VOICES-Re: CityWatch article ‘Bakery Refused to Serve Same-Sex Couple … May Cost Them $135,000’
Here's the way I see it. If they want to claim religious freedom to discriminate against people, fine. It's written in our first am endment that no law shall be written that prohibits the free exercising of one's religion, so that should give them the right to refuse to provide services in such cases where doing so would contradict their beliefs...
...however...
... if you want to use religion as a basis for who to serve or not serve, you should have to follow all the rules of said religion to be able to claim that freedom. Example: If someone who was getting remarried while their first spouse was still alive came in seeking a cake for their wedding, they would have to deny service based on the same beliefs that inspired them to deny service to a gay couple.
This, of course, would make it very difficult to do business because a large portion of Americans have been divorced and get remarried. It's easy to discriminate against a tiny minority and say "It's just my faith.", but when your faith requires that you sacrifice being successful or other things you may hold dear ... well that's when the world finds out just how faithful you are.
The second you start picking and choosing which of your religion's rules to follow while discriminating, you should lose the protections afforded to you by the first amendment because at that point it's just about you...not the religion.
(Josh Boyd is a sales rep and lives in Clarksville, Tn.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 36
Pub: May 1, 2015
