Originally Posted by Team Infidel

this story is rediculous. I remember seeing it on Fox last week. This is one of those things where the photographer should have just said she was "busy" that day. But now the liberal A-holes have accomplished in screwing her. What a pain in the butt. Such as waist of court time.

Agreed although I think the photographer is just as stupid for not giving a generic excuse.

i agree with that..

Originally Posted by claylc

The "discrimination" content of the Constitution is a recent add-on which has not passed the test of time. It leads to a legalistic merry go round as senojekips said:
1) Any action which is not forbidden by law is compulsory.
2) Any action which is not compulsory by law is forbidden.
3) Lawyers in our society will be very happy since these preceding two clauses will make them wealthy. There will be so many inconsistent laws and regulations passed that nobody will be able to understand the law and everyone will be vulnerable to legal prosecution except government employees.

Which is where we are today. I call for a Constitutional Convention to rationalize the situation! I expressly desire that no member of the CC shall be trained in law! That way a consensus of common sense MIGHT prevail.



Lonnie Courtney Clay

Ummm, a recent add-on? The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. That's 140 years ago.
And the USSC has cited the 14th Amendment as source in COUNTLESS cases including Brown vs Board of Education which made segregation and Discrimination illegal.

Senorjekips

I think MontyB said it best.

1. You do have the right to refuse the job, for just about any reason other than #2.

2. You don't have the right to claim to refuse a job by claiming the right to discriminate. We are not a religious theocracy like Iran (at least not yet), Religion doesn't trump law. And you do not have the right to infringe upon other peoples civil rights.

Originally Posted by mmarsh

Ummm, a recent add-on? The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. That's 140 years ago.
And the USSC has cited the 14th Amendment as source in COUNTLESS cases including Brown vs Board of Education which made segregation and Discrimination illegal.

Senorjekips

I think MontyB said it best.

1. You do have the right to refuse the job, for just about any reason other than #2.

2. You don't have the right to claim to refuse a job by claiming the right to discriminate. We are not a religious theocracy like Iran (at least not yet), Religion doesn't trump law. And you do not have the right to infringe upon other peoples civil rights.

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Judicial interpretation has twisted the meaning of "equal protection of the laws" into pretzels. The intent of the authors is clear if the phrase is not taken out of context as it has been. The entire sentence beginning with "No state" and ending with "the laws" must be parsed as a single unit. The 14th is one of a batch of Amendments passed after the civil war, which to me makes it RECENT, because it was four generations after the original craftsmanship of the founding fathers. I am sure that they would have been insulted by the notion that the FEDERAL government had a right to tell a proprietor what customers he/she must serve. If it is such a burning issue in a community, then let that LOCAL community pass laws. Then people have the option of voting with their feet by moving out of the said community to avoid the burden of unwise laws. As matters stand there is no limit to the nonsense and wrongheaded lawsuits which can be used to savage businesses and individuals who WANT to exercise judgement as to whom they will have as customers or with whom they choose to associate. You also get cases like the Moslem taxi drivers who claimed discrimination because the airport wanted them to pay for adding foot washing basins to the sanitary facilities. They felt that it was their right to exercise their beliefs by washing their feet at the airport at taxpayer expense!

So I am not justifying anything by an appeal for tolerance to kooky personal beliefs. In fact I think that the burden of exercising any such beliefs should fall upon the believer, rather than the public. Furthermore it is not the proper jurisdiction of the courts to referee conflicts of beliefs except in the case of a threat to public safety. The case of the photographers versus homosexuals should never have even been accepted by the court. The fact that it was accepted is a sad commentary upon the state of the law as interpreted by the courts. Let common sense rule rather than the law where there is a conflict! I would say to take the case through appeals up to the Supreme Court if necessary except that they would judge based upon precedent rather than common sense judging from their past behavior. What is needed is a Constitutional Amendment to BAN loose interpretation of the law caused by taking phrases out of context.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

4 Generations??? 1789 to 1868 is exactly 79 years apart. That's barely 1 generation. The fact is, the 14th Amendment has been on the books for over 2/3 of our entire nation's history. Your claim of it being untested is unfounded, especially when you consider the number of times its been used as legal recourse of the decades.

There is only one official place that can interpretation the Constutition and thats the USSC. That's how we avoid twisting the Constution's meaning, by following their interpretations. And your mistaken about the Founding Fathers as well, the FF believed in a STRONG Federal Government just looks at the Whiskey Rebellion. George Washington had no moral issue in using the Federal Government in squashing individual rights if those rights went against the Constitution. We have always been a country with a strong Federal Government, which absolutely has the right in certain cases to infringe upon individual freedom. That is neither new nor shocking.

What you are arguing is decentralized Government, but you forget that we already tried that in the Articles of Confederation it lasted 6 years before it collapsed in a total mess. We are not going to start replacing a system that's proven to work with a system that doesn't. If we did, things segregation and Jim Crow would still be legal in the South.

All the Government is saying is you can observe your religion has long as it doesn't infringe the rights of others. And as I already pointed out, the defendants have no basis to claim freedom of religion as the Bible only forbids homosexual sexual acts. If the bible forbade congregating with Homosexuals then I'd the defendants have more of a legal arguement.

This case is about preserving a right to hate as a religous right, which as a Christian myself I find blasphemous.

Originally Posted by mmarsh

4 Generations??? 1789 to 1868 is exactly 79 years apart. That's barely 1 generation. The fact is the 14th Amendment has been on the books for over 2/3 of our entire nation's history. Your claim of being it untested is unfounded.

There is only one official place that can intrepretation the Constutition and thats the USSC. That's how we avoid twisting the Constution's meaning, by following their interpretations. And your mistaken about the Founding Fathers as well, the FF believed in a STRONG Federal Government just looks at the Whiskey Rebellion. George Washington had no moral issue in using the Federal Government in squashing individual rights if those rights went against the Constitution. We have always been a country with a strong Federal Government, which absolutely has the right in certain cases to infringe upon individual freedom. That is neither new nor shocking.

What you are arguing is decentralized Government, but you forget that we already tried that in the Articles of Confederation it lasted 6 years before it collapsed in a total mess. We are not going to start replacing a system that's proven to work with a system that doesn't.

If we did things the way you suggest, segregation and Jim Crow would still be legal in the South.

I see that you are what L. Neil Smith (Google him) calls a HAMILTONIAN. On the other hand, I am definitely a LIBERTARIAN. Since you pulled in George Washington, I feel free to pull in Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, whose views represent the other side of the coin. The founding fathers though united in their love of freedom, had different ways of expressing that love, some of which were rather more Authoritarian than others.

On the topic of generations, the commonly accepted definition is one generation per twenty years or so, which for 79 years makes four generations. The fact that the 14th has been twisted beyond the intent of the framers is revealed simply by the word "state" rather than "federal". The intent was clearly to prevent states from passing discriminatory laws rather than to prevent individuals from discriminating. In the case of the photographers, their rights under the 1st and 9th were clearly violated, with the possibility of dragging in the 10th "or to the people" as well. So far as testing Constitutionality goes, can you really rely upon a SCOTUS (you incorrectly said USSC) which is packed with persons who despise the notion of strict construction rather than conservatives to defend the Constitution? The answer is obviously no! Judges are not the Pope with guaranteed infallibility. They often have political axes to grind in favor of the political party which got them appointed.

Notice that there is a gap of 61 years between Amendments 12 and 13, while only five years passed between 13 and 15. Then 43 years passed until 16 in 1913. The infamous 18 was passed in 1919 and repealed in 1933 by popular demand.

Since you implied that I am prejudiced by dragging in "segregation and Jim Crow", I feel compelled to say that I am NOT particularly prejudiced, but I AM discriminatory. This is not to say that I despise people based upon race, which I call in the name of an engineer from Africa named Segun Thomas with whom I worked at JSC as an example of an interracial friendship. Racial prejudice is not restricted to whites alone, nor is class prejudice restricted to the wealthy. There is no need to point out that religious prejudice is rampant - just try changing religions and hear comments about coming to your senses to confirm that. As an engineer I of course regard all lawyers, politicians etc. as beneath contempt, an example of occupational prejudice. You cannot change behaviors ingrained in society by passing laws - all that accomplishes is to make lawyers fat.

I am strongly for a decentralized government because the behemoth federal government is eating the nation out of house and home. It needs to be starved back to 10% or less of GDP as soon as possible. Advances in technology (particularly computers) make that possible. When the next President takes office, he (or she) can look forward to a rough ride!

Lonnie Courtney Clay

http://www.now.org/issues/constitution/index.html
Litmus test on equality for women, to be taken by prejudiced men.

Originally Posted by Team Infidel

But now the liberal A-holes have accomplished in screwing her. What a pain in the butt. Such as waste of court time.

No, you see TI, these are women, not men.

*END COMIC RELIEF*

If you were Father Flannigan and were asked to perform a Wiccan marriage ceremony, you can refuse to do so because, to his belief, the marriage would not be valid by the tenets of the Catholic Church. While the refusal is discriminatory, the right to religious freedom is guaranteed by the Constitution. People discriminate every minute of every day. That's how we became individuals, by choices. That's how we became different colors, creeds, and nationalities. Our Judicial branch is broken and has been since day one and that is quoted by the Founders since President Washington, and especially by Thomas Jefferson. They have become lawmakers and "thought police" who make decisions based on personal judgements instead of strict interpretation of the Costitution.

I am wondering if it is possible these persons can sue the state of NM on the basis that their Anti-Gay discrimination laws infringe on their right to practice their religion.

If you look at it the way I am it seems as if the state is trampling all over those folks' right to practice their religion. Whatever the bible may or may not state their religious beliefs may state that the marriage of anything other than a man and woman is false. One could argue that if they contribute to this "sin" in anyway then they are condoning the sin of that marriage thus sinning by proxy.

This can be argued any number of ways. I personally feel the lawsuit is total bullcrap. I personally feel the state law is total bullcrap as it DOES trample a persons right to express and practice THEIR religious beliefs which in this case is a mainstream religion and not some wierd and small subsect.

Argue it how you will. These people got screwed by the bureaucracy plain and simple in my opinion.

Originally Posted by Marinerhodes

I am wondering if it is possible these persons can sue the state of NM on the basis that their Anti-Gay discrimination laws infringe on their right to practice their religion.

I don't know if you have them but we have laws preventing people profiting from a criminal act so if were convicted of discrimination they can't turn around and use that action as the basis of another law suit.

I agree the whole thing is stupid but had the photographers been a little smarter the whole thing would never have happened although personally I agree with Mmarsh on this one I don't remember a section of the bible that tells you to refuse to work for homosexuals therefore their actions are ones of interpretation not biblical necessity.