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I genuinely do not understand how this was ever a case. You are an employee at an office that provides a service. You are a representative of that organization. And, as a civil service employee, I would expect you are obligated by the laws of that county or state to facilitate the services offered.
ON BEHALF OF
Regardless if you're in this position or you're the president, you are obligated by the state or federal constitution to operate as a representative of that jurisdiction's laws.
If she took on this job while knowing it would conflict with her religious views, or the laws changed in a matter that conflicted with her views, she should have notified the county and she should have been denied or removed from that position. Although, I'm sure that raises a different case in denying someone employment based on their religion.
I once asked my mother if it would be ok for a Muslim or Jewish deli employee to refuse to sell her pork. She said they shouldn't be in that job if it conflicted with their religious beliefs. I tried to tie that to this and she sort of shut down rather than argue against it or accept it.
We don't have a relationship anymore. She voted for the shithead every time.
The deli owner can actually deny service to however they want since it's a private business. They don't have to serve anyone, but it does look fucking bad if/when they discrininate, but technically they can.
Here, that government employee HAS the obligation to follow the law and act regardless of her own beliefs. Maybe she should instead run a deli...
Your example is very good, in fact, it prouves your mother wrong in 2 different ways.
There's a big difference between a deli owner and a deli employee. An owner wouldn't choose to even have pork available to sell if they didn't want to sell it. If is it available to sell, and an employee chooses not to sell it because of their religious beliefs, that's definitely a problem, but (as you said) not discrimination, just bad business and the owner should fire them immediately.
Better example: a Hindu public servant refuses to approve a license for a cattle abbatoir on religious grounds.
That might be due to our morals feeling like a rational thing while they are mostly learned emotional reactions (that we rationalize afterwards). We do not need a society that self-reflects on a level a level where they would understand and thus we do not educate on this self-awareness. And by 'we' i mean the Owner-Class.
I used to shop at a butcher's where a Muslim employee worked. Once, chitchatting I asked him if he didn't have a problem with cutting pork, and he answered that he didn't, he just didn't eat it.
I guess there are degrees of strictness.
This guy actually knows and adheres to the rules. All those others who refuse to touch it/sell it/... ? Posers hiding behind their convictions. But there is nothing in the Quran about not being allowed to touch pork or sell it.
Technically touching pork breaks your Wudu, but so does farting so it's not a huge deal, you just need to wash your hands afterwards.
I'm horrified that your farting technique necessitates washing your hands afterwards.
It's funnier than that because in one of the hadiths it says, to quote:
"Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "The prayer of a person who does Hadath (passes urine, stool or wind) is not accepted till he performs the ablution." A person from Hadaramout asked Abu Huraira, "What is 'Hadath'?" Abu Huraira replied, " 'Hadath' means the passing of wind.""
"“The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was asked about a man who felt something during his prayer – should he stop praying? He said, ‘No, not unless you hear a sound or detect an odour.’”"
So if you let out one of those silent farts that don't smell, it doesn't count.
I'll just add it to the pile of reasons why I'll be damned eternally.
And level-headedness.
We literally made a law that says bartenders and restaurants can't refuse to serve alcohol to pregnant women if they order it. While not based on religion, I feel like this sets a pretty strong precedent.
That's not a comparable situation though. There's no reasonable expectation that those places would sell you pork*. The employee who works there isn't (not) doing anything that conflicts with the business' offerings.
Even if a muslim employee at a barbecue restaurant were to deny a customer a rack of ribs, the restaurant is under no obligation to serve you.
This issue is about a representative of the county rejecting the county's obligations.
*Edit: After re-reading the comment I was replying to, I see it's about a person who is Muslim or Jewish working at a deli, not a person working at a Muslim or Jewish deli. The comparison is closer than I had argued against but still not the same because one is public and one is private.
If the place carries pork and a specific employee refused to give it to you ...
That's directly applicable. It's an exact equivalent situation. You're just replacing nouns
It's not at all directly applicable.
There is no constitutional obligation for that employee to sell you pork. They're representing laws that exist to benefit the tax paying public.
A worker at a barbecue is under no legal obligation to sell you pork. They may one under an obligation of their employment but that's a private contract. The shop itself is under no obligation to sell you anything at all.
You're getting bogged down in specifics that are not relevant to the metaphor.
A person, who is NOT in a position to determine who/what their employer's organization will or won't serve, is making decisions they lack the authority to do. And if they can't handle the responsibilities of their position, should find new employment.
That's it. You're over-complicating it.
One of the drawbacks of the first amendment is that the courts can and will bend over backwards the moment somebody says the magic phrase "it is my sincerely held religious belief."
I don't think religion should be a valid reason for things. If you can't justify the thing without religion, it's probably not a good idea.
"I want to take an hour a day to pray" for example, you can get there with a religious argument. But you can also get there via "people should be entitled to breaks during the day to use as they desire. That's good for them and productivity overall"
I 100% agree - however we both live in the real world where it's a very big deal to many people. Telling them to just ignore their deeply held faith is simply not an option.
I'm generally fine with allowing some provisions for religious faith. Time off for holidays, allowing the closing of streets for celebrations, requiring reasonable consideration for dietary needs, etc. But it definitely needs to be balanced with the greater societal good.
In this case, however, this cretin is requiring that she be allowed to simply ignore laws she doesn't like. And that is definitely a bridge too far. So I fully expect the SCOTUS to just rule in her favor.
Definitely citation needed for these being "deeply held" beliefs. These people are just using religion as a cover for their bigotry and have zero qualms about violating the rest of the tenets of their religion. Case in point is Kim Davis having been married four separate times now, while claiming that allowing two men to marry somehow destroys the sanctity of marraige.
Professors of ethical philosophy aren't more ethical than other people either. Believing in something and doing things are different.
I'm not really sure what you mean here.
In this case we have a woman claiming to have "deeply held religious beliefs" about marriage when it comes to preventing other people from getting married while at the same time having several divorces under her belt. Her actions dont mimic her beliefs when it comes to her own life so they can't be deeply held beliefs. These beliefs only seem to matter when she has no skin in the game by applying them to other people's lives.
This is no different than one of those anti-gay politicians who gets caught blowing dudes in a public restroom. They aren't really their deeply held beliefs they're just lies to give cover to their bigotry as I mentioned previously.
Hypocrisy doesn't mean one doesn't believe what they believe. People compartmentalize. They carve out exceptions and make excuses. We're pretty judgey about others while accepting our own flaws.
And this is not limited to religion.
Sure, I don't disagree with any of this but I do take issue with these people claiming these are "deeply held religious beliefs" because they're nothing of the sort.
If you define marriage as a deeply held religious belief when you've been married four separate times and divorced three times, then what couldn't be considered a deeply held belief? By what metric can someone define these as deeply held beliefs? The proof is in the pudding after all, and this woman has demonstrated on multiple occasions that she doesn't honor the very beliefs she claims to hold sacred. It's magically only a "deeply held belief" when she can weaponize it against others.
My issue is with how this argument is framed as if its an affront to her religious freedom when she doesn't even hold herself to the same standard that she expects from complete strangers.
With one caveat: the religion must be Christianity
It is my sincerely held religious belief that religion has no place in government.
My religion forbids traffic lights and speed limits. Also I'm allowed to mess with Texas. Divine mandate supercedes mere mortals laws.
MS kimmy have been fighting this for over 10years, lawsuit after lawsuit, plus she likely has financialy backing from right wing groups funding her lawyers. you ponder why they havnt dropped thier pursuit, its her financial backing.
I get what you are saying and totally agree and if they are the sole decider the person in the position should be 100% neutral. And she should have resigned if they couldn't do the job. You can't expect a devout Hindu to work for a slaughterhouse and process cows.
But on the other hand we have had so many cases where employees have sued and won because an employer was trying to treat their employees equally but they hired the occasional employee demanding extra leeway for religious holidays or prayer time. So this case is pretty important for employers that provide religious exemptions.
But yeah this lady is a piece of shit and needs to lose this case and disappear from the spotlight.
Accommodating holidays or time for prayers is very different than accommodating an employee refusing to ever do the test they are paid to do.
Yeah. I don't really blame this woman at all. It shouldn't have been her sole responsibility. I would venture to guess though that even the people above her shared her opinions.
Oh they would for sure sue the state over it, but it would be denying employment based on that person not perform their legal duties.
The accommodation the employer needs to make is to put her in a position where her religious values would not interfere with her work.
But given that she likely took the job for the very purpose of forcing her religious values onto her work, she should have a legal obligation to STFU and just do her fucking job. This honestly would be no different if a Buddhist refused to issue conceal carry permits because they believe in non-violence.
If you disagree with the law, you lobby to change the law. Not fucking be the arbiter of the law in your administrative role.
The state accommodated her beliefs by removing her from the employment of the agency that handles marriages.
She's free to find another job
So what you're saying is I could get myself elected sheriff and then refuse to do the job because I don't believe in it?
No. I'm explicitly saying the exact opposite.
I don't think even this Court is going to grant cert. They need to save what's left of their legitimacy to rule on more important emergency docket matters.
Thomas had stated a couple years ago that he wanted another go at this decision.
In Germany at police officer successfully sought out the Constitutional Court because he was disciplined for not following the order to enter a church as that conflicted his agnostic views.
It is alright to deny something because of your views, the state simply has to facilitate all rights and in this case the county would have to have someone on their payroll to legalise same Sex marriages. That allows the individual clerk to stay true to their believes but also facilitates the rights of those seeking their lawful marriage.
This makes total sense. What's frustrating is that everyone focuses on the religious choice aspect while not asking the real question like why was this one person in charge of the entire county when it was known she had an issue. I'm sure this would lead to a larger investigation to find she wasn't the only one with the issue of marrying a same-sex couple.
Really, the county should be held accountable, not this woman. The county has the obligation to marry same-sex couples. The county staffed one person whom they probably knew would have this issue.
The county should reprimand the woman for not fulfilling her duties as a representative, she should have sued the county for putting her in that position by not hiring someone else, and the couple should have sued the county. I'm not really familiar enough with the case to know how this actually went down.
Her job was an elected position so what do you expect the county to do?
I didn't know this was an elected position. I could see how that complicates the matter.
Still, even if The People elect a person to a publicly held office as a representative of their interests, the elected official is obligated to uphold the law. If they're unable to do so, either the county should have prevented her from taking the position or she should be held accountable for lying. Either way, the county should be facilitating the law to allow same-sex couples to be married.
Never heard of this, do you have a link?
I just had look, but can't seem to find it myself. A law teacher told me about it.
The legal practice however is correct when it comes to those normally employed by the state as would be the case with office clerks. Police officers are in a special employment and therefore forfeit a lot of rights normal employees have. I would however still come to the conclusion that if there's no immediate danger, the state can't force a police officer to enter a church if that goes against his beliefs