Emerging Skirmishes along the "Religious Freedom" vs "LGBT Civil Rights" as related to Mormonism

[Scott Lloyd]

17 hours ago, smac97 said:

I am curious as to your thoughts about this:

As I see it, the LDS Church and its members exercised their constitutional rights.  And Mr. Karger is seeking to use the government to punish the LDS Church and its members for so doing.

One of the commenters makes some sage points:

Dan Peterson also makes some points in the Comments section:

So coming back to you, Jeanne.  Are you okay with Karger's campaign against the LDS Church?  It seems to me that you like the idea of a "live and let live" philosophy ("Gays are not keeping religions from believing what they want..why can't religions just keep it at church..").  The problem, though, is that people like Karger are actively seeking to punish "religions from believing what they want" (to be more specific, he wants to punish the LDS Church from believing what it wants).  

Thanks,

-Smac

That Karger would even raise an issue about taxation of City Creek and Deseret Book shows he is so reckless and ill-informed in the stridency of his activism that his credibility is near zero. I wish him every failure in his hate-motivated endeavors

[smac97]

1 minute ago, Scott Lloyd said:

That Karger would even raise an issue about taxation of City Creek and Deseret Book shows he is so reckless and ill-informed in the stridency of his activism that his credibility is near zero. I wish him every failure in his hate-motivated endeavors

I am not persuaded that he is "reckless and ill-informed" at all.  I think his factual misrepresentations are calculated and intended to foment resentment, suspicion and hatred.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited December 13, 2016 by smac97

[Gray]

I think Karger's rhetoric is not helpful at all. It sounds like a vendetta. What we need instead is healing. 

[snowflake]

3 hours ago, LittleNipper said:

Decorate a male of female oriented wedding cake and deliver it to the "marriage" reception. Take photographs of the "marriage" couple at their "joining" and reception. Play themed music at a "Marriage" reception. Provide a "honeymoon" bed for the "married couple." Requested to order gay novels. Asked to print gay "marriage" invitations. All of which place the christian provider in an embarrassingly compromising position.

Lets put it this way. Should a Black establishment have to service a KKK rally --- to take pictures, serve cake, play select music and possibly be exposed to a mockery of racial differences? I see it as one and the same. Many Christians see gay marriage as a mockery of God's ordained sacrament.

I agree. Maybe we should force the Muslim owned grocery store in my town to sell Pork, Booze and pornography. Or force the LDS owned stores to do the same thing, sell cigarettes, alcohol, gay wedding cakes and pornography, it is such nonsense....all in the name of anti-discrimination. If you don't agree with the LGBTQ community you become labeled as a hater or an anti.

[Gray]

1 minute ago, snowflake said:

I agree. Maybe we should force the Muslim owned grocery store in my town to sell Pork, Booze and pornography. Or force the LDS owned stores to do the same thing, sell cigarettes, alcohol, gay wedding cakes and pornography, it is such nonsense....all in the name of anti-discrimination. If you don't agree with the LGBTQ community you become labeled as a hater or an anti.

This kind of comparison is frequently used, but it's very imprecise. A more apt comparison would be a Muslim store owner who refused to cater to Hindu customers, while catering to everyone else. 

Edited December 13, 2016 by Gray

[Scott Lloyd]

17 hours ago, smac97 said:

One of the fears of the SSM ruling was people using the law to attack the Church. People laughed at that idea and proponents of SSM would reassure that it was just paranoia and all they wanted was marriage recognized by the government. No slippery slope here.

Smac here is quoting one of the commenters to Dan Peterson's blog post about Karger's behavior.

I also like what a follow-up commenter had to say:

Quote

Dreher's Law of Merited Impossibility: "We would never do that. And besides, you had it coming."

It is to Daniel's credit that he has denounced Karger's activities. I call on other LGBT advocates and sympathizers to follow suit if they are serious that it was not intended that the gay marriage law be used to attack the Church.

Edited to add:

Here is how Dreher himself expresses it:

Quote

The Law Of Merited Impossibility is an epistemological construct governing the paradoxical way overclass opinion makers frame the discourse about the clash between religious liberty and gay civil rights. It is best summed up by the phrase, “It’s a complete absurdity to believe that Christians will suffer a single thing from the expansion of gay rights, and boy, do they deserve what they’re going to get.”

 

Edited December 13, 2016 by Scott Lloyd

[Daniel2]

As I've noted early on in this thread, I think Mr. Karger's actions do far more harm than good to pro-LGBT-equality causes.  I think he's misguided at best, and recklessly irresponsible at misjudging his audience, at worst.

Additionally, I think his cause is futile and Quixotic, but his efforts aren't anything knew.  Nor does or did it take prophetic insight to see that some fringe efforts to challenge tax exemptions would continue.  These concepts aren't new, and experts predict they will fail, just as previous efforts have.

I believe the following article from Forbes is worth reviewing as evidence of all of the above.  Although the title isn't specific to the question of challenging church's tax exemption status, the content directly addresses it:

 

Quote

 

Will IRS Force Gay Marriage On Conservative Churches?

Peter J Reilly

Jul 9, 2015 @ 11:54 AM

Keith Edwards post titled Gay marriage ruling, liberal activists, plus the IRS equals big trouble for 'corporate' Churches in American Thinker really intrigued me.  His legal analysis is a little confused, but the issue he raises of whether religious organizations might have their exempt status challenged due to resistance to gay marriage is an interesting question.  The first thing that popped into my head was Bob Jones University. 

Bob Jones University

Bob Jones University was the subject of a Supreme Court decision about whether the IRS could revoke its exempt status because of racially discriminatory policies.

“The Court found that the IRS was correct in its decision to revoke the tax- exempt status of Bob Jones University and the Goldsboro Christian School. These institutions did not meet the requirement by providing "beneficial and stabilizing influences in community life" to be supported by taxpayers with a special tax status. The schools could not meet this requirement due to their discriminatory policies. The Court declared that racial discrimination in education violated a "fundamental national public policy." The government may justify a limitation on religious liberties by showing it is necessary to accomplish an "overriding governmental interest." Prohibiting racial discrimination was such a governmental interest. Hence, the Court found that "not all burdens on religion are unconstitutional."

What Is The Connection With The Recent Decision? 

The Supreme Court in the Obergefel decision ruled that:

“The Fourteenth Amendment requires a State to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-State.”

As we move from the sesquicentennial of the Civil War or the War of The Rebellion or the War of Northern Aggression or the Late Unpleasantness to the sesquicentennial of Reconstruction we can be reminded that the reason we have a 14th Amendment was to prevent the reconstructed states from returning the people freed by the thirteenth amendment into virtual slavery through the enactment of Black Codes.

The concern is that the Bob Jones logic could be used to deprive religious organizations of their exempt status.  I'm a little skeptical about how far that could go… I thought it would be worthwhile to reach out to my brain trust on this one.

From A Preacher

The Reverend William Thornton, who as The SBC Plodder blogs on Southern Baptist issues, is my go-to guy on all matters evangelical.  He wrote me:

“The recent ruling makes a lot of things possible. Some of my Southern Baptist clergy colleagues are loud and happy alarmists who see both Christian persecution and divine judgment on America. I see a big mess with endless conflict over the free exercise of religion particularly in our related ministries (schools, etc.) and non-ministerial personnel. BJU was, is, a single school. Virtually every church (about 45,000) in friendly cooperation with the Southern Baptist Convention refuses to host or their ministers to perform same sex ceremonies. The 501(c)(3) stuff is virtually impenetrable to a layman like me. I am just aware that our state body holds exemption on behalf of all affiliate churches.

Adding property taxes to the church's annual expenses would close hundreds, maybe thousands, of tiny SBC churches. Revoking the tax exempt status for gifts to churches would be a much softer blow.”

For whatever it is worth, there is not a one to one correspondence between IRS tax exemption and exemption from property tax.

Reverend Thronton  recently did a post about some ministers separating out the civil aspect of marriage from its religious aspect and not participating in signing marriage licenses.

“So, how is it that those who believe marriage has been, is, and always should be between a man and a woman would continue to serve as an agent of the government in this business of marriage? Even if the minister officiates at a wedding he deems acceptable on the basis that the couple before him is a man and a woman, should he act in the role of the state's agent in doing so?

Some ministers have separated themselves from signing the marriage forms of the state for some time. There is a movement that asks ministers to pledge to separate civil marriage from Christian marriage. Some religious traditions already maintain that separation.”

From A Legal Scholar

Professor Samuel Brunson of Loyola University writes a lot about church state issues  Professor Brunson does not see much merit in Keith Edwards's post:

“First, he fundamentally misunderstands the so-called Johnson amendment, and the history of tax exemptions. Churches have been exempt since the introduction of the federal income tax, in 1913, so I can’t figure out why he thinks exemption didn’t happen until 1954 (when the campaigning prohibition happened).

Moreover, I sincerely doubt churches have a constitutional right to be exempt from tax. There are a handful of people who make that argument, but it strikes me as specious.

But even if I ignore all of his clear legal, factual, and historical errors, and give him every benefit of the doubt, it doesn’t make any sense to me. He’s using the campaigning prohibition as evidence that churches could lose their tax-exempt status? I mean, it happened once in the last 60 years.

And that has no relation at all to Obergefell. If he’d invoked Bob Jones instead, at least there would be some (attenuated) relationship. But even there, Bob Jones doesn’t do what he wants it to do: it just says that religiously-affiliated schools can lose their tax exemptions if they violate an “established public policy.”

A religiously-affiliated school is something different than a church, and I suspect that the First Amendment’s Free Exercise clause applies with more force to churches than to affiliated schools.

But more than that, Obergefell, while it allows same-sex marriage, doesn’t raise same-sex marriage to the level of an established public policy. In fact, if I remember correctly, the decision doesn’t import sexuality into the realm of “suspect classification”; it merely says that marriage is a fundamental civil right.

So even if he’d invoked Bob Jones, and even if Bob Jones applied to churches, nothing about Bob Jones would apply to a church’s refusal to perform same-sex marriages.

And Another Legal Scholar

Professor Edward Zelinsky of Yeshiva University often writes about the tension between the establishment and  free exercise clauses of the First Amendment. He thinks that this decision will at least get some activists charged up to take on the exempt status of churches that will not recognize same-sex marriage.

“The cause of the immediate controversy is the inelegant answer which the Solicitor General offered to Justice Alito’s question about the potential application of Bob Jones to churches which decline to perform same-sex marriages. For the short-run, it is implausible that either the IRS or the Obama Administration will pursue this issue. For the long-run, those religious institutions which refuse to perform same-sex marriages are correct to assume that some same-sex marriage advocates will press for the loss of tax-exempt status of churches, synagogues and mosques which decline to recognize such marriages.

This is another issue which requires drawing some important lines to balance competing and equally legitimate concerns.. A county clerk who refuses to issue licenses for same-sex marriages occupies a different position than a minister, rabbi or iman who refuses to perform such marriages in his or her own congregation. The former is using his public office to advance his religious beliefs. The latter is protecting the autonomy of his religious institution. This will be an important debate but I perceive no immediate threat to the tax-exempt status of congregations which oppose same-sex marriages.”

It is worth noting that there is some language in the Obergefel decision that might comfort religious leaders.

“Finally, it must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost, sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned. The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths, and to their own deep aspirations to continue the family structure they have long revered. The same is true of those who oppose same-sex marriage for other reasons.”

My own view is that tax policy should be the Switzerland of the culture war and that the IRS should be allowed to focus on collecting taxes…When it comes to who might perform same-sex weddings, I figure that  if God had wanted Southern Baptist preachers to perform same-sex weddings, she wouldn't have given us Unitarian Universalism and that we really don't want the tax collector to have a dog in that fight.

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2016 by Daniel2

[thesometimesaint]

5 minutes ago, snowflake said:

I agree. Maybe we should force the Muslim owned grocery store in my town to sell Pork, Booze and pornography. Or force the LDS owned stores to do the same thing, sell cigarettes, alcohol, gay wedding cakes and pornography, it is such nonsense....all in the name of anti-discrimination. If you don't agree with the LGBTQ community you become labeled as a hater or an anti.

There is no law forcing a Muslim/Mormon owned store to carry or sell those products. There are laws saying that if they carry and sell those products they can't refuse to sell them to you.

[smac97]

5 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

It is to Daniel's credit that he has denounced Karger's activities. I call on other LGBT advocates and sympathizers to follow suit if they are serious that it was not intended that the gay marriage law be used to attack the Church.

Same here.  I appreciate and respect Daniel's position on this issue.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Scott Lloyd]

20 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I am not persuaded that he is "reckless and ill-informed" at all.  I think his factual misrepresentations are calculated and intended to foment resentment, suspicion and hatred.

Thanks,

-Smac

Yes. I confess I was probably being too kind in my assessment of him.

But I will here and now declare myself as being anti-Karger.

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

There really is a very easy solution to the whole 'bake a cake for a gay wedding' problem.

Bakeries tell gay couples that they will bake them a wedding cake and treat them with the utmost respect and curtesy but that every dime of profit they make from their wedding will immediately go towards anti-SSM fundraising.

Chances of any gay couple wanting such a bakery to bake them a cake are practically zero.

This strikes me as a petty solution though. It riles up some in hatred to you. You may benefit like the last controversial cake bakers who were swamped with help but it still seems like it is needlessly divisive.

[Daniel2]

On ‎12‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 10:47 AM, snowflake said:

I agree. Maybe we should force the Muslim owned grocery store in my town to sell Pork, Booze and pornography. Or force the LDS owned stores to do the same thing, sell cigarettes, alcohol, gay wedding cakes and pornography, it is such nonsense....all in the name of anti-discrimination. If you don't agree with the LGBTQ community you become labeled as a hater or an anti.

Snow, it doesn't help to misrepresent the actual actions being taken.

NO ONE is suggesting that businesses have to start carrying gay-related products that they don't already stock.

Business owners remain free to refuse to carry pork, booze, porn, or even gay-themed wedding cards, cake toppers, or gay-specific wedding decorations that said businesses don't already carry in stock.

As Sometimesaint has said, if a business already carries inventory or creates a specific product that they sell to the public, the law states they can't refuse to sell to specific members of the general public based on discrimination against a legally-defined and legally-protected class.  Legally-recognized classes of people which the law protects include prohibiting discrimination against consumers based on their religious affiliation, their gender, their race, their ethnicity, their age, country of natural origin, ability/disability status, etc.  In a growing number of states, that includes sexual orientation, but not yet all.

Additionally, freedom of speech allows any and all of us (regardless of whether we're conservative, liberal, libertarian, or none of the above) to use whatever labels we wish in describing, discussing, or considering others, whether those labels include "haters," "anti" (whether "Anti-Mormon" or "Anti-Gay"), "bigot," "sinner," "abomination/abominable," etc.  That is freedom of speech (of course, there are limits to even this, such as libel laws... but I'm referring to passing conversation such as the types of conversations we have here, at home, in public, at church, etc).

I can appreciate that by attempting to get equal protection through public accommodations protections against discrimination, it can seem like gay people are wanting to destroy or silence business owners who hold anti-gay views.  And I don't doubt that some of the most radical fringe gay activists may feel this way.  But in my experience (meaning, my involvement with more mainstream LGBT organizations, as well as conversations with my gay friends and acquaintances), most of us don't feel that way.  We simply feel that we deserve the same level of protection as the other protected classes. 

I can find no good reason why sexual orientation should be singled out as an acceptable thing to discriminate against based on deeply-held religious beliefs, while all the other protected classes (gender, age, race, religion, etc) are protected, even from those who might discriminate against them based on their deeply-held religious beliefs.  "Freedom of religion" has become a synonymous code for "the ability to discriminate against gays," while maintaining prohibitions on a refusal to serve customers based deeply-held religious beliefs when the other protected classes are concerned. 

If business owners or clerks should be free to discriminate against gays based on business owners and clerk's deeply-held religious beliefs (as the Utah rep is proposing in the original post in this thread), than my position is they should be free to discriminate against ALL the other protected classes.  I can see no good reason to believe otherwise, but welcome  input and dialogue with anyone who would want to mount a defense of that position.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Daniel2

[snowflake]

32 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

There is no law forcing a Muslim/Mormon owned store to carry or sell those products. There are laws saying that if they carry and sell those products they can't refuse to sell them to you.

So a Christian bakery that doesn't "do gay wedding cakes" is exempt?  Oh, and of course the lesbian couple couldn't go to another bakery, they just had to go to the one owned by the Christians.  In Portland of all places. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/29/oregon-bakery-owners-pay-more-than-135g-in-damages-over-refusal-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding.html

 

[Gray]

1 minute ago, snowflake said:

So a Christian bakery that doesn't "do gay wedding cakes" is exempt?  Oh, and of course the lesbian couple couldn't go to another bakery, they just had to go to the one owned by the Christians.  In Portland of all places. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/29/oregon-bakery-owners-pay-more-than-135g-in-damages-over-refusal-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding.html

 

Wedding cakes are inanimate objects and don't have a sexual orientation. In Oregon at least, if you sell them to straight people you must also sell them to gay people. 

Edited December 13, 2016 by Gray

[Daniel2]

Just now, snowflake said:

So a Christian bakery that doesn't "do gay wedding cakes" is exempt?  Oh, and of course the lesbian couple couldn't go to another bakery, they just had to go to the one owned by the Christians.  In Portland of all places. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/29/oregon-bakery-owners-pay-more-than-135g-in-damages-over-refusal-to-make-cake-for-gay-wedding.html

 

Snowflake,

I think Sometimesaint's point is that there's no distinguishable difference between a "gay wedding cake" and a "straight wedding cake." 

A wedding cake is a wedding cake.  There's no ingredients that make one "straight" vs. the next one "gay."

If the bakery doesn't sell same-sex wedding toppers, potential same-sex couples can't force them to carry stock of something they don't already carry. 

[bluebell]

31 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

This strikes me as a petty solution though. It riles up some in hatred to you. You may benefit like the last controversial cake bakers who were swamped with help but it still seems like it is needlessly divisive.

I don't see it as automatically petty.  If someone was doing it just to make the couple mad, then it would be petty, but if they are doing it so that the couple honestly understands their position, then that's a different issue.

The truth is that very very few couples would ever choose someone to be a part of their wedding celebration if they thought the union was sinful.  In the past when couples have sued a bakery for not wanting to provide a cake, it has been an attempt to teach the bakery a lesson and punish them for not agreeing with SSM.

Letting a couple know, before the fact, that you sincerely believe that SSM is sinful and you don't feel good about participating in one, while still following the law, seems like the only logical solution and not pettiness.

 

[snowflake]

34 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

Snow, it doesn't help to misrepresent the actual actions being taken.

NO ONE is suggesting that businesses have to start carrying gay-related products that they don't already stock.

Business owners remain free to refuse to carry pork, booze, porn, or even gay-themed wedding cards, cake toppers, or gay-specific wedding decorations that said businesses don't already carry in stock.

As Sometimesaint has said, if a business already carries inventory or creates a specific product that they sell to the public, the law states they can't refuse to sell to specific members of the general public based on discrimination against a legally-defined and legally-protected class.  Legally-recognized classes of people which the law protects include prohibiting against consumers based on their religious affiliation, their gender, their race, their ethnicity, their age, country of natural origin, ability/disability status, etc.  In a growing number of states, that includes sexual orientation, but not yet all.

Additionally, freedom of speech allows any and all of us (regardless of whether we're conservative, liberal, libertarian, or none of the above) to use whatever labels we wish in describing, discussing, or considering others, whether those labels include "haters," "anti" (whether "Anti-Mormon" or "Anti-Gay"), "bigot," "sinner," "abomination/abominable," etc.  That is freedom of speech (of course, there are limits to even this, such as libel laws... but I'm referring to passing conversation such as the types of conversations we have here, at home, in public, at church, etc).

I would generally agree with your statement above. However in California we already see the LGBTQ forcing their agenda in churches and schools. If one is to say they disagree with the LGBTQ lifestyle (like most organized Christian churches do), is that to be considered "hate speech"? Should private Christian schools be forced to teach what is against their doctrine? It seems to me this is the path we are headed down.

[snowflake]

5 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

Snowflake,

I think Sometimesaint's point is that there's no distinguishable difference between a "gay wedding cake" and a "straight wedding cake." 

A wedding cake is a wedding cake.  There's no ingredients that make one "straight" vs. the next one "gay."

If the bakery doesn't sell same-sex wedding toppers, potential same-sex couples can't force them to carry stock of something they don't already carry. 

Why were they forced to pay $140,000?

[Daniel2]

While it can be easy to confuse two separate issues, it's worth noting that there ARE protections of businesses' freedoms of speech which don't conflict with public accommodations laws prohibiting discrimination based on a protected class.

Proposed examples in this thread about consumer requests for certain messages (be it on stationary, in icing on cakes, on t-shirts, or whatever) are DIFFERENT than public accommodations laws, and rightly so, IMO.

For example:

Kentucky Court Rules Printer Can’t Be Forced to Produce Pro-Gay Messages

It’s a fairly pure example of compelled speech.

Scott Shackford|Apr. 27, 2015 3:10 pm

Speech is speech! At least we have the settled for the moment, anyway, for this one case. The circuit court for Fayette County in Kentucky has ruled that the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission erred when it determined that a Christian T-shirt company discriminated when it refused to print shirts for a gay pride event.

In 2012 a Lexington, Kentucky, gay organization filed a complaint against Hands On Originals, a shirt company who wears its Christianity right on its site, if not on its sleeves (sorry, couldn't resist). The organization asked for Hands On Originals to make shirts for their 2012 gay pride festival. The shirt company declined, because they didn't support the message the group wanted printed. The group then accused the company of violating the county's public accommodation laws, which prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The response from Hands On was that they weren't discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. They were refusing to print a message with which they disagreed. This is a case that sounds familiar. In Colorado, a Christian man tried to show some sort of bakery hypocrisy when he tried to get a Colorado bakery to make a cake for him with an anti-gay message. The bakery refused. He complained, clearly trying to draw a similarity to those bakeries who were being cited and fined for refusing to make wedding cakes for gay customers.

But the mistake he made was demanding the cakes say something particular. Colorado dismissed his complaint. He was not being discriminated against just for being a Christian. Rather, the bakery could not be compelled to say something it found offensive.

And so it goes with Hands On Originals. They were not discriminating against gay customers. They were declining to publish statements with which the company disagreed, something they've done several times in the past, according to court documents.

Originally the county Human Rights Commission actually ruled against the shirt company, stating that forcing Hands On Originals to print the shirts "does not violate the Respondent's (HOO) right to free speech, does not compel it to speak, and does not burden the Respondent's (HOO) right to the free expression of religion."

Judge James Ishmael Jr.'s response is to simply point out that the Human Rights Commission is completely and utterly wrong. He does start by saying "With all due respect," which I assume is the circuit court judicial opinion equivalent of getting kicked directly in the teeth. He says the conclusions are "factually incorrect" with respect to both Supreme Court interpretations of the federal law and the state's own laws. Kentucky does have a religious freedom regulation, and the judge invokes it, along with the precedent recently set by the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Supreme Court ruling.

Ishmael then ordered the decision reversed and all charges against Hands On Originals dismissed. Read the full ruling here (pdf).

 

[Daniel2]

7 minutes ago, snowflake said:

I would generally agree with your statement above. However in California we already see the LGBTQ forcing their agenda in churches and schools. If one is to say they disagree with the LGBTQ lifestyle (like most organized Christian churches do), is that to be considered "hate speech"? Should private Christian schools be forced to teach what is against their doctrine? It seems to me this is the path we are headed down.

As I understand it, the approval of local school curriculums rely to some degree on the regional mores of each school district.  Schools in Utah, for example, incorporate far more LDS-related topics than schools elsewhere, which is where my children attend.  Schools in California, which likely contains a significantly larger population of pro-LGBT individuals, is likely to reflect the values of that local population.

Additionally, I'm unaware of any private schools being forced to teach what is against their doctrines.  Such private institutions may lose public funding (which comes from the taxes paid by members of the general public, including LGBT citizens), but that decision falls within the boundaries of a school's choice to target and serve a private audience, rather than a public one.

While school curriculum and access to public funds obviously could include LGBT topics, those questions aren't directly related to or dependent upon tax exemptions for churches, nor public accommodations law regarding businesses. 

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

As I understand it, the approval of local school curriculums rely to some degree on the regional mores of each school district.  Schools in Utah, for example, incorporate far more LDS-related topics than schools elsewhere, which is where my children attend.  Schools in California, which likely contains a significantly larger population of pro-LGBT individuals, is likely to reflect the values of that local population.

 

My kids go to school in Utah, and I haven't noticed this.  Can you give some examples?  

[Daniel2]

On ‎12‎/‎13‎/‎2016 at 11:43 AM, snowflake said:

Why were they forced to pay $140,000?

I think this article does a good job of answering your question (bold added).  Let me know, if not:

Quote

Sweet Cakes Closes Down; Still Appealing Court Decision

October 3, 2016 Tim Peacock Civil Rights, LGBTQ, News, Religion / Church & State Leave a comment

 

 

In a post to their Facebook page, the owners of Sweet Cakes by Melissa announced they’ve officially closed their doors for good. They originally closed down their brick and mortar location in 2013 and moved their business online to circumvent Oregon’s public accommodation laws forcing them to treat customers equally regardless of sexual orientation. According to their legal counsel, they stopped fulfilling orders online approximately a month ago.

Writing at the Patriot Post, Fox News contributor and Christian persecution complex sufferer Todd Starnes said:

Aaron and Melissa Klein were eventually punished by the state of Oregon — fined $135,000 dollars for refusing to participate in the lesbian wedding event.

It was the price they had to pay for refusing to violate their conscience.

They also made the painful decision to close their beloved bakery for good.

The left-wing bigots and bullies finally got their pound of cake.

The Kleins made the announcement on the now-shuttered shop’s Facebook page.

“The Kleins closed their business months ago and simply now updated their page to reflect that,” said Hiram Sasser, an attorney for First Liberty Institute.

Of note, Starnes is attempting to perpetuate a lie about the decision either by not having read the BOLI decision or by simply breaking his Christian vows not to tell a lie. The decision handed down by the state of Oregon awarding the Bowman-Cryers $135,000 was for the release of the couple’s personal information that lead to ongoing harassment and death threats from the Christian community – harassment that continues even today three years later.

The fine was not, in fact, for the Kleins’ refusal to cater the couple’s wedding though it would be convenient for Starnes to continue propagating that lie to help the Kleins continue raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations.

Though they’ve closed their doors, the Kleins continue to appeal the court decision handed down against them that ended with the $135,000 fine. Their latest appeal follows a loss at the initial administrative hearing, a loss in attempting to counter sue the Bowman-Cryers, a loss after their first appeal before moving to a damages hearing, and a failure to obstruct the state in trying not to pay the fine into escrow. And now they’re filing yet another fruitless appeal – at the taxpayers’ cost – appealing the damages. Until that appeal concludes the damages will continue to be held in escrow by the state before going to the Bowman-Cryers.

Their latest appeal argues the judgment levied against them violates their right to free speech and religion.

“We are continuing our appeal and look forward to achieving justice for them and all people of faith who may find themselves in similar circumstances in the future,” Sasser told Starnes.

In the end it appears no one will have justice. The Kleins have zero chance of winning based on their arguments and track record; the state will lose even more money having to go through the motions of another appeal; and the Bowman-Cryers will continue defending their adoptive children as the Christian community constantly harasses and threatens to kill them.

As the Kleins continue to malign the Bowman-Cryers at each and every opportunity they can on the conservative speaking circuit, the Bowman-Cryers are awaiting the day Sweet Cakes’ rabid, violent Christian base stops calling them and threatening their children. All the while the Kleins continue to appeal the decision as they sit flush with nearly a half million dollars in their bank account (minus the fine they’re fighting for harassing the lesbian family to begin with).

 

 

It's worth noting that FOX news distorts the actual reasons for the hefty fine, which (as specified in the ruling itself) wasn't because the bakery refused to bake the cake for the same-sex, but because the bakery released their customer's personal information to the public, and for the violations of privacy and awards for the resulting damages.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Daniel2

[Daniel2]

5 minutes ago, bluebell said:

My kids go to school in Utah, and I haven't noticed this.  Can you give some examples?  

My kids have come home and discussed with me their school lessons related to the founding principles of Mormonism and the subsequent religious persecution and westward migration around the state holiday of Pioneer Day (none of which was surprising, given the local culture), which also included (to my surprise) discussions of LDS polygamy.

I was raised outside of Utah, and we never had those types of discussions.

[Daniel2]

Adding another article outlining another of the skirmishes mentioned in the OP and Thread Title...

Minnesota Christian Couple Sue for Legal LGBTQ Discrimination

December 7, 2016 Tim Peacock Civil Rights, LGBTQ, News, Politics, Religion / Church & State Leave a comment

With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian couple in St. Cloud, Minnesota just filed a lawsuit challenging the state’s human rights act. The couple – Carl and Angel Larsen – believe the law unduly restricts them from discriminating against LGBTQ people in the course of their wedding services company.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported on the lawsuit:

In one of the first challenges since same-sex marriage became legal in Minnesota in 2013, Carl and Angel Larsen’s Telescope Media Group filed suit Tuesday in federal court against the state’s commissioner of human rights and attorney general.

The complaint describes the Larsens as “Bible-believing Christians” who “believe that many see marriage as a punch line for jokes, a means for personal gratification, an arrangement of convenience, or a method of achieving social status.”

Of note, the couple doesn’t even work in the wedding industry at the moment meaning a judge would have to rule on the possibility – not documented instances – of being forced to violate their so-called ‘sincerely held religious beliefs.’ (Being a pre-enforcement case makes such lawsuits even more difficult to win in the realm of public accommodation law.) Their company (Telescope Media Group) is just now attempting to break into the wedding business and wants to exclusively serve heterosexuals as a part of that business.

So they’re literally willing to tear down existing anti-discrimination protections to make a few extra dollars.

The Tribune added:

Their lawsuit says the Larsens are trying to break into the wedding industry, but want to shoot weddings only for heterosexual couples. The Larsens want to advertise at wedding expos and on websites but Minnesota’s current law, they say, would force them into producing videos “promoting a conception of marriage that directly contradicts their religious beliefs.” They argue that their right to expression is being “chilled and silenced” by the state.

Much like businesses attempted to discriminate against interracial couples in the wake of Loving v Virginia (using nearly identical language), anti-LGBTQ business owners are seeking to erode LGBTQ anti-discrimination protections through litigation and proclamations they’re being “silenced” by having to treat everyone equally.

Minnesota Human Rights Commissioner Kevin Lindsey noted this in a statement commenting the lawsuit. “This lawsuit is part of a pattern of nationwide litigation that is now aimed at eroding the rights of LGBTQ Minnesotans,” he said.

While religious organizations are protected by existing law, private industry businesses are generally held accountable to existing federal and state public accommodation laws. In states where sexual orientation is protected, discriminating against a person based on his or her LGBTQ identity is no different than turning away a customer based on race or religion.

In Minnesota, private businesses may not discriminate against customers based on their sexual orientation. That means any business seeking to do business in the free market agrees as a part of purchasing a business license to abide by the law in treating everyone – including LGBTQ people – equally.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) – a legal organization famous for making anti-LGBTQ small businesses famous just before losing their cases in court – hold a different view.

“This is a right everybody has, not just a right in the realm of marriage,” said ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco. “We wouldn’t want a Democratic speechwriter being made to write speeches for Trump under force of law or an atheist singer forced to sing Christian hymns at a church. These are choices creative professionals can make. The worry is if the government can take it away from people like the Larsens, what’s to stop it from taking away from everyone else?”

For starters, political belief is not a protected class. Moreover, in any situation where an atheist singer would be singing as a part of his or her employment, it’s highly unlikely a private business would force him or her to sing Christian hymns in a church. And if a private business did attempt to force that, existing law protects that atheist’s rights as it would be seen as targeted religious discrimination.

Accompanying their creation of a business to cater exclusively to heterosexuals and the convenient lawsuit against the state of Minnesota, the Larsens used their “artistic expression” to create a commercial for their lawsuit now being promoted by ADF.

The actual lawsuit is fairly routine for what ADF normally files on behalf of businesses. In the lawsuit they claim the couple’s individual First Amendment free expression freedoms translate into a business First Amendment freedom that places them above existing public accommodation law.

That case in varying forms has been repeatedly tried and lost for the last several years and has even gone to the Supreme Court. (The high court denied the business’ petition and lost as lower courts found the right to discriminate as a business is not the same as an individual’s First Amendment speech or expression rights.)

According to the lawsuit:

The Larsens are deeply concerned that American culture is increasingly turning away from the historic, biblically-orthodox definition of marriage as a lifelong union of one man and one woman, and that more and more people are accepting the view that same-sex marriage is equivalent to one-man, one-woman marriage. [SNIP]

Specifically, the Larsens desire to counteract the current cultural narrative undermining the historic, biblically-orthodox definition of marriage by using their media production and filmmaking talents to tell stories of marriages between one man and one woman that magnify and honor God’s design and purpose for marriage.

That’s fairly standard – if not par for the course for ADF lawsuits. It’s this part that offers a view into the Larsens’ (and ADF’s) motives:

By requiring that the Larsens celebrate same-sex weddings if they celebrate weddings between one man and one woman, Minnesota denies to the Larsens the means to convey their creative, religiously-motivated message about God’s design for marriage and compels the Larsens to express the precise message they wish to counter and with which they disagree.

Given the nature of the wedding industry and the fact that weddings are typically not open to the general public, the Larsens would not have access to and be able to capture weddings if couples did not hire them for their weddings.

The lawsuit is seeking to conflate the act of speech and protest with the process of commerce and profit. These two things are not interchangeable.

The Larsens are free to protest same-sex couple’s ability to legally marry all they’d like through their business. The government has no say in that. They cannot, however, advertise or engage in discriminatory commerce-related activities such as denying service to a customer based solely on that person(s) sexual orientation.

Much like ADF’s other failed lawsuits, the Larsens are attempting to conflate their personal, private religious beliefs with public free market business that’s regulated by anti-discrimination laws. Just as a KKK member may have sincerely-held Christian beliefs that prevent him from recognizing interracial marriages, he can protest as an individual but is still required to treat everyone the same regardless of race in his small business interactions.

Recognizing this pattern, Zack Ford at ThinkProgress noted:

In one particularly insidious passage, ADF actually cites Obergefell, the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision, to justify the Larsens’ intended discrimination. The decision states that the Constitution’s fundamental liberties “extend to certain personal choices central to individual dignity and autonomy, including intimate choices defining personal identity and beliefs.” Because “the right to pursue one’s entrepreneurial dreams is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition,” not allowing the Larsens to discriminate because of their religious beliefs “is to strip them of their identity, dignity, liberty, and potential to find fulfillment and to impose on them an abhorrent degree of stigma and injury.”

But of course, like the other arguments the suit makes, this completely ignores that the Larsens are free to make any video they want. They just can’t sell a product to people of one sexual orientation and not to people of another sexual orientation.

This is only the latest in a growing litany of cases ADF has filed or taken on to justify discrimination against LGBT people. They have filed similar preemptive challenges against protections in Colorado and Phoenix, Arizona on behalf of a website designer and a pair of calligraphers wishing to refuse service to same-sex couples in those respective places. The calligraphers have already lost their case in court once, but they are appealing.

ADF is also defending several vendors who have already refused service to same-sex couples in violation of state or local laws, including a florist in Oregon, a baker in Colorado, and a t-shirt printer in Lexington, Kentucky. Only in that last case has ADF prevailed at any level.

One last tidbit since it’s pertinent. ADF – the religious organization representing the Larsens – typically uses these sorts of cases to make headlines and line their pockets with donations. After they inevitably lose each and every case they leave states with costly pointless lawsuits that drain state coffers through having to defend existing law as well as broken, often highly detested businesses that will never be able to operate again based on the unpopular sentiment the case generates among their peers and potential customer base.

ADF isn’t in it to protect religious freedom; they’re in if for the money. There’s no better testament to that than the fact that one of their more well known attorneys was sentenced to a lengthy prison term for making a sex tape with her underage daughter. You can read more about that case here.

[bluebell]

22 minutes ago, Daniel2 said:

My kids have come home and discussed with me their school lessons related to the founding principles of Mormonism and the subsequent religious persecution and westward migration around the state holiday of Pioneer Day (none of which was surprising, given the local culture), which also included (to my surprise) discussions of LDS polygamy.

I was raised outside of Utah, and we never had those types of discussions.

Oh, that makes sense.  My kids have never mentioned learning any founding principles of mormonism.  But the other stuff sounds like it's not so much an issue of regional mores or local culture influencing school curriculum as it is schools teaching mandatory History of Utah classes, which must include LDS related topics to be accurate since Utah was founded by LDS.  

My kids have gone to school in four states and all of them required "history of that state" to be taught.  I can see why Pioneer day would make the lesson cut in Utah but not in other states, just like Lewis and Clark is a huge deal in Montana and North Dakota, but doesn't get much of a mention in History of Wyoming classes.  I'm guessing history of California classes include some Catholic history as it applies to the state regardless of the local culture.

Thanks for clarifying.