasidic community is largely isolated and also greatly ignorant. That is not the way Judaism should be.
I come from parents who were brought up in both conservative and orthodox families and my brothers, sisters and I enjoyed the best of both. When the Polio vaccine was offered in the 1950s I never heard any consideration of rejection of that vaccine. We all knew the tragedy and consequences of Polio. The Polio vaccines, developed by a Jew, Jonas Salk, and another later by Dr. Sabin (I believe he too was Jewish) were welcomed as a god-send.
There is no vaccine for fear and ignorance. We are a nation of laws and our health officials and our representatives in government are sworn to protect and defend us. If the Orthodox Jewish community must be compelled to vaccinate I do not oppose that necessary means of protection for other members of our communities. Religious freedom is not license to endanger others.
26
We keep forgetting that Religious Freedom comes from the modern, liberal secular state -- but the modern, liberal, secular state does not come from religious freedom.
Your religious beliefs are like which sports team you follow: Important to you, moreso on Sundays, and UTTERLY IRRELEVANT TO ME.
There's no god, but we can't stop people from having their irrelevant religious beliefs; what wwe can, and must do is keep any and all religions away from law, legislation, governance or the constitution. And if you don't want to be part of a functioning civilization because of your religious beliefs, you don't have to be; enjoy the woods and firelight and no vaccines and no pasteurization.
I'm tired of ignorance, superstation and state-sanctioned mental illness being the artificial center of our lives because of busybodies, ghost-chasers and people who'd be happier in the 12th century.
30
And yet if you told these self-described Christians that they should post a No Gays Served sign in their window, they'd have a hissy fit. It seems to me that they want to discriminate against others but they don't want anyone to know so they don't suffer the consequences of their own actions.
40
That's because religious "freedom" isn't a freedom. Your freedom stops where my rights begin. I have a right to life and personal safety. So does everyone living in the United States. The primacy of my rights takes precedent over your religious beliefs. We don't permit persons to conduct human sacrifice or cannibalism on religious grounds, now do we? Religion is therefore a liberty, not a freedom. Check your beliefs at the door. I have the Constitutional right to not care what you believe.
45
@Andy
Yes! Absolutely agree!
1
@Andy: Yes, if you're in the public sphere, either in business or if you're a public employee, then you need to check your religious beliefs at the door and serve everyone equally. I don't understand pharmacists, doctors, nurses and others who want to practice their religion more than they want to practice medicine, nursing, or pharmacy. What if a Christian Scientist decided to become a pharmacist and got hired by CVS or Walgreens? His religious beliefs would prohibit him from filling ALL prescriptions, and suppose that pharmacy was the only one for 100 miles? What are patients supposed to do when they need their heart meds, diabetes meds, birth control, and other medications? Why should your religious beliefs allow you to get paid NOT to do your job? If you think you shouldn't have to fill certain prescriptions due to your religious beliefs, then you need to find a job that won't compromise your religious beliefs, and that means some jobs are out. Don't become a pharmacist. If you're deeply opposed to abortion and birth control, don't become an ob-gyn.
4
I don't care whom they exclude (bake your own cake!), what they pray and vote for etc. I'd just like for their leaders to pay taxes as every decent American does. It's a business, a badly regulated one at that. The least they can do is pay their taxes.
15
@elmueador
The least they can do is to serve all the public. If they refuse, they should be forced to remove their business from any public byway. Taxes are paid by all. Churches are exempt for now. Bakeries are not exempt from taxes, or from the Commerce Clause.
@Linda Miilu
Why should churches be exempt?
@elmueador
I did not state churches should be exempt from taxes. I said they are currently exempt. I believe they should pay taxes. They don't. Read my statement again.
Jesus is said to have rebuked the ultra orthodox of his day from flaunting their piety by external symbols which amount to little more than hypocrisy. In short, he said, pray to your god in the privacy of your heart. And may I add: leave the public thoroughfare to the rest of us sinners who have just as much right to it as the pious.
16
What if the voice of god tells me to take my eldest son up to the roof and cut his heart out? Is that protected by the First Amendment?
13
@William Verick
Only B.C. In the A.D. era, only burning people at the stake is protected.
@William Verick
Nope. If you do it, sounds like god deserves the death penalty.
1
Religion in America is very useful to politicians: whenever they are caught cheating on their spouse, or stealing, or driving while drunk, they will give a press conference, with their spouse and children standing at attention nearby, and tell you they are sorry and praying that God will forgive them (God is very understanding it seems).
That is one more reason why it will be very difficult to take religion out of politics, and out of public life.
7
The authors of the Constitution should be applauded for the First Amendment, but let's admit it: It was only a baby-step, not a Giant Leap For Humankind.
They wrote that church and state must be separate. They further stipulated that there would be no 'test' for belonging to a specific religion in order to hold public office.
But 'baby-step' it was.
Excluded from inclusion were 94% of men and 100% of all females.
Included was the 'right' to own another human being, male or female, from First Breath to Last Breath.
Eventually they got around to including all males and no one can own another human being - but the females only got the 'vote' and that's that, because, wink-wink, doesn't both the Bible AND the Koran stipulate that women are to be seen and not heard?
I am harmed every day by religion in this country. Have been for over 70 years.
So, I hope everyone understands that my opinion on religious discrimination is that if you DO wish to discriminate in any way, that you must have your tax-exemption yanked.
You can't eat your cake and have it, too.
This is not a "Christian Nation"; the Treaty of Tripoli says so.
It is a Constitutional nation.
True, it's not the world's best Constitution - but it's the best one that we have.
Get with the program, religionists, or prepare to have all tax-exemptions yanked for everyone just because you can't play fair.
And get your shots or stay home.
There are pregnant women out there. Knock it off!
25
Although I agree with the general thrust of Ms. Renkl's argument, I think she chose the wrong examples.
First, most anti-vaxxers are not religious. She even notes that in this essay, at least as it regards the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. There's a way to address this issue outside of religion, and without any religious exemptions.
Second, the issue of the wedding cake is tricky. The case in Colorado turned on an argument about artistic freedom: that wedding cakes were the baker's artistic output. As I understand it, he offered to sell the couple any of the off-the-shelf items in his store, but he would not accept what he called an artistic commission. This is an important distinction, as I don't think much good can come of limiting one's artistic freedom. The Supreme Court ruled very narrowly on this matter. And in my (non-lawyer's) opinion, correctly.
I have no sympathy for anti-vaxxers or homophobes. Heck, I don't even care much for religion. But I also don't like sloppy reasoning that undermines the very goals I would like to see achieved.
7
@hammond
It is still using religion to discriminate. A chef could also refuse to not serve certain groups based on your argument, because cooking certian meals is creative and "artistic". Salons could also start discriminating on the same basis because high end hair stylist are considered artists. I hope you get my drift here.
11
@hammond, the Colorado case turned on comments made by the government commission while discussing the case which were perceived as hostile to the baker. It was not based on 'artistic output.
7
@Melisande Smith: I totally get your drift. And I agree. I am only saying that we need to be very careful about the limits we put on free speech and artistic expression.
But as @Robert pointed out, the case did not turn on the right to artistic freedom, as I stated above. Robert is in fact correct. Here's the summary from the Wikipedia article:
In a 7-2 decision, the Court ruled on narrow grounds that the Commission did not employ religious neutrality, violating Masterpiece owner Jack Phillips' rights to free exercise, and reversed the Commission's decision. The Court did not rule on the broader intersection of anti-discrimination laws, free exercise of religion, and freedom of speech, due to the complications of the Commission's lack of religious neutrality.
Thanks to Robert for pointing that out. I should have done my research before posting. My bad.
4
But what happens when the rights you are advocating for wind up discriminating against someone else's rights? This is clearly a clash of rights. Both are well protected by the law. Winner is determined by a vote.
5
@AACNY
Not in a country that values the freedom to be different. This is not intended to support anti-vaxxers; it is intended to say that majority rule has to be limited by forbidding oppression.
2
@Thomas Zaslavsky
We have an inter-State Commerce Clause. There is nothing oppressive in it. There is nothing oppressive about laws which protect the Commons. These women with their prams were using a public sidewalk. Taxes pay for that sidewalk. Taxes in NYC are paid by all residents. Why should they pay to support a fraction of residents who refuse to protect ALL children from common viral diseases, e.g. Measles, Mumps and Rubella. A group of children from the Phillipines were not vaccinated; apparently at least one of them was a carrier of Measles. There was an outbreak of Measles traced to that location. There were infants, toddlers and pregnant women at that location exposed to Measles.
3
@Linda Miilu
I am trying to agree with you, but at the same time not to approve tyranny of the majority as proposed by AACNY.
Typically, the author's solution to religious beliefs she doesn't like is coercion. Her punchline is the ever-trite "Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God" nonsense. On the contrary, faith is the totality of one's being, indivisible from the human person, nor from any aspect of their life. This is why history shows that their are ultimately just two solutions to unfavorable religious beliefs: death and conversion. If the author wishes to live in a free society, she should spend her time converting people rather than laying the groundwork for the slaughter.
2
Nonsense. We should be doing everything we can to educate people so we can eradicate all these stone age beliefs.
@Jonathan Stensberg: Well, no, history is full of believers of various religions coexisting. Even apparent wars of religion often have other aspects: the Crusades weren't about destroying Islam altogether, they were about seizing the Holy Land. There have been cases where the alternative was death or conversion, but that isn't the general rule.
That said, you're right in that religion isn't a totally private affair, it will probably guide your views on life and death, war and peace, charity and wealth, and many other crucial issues that you will think about in the voting booth.
When kindness, humanity, and community take a backseat to our ‘beliefs’, regardless of their origin—
both are ultimately diminished.
9
Thank you, Ms. Renkl, for starting your article with your recollections of praying your way through public school. I am really tired of religious people saying that "we have thrown God out of public schools".
13
Ms. Renkil has failed to cite the most egregious burden organized religions place on the backs of us all. They are tax exempt. Despite the fact that they massively intrude with their dogmas on the rights of other citizens, despite their open support of political parties and politicians with whom we may not agree, despite their coffers bloated by tax-free donations, their huge real-estate holdings, despite the private jets, mansions, limousines with which some holy men indulge themselves, we taxpayers are dragooned into paying whether we want to or not. These tax exemptions violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
39
The entire business of school prayer has, as you have mention, nothing to do with the ability of a child to say a prayer if he/she wants to. The big hubbub is that parents whose kids pray are worried that SOMEONE ELSE’S kids AREN’T praying and they find that threatening.
How dare anyone is not part of “the flock.”
11
@SAH- I disagree. The argument is that they want to force their prayers on everyone else's children. There would be strong complaints if a Hindu, Buddist, Muslim or Jew was leading the prayers or even if a Catholic came to lead prayers at a mostly Protestant school. The most vocal simply want their religious beliefs forced down everyone else's throat but wouldn't want their kids exposed to other people's prayers.
6
@SAH
Actually, I think they are more afraid their own children won't be forced to pray. Without forced prayer, their children may not be sufficiently indoctrinated to perpetuate the sect.
@S.L.
I thought that is what I said! You have taken it one step further. And I agree with that too!
1
Actually, it's not illegal to discriminate against LGBT people in Tennessee and most states, for religious reasons or due to simple bigotry. Colorado, along with several other blue states, was a special case with protections limited to that state. Gay people can still be denied service by businesses, fired from their jobs, prevented from adopting children and evicted from housing based on who they are across the South and Middle America.
9
@Chris Gray
If a Gay individual could prove that he or she was denied employment due to a religious belief the case would be won in Court. There might be exceptions depending on whether the applicant could perform the duties required by the job as clearly stated in a job description. A disabled individual would not be granted redress if the job requirements could not be met, even with reasonable accommodations, and the job description was clearly stated. A religious belief might be harder to negotiate in a Civil Court; proof would be difficult unless the job required some weekend hours, and there was no way to make an exception for the applicant.
The worst part of the bigoted baker’s rejection of her customers was the exclamation points. It adds linguistic Insult to injustice and injury.
6
It used to be widely accepted the one's rights end where the other person's nose begins, or so goes the cliche. Along with that, the great irony of the editorial is that even if birth control for the woman isn't covered, you can be sure that the man's vasectomy will be.
8
We need more articles like this one! I don't want a local baker to refuse to sell me a cake because I'm pantheist.
5
It is so easy to find an almost endless list of instances where religion has damaged innocents. Perhaps those who believe should be in the closet, and not those who simply like the wrong people.
8
@Amanda If a religious group wants to deal only with its true believers, they have the option of creating their own community and avoiding contact with nonbelievers. But they would still have to follow the Constitution.
3
Great column, Margaret. Good work. paul in bessemer
5
No.
Just no.
There is nothing here about religious freedom here.
Not a thing.
That's a fraudulent, dare I say perfidious Evangelical argument.
That's dignifying pigheaded selfishness and unwarranted self-regard. It is offensive to the truly religious.
It's inviting a meaningless debate about who's religious freedom gets to run mad over everyone else's.
And you're wrong. We do not have the right to practice our beliefs. Not all of them.
Proving your trust in God driving down the parkway blindfolded is very likely illegal. As is, I presume, is human sacrifice. Or even animal sacrifice, by God.
Just like asserting your right to some bizarre, religiously unsupported stance that denies others medical care, or medication, or the right to dress or groom themselves according their religious beliefs.
Take God out of the picture (yes, I know, God has so very little to do with, say, Franklin Graham, but that's the claim...) and you have simple standards of acceptable, and non-injurious behavior.
Refusing to vaccinate your kids is more akin to purposely sneezing in your neighbor's face than to any religious stricture. It ought not to be allowed.
In fact, it ought to carry a very, very serious penalty. Since when does God say you have the right to harm your neighbor's child?
9
@oogada
We don't know what any God says about beliefs. We do know that the public has the right to not be exposed to common diseases when there are vaccines available to prevent exposure. Laws against endangering the general public are assumed to include protection against viral diseases. What law allows any citizen to endanger the public? This ought to end up in the Judicial system. I would like to hear the defense of a specific religious group to endanger the public, especially children and pregnant women.
1
Nobody needs religious freedom in this country. They need education.
10
@Joe especially in science
Never once in this piece does the author mention Islam. Haven't medical workers been killed trying to vaccinate children in Islamic countries? I generally agree with the author's point, but find this omission curious.
3
@Robert
That doesn't relly have anything to do with Islam. That has to do extremists trying to keep outside influences out and also to prevent collection of DNA so tehy aren't caught.
1
@Robert
You refer to Pakistan, which is on the road to decivilization if its tendency towards religious fundamentalism isn't checked. The problem is not general to Islam.
2
@Robert
I found this to be an interesting article:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/andrew-wakefield-anti-vaxxer-measles-outbreak-minneapolis-muslim-anti-vaccine-a8331866.html
It seems American Muslims have common sense. But, like many Americans, they can also fall prey to the Anti-Vaxx-ers.
1
Those who wrote our Constitution are rolling over in their graves with the SCOTUS rulings on Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-A and others. Justices in the majority position on these cases should be impeached and disbarred for failing Constitutional Law courses.
18
@Dave The founders (unlike most of us today) were very much aware of the horrible civil wars that raged in Europe, inspired by religious differences (which were also political disagreements). They hoped to avoid such conflict in the New World.
4
We have the right "to practice our beliefs"?
@reader Yes. The beliefs could be anything. The practice behavior can be anything that does not conflict with the country's laws. The right to speak publicly about the beliefs is also assured.
1
@Bonnie
The right to discriminate against certain groups is not protected if you operate a commercial business in a public place. You are free to discriminate in private places, except for religious venues supported by taxes paid by all citizens. Churches do not pay taxes; however their practioners arrive at those churches via public sidewalks, public roadways and highways. They should pay their fair share of taxes.
@reader: Well, there are some pretty clear limits, although they are mostly hypothetical these days, especially since our modern Satanists seem to worship a kind of domesticated, enlightened Satan, rather than the old bad one...
The right wing has been allowed to pervert the RFRA, a law designed to protect the rights of minority religions (like the Native American Peyote Cults) from repression by the government and by religious majorities. For right wing Christians it is defined as the freedom to impose their narrow belief system on the rest of us, especially if it means to hate on the gays or women. For others like the Hasids, it means that they can pratice their religion consequence free, regardless of any harm it may cause others. This has to end. The country needs to return to the core of the First Amendment - freeedom to practice religion but also freedom from religion and especially freedom from government favoritism of any one religion.
12
I love that the writer equated religious beliefs with measles. Both religious beliefs and measles are virulent, and harmful to others. Your freedom to practice your religion, or live an unvaccinated life, ends where you come into contact with others. What religious freedom really means is that you can’t impose your religion (or your measles) on anyone else. The Christian right wants the “freedom” to spew their small-minded bigotry any where they please. Their religion is offensive, and does not belong in the public sphere. There is a vaccine for measles, too bad there isn’t one for religious fundamentalism.
8
I like the notion that one of the Top 10 Commandments says, "thou shall not kill". Period. No "except when, but, unless, or maybe". No one should kill another. I believe that. Does that mean I can refuse to treat a member of the military? How about someone with an NRA tee-shirt?
5
@Mack The notion of who is a person is at the heart of the movement in several states to eliminate abortion. Is a fertilized egg a person (some say yes, and some say no).
The Bible says thou shalt not murder. You are allowed, even obligated to kill in order to save life.
What happened to the separation of church and state? I have no idea how America got itself to this place, but it seems like people who run companies are allowed to compel others to live and die by their own personal religious beliefs; how is this allowed under a Constitution that is supposed to separate church and state??
25
A wonderful, laser focused, clearly articulated Op-Ed Ms. Renkl, thank you.
I am particularly exercised over the recent, totally preventable Measles quagmire. If people don't want to be vaccinated or have their children vaccinated they should not be allowed to infect others. But how do we know who they are and keep them away from the public space?
Its a knotty problem. We just cannot tell them to move to the countryside and stay put in their homes till they "cure" themselves of the disease, can we?
9
@Gary Valan
Another approach, a bit more traditional, is to isolate and protect the vulnerable population until they are no longer vulnerable.
If I am vulnerable to an infectious disease, say HIV, I should probably take steps to protect myself, and my family, from HIV rather than insisting that everyone get vaccinated for HIV.
1
@Gary Valan I think in earlier decades that people with TB could be forced into isolation in special hospitals. And I think that in some states, you had to get certain vaccinations to enroll in a public school.
2
@SSS You're suggesting that all pregnant women and babies too young to be vaccinated against measles should be locked in isolation so that people who refuse to be vaccinated can run amok with their measles? Wow. Just wow.
4
Personal belief in god is faltering. Even among those who go to church. Church leaders need the State to prop up and help validate faith in the public sphere precisely because they, rightly suspect that it is faltering in the hearts and minds of the flock.
7
Agree, but atheism is also a belief, and abortion ends many lives every day. With medical advances pushing the age of viability earlier and earlier, I hope and believe that before long, more people will see that abortion discriminates against unborn babies. Also, the thing about the same sex wedding cakes seemed out of place in this article. Sure, those bakers discriminated against the couples, but no one ever died from having to shop around for a wedding cake. The main point of the article seemed like it was supposed to be that people should not be allowed to impose their beliefs on others when it actually endangers their lives, for example by not vaccinating.
@Emily No, the point is that people should not be allowed to impose their beliefs on others, period.
12
@Emily Atheists should not be allowed to coerce anyone into having an abortion. Likewise, religions should not be allowed to prohibit abortion for all unbelievers, using their particular definition of when an egg becomes a person. With deeply held beliefs that are starkly different, the kind of compromise created by Roe v Wade may be the best that law can offer. It seems to me that without some degree of compromise, there cannot be a large, diverse society.
@Emily And yet, people can kill people (as this story is about) by hiding behind religous beliefs. Is it not the height of hypocrisy to listen to the religious rail against abortion but be ambivalent to parents who do not vaccinate their children, or would refuse life saving medical procedures on religious beliefs. If I was a cynic, I would argue that the religious objection to abortion is that they do not want women making decisions about their bodies, as those same religious leaders are fine when children die when the decisions are made primarily by men.
What about the doctor who is forced to do abortions at a hospital but refuses to do so due to his religious faith. He will probably be terminated.
I knew an excellent OB/GYN doctor who was transferred to a private hospital after St. Vincent's closed in New York. He had a strong religious objection to abortion so decided to just continue in his office practice instead. He could not in good conscience terminate pregnancies and for this I truly admired him. He was such a wonderful and kind doctor and it was the hospital's and patients loss.
2
@KMW But he probably knew the job requirements before he took the job. There are many different specialties in medicine, he could pick one in which abortion would not figure.
2
@KMW; he doesn't own the patients and it's not his decision. Abortion is a legal procedure and a health provider he should provide the service. If he can't then bye bye; good riddance. This doctor is the very example of self righteousness.
1
The argument would be stronger if it did not lump together totally unconnected issues. The measles vaccination debate has no necessary connection with the wedding cake debate. The philosophical, moral, and legal issues are unrelated. To cite but one glaring difference: a baker who refuses to enter a contract with a gay couple is refusing to enter a contract. Contracts by definition are consensual. Contract law (and all the moral questions attending it) is irrelevant to measles. And then there is the issue of double standards. The gay community routinely (and justly) advertises cruises (ships, not the other kind of cruising) that are gay themed (gay dances etc.). Straight people are not banned (any more than gay people are banned from Christian bakers) but there are no SPECIAL services catering to them. This is an exact parallel with Christian bakers. Gay people are welcome to enter the shop and buy cakes on the shelves, but the proprietors are free not to enter contracts to provide SPECIAL services. They have the same rights as those who organize gay cruises. Gay boats, gay dances; Christian bakers, Christian wedding services. Same principle applies to both. This is freedom. This is justice.
6
@John
ah! then read the headline again.
It's all connected to religious beliefs.
Even though Ms Renkl does correctly point out that no vaccination is NOT a position held by any organized religion. She does indeed say "pockets of parents" - not the same thing.
the bakery owner? He did not refuse to enter a contract, he RENEGED on an agreement already made, because of religious beliefs.
Read again ...
7
@John What special services would a straight person on a gay cruise ship need? The only place where there is significant difference is behind a closed cabin door, and that is nobody's business except those in the room.
In this country, when one is licensed to provide, in exchange for pay, a service to the public, so long as that public is well behaved there is no right to refuse service. And it is not Christian bakers in the large who are causing the trouble: it is a small set of ultra-fanatical "believers" who, I suspect, need public affirmation of their beliefs because they are not so sure about them in themselves. What they are actually promoting (by pushing public school prayer e.g.) is mass hypocrisy.
Exactly. We each have the right to believe whatever we want. We do not have the right to do anything to endanger anyone else because of our beliefs, nor do we have the right to discriminate against anyone for their race, religion, or sex.
11
I need a lawyer to represent me so I won't have to pay taxes to support the border wall and polluters. And I don,t believe that farmers should get welfare tariff payments so I don,t want to pay for that. My religion prevents me from supporting creeps so I want my taves reduced so I won't be contributing to the repub earth destroyers.
My religion says speed limits are against god, so I won't have to respect them, and it's important in my religion to die a natural death so sue those hospitals and doctors that want to squeeze minutes out of my life with their never ending interventions.
9
hear, hear!
well put, madame.
6
The voices that the superstitious of all stripes hear in their heads must not have any bearing on others. Your Freedom of Superstition must stop with impositions on YOUR time, on YOUR choices, on YOUR body, on YOUR sex life, on YOUR conscience. Not on mine. Not ever. Not in any way.
Re vaccines: you do not get the freedom to put others at risk by not getting vaccinated, anymore than you get the freedom to drive while drunk. If you don't want to get vaccinated please exercise your freedom to leave society and go live like a hermit.
11
Also should be included in this article: child marriages that have been permitted in this country because of religious freedom concerns, and clitoral mutilation, bother of which tend to come from Muslim populations in the US.
7
Eh, this is well-trod ground. Ever since the first Native American saw the tall sails and muttered "Oy, there goes the neighborhood!", our fair nation has been a magnet for religious freaks of all persuasions. Mormons suffer forced monogamy, Peyote Button Worshipers can't get stoned, likewise for Rastafarians. I guess things are still just don't-ask-don't tell about playing with snakes. So now the flavor of the month is trying to restrict YOUR civil rights because MY sky fairy says so. It's what we do. It's who we are.
(That whirring sound is Christopher Hitchens spinning.)
3
Evangelical writing here. So fasten your seat belts.
As an evangelical--
--may I run a bakery?
I hope so.
If someone walks in and say, "I want to buy a cake," is there a problem?
No.
If someone walks in and says, "I want to buy a cake for a gay wedding," is there a problem?
No.
If someone walks in and says, "I want you to bake a cake FOR that wedding, and write on it CONGRATULATIONS, STEVE AND BRAD"--
--is there a problem?
Yes.
You are asking me (albeit indirectly) to give my imprimatur--my seal of approval to that wedding. To that marriage. To that relationship.
Oh Ms. Renki! Both Old and New Testaments are crystal clear on the subject of homosexual love. Not a particle of doubt. None. Anywhere.
They say, "Don't do it."
Considerable ingenuity has been expended to prove: No, they DON'T say that. Not really. You just THINK they do."
No. The Bible says what it says.
Like that other baker, I would say--so help me God! "I don't hate you. I don't wish to harm--hassle--persecute you. I wish you the best.
"But I cannot take part in your wedding.
"I cannot and I will not.
"So help me God."
1
@Susan Fitzwater As an atheist, your plan sounds fairly reasonable to me as you have described it.
But would acceptance of this approach as a norm risk expanding to include bakers who objected to other characteristics of a potential client like being a Muslim or an African American, etc?. I think that for some decades various commercial establishments refused service to African Americans, so refusing to serve them based not on behavior or condoning their lifestyl, but simply on identity would seem like improper discrimination to me.
1
@Susan Fitzwater. The Bible is wrong. Gay love is not a sin. I don't beleive the Bible got some of God's ideas right, as it was written by fallible humans. I love God, just can't image him thinking gay love is immoral. Your God is so mean. The God I am in communication with is much more reasonable. And loving!
@Susan Fitzwater Where is this mentioned in the New Testament?
1
Amen.
4
you want to drive on taxpayer funded roads, use taxpayer funded electricity , rely on our laws to protect you from criminals, you therefor DO NOT have a right to discriminate against any citizen of the US. What are we, going back to jim crow, whites only bathrooms and water fountains? disgusting and stupid.
22
I couldn't agree more Ms. Renkl.
Another problem with "religious freedom" is a bit more philosophical. What constitutes a religion? In theory, I, a dyed-in-the-wool secularist, could start a religion tomorrow (perhaps another off-shoot of the local predominant pyramid scheme?) and demand all the tax exemptions, special considerations and perks of any of the other hundreds of religious flavors. And any goofy (or not) "belief" would require deference by our pluralistic society. After all, who could prove that I wasn't acting according to the commandments of God (or doG if you're a dyslectic agnostic). And I could even change those revelatory commandments at will!
If anything, we've lost our right to call BS on BS.
8
No one is alive anymore that remembers the devastation from an outbreak of H1N1 influenza, commonly known as the "Spanish Flu," in 1918-1920. Estimates of deaths around the world vary from 20 to maybe 100 million. The U.S. lost 675,00 people from it.
A common story was of people waking up feeling sick and dying on their way to work.
When another deadly disease like H1N1 strikes will we have the collective intelligence to do something about it or will we bicker about religious freedom while the bodies of our loved ones pile up like they did a hundred years ago.
9
Like Ms. Renkl, I believe that religion is internal and not external.
As a Buddhist, and as a Tibetan Buddhist, I cannot display my beliefs in this society.
There are a huge number of "to dos" in my religion. At a certain point, it all has to blend into just one thing - my own prayers and my own meditation on the principles and beliefs that Buddhist Teachers (Lamas) have taught me.
I want to hang my prayer flags. I should have that right. But they are torn down, in liberal California.
Religion is the institution, spirituality is the internal practice and realization of what ever teachings came from that particular institution.
No one religion and its institutions can operate like a government. That would be treasonous. If they adversely effect society in anyway, then the institution is liable for the damages they cause.
My religion is not immune from criticism. I am appalled that instead of keeping Buddhism accessible to everyone, it is reverting to a hierarchical form of governance - back to the monasteries. And THAT IS problematic.
I am not saying that there is any direct comparison to "ultra" orthodox Jews, but I think that there is a tendency for many religions, including my own, to use religion as a shield for that which they cannot cope with in society.
Lastly, the Dalia Lama sports one big arm scar as a medallion for connecting to the west. I hope that all the Tibetans were vaccinated like he.
4
Throughout history, "religions", "beliefs", "superstitions" and they like have been used by peoples to manifest their prejudices and biases.
Stephen Hawking, the world famous theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author, in his final book “Brief Answers to the Big Questions” (p. 38), said:
"... We are each free to believe what we want, and it’s my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realization: there is probably no heaven and afterlife either.
I think belief in an afterlife is just wishful thinking. There is no reliable evidence for it, and it flies in the face of everything we know in science. I think that when we die we return to dust. …"
Religion should never, ever legally be available to excuse one's personal biases and hate. Never. It is what creates jihads and crusades.
8
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.
It always leaves flummoxed to read comments like “religion has no place in our public life”, “the real problem is religion itself”, “you cannot impose your belief system on another”, etc. I’ve often heard these sentiments from people and they seem to believe that religious people themselves should not be heard in the public sphere if their ideas are influenced by religion.
Why? My parents taught me morals influenced by religion. Your parents did too but they may not have couched it in the same vernacular. What makes your opinion more valid simply because religion was not a large part of your upbringing? Where did the morals come from that you were taught? What makes that source any better (or worse)?
Yes, there are laws in place that are at odds with each other. The baker is a good example. While if i owned a bakery, i would likely be fine making a cake for whatever reason or celebration, it is good logic that a person of faith can say that he/she does not want to promote a ceremony they strongly disagree with. Same with a doctor and abortion.
Neither side can have it all their way. We need to come together as people of good conscience and compromise.
3
@Dale H - after first denying to make a wedding cake for one couple the baker had then made the moral choice - he stopped making wedding cakes for everyone. That's the right way to do it.
If one is a doctor with moral objection to providing abortions, it is your own responsibility to work where they don't offer that - don't try changing the place that does offer this legal, but troubling, service.
That's the part of neither having their own way. Deciding to NOT do something for someone, because you don't believe it's right, doesn't work if you still impose yourself between what the other person is legally wanting.
There was huge controversy when JFK was running, because some Protestant groups claimed he'd be beholden to the Pope. Well, he acted like any of the prior Presidents - he swore to uphold the Constitution and acted on that.
The basic rule in a civil society is that worship and public life have to have some separation. Store owners can't deny a tiny bit of happiness for a couple's wedding reception because the store owner decides to deny gay couples only. This month of Ramadan, many people are going through the day without food or drink, yet they don't make the rest of us do so. Catholic burger-flippers will still ring up your burger on Fridays during Lent.
Get it? Each person can live their conscience but not to the point of imposing their worship onto others in the public sphere.
7
@Dale H
Gullibility vs rationality ... both sides, right got it.
@Dale H. We can ALL have our way if you just keep your nose out of my business.
I'm glad to see this opinion expressed. Many years ago l was in the sixth grade in Carlsbad, New Mexico when l was told l had received a great honor. The next day I would lead the whole school in morning prayer. All I had to do was bring a copy of the Lord's Prayer to school and read it over the loudspeaker.
lt was exciting as my mother copied the prayer out for me, but when the Principal looked at my copy, he said that my mother had given me the wrong version. He handed me the right one and l read it to the school. To this day, l still don't know what was wrong with her version, all l know is that she belonged to the wrong religion. She was a Catholic.
7
@Gene Venable
That is exactly why separation of religion and state is a paramount value in a democracy. It cannot be allowed that one religious group uses government resources to subjugate prople of a different religion.
7
While Religion undoubtedly influences many peoples values and world views it should not play any role in public policy. Arguments for or against any laws should be based on secular reasoning. From my perspective those religious proclamations that I agree with such as, thou shalt not kill/steal/bear false witness, etc. can be argued with reason. I am also tired of religions being exempted from laws and public policies. If such laws and policies are deemed necessary for the benefit of all then the exceptions that are granted should only be for critical circumstances. Like I’ve told my friends on more than one occasion, never tell a lie on my behalf unless it’s a life or death situation.
6
When effective anesthesia for surgical procedures was first developed it was opposed strongly by Christian denominations who believed that pain relief subverted the will of God. Significantly later, at least until the 1930s, the Church of England held the belief that all sickness was punishment for wickedness. So A. it's not just the evangelicals, and B. if measles can come back, so can opposition to anesthesia. These folks are that radical.
10
In the mists of a time gone by, my classmates and I were required to get vaccinated and there were no complaints and no irate parents. Americans trusted science and medical knowledge. We were saved from the debilitating scourge of polio as well as other diseases.
America is so different now. No one trusts institutions, and too many people think they are wiser than the millions of scientists around the world who have intensely studied and come up with life-saving cures and treatments.
18
@Truthseeker
You might want to tally up the total number of vaccines you (and I) received as a child (my childhood was before the MMR vaccine) and compare to today's childhood vaccination schedule. If I had young children today, I would be legitimately concerned and looking for answers about how many vaccines are given at a very early age, and what the potential effects of multiple immunizations given at one time might be. (At the risk of being labeled an 'anti-vaccer').
1
@irene cdc.gov has a lot of information on childhood vaccination.
1
@Truthseeker
I went to H.S. with victims of Polio before the Salk vaccine. When that vaccine was introduced, my daughter got hers on a sugar cube. I could hardly wait for that protective vaccine. There was a lot of hogwash about monkeys etc. I don't recall knowing any other young mothers who bought that. There was one mother who wanted to stop Crest from handing out free toothpaste; I didn't support that either. If a poor child got a tube of free Crest, that was fine with me. One less expense for the parents.
Religious conservatives have a fundamental problem, they are locked into the idea that their religious beliefs are inherently true (and thus, others are false), and they can't wrestle with the idea that maybe, just maybe, their truths are universal truths, shared by all. So they want prayer in the public schools, for example, because that would put their faith above others, and prove to themselves that that means their beliefs are true. Fundamentalist Christians want to teach creationism as science, because then 'their' beliefs will be 'true', 'proven by science'. More importantly, if you live in a world of black and white, if you are right in your belief, then you have to force everyone else to live by your rules, otherwise then you are admitting (to God, of course) that you somehow don't believe, conservative Christians believe that unless society reflects their beliefs and biases, that 'sinners' aren't 'punished', God is going to punish them. With those who don't believe in vaccinations, it is more that they are read what idiots on the internet say, don't think for themselves, and blindly assert that vaccinations, for example, are not allowed.
7
Thank you Ms. Renkl! An excellent article. In fact I would like to extend your idea to the words "under God" that was added later on to the Pledge of Allegiance. What about the atheists and people who believe in multiple Gods and so on?
11
Gene Bivins,
I was referring to the baker who is self employed and does not want to bake a gay wedding cake due to their deeply held religious beliefs. They do not discriminate against the gay couple and are willing to sell any item in the store except the decorated gay wedding cake. They have been in business long before the bill passed making gay weddings legal. Do they forfeit their long established career because they refuse in good conscience to make this speciality cake. Is this fair? There are other cake makers who would gladly make this cake who do not have a religious objection. Those who do not want to make this cake are in no way against gay people but do not want to sacrifice their religious principles and convictions. Their first amendment rights are being violated which guarantees freedom of religion.
2
@KMW
Let us carry the "religious exemption to provide services" to another level:
Imagine I am a medical Doctor and a gay couple are hit by a car on the street I am waking on. I saw them lovingly being gay just before the accident, and my cry to them to watch out for a careening car was too late. I now walk by them offering no help because it is against my "deeply felt religious principles" to offer useful help to gay people. I would be protected by the "Good Samaritan" act, but that does not free me from my religious beliefs. I walk on by.
Imagine I am a pastry shop owner, and a gay couple ask me to make their wedding cake. " I now walk by them offering no help because it is against my "deeply felt religious principles" to offer useful help to gay people."
Do you get it? Yet?
7
@KMW Then they should proudly display a sign in their window and on all advertising that they hold strong Christian values and list the services they will not provide. Why should a gay or lesbian couple spend the time to do a cake tasting with a baker that can't even be upfront with them, but waits to send an email letting them know about her "strong Christian" beliefs?
With proper signage and advertising, they could automatically cross that baker off their list and go directly to those willing to serve them.
And do these wonderful Christians also refuse to bake cakes for heterosexual couples that may have committed adultery? Do they as questions about their prior relationship history before they determine whether they can bake a cake for them? Did they meet while they were married to different people and leave those relationships to marry each other?
I'm so done with "Christians". You never read things about other religions getting laws made so they can discriminate against others.
10
@KMW
The first amendment prevents the government from putting constraints on the free exercise of religion. Is baking a cake a religious act?
6
It's so interesting that people feel they have the right to impose their beliefs onto others. They share a lot with people who feel they have a right to force themselves onto others. It's about power and imagined superiority. Pharmacists who overstep their bounds always seem to be passing judgement on girls and women who need some form of birth control. Has one ever refused to fill an erectile dysfunction script for a man who wants it for non-procreative sex?
17
@Kathy In the case of religions that aim to convert non-believers, the error is when they try to use state power (laws, police) to coerce non-belivers into acting in accordance with the religion. The religion's beliefs are apparenty not persuasive enough to get people to convert on their own. This attempt to force the state to follow the views of a particular religion is working its way through several US states now, to make abortion completely illegal. I understand that staunchly anti-abortion people feel they are doing essential work to save embryos, but unless we want to throw out the Constitution, they need to follow it: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. It is not one person's free exercise of religion to ask the state to force another person's behavior to comply with a religion they don't share.
3
This country has no problem with religious freedom
Religious freedom FOR Christians
Religious freedom FROM Jews
Religious freedom FROM Muslims
9
I honestly don’t see why I, a part-time dog walker, should have to walk a Christian neighbor’s dog, or a white person’s dog, or a woman’s dog, or a heterosexual person’s dog if I don’t want to because my religious beliefs condemn Christians, whites, women, and heterosexuals. (Sex is evil, regardless of genitalia!) Must I, really? And, if I must, then surely I can charge double, right?
8
@David
You should charge double and demand they listen to your reasons. Support from a fifth generation San Franciscan. We tolerate everything, being an old Port City and all. XOXO
Some people in NY may claim a religious exemption but that is not their real reason. Instead, they should be claiming a stupidity exemption for believing in the tripe handed out by anti-vaxxers using scare tactics. The same goes for the non-Jews in Rockland County who sued so their unvaccinated kids could return to public school. Although the NY Times likes to harp on the Jewish communities, the CDC is aware of outbreaks out west where the parents are claiming exemptions for the same stupid reasons; falsehoods from the internet instead of pamphlets.
Politicians should have the guts to remove all but medical exemptions. Even with those, there are doctors who write them for specious reasons. It would go a long way in reducing the health hazard of people's stupidity.
I was somewhat amused by a ship belong to the church of Scientology, being quarantined because of measles.
9
@S.L. CDC.gov has useful material for the public on risks of serious side effects of vaccines and of target diseases like measles. None of the material can tell an individual their own risk. I think people have a lot of difficulty comparing risks found in studies of groups of people, especially if both risks are relatively low. And then it is also difficult to decide what the comparison might mean for any one individual's risk. But of course the CDC site includes comments on the invalid nature of internet messages saying vaccination causes autism. I think the eagerness of some parents to believe that message comes from a deep need to not feel that they themselves did anything that could have caused an autism diagnosis. People don't want to accept that bad things can happen for unknowable reasons, which leaves one feeling helpless to prevent disaster.
3
I always said that if a majority Muslim school required all its students to pray to Allah every day all those Christians who think it right to recite the Lords Prayer every day in public school would be crazy with rage. People in the majority never consider that people in the minority should not be compelled to be like them.
14
Everyone should read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written after World War 2 in which an evil Nazi ideology resulted in the avoidable deaths of more than 6 million Jews and tens of millions of other human beings.
The first 29 articles affirm individual rights.
The final one, Article 30, limits the exercise of those rights thus:
“Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.”
I am free, but not free to murder, rape or steal.
I am free to believe, but not free to persecute.
I am free to believe, but not free to incite violence against another human being.
We should not need to learn the lesson again that freedom has implicit constraints.
Religion is a fantasy that has become a nightmare for the many people persecuted by it.
Religion is the great terminator of human rights, rational thought and intellectual rigour, freedom and progress.
“Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.”
6
@Prometheus Yes, it is behavior we must focus on. If a religious zealot thinks God will strike me dead if I get a vaccination, fine - they can think whatever they like. But let the believer leave the problem to God and not try to change laws to compel me to act as if I agreed with them.
1
I guess if this were a message from an ultra-religious baker,exclamation points would be part of the RECIPE! As a Michiganian and a Jew, I want to have parents who do not vaccinate their children arrested for endangering the public health, as they would be if they contaminated the water supply. Christian bakers who use exclamation points to underscore their BIGOTRY! need only be shamed and not arrested!
7
Wow! This article is rather confusing. Not sure of her bottom line objective!
@bobj Conservative "christians" need to stop trying to make everyone else adhere to their restrictive beliefs. What's hard about that?
2
Hope they'll keep ignoring the part about freckles being the result of the devil's spew....
1
Why is the picture a picture of Hasidic Jews? Their religion doesn’t forbid vaccines - some people within the group use their religion as an excuse to endanger their children and others. You could show a group of hippies - they also refuse using a belief exemption. Or Amish. Why perpetuate this anti Jewish thing more?
4
@Sean Casey junior, as the depiction says, the picture is from the area where there is a measles outbreak which happens to be a near a Jewish school.
This has nothing to do with anyone’s religion
@Sean Casey junior...
Did you miss the part of the article about the vaccination exemption in religious schools?
1
As Mr Simpson would respond to the question in the headline, duh, yes!
1
Did you ever notice that every wacko religious law comes from the same states?
5
We should let them recede. The rest of us would be much better off.
Fine. Practice your religions beliefs. But do it in your own home. You are not welcome in the public sphere. If it's discovered you or your child infected someone with your communicable disease, expect that you be liable for any medical care and related expenses, such as time off from work or for a parent to care for a sick child.
17
Tolerate religions is far enough.
2
oh, I see the problem. We need a constitutional amendment to ban stupidity.
8
My fairy tales are truer than your fairy tales!
7
Amen. Let the cleansing of Christianity from the public sphere begin.
5
Not vaccinating your children merits a Darwin Award. Unfortunately, it's not only they who receive it.
6
I find it really amazing that an article like this had to be written.
5
Amen, sister.
5
Christians don't care about you. You're trash. You're going to hell.
4
This is an excellent column. Spot on. And while we’re at it, let’s make all the clergy pay taxes. Organized religion in this country deprives the federal treasury of $80 billion a year.
If a southern pastor wants to stand at the pulpit and endorse Trump and all his vile acts, I have no problem with that. But the rest of us don’t need to subsidize him for doing so.
29
@LIChef; Double amen Chef!! (not that it's a thing!!)
2
The only alternative to vaccination should be immediate, permanent deportation. There should be NO EXEMPTIONS except for duly certified medical reasons.
It's a matter of survival.
1
@Rocky L. R.
Don't be ridiculous. In order to deport a person the person must belong and have come from another county.
@Rocky L. R.; except for one small problem ... deportation where to? I don't believe other countries are lined up to take our un-vaccinated people.
This is a great opinion, and I fully agree. We should remember, that, the Founders explicity never mentioned "god or God" once, not one time, in the US Constitution. They knew that Freedom OF Religion, meant equally, Freedom FROM Religion.
17
On a related note, as an atheist I want freedom FROM religion. Separation of church and state is a foundational philosophy of America. Religion has no place in our public life, including in businesses and corporations that are open to the public. America is a nation where you may practice any religion you choose, but it is ALSO a nation that is designed to protect its citizens from the tyranny of religion, religious people, and religious institutions (corporations).
"Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
30
It’s about the votes and political power the group can bring against the elected officials and impact their future.
Case in point - Do you think De Blaise and company would have the nerve to suggest changing the admissions criteria for the elite high schools if it negatively a more politically powerful group rather than Asians? Then it would seem as the last great meritocracy in America.
This is a complex argument seeking a refined, nuanced way in which people can practice their religion without negatively affecting others. Good luck with that. Believers have killed one another over nuance for centuries.
The real problem is religion itself. Zealous, dogmatic faith - the core of religion - lies at the heart of most current wars, violence and bigotry. Having ceded judgment to a book, or worse, a preacher, adherents frequently perpetrate villainy in the name of virtue. Decisions made on the basis of dogma rather than data rarely have positive outcomes.
I don't know about y'all, but I haven't really needed an invisible friend since I was 4. I fail to understand why any mature adult does. And I feel genuinely threatened by the most zealous of those who claim to have one.
17
@Bob23 Your religious rights end before the survival of the species and the nation.
Poetry in prose; beauty and truth are one and the same if we humans are able to gain knowledge, then understanding, and eventual wisdom...so to shed prejudices and intolerance based on ignorance. This, especially in the name of a theistic religion that, clearly, was kept separate from state affairs affecting the entire population, for very good reasons. The state deeds are based on knowledge and common sense, whereas religion is based on beliefs and not evidence. And believing means not knowing. Case in point, not vaccinating children agains noxious but eminently preventable diseases, is a toxic thought indeed, a sort of parental abuse that the state must stop. No excuses based on bias, period, especially when harm is in the offing.
7
Precisely as it should be. You cannot impose your belief system on another. If you do business with the public, you have no right to reserve that business for only those who believe as you do. As Spencer Tracy memorably said in Inherit the Wind, playing defense attorney Henry Drummond, questioning "noted biblical scholar" Matthew Harrison Brady (played by Frederic March), "The Bible is a book. It's a good book. But it is not the only book."
12
The Hobby Lobby case, which you describe well, also raises another question of religion and the law.
The Supreme Court held that the Hobby Lobby corporation was allowed to honor the religious beliefs of their majority stockholder, because, Mitt Romney once said, "Corporations are people, my friends".
Yet, what do you suppose the family that owns Hobby Lobby would say if they were sued personally by a customer who slips in the parking lot? "You can't sue me! Its a corporation - totally different legal entity. I personally have no responsibilitly for the debts of any Hobby Lobby store!"
Ask as well, if the corporation or the family should be taxed at the same rates.
42
Amen! The First Amendment protects free exercise of religion. While it should bar a law that prevents free exercise (cannot wear a burqa), it should not provide for exemption from generally applicable laws and regulations because they violate your religious beliefs. Further, determining which exemptions are valid would lead to a slippery slope and violation of the establishment clause. If refusing to provide birth control is a legitimate religious belief, what about child sacrifice? Do we provide an exemption for murder if your religion required it in order to end a drought? When a government grants a religious exemption for birth control and denies it for murder, it is determining that the underlying religious belief behind the objection to birth control is legitimate and is establishing that religion.
10
We are all believers. Since no one knows the unknowable, then ipso facto we are all left only with belief.
It is so silly to say that a “religious person” has rights that an “atheist” doesn’t, but that is what many say our Bill of Rights dictates. However, a citizen who believes the stories of religion, whatever they are, has exactly the same standing as a citizen who can’t believe those stories. Both citizens’ “faith” must demand respect from the government in exactly the same manner, too.
That is just one of the values which our country is supposed to stand for, I believe.
Thank you for pointing to the overbearing “faithful” in the USA.
19
@Believe Me I terms of your statement: "We are all believers. Since no one knows the unknowable, then ipso facto we are all left only with belief. " I disagree. Instead of replacing not-knowing with a belief, we can simply get comfortable with not-knowing, settle into it, instead of filling-in the unknown with some story.
4
Thank you, Ms. Renkl for an excellent, well reasoned article. It has reminded me of a Southern Lit class I was in about 40 yrs ago taught by one of the finest Professors I ever encountered. Dr. J, as we called him, was an atheist.
One of his favorite writers was a famous Christian writer of short stories and he had scoured the depths of this author to the point that he could just about quote entire chapters. One day, Dr. J. said that, though he was a non-believer, he thought Christians were far more interesting people. He didn't expand on that thought and I was very curious as to his meaning.
After class, I asked him what he meant. Hesitating a bit, he had a faint, sort of sad smile and said that he was constantly astonished at how otherwise rational and caring people could bend their heads around ideologies that were often not "rational and caring" in any practical way.
So, in essence, he read the literature to try to understand how seemingly "normal" people could participate in faiths that required them to abdicate reason, fairness and tolerance. To that extent, he found them interesting.
I want to add, too, that I found Dr. J. interesting because he was. also, a very "spiritual" person and I admired his quest for understanding. It would be nice to see even just a little of that in the fundamentalist religious right groups.
24
“Understanding” by fundamentalist groups is not required. Those folks have the word of God on their side.
2
@Jackson Goldie
Yes, HA, tongue-in-cheek response noted.
Definitely agree. In my book fundamentalist is just a euphemism for fanatic, a believer who thinks their faith is a straight line to/from God. Very sad, really, and maybe almost unreachable until some life shock jolts them awake and into thinking mode.
2
The writer speaks perfect sense to me. If you think abortion, gay marriage, birth control and related issues are sinful, don't do them. But you have no right to impose your opinion by law on others.
Obviously, conservatives disagree, believing they must impose their views on everyone. Because they alone speak for God, and everyone else is immoral, Trump, bizarrely, is president because he figured out how to exploit these beliefs.
In normal times, I would advocate these opposing groups find common ground. I don't see how that can happen now. Trump has escalated the culture wars, and he and his movement must be stopped.
33
Spot On.
5
An Old Testament verse tells us that only Jesus may speak for God. Modern day conservative religious power mongers have long forgotten that passage.
1
Imagine interacting with an employer or teacher or business owner who is (insert any other belief system other than mainstream Christianity). Now imagine they deny you a portion of your healthcare (transfusions, say) due to their own beliefs, or require you to say a non-Christian prayer before class, or won't serve you because you wear a cross. How does that feel? Discriminatory?
I completely agree with the author of this piece. "Religious freedom" gives one the freedom to practice one's own religion, not the freedom to impose one's religious beliefs on others.
61
There are two clauses in the First Amendment concerning religion. The first prohibits any law "respecting an establishment of religion"; the second prohibits any law "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. It is important not to elide them when discussing this issue.
Over the last couple of decades, an increasingly conservative federal judiciary has allowed the Free Exercise Clause to swallow the Establishment Clause -- leading to such egregiously wrong decisions as the Hobby Lobby case, in which the Supreme Court decided both that a corporation can have religious beliefs and that those beliefs permit non-compliance with federal legislation. This trend is only going to get worse.
The real problem is that the religious right wants a state-established religion and Federalist Society-endorsed judges are giving it to them. The First Amendment forbids the enshrinement in the law of anyone's personal religious beliefs. Just as freedom of speech does not allow you to shout fire in a crowded theater, the freedom of religion does not allow you to pick and choose which laws to comply with.
In the 60's, there were business owners who claimed religion as a basis for defying the Civil Rights Act. That argument would likely get a warmer reception from many judges today than it did then.
45
I agree with everything stated here. But I also believe that religion is good for lots of people. It grounds them in beliefs that make them better people. To the extent they step on toes, it is because they believe that their views are the right ones. They are often wrong about that as is everyone else.
Interesting . . . in my experience, religion doesn't make people better but it does hand them convenient processes by which to discharge guilt or the need for making amends. For example, Catholics confess their sins and they're washed away; Protestants are "not perfect, just forgiven."
These are ready-made excuses that allow people to continue behaving badly while feeling righteous. A great cosmic shrug.
6
@michjas
I believe you might be saying that if it were not for their religion, these people who are without critical thinking skills would be some rough customers and we should be grateful that religion has tamed them down a bit.
That may be true but turning to religious fundamentalists to tell you how to think is insidious and the damage within and without is like burrowing parasites in our bowels.
3
@michjas:
you realize the Sri Lankan bombers are covered by what you say?
Religion doesn't automatically make anyone a better person. A lot depends on what the religion teaches, and a lot depends on the individual person.
At some point, the legislature or the courts will be asked to decide what constitutes a legitimate religious view versus what is plain old discrimination. There is no end to the wacko things people claim as religious beliefs. Who is going to decide?
Remember Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who didn't want to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples? She'd been a member of her church (where she picked up her new-found morality after her own three divorces) for only three years. Fair enough, but what if she had been a member for only three weeks? What if God speaks to the next County Clerk when he or she sees the interracial coupe enter the room? Instantaneous inversion is a staple of Christianity. Think of Paul on the road to Damascus.
18
This is an area that Donald Trump hasn't the foggiest idea of what it's about. To him it is totally related to who will vote for him. His handle on any form of spirituality is a red neck using the Lord's name in vain. Religious freedom for him is a foreign concept that probably has Muslim conotations.
9
@Karn Griffen:
Redneck is an ugly and derogatory term. Just fyi.
1
@RLiss Fair enough. But surely you would agree that the use of this term is correct in reference to Donald Trump.
Wow! Is there an area where Donald Trump has any foggy idea that is legal?
1
But don't mention the Islam. Don't mention the Islam.
6
There is an important and valuable distinction between these so-called religious freedom restorations and religious exemptions. In the former, the objecting actor is not committing the objective act — marrying someone of the same sex or getting a vasectomy. Rather, their proponents are trying to restrict how the customer or employee uses the good. Such restrictions are illiberal and, with few exceptions — such as a bartender not serving a drink to an already inebriated customer or a gun-seller not selling a gun to a customer who has professed intent to use it criminally — they are illegal.
In contrast, religious exemptions to vaccinations protect the individual from having to commit an objectionable act himself (or to her child). Getting a vaccination helps the community, and can be encouraged; however, it is dangerous thinking to allow the government to compel individuals to themselves undertake acts to which they object. This is what Scalia worried about, though he went too far. Eating broccoli or joining a gym are more akin to not getting vaccinated; purchasing health insurance that pays for health care that individuals consume ensures that the individual does not steal from others by consuming health care for which they do not pay. Classical liberalism elevates the freedom of the individual, to do as he pleases, but not to cause harm to others.
@Randy Silvers
Religious exemptions should not exempt a person from individual responsibility for the collective good. Dangerous thinking arises when the choices of one individual are allowed to endanger and harm other individuals without their having any choice in the matter.
11
@Randy Silvers
Those who wish to forgo vaccinations can exempt themselves for whatever reason. What they should not be allowed to do is to expose the rest of us - therefore, it's mandatory they do not participate in public. Choice is still protected. Consequences are not.
3
Eating broccoli and vaccinating against deadly diseases are “akin”? Man, no wonder this society is such a mess.
Let's speak truth. "Religious freedom" in this context is doublespeak for discrimination. Period.
The time when religion ruled politics is what we call The Dark Ages.
63
Religion was supposed to have no place in the affairs of the state, which decides about matters that apply to the society at large. Claiming exemptions for matters that involve others, on religious (or moral and philosophical) grounds is to nullify the essential idea of separation of state and religion.
This is not what one expects to happen in a place of free speech. But free speech is only as useful as the level of out ability to critically evaluate the matters that affect us. No wonder, obesity (a physical disease with mental health components) has gone up from one in three to two in five.
Signs of American society's implosions are being writ ever larger!
9
Do you think the student needed a crib sheet for the lord's prayer? Get real.
We live in a time when the President sometimes gets basic texts wrong, so yes, l think children also get them wrong sometimes.
Amen!
3
Thanks to Ms. Renkl for an incisive article, but the situation in this country is even more dire than she represents. In recent rulings (Hobby Lobby, Phillips, etc.), Conservative Christians are achieving their goal of turning the US into a Christian oligarchy.
The court has dangerously broadened the definition of religious rights. Instead of protecting freedom of religious expression and freedom from state-established religion, the court has held that everything is religion under the 1st Amendment -- the parties' actions, third parties' actions, commerce, health care, corporate actions -- none of which are the practice of religion.
Thus, religious liberty has been given primacy over all other civil rights. A store owner's anti-choice beliefs trump a women's decision about her own medical care; a baker's right to homophobia trumps a couple's right to equal service; a Christian student's desire to pray trumps a Jewish or Muslim student's right to their own religious practice.
But the trend is even more insidious: the court has fallen for the fallacy that a private citizen's can violate another person’s Christian freedom. The employer is not paying for, prescribing, receiving, or taking birth control. The baker is not officiating the gay couple’s wedding or accepting them into his church. The lack of public prayer does not prevent private prayer. But, where religion trumps all, the Bill of Rights and logic get thrown out the window.
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@Margolia
" Instead of protecting freedom of religious expression and freedom from state-established religion, the court has held that everything is religion under the 1st Amendment"
Blame the abortionists' lobby for that. They tried to define opposition to abortion as "religion" in hopes of making invoking the First Amendment against it. The Supreme Court didn't go along, but the dangerous precedent of declaring "everything is religion" had been set.
4
@Charlesbalpha -
Uh, no.
Early cases challenging abortion restrictions argued that they violated the Establishment Clause - a separation of church and state question, which did not succeed and has not been brought up in decades.
The current trend, which only picked up steam after Hobby Lobby in 2014, is an over-deferential and unexamined acceptance of the Conservative Christian stance that all acts are religious exercise, even other people's actions. That allows Christian Right to corrupt the Rill of Rights in order to regulate individual's actions in that name of religious "liberty", as opposed to preventing government impingement on free exercise.
8
@Margolia it's even worse. The point of this is not to allow freedom of religion, its to legitimize cruelty and dehumanization toward others. The evangelicals will continue to get their abortions and do their own sexual "experimenting" with same sex folks, then they can be born again when they age out or want to run for office and turn to punishing others for similar things. The more people hoot about religion the more I want to see their browsing history.
11
Ms. Renkl is trying to link the refusal by conservative Christians to provide services to gay weddings to opposition to vaccinations and racial discrimination. This is intellectually dishonest.
There is absolutely nothing in conservative Christian theology that is prohibits vaccination, and vaccination is not a moral issue.
It is discrimination if a conservative Christian baker refuses services to individuals based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference. This discrimination is contrary to the core conservative Christian belief that we are all created equal and are equally sinners before God, and that we should love our neighbors as ourselves. The Government in prohibiting and enforcing sanctions against these types of discrimination is actually making conservative Christians better Christians and everyone else better people.
That same baker in refusing to cater a gay wedding is not practicing discrimination. He or she is refusing to facilitate or enhance something – gay marriage – that is unequivocally contrary to the core of his or her religious beliefs about the nature of God, the relationship between God and people, the relationship between men and women, sexuality, and the structure of the family and society. The Government in enforcing sanctions against conservative Christians who refuse to provide services that facilitate, or enhance gay marriage ceremonies is forcing conservative Christians to do things that make them worse Christians.
3
@MarkN
Correct, and identifies the flaw in this opinion piece.
The core of the writer's argument is that "Prejudice cloaked in the robes of religious faith should follow the same precedent [as zero tolerance for racial discrimination]." The problem with that statement is that it necessarily posits that all religion-based discrimination is a sham. If that were a widely-held belief, the moral authority of religion would be subject to individual interpretation. The result would likely spell the end of established religion.
2
@MarkN
Your contorted attempt to defend bigotry is almost as amusing as your dictator demanding two extra years in his term a
As “reparations” for having his feelings hurt.
23
@MarkN I was ordained in 1970 which seems like eons ago, especially with regard to our understanding of homosexuality and the covenant of marriage. When the state made same sex unions legal and requests came in for weddings in the church, it definitely made me a better Christian as I grew to appreciate how God's love and faithfulness is reflected in the love and commitment these spouses share.
13
Your right to swing your arm leaves off where my right not to have my nose struck begins (credited John B. Finch 1882). That is the crux of the matter. If we chose to live in and amongst our fellow men and women in a democracy, we chose to have a consideration set beyond ourselves and to participate in a set of laws that we have collectively put in place. For the Christians out there, "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 7:12 I don't remember Jesus directly condemning same sex marriage anywhere in the New Testament but he sure did tell us to treat others as we would want to be treated.
62
@Lisa FG Actually, homosexuality is condemned in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.
1
@Lisa FG There is not much that is “Christian” from people who enjoy calling themselves Christian. It’s a shame that the “brand” of Christianity has been so debased and sullied by people who use it to reinforce their horrid prejudices and to oppress people they don’t like. I am a Christian, but being called one in today’s culture implies all kinds of things that don’t apply to me.
3
@Lisa FG You are correct that homosexuality was not mentioned by Jesus nor in any of the Gospels. It is "condemned", along with eating shellfish, in the Old Testament and by St. Paul in the New. In the N.T. St. Paul sees it as a bad moral choice by a straight person and there is no understanding that a person might have a gay orientation. St. Paul had been a Jewish Pharisee and he was reacting to temple prostitution in paganism. Much of what he said is actually unclear, depending on translation. We do not live in 1st Century Palestine.
1
Well said! It's about time we started hearing things like this.
11
"Religious faith is a private matter between a believer and God. But how a believer lives in community with other people is something different altogether."
That statement is not true for Islam, for Christianity or for Judaism. How a believer lives in community is essential in each of the Abrahamic faiths and actually many other religions, starting with paganism for example, place community living right at the center of their belief system.
4
@the observer
Agree. Faith may be a private matter, religion is not at all private.
A valiant effort on the author’s part, but a very flawed argument.
5
Do evangelists advocating state support of their religion read history? Do they know monarchies and principalities supported the crusades and the Inquisition? Protestants rebelled against such abuses, but apparently forgot all about it only a century later when they made oppressive, religious-based laws in the American colonies, exiled people of different faiths like the Quakers, and burned some "witches" after "secular" trials. Anyone remember why Rhode Island was founded? Look at the evangelicals who say G-d made Trump president - do they not remember the horrors of ius divinum? Whenever religion becomes part of the state, abuse ensues, and persecution of religious minorities is inevitable. The Founding Fathers understood that when drafting the First Amendment. The irony is that, for these evangelicals who want prayer in school, their religion only exists due to a hard-fought and often bloody struggle to take religion out of the state sphere where branches of Christianity, like evangelism, had the right to exist and grow when they weren't mainstream and didn't have political power.
I'm a person of faith, but I'm also a student of history. State-sanctioned religion is a wheel of fortune that is always turning. Not only is it always unfair to the folks at the bottom, but it is short-sighted because, you, too, evangelicals, will inevitably end up on the bottom of that wheel in a generation or two.
40
z Z Z z z z z talk of religion is always so very interesting . . . . z Z Z z z z z
12
@clovis22 you chose to read it-and comment.
1
I agree 100%. Religion should never become a license to discriminate or to endanger others.
While we're on the subject, neither should one religion's beliefs be allowed to infringe on the freedom of nonbelievers, which is what the increasing number of laws restricting abortion effectively do.
When the abortion issue gets back to the Supreme Court, that's the reason — as embodied by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment — that the court should uphold Roe v. Wade and strike down all the recent state laws aimed at minimizing the freedom that decision guarantees.
41
Any baker, floral arranger or photographer who has refused to service a same-sex couple has been fined. The SCOTUS ruling in the case of the Colorado baker has been widely misinterpreted as letting him off and thus enshrining such actions. It did nothing of the sort. It voided the ruling because one of the members of the state's Human Rights Commission made a remark which appeared to prejudice the baker, who has since been once again taken before the state commission.
I agree with Ms. Renkl's thesis, but she doesn't acknowledge that there are legal remedies — unless the mayor or governor won't enforce them, as happens in New York with the politically influential ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. I'm Jewish and support their right to practice their religion, but I find it distressing that Cuomo and de Blasio have so little spine in this matter.
20
@HKGuy:
but, as many rabbis have pointed out, there is NOTHING anywhere in the Torah or later writings that bans vaccines.
People are misled by a sophisticated online campaign of anti vaccine propaganda, that (when aimed at Jews) says fetal pig cells are IN vaccines. For others it just says fetal cells....both are lies.
@HKGuy, I’m puzzled by your accusation of spinelessness on the part of the mayor and governor. Doesn't closing non-complying yeshivas and fining both schools and individuals count as spine?
I agree, but I wish you had not used the example of measles vaccinations. Compelling vaccination impinges on the rights of a person to control what happens to their own body.
Those concerned about the negative health implications of vaccines are not just religious fanatics or anti-science nutcases. Yesterday's NYTimes editorial "80,000 Deaths. 2 Million Injuries. It’s Time for a Reckoning on Medical Devices" described the FDA's abysmal failure to regulate medical devices. There are many other failures by our regulatory agencies as well.
This is what happens when a government and its regulatory agencies are bought and sold with corporate dollars. They simply rubber stamp whatever the corporation wants. Almost all of the medical research is conducted or paid for by the same corporations. The population rightly distrusts the validity of the science and assurances of safety coming from such biased sources.
I agree with the writer on all other points.
3
@TechMaven
The writer did not endorse compelling vaccinations.
They said that if you choose not to be vaccinated, then you should not be going to public schools nor taking public transport.
21
@TechMaven
Certainly, medical regulation is far from perfect. But I'll take it over having someone's religion dictate society's level of exposure to a proven deadly disease.
Legally, however, one's right to control one's body is not absolute and never has been; the state may constitutionally compel you to do certain things with it, including expose it to harm, in the service of society as a whole. The draft, which survived constitutional challenge, is a prime example.
10
@TechMaven
I am totally in favor of you not getting vaccinated, as long as you are ok with being quarantined from the rest of society until such time as you are. People with easily communicable potentially fatal contagious diseases, should not be allowed in any public space. I remember when measles went through my elementary school when I was in first grade. One of my classmates died from that. Now we have vaccines, and there is no excuse for not using them, especially for a child who is not competent to make their own choice.
10
I'm a member of one of the groups that will be hurt by this "religious freedom" movement. I'm transgender.
I'm floored that any medical professional will be able to refuse my medical care because I'm transgender. In the land that I've served in the military to protect, paid taxes for over 50 years, and loved.
I don't like bigots, but as a government employee I work with and for them all the time. Imagine the outcry if I chose no longer to work with or for Christians.
This is so wrong.
115
@Merrikat What type of "medical care" do you mean?
Thank you for this article.
I think that I should be able to get a standard medical plan (including birth control) from any employer and standard treatments (including tubal ligation) from any hospital. Why should I have to follow rules from other people’s religions? That infringes on MY freedom and right to self-determination. If you, as a religious person, can not in good conscience perform standard services for the general public in your job, you should choose another job that fulfills your moral criteria.
159
E,
Religious affiliated employers have made it very clear what their policies are before you join their employment. Religious hospitals will not offer services that go against their tenets. It is very clear before you enter.
You are not forced to work or take services from these places. There are many other places in which you can choose which will comply to your demands. You cannot force anyone or any place to sacrifice their deeply held religious beliefs.
I know it must be surprising to learn that there are still people and places who do not follow the secular path. Believe me. They still exist and they hold firm to their convictions. I applaud them.
4
On the contrary, you are contracting a service from others. If you want a service that violates their faith, you are proposing that they violate their faith in exchange for some compensation. Their refusal does not impinge upon your religious freedom, for they are not preventing you from acting personally or contracting with any other provider to satisfy the requirements of your faith. Thus the objection is obviously vacuous. Rather, a case must be made that the service provider is violating the principle of equitable treatment guaranteed under the law, and that this inequity is a greater violation than the violation of their religious freedom.
1
@KMW These religious corporations use public goods. They use public water, the legal system, the financial system, and the government itself. They ship their products on roads or airplanes using public airports.
My tax dollars go to pay for all that. If religious people want exemptions, then they should be exempted from using public goods as well. A business has many contractual obligations, not just to the tenets of their faith because they do not exist in a self sufficient vacuum. That's what community means.
18
Amen.
Seriously you have two op-eds today, this one and one on "free speech" that clearly articulate how so many people misinterpret (often knowingly) the 1st Amendment. Similarly, guns rights activists skip over the first four words of the 2nd Amendment to defend their position.
I find it fascinating that Conservatives love to espouse "original intent" and "take the framers at their words." Yet they support positions completely at odds the obvious 'intent' of the first two amendments.
73
@AA
Your points are very good. Closer to home, though, the Public Accommodation law ship has sailed. If the courts want to now carve out exceptions for OTHER than race and sex, they'd best get to it. Then there's the matter of defining super-rights for people claiming supernaturally-revealed truths which are to then be enforced through secular law. This'll take a while.
3
@AA - The 2nd amendment justifies itself with an out-of-date premise. Weird.
2
The decision of irresponsible citizens to forgo vaccines has a direct medical impact on others. This isn't about cakes and hurt feelings. This is about disease and death.
For the children of anti-vaxxers, this should be an issue for child protective services. Why is neglecting your child's immunity any different than neglecting any other part of raising a child? Because we can't see it?
For children too young to be vaccinated, like the infant mentioned in this story, we put their health in the hands of the dimmest among us. If another parent has the "right" to expose my child to disease, surely my "right" to unilaterally vaccinate their child should also be upheld?
27
The first amendment protects the religious in this country. You wouldn't know it by the laws that attempt to require physicians perform abortions as a condition of liceneure, or by the liberal mayors who try to ban Chick fil A from their cities because they don't like the religious views of its owners.
And the anti-vaxxers as prevalent among the secular left as the religious right, as evidenced by their clusters in uber-liberal enclaves. And, while I agree that everybody should be vaccinated, not everybody should have their conscience trampled by the state.
Can you imagine being a physician compelled to participate in an execution? Beware what you ask for, because the power of the state to trample conscience is a two-way street, and does not only affect the religious right.
8
@Liberty hound
Once upon a time, the ACLU actually protected religious rights. Of course, that was before when the debate was actually over rights -- everyone's -- and not based on progressive ideology -- only certain group's.
5
@Liberty hound
Wow! This is some news to me. Would you please cite reputable sources for your claims that there are laws that compel physicians to perform abortions? Where? What state(s)? Is that All physicians; you know, neurologists? Cardiologists? Ophthalmologists? Does that mean my dermatologist is hiding an "abortion room" somewhere in the back of his tiny office? Don't believe just any old hysteria you read on the internet. Also, check your email; anything that's been forwarded more than once (unless it's a funny cat picture) is probably complete drivel.
8
@Liberty hound
What? There are no laws that require physicians to perform abortions as a condition of getting a license.
3
I think that somebody who has a religious objection to performing a certain action should get no more leeway than an atheist who has a moral objection to performing the same action.
At the same time, I think there should be some leeway in our society for people who feel that they cannot morally participate in certain things. There are people who think that there is something morally wrong with gay marriage. I don't think it matters whether they got to that view through a religious or a secular route. I don't know that we have to beat them over the head and say that they have to design a cake for the wedding if they don't want to.
Somebody who hangs out a shingle as a lawyer is not required to defend a crime boss if she morally objects to taking the case.
As far as vaccinations are concerned, I wholly agree with the author.
8
@Mark
When refusing a client, a lawyer generally has a professional obligation to assist that person in finding someone who is able to take on the case.
8
@PaulyRat: When you say "professional obligation," what exactly do you mean? Could you point me to a source for that information? I never heard of such a rule or obligation. Thank you.
2
@Mark so, can a plumber or an electrician refuse to repair things in someone's house because they are gay (or whatever)?...can a first responder refuse to treat a gay person?....
1
Less than 800 cases in a country of 330,000,000 is hardly an epidemic.
3
@Raz
One case of a disease that has an incidence of 0 can constitute an epidemic. An epidemic is defined by the level of the disease in a population.
14
@Raz - Measles is extremely contagious. One can catch the virus up to 2 hours after an infected person leaves a room. The disease can cause serious health problems and sometimes death. The two combined makes it a public health emergency, epidemic or not.
29
Tell that to a new parent who’s baby just contracted measles because some ignorant person believes they know more about medical science than actual medical scientists.
4
Thomas Jefferson was supposedly deeply suspicious of the holier than thou, super religious types, and it's easy to understand why. We are a nation of rational laws - that is what we are all about. So many of our horrid international problems derive from religions. That in itself is sickening.
32
@Paul Shindler
Yes, he considered certain religious believes ridiculous. This is precisely why he realized it was so important to protect them.
2
It’s laughable to hear American Christians describe their beliefs as “under attack.” Where I live, there are churches of every denomination on every corner, people wear crosses, display bumper stickers & openly have bible studies and pray in coffee shops. Absurdist arguments like the ones relating to baking cakes have nothing to do with religious freedom and everything to do with the conceit of the claimants that they know The Truth. No civil society should tolerate such drivel.
255
@Fintan We get it. You’re an atheist.
3
@Fintan "churches of every denomination on every corner..."...and, somehow, tax free...
12
"No civil society should tolerate such drivel."
Is intolerance now the standard for civil society?
3
It is not always a simple binary yes/no on issues or policies at the intersection of one's religious practice (or lack thereof) and being part of a larger society. Where an infectious disease is concerned, the greater good has to trump the individual. Sorry. But in issues of bakers and cakes, no one's health is at risk (unless they eat too much cake, perhaps), and most places offer more than one baker. Let the capitalist market do the work. For one baker who doesn't want to serve the LGBT community, lest he or she sin, find another who will. The one open to the most business will be the one to prosper. A customer should respect the proprietor as well.
Should I sue the owner of a kosher deli because he won't serve me a ham sandwich? After all, he's running a pubic deli, and I want ham. Discrimination! No, to order a ham sandwich would be to disrespect his beliefs and cause him to sin were he to provide me one. I can easily find another deli or supermarket and get my ham. Same principle. Food for thought, better than the disdainful let them eat cake.
9
@Patrick The kosher deli owner has no ham in their deli, therefore, the owner serves ham to no one. The owner is under no obligation to carry ham in their deli because a customer may want ham. You can try to order hundreds of ham sandwiches to no avail; the owner has no ham. Thus, there is no discrimination.
A baker bakes cakes in their public business. By law, if they bake cakes they may not refuse to provide a cake to someone in a protected class. Like the deli owner who does not stock ham, the baker can decline to bake any and all cakes and only sell cookies. But, if the owner has cakes then everyone in a protected class who wants a cake is legally entitled to the same class of cake.
54
@Patrick
There is an important distinction between your sandwich and cake.
In this example the deli would not sell a ham sandwich to anyone. It's simply not a product they offer. In the case of the baker, they do produce wedding cakes but want the privilege to discriminate against some groups by not providing this otherwise publicly available service.
It's not an issue of forcing someone to do something they are opposed to, it is preventing discrimination. If the baker doesn't want to provide cakes for same-sex weddings, then they should follow the example of the deli and not offer wedding cakes to anyone.
12
The height of false equivalence. The kosher deli doesn’t have ham to make the sandwich any more than a vegan restaurant can sell you a porterhouse steak. Now, if the kosher deli refused to sell you a brisket sandwich because you don’t keep kosher at home, that would be a problem.
2
You have it backwards. Orthodox Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, have long believed that gay marriage is wrong. There is plenty of support for it in our guiding document, the Bible. Secularists have religious views too. As CS Lewis said, ceasing to believe in God, they don’t believe in nothing—they believe in anything. That is why they continue to open up the Pandora’s Box of sexuality and will until anthing is permissible. And because they don’t want others to shine a light on and so expose their actions which are contrary to God’s design, they want to tyrannize the rest of us by forcing us to agree with and go along with them. It is the tyranny of the minority and only a perverse view of the 250+ year old Constitution can seek to justify that tyranny.
2
@ehillesum
* One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
* The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
* The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
* Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
* People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
* Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.
2
@ehillesum ~ How sad, that you are "tyrannized" by two human beings who simply love each other, and who inflict no harm on others by their love for each other.
11
@ehillesum "And because they don’t want others to shine a light on and so expose their actions which are contrary to God’s design, ... ." A regular percentage of the population is homosexual and this has been true as far back as we know. Methinks it is God's design. As God divinely inspired Michelangelo, so too did God create Michelangelo as a homosexual.
6
The curtailment of religious freedom, like the outlawing of indigenous language, have been, throughout human history, been the first acts of conquerors over the conquered.
1
@Cold Eye
You do realize that the religious freedoms of two individuals can not only differ but actually be in conflict, right?
3
@Cold Eye
Let's figure out what we mean by "curtailment"
Your right to smoke ends at my nose. Your right to believe whatever you want is similar: it ends where it impacts my EQUAL right to my beliefs.
1
@Cold Eye
But always for a good cause, right?
2
God, I’m so sick of people whose religious beliefs negatively impact non-believers. What makes them think they have that right? Who do they think they are?
46
@Boring Tool. And who do you think you are to stifle their beliefs?
2
were you saying a public prayer. difficult to tell given your wording....
1
@Jackson
Nobody is stifling their beliefs. They are free to believe what they want. They are not free to impose that belief on me
8
Amen and Praise God for this article!
8
The color of your skin and your sexual preferences are two very different things. One you're born with and "all men are created equal" applies. The other is a choice and the constitution does not apply.
2
@Raz
Post your proof that sexual orientation is a choice.
4
@Raz ~ You are mistaken. No one chooses to be gay! Some of us are born with those hormones, some are not. It's something that you first begin to realize when you are a child, there is absolutely no choice in the matter.
4
@Raz
Sexual orientation is a choice? I believe the prevailing science may suggest otherwise. Until you know that your opinion on this subject is factually correct, it seems a little hasty to flatly declare, “the constitution does not apply.”
3
Religious freedom, like every other freedom, has limits. Polygamy is outlawed. Free speech does not extend to slander, libel, or fraud. The right to bear arms does not include nuclear weapons or weaponized anthrax. The only question is where the freedom gets curtailed.
10
I thank Mrs. Renkl for opening this issue. It is so long overdue for consideration.
As she writes "The Constitution protects my right to believe whatever I want to believe, including my right to shun science and modern medicine." I would like to add the clause "but not beyond reasonable grounds". As in a court of law, guilt needs to proven beyond reasonable doubt, or in other words, that reasonable people will be convinced beyond "unreasonable" doubts. So the Constitution is a law that applies to the populace as a whole, but cannot be taken to apply to unreasonable grounds. The concept of reason is the underpinning.
Reasonable people will agree unanimously that extremist religious violence is not protected under the Constitution. Similarly, religious philosophies that clearly endanger the public at large as determinable under reasonable examination are not automatically protected. Unreasonable burdens, unreasonable search and seizure, and unreasonable religious beliefs are similarly not protected automatically.
We have thrown reasoning to the wind and are reaping its harvest. But when the Supreme Court itself forgets to apply reasoned arguments, but hangs on to the "letter of the law" even under clearly unreasonable circumstances, the Constitution, as a document to be read within reason, has been corrupted.
6
@Me. No, applying the law does not corrupt the Constitution
1
Should an African American baker be required to bake a cake for a white nationalist? This article fails to address the inverse consequences of the standards it proscribes. The vaccination crisis is not comparable to Masterpiece Cake Shop nor are either comparable to state sponsored religion. Her take on the first and the last are more reasonable. But Renkl, like so many, gets the baker debate wrong. No one should be entitled to a private citizens services, protecting the right to refuse service may be unsavory, but I don't forsee an LGBTQ baker being compelled to bake a cake for an anti-LGBTQ Evangelical going over so well. Further, if the Masterpiece baker were Muslim, and likewise refusing to cater a same-sex union, I doubt we would even be talking about it. We have to consider the broader implications, even when it's inconvenient and uncomfortable.
7
@Jane
Unfortunately, their logic is quite stunted and doesn't extend past a particular group's rights. It always begins and ends with the rights of a particular group. All arguments originate from this position.
1
@Jane
"Yes" is the answer to your first question.
@Jane If the white nationalist is gay, or white, or disabled, or of a different faith, and the African American baker refused to bake the cake because of any of those factors then the baker would be discriminating against those in a protected class. If the baker refused based solely on the person being a white nationalist, that is not discrimination as white nationalists are not a protected class, therefore the baker can refuse service.
You believe the Muslim refusing service would not be criticized. Are you implying only Christians are held accountable?
This has nothing to do with religious freedom and everything to do with misinformation. As was stated in the article, "This is not a position held by most prominent ultra-Orthodox rabbis, and most ultra-Orthodox Jews are vaccinated." Anyone saying that vaccination is against the religion is either misinformed or misinterpreting the faith as they put their community and others at risk.
23
Conservative Christians are trying to inject their personal religious beliefs into the public sphere because their religion is dying. They are trying to regain their influence over American public life and they are forced to do it through legislative activity because they lost the cultural and social battle.
47
@SouthernBeale My understanding of conservative Christianity in America and its desire to influence culture and politics goes back many decades, even when it was quite robust. It may be dying today, but I believe this group of Christians has long held that it is their calling/responsibility to influence politics and culture.
4
The bizarre beliefs and militant insistence upon them of all of these extremist religious groups -- whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim -- will accomplish nothing other than bringing about the downfall of their religion that much sooner.
Slowly, over decades, folks like these anti-vaccine quacks have been indirectly responsible for the declining religiosity and the growth of atheism in this and other countries. Stories like this easily turn public sentiment against all religions that much quicker.
And hey, they're doing a good job; the fastest growing religion in the U.S. is now "none". I'm at the tail end of Generation X... religion has lost most of my entire generation. It's little more than a punchline and fodder for jokes.
As someone who could see through organized religion as a farce in elementary school, I say keep it up!
28
So we’ll-argued and written that I can only add: Amen, Sister.
20
I'm struck by how often appeals to "religious conscience" involves hurting other people. I doubt very much that this is God's intent for us.
69
Just hypothetically, what would the law say if a baker refused on religious grounds to bake a cake for an interracial marriage? Or, to an inter-faith marriage?
34
@Captain Useless Or to someone who has been divorced and now wants to get married again. The bible says much more about divorce than it does about homosexuals. Jesus condemned divorce but said nothing about same sex relationships.
Conservative Christians pick and choose their biblical mandates to justify their own intolerance and hate.
6
@Captain Useless Your hypothetical will soon be reality if the US continues on the slippery slope towards catering to to the “Christian” religious right and away from the democratic ideals this country was founded on.
1
People who will not have their children vaccinated against the measles due to their religious beliefs are putting many others at risk. We have already seen the negative side to this. These leaders are strongly encouraging their members to have their children vaccinated and strongly stating that there is no risk nor does it go against their religious tenets. They are harming many others with whom they come in contact with if they are infected. They must do the right thing and get vaccinated.
14
@KMW:
there is NO "religious" grounds for anyone, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist to refuse vaccination.
At least in the Middle East, where a volunteer medic was recently killed for vaccinating kids against polio (common there) they didn't use "religion" for an excuse...they did it because it was "Western".
This article does not mix apples with oranges,
it does tragically mixes wedding cakes with measles.
no one is going to contract measles for lack of a wedding cake.
nor should anyone be deprived of a wedding cake, and no one is
There is a public health necessity for vaccinations, life or death,
but no one is actually going to die or get sick for having to patronize another baker to prepare his or her wedding cake.
By mixing the 2 issues, it trivializes the tragic consequences of the
lack of disease control brought about from the religious exemption to vaccinations.
9
@David: You miss the point entirely. NO ONE should be discriminated against for being something that is legal. PERIOD. If you don't see that then you should find another country to live in.
10
@David The two examples seem far apart but they are both a way to discuss the problem of religious people taking a very limited approach to living in a pluralistic society. There are physical and moral diseases.
9
@Brian
the next presidential election will be decided in the centrist swing States, not the most left wing States.
Moderation in all things, checks and balances, and all that good stuff we learned in kindergarten.
We must make a choice between public health necessities and what should be, but is not a public health necessity.
No. The purpose in life is not be as safe as possible. We shouldn't force people to get vaccinated. Strongly encourage, yes. Force, no.
Freedom is more important. Freedom and safety are antagonistic. The more you desire safety, the more freedom you are willing to sacrifice.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not an anti-vaccination person.
But rather, I understand that many of those who don't want to get vaccinated have extremely strong beliefs, ethical, religious, etc.
To us, those beliefs might seem ridiculous, but to those holding them, they are important. We should respect those beliefs.
2
@XY Freedom to not vaccinate puts others in danger. That's not a belief I want our culture to respect.
22
@XY No one should respect beliefs that put countless others in danger. This is exactly why vaccinations need to be mandatory.
12
@XY Freedom is never free. Respecting someone’s right not to vaccinate means my newborn baby, too young to be vaccinated until 12 months, could die.
24
Thank you and bravo, Ms. Renkl. I'm saving your piece to share with my fundamentalist cousins next time one of them sends me an appeal for public school prayer or another paen to personal freedom in the matter of vaccination.
19
Federal courts have consistently struggled with the concept of religious freedom particularly the free exercise of religion clause in the Constitution that states Congress shall enact no laws that "prohibit" the free exercise of religion. Most rational constitutional analysts interpret the clause to mean that when there are conflicts between legal and religious obligations legal obligations should give way to religious obligations so long as the religious activity does not harm the public or interfere with other's rights. In the case of measles, refusing to allow injections clearly does harm the public.
7
@Nathan Pachecko
This is Laurie's husband, Carl. I think of two things when the subject of religious freedom comes up. The first is tolerance. What is more important, freedom of religion or freedom from religion? In the public sphere, where everyone's taxes pay into access to a business, it's difficult to assert a personal violation of religious freedom when everybody pays into public roads and other matter which make our lives safer and, hopefully, easier. On the other hand, I don't like people who put down others who express a genuine religious belief. So many people of faith are actually good people. This also applies to those who less inclined. Everyone needs to take a deep breath, shake hands and talk things over in civil tone. I know that's hard but if we all tried a little harder, we will, more lily, walk away as friends.
Second, denying goods and services based on religion is, defacto, is applying "Jim Crow" laws for those people they don't like. This goes both ways. Again, it's tolerance. Tolerance means patience and understanding. Patience and understanding takes time and earnest effort to assess one's self and others.
We are all Americans. We are all fallible. We make mistakes, we do the wrong thing. We can also do good, change our ways and apologize for our trespasses.
Please, everyone, quit beating on one another needlessly.
Look to our better angels. Be humble, kind, understanding.
It doesn't hurt. Be good, do good.
14
@Laurie
Thomas Paine, probably more of a founding father than many of those we claim as founding fathers (It was Paine's "Common Sense" and his later work "The current Crisis" that defined the American Revolution and what it meant to the common people, much more so than even the Declaration of Independence), had a great thought about tolerance. He said people assumed that tolerance was better than intolerance, but he said they both were wrong, because while intolerance (which religious belief is grossly accussed of violating over much of our shared history) is people harming those they don't like or believe are wrong, and tolerance is 'putting up' with people who you don't like, the root problem is both assume the person has the right to judge others in the first place, that their belief they are 'wrong' someone is 'right'. It isn't that we need to tolerate others, maybe it is more important that we realize our beliefs our true for ourselves, but because they are not 'true' in any logical sense, maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be judging in the first place.
3
You mean you want us to tolerate stupidity and superstition even if it is causing a public health problem?
2
I agree with this column, and would add that it seems to me that as society we have increasingly come to emphasize what we "believe" of "feel" over what we think or logically understand from facts and analysis. This phenomenon is clearly evident in the climate change debate. It is manifestly evident in our current political arena. We now have large segments of society who view serious people who have studied a subject for years to develop expertise as disreputable "elites." This is not a god trend.
39
If not getting vaccinated is a threat to innocent lives, and it is, then the punishment should be more severe than forfeiting the right to public transportation and public schools. After all, many of those are not vaccinating their children don't want to ride public transportation or go to public schools. Threaten a family with the removal of their children, perhaps putting them in foster care, would be more appropriate, and more likely to get results.
16
@Dan Frazier, not vaccinating kids should be legally treated as child abuse, pure and simple.
What about the rights of a baker to be forced to bake a gay wedding cake when his religion states that a marriage is between one man and one woman even if the Supreme Court says otherwise. His faith has not made that change. What about religious groups who oppose birth control to be covered by their health insurance due to their strong religious principles and convictions. Should they have their rights denied?
The baker is not denying anyone from marrying whom they wish. They just do not want to take part. The religious groups are not stopping anyone from using birth control. They just do not want to have anything to do with covering its expense. There are many bakers who would oblige this couple and those working for religious institutions knew their tenets before they were employed.
It is the people who are being forced to provide a service against their will who are the victims. They must not be coerced into supplying a service that is against their religious faith. And they must resist.
5
@KMWwhat if a baker was a white supremecist and didn’t want to serve black people or perhaps they didn’t want to bake a cake for a Jewish couple or a Muslim couple? Religion and government are separate for a reason.
10
@KMW
What's a gay wedding cake, exactly?
How do you know that a wedding cake is gay v. straight?
Did you always sort of wonder why it always hung out with other boy wedding cakes and didn't want to play with girl wedding cakes?
Was it difficult when the gay wedding cake had to come out to its parents?
"Should they have their rights denied? "
Yes. Your right to believe that birth control is wrong does not mean that you get to determine how I spend MY money that I earn at MY job. Having insurance coverage cover birth control is no different whatsoever from me using my salary to buy condoms.. or birth control.
I'm so tired of "christians" whining about their rights-- their rights to insert themselves into everyone else's lives- to find the most tenuous connection to an event as they possibly can--and to purposefully install themselves into positions of authority where they can claim that simple administrative tasks "violate their rights." The stupid Little Sisters of the Poor wouldn't even deign to sign paperwork that would allow the Government to come in and take over their obligations to provide insurance that they were deliberately failing to meet.
They knew they had a position of power, knew they could block access to contraceptives, so they seized it--largely for the purpose of creating Supreme Court precedent that is favorable to the religious right and undermines the ACA.
5
@KMW Oh for heavens sake. The old victim card. Just because a baker does a frivolous thing for a living doesn't make his prejudice any less of an issue. It is about the application of a consistent principle. The same faulty 'my conviction; your suffering' baloney applies to pharmacists who won't fill women's birth control prescriptions if they don't feel like it. It is discrimination pure and simple. What if a pharmacist believed that migraine meds, or antibiotics, or lithium were against his principles. Would that be fair? Ummm. No. No-one is forcing the baker to marry someone of the same sex. No-one is forcing the pharmacist to use birth control. Similarly, no-one is forcing the people in a religious institution to use the birth control it should cover in its health insurance.
You can't cherry pick what medical issues you think are valid. I could give a rats patootie about a cake but the issue of health and well-being is a deal breaker.
3
We are not using the established system to manage this problem. If the source of an infection that spreads can be established, the family of the "Typhoid Mary" should be sued into bankruptcy! Do this a few times, and things would change. It is the way things really get done in the USA, not through regulation.
23
Throughout human history, religion has often been a catalyst for power, persecution and war, and to suppress "unbelievers." The United States was founded in part on the basis of a desire to allow worship of any and all faiths without favoring any particular faith in governmental and civic matters. Our Founding Fathers saw the danger in sanctifying religion over secular governance and their genius was to devise counter-balancing provisions in the First Amendment, namely, the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause.
We must give more respect to the Establishment Clause. It prohibits religious intrusion into civil governance.
46
If the vaccine was truly effective, then vaccinated people should not be at risk if a non-vaccinated person comes in contact with them. And, yet, many of the folks getting measles had been vaccinated against it. If we want to have a reasonable conversation about this issue, then the pro-vaxxers should dig into the science pro and con instead of making blanket statements unsupported by science intended to guilt trip folks on the other side of the issue.
2
@Roy Lowenstein
The people most at risk are those who aren't vaccinated - young infants for example. And there are others who received vaccinations but for whom the vaccination didn't render immunity. My mother died from complications after becoming ill with mumps, so I think passing these diseases off as trivial is very misguided.
38
@Roy Lowenstein,
People with compromised immune systems or other serious health conditions are sometimes not able to get vaccines. Babies under one year old may not get many vaccines. They rely on herd immunity. So yes, the anti-vaxxers' actions do harm others. And they have no "right" to do so.
57
@Roy Lowenstein No, you are wrong. For a vaccine to be effective at preventing the spread of a disease it does not have to be 100% effective in each individual.
9
Listening to Mr. Fox, Mr. Otter and Mr. Badger separately, they narrow their eyes when hearing that measles are being allowed to spread in our forests, sanctuaries and mountains (our schools). Nature lovers, religion does not play a factor in the wind in the willows, and they are taking their cubs to be vaccinated, whether they like it or not.
It is a jest with a friend from Africa, deeply devout, who rises at 4:00 a.m. for her prayers, this long history of Catholic missionaries with a compulsion to convert her nation to 'Baby Jesus'.
Not long ago, a tragedy took place when a young Catholic missionary could not resist temptation to set foot on a forbidden island off Indonesia, disturb and enlighten the tribe.
A few timid attempts at political or religious conversation have taken place here, and these well-meaning persons are reminded that there are guns in our midst.
Brought up at Catholic school, my classmates and I were told by the nuns that good behavior and conduct carries a sense of moral taste, known as 'pudeur' in French in not imposing one's views on politics, sex or religion on others.
The Times published an article on the rise of anti-Semitism, and this is serious enough to realize that all Jews of different denominations may be held accountable for this outbreak.
As a Lutheran neighbor mentioned in passing, in the end we are much the same and have a need to breathe. Thanking Ms. Renkl for sharing an opinion, and it was food for the soul.
6
There are surely a hundred different difficulties with praying in school. However, in many rural communities, prayer in schools should be permitted, so long as their is some general agreement on the sort of prayer it will be. I don't expect to take my southeastern Pentecostal roots to certain cities and hope they start conducting prayers. But neither should folks who are very opposed to any religious expression in the classroom carry more weight than the vast majority of a community that is for religious expression in the classroom.
Certainly, no non-Christian should be made to feel deeply awkward or singled-out while Christian students bow their heads, but neither should deeply religious communities have to abide by the wishes of what is often the smallest of minorities in a community.
In Muslim communities, if the vote carries (perhaps by some super-majority), then, fine, say a prayer to Allah. In areas that are very secular (say San Francisco), keep things the way they are. But let's not steal the religious birthright--and, indeed, freedom--of schools to pray IF IF IF there is a significant desire in the community to do so.
If we could point to some significant benefit that has come from not praying in schools, we could in better conscience prohibit it. And while the other side may not be able to point to any significant benefit derived from praying in school, our default should be religious freedom. School. Home. Everywhere.
3
I would have to respectfully disagree. If parents want school-sponsored prayer they can send them to a religious school. Organized prayer should have no place in a public school in this country period. What the majority of people in a community believe is beside the point.
230
@AaronS
Anyone, anytime can pray in school. There is no law, and nothing in the Constitution that prevents a person from praying anywhere. To any god they want. It doesn't have to be a guided prayer from a particular religion that everyone in the space must endure. Schools can even offer moments of silence - within which students can pray, or not pray or do whatever. They can even offer a room for prayer, for students who want or need a community space. That allows them to exercise their religion without it imposing on those who don't follow it. Once prayer is voiced aloud, to a group that is not there by choice, it is an imposition of religion. It doesn't matter if it's a majority religion. It's an imposition.
165
@AaronS
My religious freedom is exercised only when I am free from listening to your or anyone else’s religion. This is best illustrated in public schools. There should be no exceptions to this practice.
113
The consequences of the actions of anti-vaxers, unlike the baker, are not remote and unclear; they are immediate, clear and present. There is an epidemic. Babies sicken or die; hospitals and health agencies use up their resources to fight it. If a baker used tainted flour in his cakes which subsequently sickened his customers, he would minimally be held financially liable for damages. Perhaps it is time to hold anti-vaxers financially liable. If reason can't convince them to vaccinate their children, perhaps fines might.
47
@L. Soss, agreed. They don’t care about science, they don’t care about others’ health—but it’s a sure bet they will care about losing money.
3
The superstitions that can be found in every form of organized religion own our culture. Religious faith represents everything wrong with the way human beings think, elevating hope and faith to the same, or senior standing, of facts. As we look to a planet in decline due to climate change, this does not bode well for the future of our kind.
41
@Buelteman
There was a move to make Orthdox religous schools conform the state wide academic norms recently in NY state. I equated poor education as deliberately crippling your child, yet they resist meeting the state educational requirements. Also poorly educated mothers are gullible and there is a pamphlet out there that disinforms. Children will become deaf. One of the hallmarks of Judiaism is education but this is a group that resists education.
14
@Anon Almost all Jews, including Orthodox and even ultra-Orthodox, support vaccination. But there is a crazy fringe who don't, as there is a crazy fringe in most faiths. and that isn't God's fault.
2
Many agree that Civil Rights law should bar SOME discrimination, yet honor SOME dissenters. People disagree about where to draw the line.
One option: Ensure that women/minorities/etc. get access to goods/services on roughly the same basis as everyone else--but not that they get to demand FROM WHOM they get those goods/services. That is, adopt an affirmative defense to Civil Rights claims: "I declined to serve, but accurately informed the customers where they could get comparable goods/services at comparable terms nearby."
--You can demand service from a gov't office--but can't demand service from a SPECIFIC clerk, provided another clerk is available.
--You can demand service from an airport taxi--but can't demand service from a SPECIFIC taxi, provided there are comparable taxis available.
--You can demand service from a bakery--but not from a SPECIFIC bakery unless there are no comparable bakeries nearby.
What does "comparable" and "nearby" mean? We could define it as we like, but here are some guidelines:
The discriminating firm would bear the burden of referring customers to where comparable goods/services could be acquired nearby. If a jury found that the referral was not comparable (in quality/price), nearby, or available to serve, the discriminator would be liable; good faith error is no excuse.
Hotels hosting large events could not discriminate as a practical matter, because there would be no "comparable" hotel for people seeking to attend the event.
1
@EW I'm sorry, but are you seriously suggesting "separate but equal" is the way to go? Have we not learned from history that this does not work?
37
@EW
So, basically, separate but equal ....
Haven't we been around this block before?
12
@EW So you suggest a return to the Jim Crow era of the Green Book, with a guide required to be able to locate food and lodging while traveling. I think not. Many do not agree that Civil Rights law should only bar some discrimination. A tiny minority of bigots think that, the vast majority believe in equality before the law.
13
Ms. Renkl, I couldn't agree more. A person's religious beliefs should not allow them to put the most vulnerable members of our communities at risk.
68
I taught in high school for 35 years and I prayed often: for patience, for understanding, for strength. However, I prayed alone as Jesus told us to and didn't force my faith upon those the state and local governments paid me to teach. Prayer will never be taken from public school and there is no law that tells me I cannot pray silently for my own concerns but it should never be FORCED upon anyone. The same is true of the baker who owns a business selling to the PUBLIC who shouldn't be allowed to force his/her beliefs on others.
131
But isn’t the the proposition that same sex marriage is a good and normal thing also based on a belief that would be forced on the baker?
@Cold Eye That's not the proposition. The proposition is that when you run a public business, you serve everybody who wants to buy your product even if you don't support their life choices.
27
@Cold Eye The baker is being asked to supply a cake, not moral approval. Does the baker have a questionnaire that each prospective customer must complete to see if they pass a moral purity test? What if one, or both, are adulterers? Perhaps neither keep the sabbath and both take the lord's name in vain often. Do these sinners still get their cake? We both know the answer is yes, if they are hetrosexual.
33
Of course, these aren't really sincerely held religious convictions. They're convenient self-serving rationalizations.
The law needs an actual test for when someone claims "sincerely held religiously beliefs" because more often then not, it's not.
122
Exactly. Do they attend religious services regularly? How often do they pray or read the Bible? Do they follow every single thing the Bible says? Are they innocent of all sins?
“He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.”
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@Sam I Am
Or, even simpler, simply get rid of exemptions for "sincerely held religious beliefs" in every area: vaccination, services, what have you. Religion should not be an excuse for breaking the law, and trying to create a test for such beliefs is likely to come way too close to establishing a state religion.
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@Sam I Am You've got to be kidding? That test would be impossible.
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I'm a native-born American citizen in my mid-60's. And what I find most striking about Ms. Renkl's column is that we actually have to say that others do not have the right to put our lives at risk because of their "religious beliefs". Many "religious citizens" have become just that extreme. They believe that they have a right to use their religion as a blunt force instrument to harm other people.
These "religious" folks believe that they have a right to discriminate against others because of their beliefs. They believe that they have a right to unleash serious illnesses in the larger community because of their beliefs. And they believe that they bear absolutely no responsibility for the harm they are causing to tens of thousands of other Americans.
And it is for this reason that I am absolutely shocked that thoughtful journalists such as Ms. Renkl must actually give this message. I grew up in an America where it was axiomatic that one could exercise his or her rights, so long as they did not harm others. Republicans and Democrats believed this. It was not a partisan issue. It was not a religious issue.
But it is now. This is the natural outgrowth of the toxicity the Evangelical Right has had in this nation. Their excesses have enabled people of all backgrounds to follow their example in engaging in any behavior they wish, regardless of the harm to others.
And this sickening behavior needs to be stopped.
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@Nicholas Rush: Thank you, thank you, thank you for your thoughtful and well written comments. I was literally putting pen to paper when I read your comments which captured my thoughts completely.
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@Nicholas Rush
I totally agree. The Evangelical Right is the cause for why we are at each others throats in politics.
As a Christian, give me a good atheist any day over a fundamentalist Baptist fanatic.
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@Nicholas Rush - And you know who enables the excesses of the evangelical right a.k.a., extremists? Republicans. They indulge them to get their votes. People like trump, mitch mcconnell, their tea party freedom caucus types, probably don't have a truly spiritual bone in their bodies. They worship power for power's sake and the $$$ that comes with it.
They don't care about who gets harmed in the process. They can't win without cheating and they will cynically indulge any crazy faction they can if it furthers their agendas. And we're in a mell of a hess because of it.
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In my view, the Christians who fight for religious liberty really is fighting for THEIR liberty to impose their Christian values onto others, even if it means discriminating, disrespecting or causing bodily harm to others. It is really a struggle for power to dominate.
For thing, if the practice of their religion is so important, they would have been more vocal in helping the poor and the sick. But alas, these same people want to cut food stamps, Medicare and Medicaid, or any programs that help the poor.
Or they would speak and act with more love and tolerance, because, isn't love the truest of Christ's teaching?
The politicians who stand by them, and hanging their religion on the sleeves for the world to see, are similarly hypocritical and vacuous in spirituality. Worse, religion is used as a political tool to manipulate voters and sometimes incite them to hatred and violence if that will get their votes.
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No one has the right to freely exercise her/his religious beliefs to the detriment of another human being. Human decency should be a part of every religious belief system but apparently it's not. Cotton Mather was pro-vaccine and pushed for vaccinations. If Cotton Mather of all people see the efficacy of vaccinations. so can every other Christian.
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Cotton Mather? No way. I had to look this up.
And sure enough: Cotton Mather promoted inoculation against smallpox in 1721. This might involve (warning: kinda gross) taking a smallpox scab and rubbing it into another person's slight wound.
Good call, Jon.
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So, a church that firmly believes that homosexuality is a sin, should not be able to deny hiring an openly homosexual individual as the youth minister? This is discrimination of an individual done in the exercise of one’s sincerely held religious beliefs...that is justified and legal (currently).
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@Jon
Yes. Here's something else:
"George Washington's bold decision to vaccinate the entire Continental Army against smallpox. It was the first mass inoculation in military history, and was vital to ensuring an American victory in the War of Independence."
https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2016/09/how_vaccination_helped_win_the_revolutionary_war.html
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Deuteronomy 4:9 (and similar verses) , "Only be careful, and watch yourselves diligently as long as you live" is commonly interpreted in Jewish law as taking care of one's health and many, such as Maimonides, claim that those who do not transgress this commandment.
Most rabbis have clearly come out not only supporting vaccination but dictating that it is required to avoid putting oneself in danger as well as others.
Even if by some warped interpretation of laws of kosher foods (sic! foods) one might conclude that there was a problem with the "ingredients" of a vaccination, this is superseded by the requirement to avoid putting oneself and especially others in danger.
Not vaccinating is a perversion of Jewish law. No ifs and buts about it.
Measles can kill. Jewish law requires that one take steps to prevent that: vaccinate.
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@Joshua Schwartz nailed it.
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@Joshua Schwartz Right on. I think this focus on a group of Orthodox Jews in NYC is anti-semitism rearing its ugly head in a less flagrant way, when there are plenty of White Christian and non-Christian folks alike across the country who don't vaccinate their children. The ire on this specific group should be scrutinized more. Even the way it is mentioned in the article seems iffy to me.
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@Maisha It is not anti-semitism in the case to focus on this group. In the article it was made clear that the overwhelming majority of ultra-Orthodox do vaccinate. The fact is that the majority of the measles cases are among the ultra-Orthodox, and cluster in their neighborhoods, which is why the focus on them. Perhaps their rate of non-vaccination is not greater than other groups, but the density of their population and large number of children results in a greater number of cases.
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Amen.
But here lies the problem. Some religious zealots shun the Christian teaching of tolerance (because, yes, most religious zealots are Christian in the US) and of a loving God and embrace something far darker. Some think that unless they convince the rest of us to live a life as miserable as them, we are liable to burn forever. So, out of concern for the rest of us - and probably because misery loves company ("I put myself through this, so everyone should") - they systematically try to highjack the ppwer of the state to enforce their beliefs on all.
We are also facing zealots that decided to be very selective about which parts of the Gospel they will obey. "Love thy neighbor", but not if it means put some innocuous germs in your body, endangering all.
I fully agree. These charades have lasted long enough. Time to restrict what these religious rights are.
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Texas legislators are about to pass a measure that would allow anyone to discriminate on the basis of a “sincerely held belief”. That would allow any business or trade,plumbers, electricians etc to discriminate. Exceptions are made for emergency medical personnel. I support freedom of religion...I’d like some freedom FROM religion.
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@Maryellen Simcoe
May I suggest that you join FFRF, if you haven't already.
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@Maryellen Simcoe
You do have freedom from religion. It's called the Constitution.
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@Maryellen Simcoe. Yeah, I’ve often been struck by that Biblical passage about electricians providing services to LGBTQ couples.
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Let's just be clear there is no prohibition against vaccination in any Talmudic Laws or in any Midrash of those laws. In fact we can look at the laws of Kashruth and make a clear delineation to them not only being Kosher, but a Mitzvah. It is a joke to claim any religion prohibits a thing that didn't exist at the time of its founding or during the writing or religious laws. I am very much over this argument and it is anti-intellectual to an extent that it actually violates a core tenet of the Jewish faith, which is that we question, learn, and grow.
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@Robert
I appreciate Robert's view that Jewish law does not prohibit, and actually requires, vaccinations.
At the same time, do not all religions seem like "a joke" to outsiders? Rationality and coherence have never been the hallmarks of religion.
The fact that someone's arguments make no sense to me does not lead me to question their faith. It just leads me to conclude that I practice a different faith--even if we might use similar names to describe our faiths.
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@Robert
It would seem that Constitutional Originalists would disagree with your very logical and cogent argument. Then again they have far more secular reasons for their arguments, or so it would seem.
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@Robert
Well, there are certain principles from which things can be decided, inferred, etc. The Torah prohibits eating any mammal that does not both have split hooves and chew its cud. If a new mammal came about that did not have split hooves, I think it would make a lot of sense from the perspective of this law that it should not count as kosher. There is a whole set of rules in halachic Judaism of deciding legal matters and deciding matters based on previous rules.
Now, principles have to be applied correctly, and this measles case is a good example of that. There has been a deliberate misinformation campaign in a community where most don't have access to internet and other sources of information. The problem here is the sophists in our midst.
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“A right to practice beliefs ... but not a right to discriminate against others.”
What about when your beliefs apparently require you to discriminate against others? Against women, or gays, or even minorities? Remember the Mormon church used to believe black people were cursed. That was their sincere religious belief. And conservative Christians have opposed ending slavery, equal rights and interracial marriage using their beliefs.
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@Xoxarle
Believe what you want, but act in accordance with the law of the land or pay the penalty. Civil disobedience is the honorable path if the law requires you to act inconsistently with your beliefs, not the imposition of your beliefs on everyone else.
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You write that you left a small Catholic grammar school where you prayed 4-x-a-day, for a large public h.s. where they didn't but you did.
I left a relatively large Catholic grammar school in Brooklyn (the "real" one) in June of 1962, for a public h.s. that was (and yet is) the largest h.s. in all of NYC (Brooklyn Tech), in September.
We didn't pray at Tech -- and I'm quite confident that 'they' didn't in the years leading up to that 1962 SCOTUS decision you mention.
But, as you did, I should have ... 'cause if I had prayed, maybe I wouldn't have been "asked" to 'take my business' elsewhere in February of '64.
(It all worked out eventually -- 'whereas' the draft and the war then in 'vogue' with our 'superiors' served to motivate me more than I ever could otherwise have expected to be motivated, thence to overcome my prior educational 'insufficiencies,' 'get into' college, claim 'my' 2S 'for the duration,' and become insufferable once I got to choose law schools from among UVA, NYU & Fordham … the last of which got Dad's money and my first wife's as I returned to the arms of a 'Catholic school' … this time and assuredly, one w/o prayer )
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I just want freedom FROM Religion. Is that really too much to ask ? Believe whatever you wish. But when your beliefs infringe upon my rights, or the safety of my family, that’s a problem. Find your very own utopia, isolated and far, far away.
Seriously.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
May I suggest that you join FFRF, if you haven't already.
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What does freedom from religion actually mean to you? If you want it to be against the law to proselytize, yes, i think that is too much to ask as it would curtail the exercise of someone else’s religious freedom.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
The Republican party allowed the religious right - mostly evangelical Christians, but slowly joined by orthodox Catholics and orthodox Jews - to infiltrate politics starting in 1992 at the Republican National Convention in Houston, TX.
Between Phyliss Shaffley and Pat Buchanan, Dan Quayle and his wife, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, the GOP has managed to change America's laws, both state and federal, to reflect "religious freedom" - which is nothing more than violating the separation of church and state.
Anyone who refuses to abide by the secular laws of equal rights and non-discrimination should love their licenses to practice their professions or to conduct businesses.
The Dems have let this go for too long. I cringe when Pete Buttigieg wants to fight the religious right with a "religious left" - that's frightening.
The federal judiciary has already gone the way of the Federalist Society, an orthodox Catholic organization, thanks to the financial and political support of evangelical Christians and pro-Israel Jews, such as Sheldon Adelson for Trump.
If Trump is not defeated in 2020 and Congress is not over time controlled by Dems, this country will become another Brunei or Saudi Arabia, only run by Christians.
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We are on a very slippery, steeply-inclined, slope towards total incivility, where religion has been warped into a way to discriminate and treat others with cruelty. My wife puts it in a beautiful way (she's a nurse"): "Any patient will get my utmost care, respect, and kind treatment." Is it too ironic to say "Amen?"
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@paul S,
Of course you and your wife are wrong and confused. The question is not whether ANY PATIENT will get the utmost care and treatment, the question is whether ANY TREATMENT should be provided?
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@paul S Although I agree with your sentiments, in a way this is just religion (mainly Christianity) returning to its post-Luther "civility."
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It's not just about treatment, but PEOPLE. I've read many comments from LGBT people being refused ANY treatment just because of who they are. Women scheduled for an abortion treated with disrespect by nursing staff having nothing to do with the actual abortion.
Shall obese individuals be denied medical care because "its their own fault" next?
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
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The problem is exacerbated when no one is ever expected to prove an honest religious belief. Once someone says " my religious beliefs prevent me from... " that's the end of the inquiry. Here in Maine, our legislature is considering doing away with religious objections to vaccination. Virtually every Republican legislator supports religious exemptions. Their view is that once someone says they have a religious objection, that's the end of the inquiry.
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@smslaw. Great! As soon as the law passes I'm moving to Maine! My religion allows, no, wait, condones murder (I've got some people I'd like to bump off.) I'll invite them up for a visit...
Which religion? I don't have a fully developed dogma yet, not quite sure of the name either; I'm working on it. But, I guarantee that it will be sincerely held.
(Please note the foregoing is satire)
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A lot of liberals believe that religious freedom is only about freedom of worship and freedom of theology, where people can say whatever prayers they want and hold whatever theological beliefs they want, like religion is some sort of hobby that people have on weekends.
But when someone actually wants to live their life outside of church (or synagogue) in accordance with those beliefs, educate their children in accordance with those beliefs, progressive toleration erodes, and progressive seek maximum victory, where bakers must bake wedding cakes for gay couples, religious schools cannot receive a cent of public money (for secular studies and even security), and the religious must always conform to the secular (ie, banning school solemnizations even in communities where they are overwhelmingly supported).
I agree that everyone must be vaccinated against measles to avoid severe sickness and death to other people, I see no equivalent to mandatory measles vaccination and requiring every single wedding vendor to participate in gay wedding, where the couple's feelings may be hurt, but there is no lasting damage and the couple can find another vendor.
The crusade for the complete, maximum victory in gay marriage, where there is no carveout for any kind of religious objection, is one reason the President of the United States is Donald J. Trump.
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@In NJ
Religion was used to justify slavery, and later to justify segregation and anti-miscegenation laws. These were sincerely held beliefs that we, as a society, decided could not be upheld by law. That doesn't mean that there are no longer people who believe that their religion forbids the mixing of races, but they may not impose that belief on others in the public sphere. As for a gay couple being compelled to find another baker, I would suggest that a baker can also operate in a state that still allows discrimination against LGBT customers.
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@In NJ Let us know what you feel when you book a vacation at a seaside resort, then are barred from the property because you are a Trump supporter.
The baker is not participating in the wedding - he/she is baking a cake. What happens after that has nothing to do with the baker.
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@In NJ I am at a loss. Can you please direct me to the language in either the Hebrew scriptures, the New Testament, or the Koran, whereby it is written that thou shalt not bake a cake for a sinner.
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The misinformation concerning the wedding cake debate is tiresomely disingenuous.
First, in the most well-known same-sex wedding service controversies such as Masterpiece Cakeshop and Arlene’s Flowers, the owners happily served gay customers for birthdays, holidays, graduations, etc. The news article the column links to implies the same policy is true at the Tennessee bakery. Yet the author implies that the owners of these establishments “discriminate against customers because they happen to belong to a group against which the shopkeeper harbors a personal prejudice”. This omission displays dishonesty or willful ignorance of the facts.
Second, the column uses rhetorical sleight-of-hand to frame the debate as people with faith versus everybody else. The fact is that when judging the circumstances when sex is moral or immoral, we are all making faith assumptions. There are no laboratories where we can use the scientific method to determine sexual morality, and faith assumptions about sexual morality are not self-evident across a wide range of cultures. Therefore, this debate is about competing faith assumptions of sexual morality, and all parties should treat it as such.
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@Nathan Pachecko If they won't also bake a wedding cake, they ARE discriminating. How hard is that to understand???
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@Nathan Pachecko Do these bakers also check to be sure that their clients honor their fathers and mothers, remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, aren't liars, murderers, or coveters, or do they get to decide which sinners they'll make wedding cakes for?
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@Nathan Pachecko. Nope. That doesn’t fly when you do business in the public square.
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