Author Topic: Crisis in Indiana: Random small-town pizzeria says it won’t cater gay weddings; Update: Might not re-open?  (Read 2957 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Online mystery-ak

  • Owner
  • Administrator
  • ******
  • Posts: 383,626
  • Gender: Female
  • Let's Go Brandon!
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/04/01/crisis-in-indiana-random-small-town-pizzeria-says-it-wont-cater-gay-weddings/

Crisis in Indiana: Random small-town pizzeria says it won’t cater gay weddings; Update: Might not re-open?
posted at 1:21 pm on April 1, 2015 by Allahpundit

 

“This is not the Indiana I remember as a kid,” said David Letterman last night about the new RFRA. This is a guy born in 1947, old enough to have already been in elementary school before Brown v. Board of Education was decided, who was well into his 40s before the first gay-marriage blip appeared on a state’s judicial radar. But that’s the way most people on my side of this issue roll these days. Culturally we’re in the midst of a great forgetting, where those who were themselves agnostic about SSM or even opposed to it 15 minutes ago simply cannot imagine a mindset that would be agnostic about, or opposed to, the practice. Either Letterman’s memory has wiped clean his own decades-long tacit complicity in traditional marriage as the only legitimate form or he hasn’t realized yet that the reason he doesn’t remember stuff like this happening when he was a kid is because gay Hoosiers had little choice at the time but to stay deep, deep, deep in the closet. The suggestion that Indiana is less accommodating to gays now, when reporters have to go door to door in small towns to find even one business willing to deny service to them, than it was in the 1950s is revisionism so egregious that gay-rights activists should be in his face about it, insisting that he recognize what America used to be like for them.

Instead they’re in the face of some pizzeria owner from a small town, who’ll almost certainly never be asked to cater a gay wedding — except maybe now as a pretext to coax her formal refusal and trigger a lawsuit — and who, like every other Christian business owner who’s run up against antidiscrimination laws thus far, isn’t refusing service to gays as a rule. She’s refusing compulsory participation in a wedding ceremony that violates what her religion tells her is permissible. And she’s getting destroyed for it on Yelp. Watch the clip, then read the Yelp comments and ask yourself on which side the malice in this debate, which is supposed to be about hatred and prejudice, truly lies. There’s no Internet mob these days quite as nasty as a mob of pro-gay social-justice warriors competing to win the outrage Olympics.

And one of the worst things about it, especially if you support gay marriage, is how parochial the outrage is. MKH touched on that the other night in noting that Apple somehow manages to tolerate capital punishment for gays in Saudi Arabia in the name of selling iPhones there. Jonah Goldberg noted on Twitter this morning that Iran’s own death sentences for the crime of homosexuality are obviously no impediment to the peace-in-our-time nuclear deal that’s brewing right now. The world’s richest corporation and most powerful government could draw real red lines aimed at helping gays abroad but they don’t because it might cost them something. Only when it costs them nothing, like in the absurd hypothetical of a great wave of Indiana businesses kicking gays out, do they pound the table. They’re beneath contempt. And they’ll never be called on it by anyone who matters to them.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94exLI-Y0z8

 
Crisis in Indiana: Random small-town pizzeria says it won’t cater gay weddings; Update: Might not re-open?
posted at 1:21 pm on April 1, 2015 by Allahpundit

    Share on Facebook 65
    198 SHARES

“This is not the Indiana I remember as a kid,” said David Letterman last night about the new RFRA. This is a guy born in 1947, old enough to have already been in elementary school before Brown v. Board of Education was decided, who was well into his 40s before the first gay-marriage blip appeared on a state’s judicial radar. But that’s the way most people on my side of this issue roll these days. Culturally we’re in the midst of a great forgetting, where those who were themselves agnostic about SSM or even opposed to it 15 minutes ago simply cannot imagine a mindset that would be agnostic about, or opposed to, the practice. Either Letterman’s memory has wiped clean his own decades-long tacit complicity in traditional marriage as the only legitimate form or he hasn’t realized yet that the reason he doesn’t remember stuff like this happening when he was a kid is because gay Hoosiers had little choice at the time but to stay deep, deep, deep in the closet. The suggestion that Indiana is less accommodating to gays now, when reporters have to go door to door in small towns to find even one business willing to deny service to them, than it was in the 1950s is revisionism so egregious that gay-rights activists should be in his face about it, insisting that he recognize what America used to be like for them.

Instead they’re in the face of some pizzeria owner from a small town, who’ll almost certainly never be asked to cater a gay wedding — except maybe now as a pretext to coax her formal refusal and trigger a lawsuit — and who, like every other Christian business owner who’s run up against antidiscrimination laws thus far, isn’t refusing service to gays as a rule. She’s refusing compulsory participation in a wedding ceremony that violates what her religion tells her is permissible. And she’s getting destroyed for it on Yelp. Watch the clip, then read the Yelp comments and ask yourself on which side the malice in this debate, which is supposed to be about hatred and prejudice, truly lies. There’s no Internet mob these days quite as nasty as a mob of pro-gay social-justice warriors competing to win the outrage Olympics.

And one of the worst things about it, especially if you support gay marriage, is how parochial the outrage is. MKH touched on that the other night in noting that Apple somehow manages to tolerate capital punishment for gays in Saudi Arabia in the name of selling iPhones there. Jonah Goldberg noted on Twitter this morning that Iran’s own death sentences for the crime of homosexuality are obviously no impediment to the peace-in-our-time nuclear deal that’s brewing right now. The world’s richest corporation and most powerful government could draw real red lines aimed at helping gays abroad but they don’t because it might cost them something. Only when it costs them nothing, like in the absurd hypothetical of a great wave of Indiana businesses kicking gays out, do they pound the table. They’re beneath contempt. And they’ll never be called on it by anyone who matters to them.

Update: Oh, the lectures about “tone” to which we’d be treated if a right-wing mob were treating a left-wing business owner this way.

Quote
Dana Loesch        ✔ @DLoesch
Follow

Just got off the phone with #MemoriesPizza; they’re considering never opening again. Receiving a lot of death threats.
3:18 PM - 1 Apr 2015
Proud Supporter of Tunnel to Towers
Support the USO
Democrat Party...the Party of Infanticide

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
-Matthew 6:34

Offline GourmetDan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,277
Either Letterman’s memory has wiped clean his own decades-long tacit complicity in traditional marriage as the only legitimate form or he hasn’t realized yet that the reason he doesn’t remember stuff like this happening when he was a kid is because gay Hoosiers had little choice at the time but to stay deep, deep, deep in the closet.

Like most... Letterman's a tool that does whatever the hand that holds it wants him to...


"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan

Offline EC

  • Shanghaied Editor
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 23,804
  • Gender: Male
  • Cats rule. Dogs drool.
Who the hell orders pizza for a wedding?
The universe doesn't hate you. Unless your name is Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Avatar courtesy of Oceander

I've got a website now: Smoke and Ink

Offline aligncare

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 25,916
  • Gender: Male
Oh, I don't know. Decorated with some sausage, it could fit right in.  :bolt:


Offline musiclady

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 22,682
Expect attacks against innocent business owners like this to increase.

The leftist bullies have been greatly emboldened by the success of this recent campaign of lies and deceptions about the Indiana law, and their desire to attack Christians will only increase.
Character still matters.  It always matters.

I wear a mask as an exercise in liberty and love for others.  To see it as an infringement of liberty is to entirely miss the point.  Be kind.

"Sometimes I think the Church would be better off if we would call a moratorium on activity for about six weeks and just wait on God to see what He is waiting to do for us. That's what they did before Pentecost."   - A. W. Tozer

Use the time God is giving us to seek His will and feel His presence.

Offline olde north church

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 5,117
Expect attacks against innocent business owners like this to increase.

The leftist bullies have been greatly emboldened by the success of this recent campaign of lies and deceptions about the Indiana law, and their desire to attack Christians will only increase.

This is the equivalent to the old strategy of killing everything, women, children, livestock, all of it.  This occurs when sentimentality or "fair play" rules the day.  This is 3% of America and their allies that are pulling this shit.  Let's hope next time memories are a bit longer and mercilessness is the rule of the day.
Why?  Well, because I'm a bastard, that's why.

Offline andy58-in-nh

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,761
  • Gender: Male
Expect attacks against innocent business owners like this to increase.

The leftist bullies have been greatly emboldened by the success of this recent campaign of lies and deceptions about the Indiana law, and their desire to attack Christians will only increase.

"That's a nice little Christian business you've got there. It would be a shame if anything were to happen to it..."
"The most terrifying force of death, comes from the hands of Men who wanted to be left Alone. They try, so very hard, to mind their own business and provide for themselves and those they love. They resist every impulse to fight back, knowing the forced and permanent change of life that will come from it. They know, that the moment they fight back, their lives as they have lived them, are over. -Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Online Cyber Liberty

  • Coffee! Donuts! Kittens!
  • Administrator
  • ******
  • Posts: 80,271
  • Gender: Male
  • 🌵🌵🌵
Who the hell orders pizza for a wedding?

People get married several times these days, it seems, and pizza would be fine for a wedding reception for, say, a third wedding.  Besides, places like this usually make other things, like Lasagna.  This place had never catered anything, the gotcha was a purely hypothetical question.  I like that Dana set up a GoFundMe for them (link upthread), it's at about $190K, so maybe they can go set up shop somewhere else now.
For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. Sloe Joe Biteme 12/16
I will NOT comply.
 
Castillo del Cyber Autonomous Zone ~~~~~>                          :dontfeed:

rangerrebew

  • Guest

These Guys Sure Know How to Hate



 
avatar
Bill Muehlenberg
 on 3 April, 2015 at 06:45
 


There are no greater haters than the homosexual activists. Every day we find more conclusive proof that these folks are the most hate-filled, nasty and malicious folks in the West. The demonic rage and fury of these activists is simply frightening in the extreme.

And all their hatred gives lie to the claim that they just want to be left alone to live in peace. They do not in the slightest just want to be allowed to do their own thing in the privacy of their own bedrooms. There are on an unholy crusade to ram their agenda down the throats of everyone else.




No other group that I know of (except for perhaps the angry misotheists – and these two groups overlap to a good extent) can get so utterly enraged and incensed when someone dares to think differently and not fall down and worship their coercive agenda.

The foaming at the mouth over the Indiana religious freedom law is a case in point. These guys have gone absolutely ballistic, showing just how much they are into tolerance, acceptance and diversity – the very things they scream about all the time.

Consider one hapless mom-and-dad pizza shop in Walkerton, Indiana:


“Memories Pizza has been forced to close its doors because of threatening phone calls and social media messages that have poured in since the restaurant was featured on a local television news report Wednesday night with one of the owners saying the pizzeria would not cater a gay wedding because of the family’s Christian beliefs. “If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no,” Crystal O’Connor told ABC News 57 . “We are a Christian establishment.””


image: http://billmuehlenberg.com/res/uploads/2015/04/haters.png.pagespeed.ce.PPvRzm1xP_.png
hatersAnother report says they are not even sure now if they can reopen thanks to all the hatred and abuse from the tolerance brigade:


“Crystal O’Connor, the co-owner of Memories Pizza in Indiana, says it may not be safe to re-open their pizzeria after they said they wouldn’t cater a gay wedding. “I don’t know if we will re-open, or if we can, if it’s safe to re-open,” O’Connor said on TheBlaze TV’s Dana. “We’re in hiding basically, staying in the house.” O’Connor recently told WBND-TV, “If a gay couple came in and wanted us to provide pizzas for their wedding, we would have to say no.” She made it clear that they are happy to serve gay customers, but would not be a part of the wedding because of their religious beliefs. National news outlets quickly picked up the story.”

Consider the response of just one loving and tolerant lesbian to the pizza shop:


“The softball and girls’ golf coach at Concord High School in Elkhart, Indiana posted a tweet asking if anyone wanted to “burn down” Memories Pizza with her over its announcement that it would not cater gay weddings. “Who’s going to Walkerton, IN to burn down #memoriespizza with me?” Jessica Dooley asked in the tweet, which has since been deleted. “Agree with #FreedomOfReligionBill? ‘That’s a lifestyle they CHOOSE’ Ignorant.””

Yep, there you have it folks: ‘We are a tolerant and peace-loving bunch. But if you happen to disagree with us, we will hunt you down and we will burn down your business. We take this tolerance stuff seriously!’

Fortunately, as another article states, she got suspended for that bit of sweetness and light: “The head coach of an Indiana high school girl’s golf team has been suspended after apparently threatening to burn down a Christian-owned pizzeria. Jess Dooley, a coach at Concord High School of Elkhart, Indiana allegedly struck out at the owner of Memories Pizza in Walkerton.”

And of course all this hatred and hysteria is based on so much false information fed to us by the lamestream, media. As I noted in an earlier article on this, sexual orientation is not even mentioned in the legislation. This is simply about protecting small business owners from being forced to violate their own deeply-held conscientious conditions. As Ben Shapiro explains:


“What exactly does the law state? The Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana states that “a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” That rule does not apply only if the government’s action “is in furtherance of a compelling government interest” and is also “the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest.” If government does act against someone in violation of that person’s religious principles, he or she can assert that violation “as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding.”

“The law does not specifically single out same-sex marriage as an activity against which a religious person may discriminate, but it certainly holds out that possibility. Of course, that possibility is already inherent in a little concept we in the United States used to call freedom – freedom to choose how to conduct one’s business and freedom to practice one’s religion in one’s practice of business.

“Under a philosophy of freedom, the market solves the general problem of private discrimination, because if one person decides to discriminate against Jews or blacks or gays, he or she loses money and is put out of business for his or her trouble. Nobody has the right, under a philosophy of freedom, to invoke the power of the government’s gun in order to force someone to provide a good or service.

“That system is a heck of a lot safer for minorities than a system by which government regulates the proper conduct of voluntary activities. . . . You do not have a right to my services; I have a right to provide my services to whomever I choose. If you believe that your interpretation of public good enables you to bring a gun to the party, you are a bully and a tyrant. So it is with the modern American left, to whom freedom now means only the freedom to do what it is the left wants you to do at point of gun.”

And this is not about some ugly discrimination as Cal Thomas reminds us:


“If I visit a kosher restaurant and order a pork chop, am I being discriminated against when the waiter says they don’t serve pork? If an establishment requires that men wear jackets and women dress in what that establishment defines as an “appropriate way,” does that constitute discrimination?

“When I visit the Vatican, the Swiss Guards won’t let me in if I’m wearing shorts. They offer a cover-up. It is the same for women, if they bare too much flesh. Is that discrimination? What about the sign “no shoes, no shirt, no service”? Is that bigotry against the shoeless and shirtless? Should the government force any of these entities to violate their standards? That is the issue in Indiana, the latest front in the culture war.”

Gina Miller explains what is really at work here:


“The real issue here is members of the radical homosexual movement and their Hell-born crusade against Christian freedom and expression. That’s it, and it further entails their depraved desire to force the “normalization” of what is a degenerate, unnatural and very unhealthy behavior —homosexuality—at the expense of the rights of those who oppose it. These people have as their mission an end-run around our God-given freedoms. Since it’s not feasible, at this time, to simply outlaw freedom of speech and religion in America, these homosexual activists are a handy tool of the communist Left to effectively crush these freedoms through intimidation, lawfare, boycotts and whatever other bullish means they can contrive, short of simply abolishing our First Amendment protections.”

There are two ways the Christian should respond to all this. Firstly, we should stand strong for religious freedom. As Michael Brown rightly states:


“Now is the time to make it clear that we’re not about to back down or cave in to the pressure and bad press, declaring once again that the bullying will back fire. As I’ve said many times before, the unspoken mantra of gay activism is, “We will intimidate and we will manipulate until you capitulate.” The response of millions of freedom-loving Americans remains the same: We’re not going to capitulate. We will love our LGBT friends and neighbors and co-workers and family members, but we will not surrender our freedoms. Can I hear an “Amen”?”

Secondly, as Christians we must respond in the opposite spirit. When the haters hate, we must show love. And of course the most loving thing we can do for these angry homosexuals is to tell them the truth. We can let them know that they do not have to be homosexual if they want out. And we must let them know that their hate is due to the fact that they are living a lie.

They are rebelling against their Creator, and they are rebelling against their very nature and design. And of course they are rebelling against those who do not succumb to their agenda. We must love homosexuals enough to tell them truth, and not cater to their deception.

Love is not capitulating to the demands of the angry activists. Biblical love involves caring enough about a person that you warn them about the consequences of their sin, and point them in a better direction. We do not need more weak-kneed believers now, but Christians who are strong, passionate and dedicated to truth. That is how we must deal with the haters.

Sources:

Read more at http://barbwire.com/2015/04/03/0700-these-guys-sure-know-how-to-hate/

Offline mrclose

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,233
My heart is full of JOY!!!

I have hope for America!

Gofundme for this Christian family has now reached $710,000!!!!

God bless Dana Loesch and Lawrence Jones for starting this fund raiser for Memories Pizza!

From the site, a post from Mr Jones:


Quote
Religious liberty is under assault in Indiana and that's never been clearer than with the O'Connor family.

When asked by local press the hypothetical question of whether or not they'd prefer to have their family owned business, Memories Pizza, cater a gay wedding, the owner said no citing their own religious beliefs as the reason.

Rather than allowing this family to simply have their opinion, which they were asked to give, outraged people grabbed the torches and began a campaign to destroy this small business in small town Indiana.

All for having an opinion that is rooted in faith.

No one was turned away. No one was discriminated against. It was a hypothetical question asked by a news reporter who had questionable motives to begin with.

After being interviewed by Dana Loesch on her television show on Blaze TV, we learned that the family may never even reopen the doors to their restaurant as the death threats and vicious online reviews continue to pour in from the arbiters of "tolerance."

My name is Lawrence Jones, and I'm one of the television opinion contributors on Dana's show.

Before the televised interview, producers Rachel, Allison  and George  discussed the situation with Dana, myself and head writer Ben Howe. We all agreed: this family needs help to get through this assault.

So we set up a GoFundMe page with the modest goal of $25,000. The intent was to help the family stave off the burdensome cost of having the media parked out front, activists tearing them down, and no customers coming in.

Our goal was simply to help take one thing off this family's plate as the strangers sought to destroy them.

But other strangers came to the rescue and the total just keeps going up.

Thank you for helping us do some good for this family who were scared and in hiding just 24 hours before this writing.

All money, save whatever percentage GoFundMe takes, will be transferred directly to whichever bank account the O'Connors wish to use.

Show producers are in direct contact with the family to ensure that they never feel like they are being left out of what is going on.

Thank you to everyone for your generosity.
"Hell is empty, all the devil's are here!"
~ Self

Offline aligncare

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 25,916
  • Gender: Male
Today, Limbaugh called on his audience to come to the aid of Memories. That helped.

Offline mrclose

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,233
"Hell is empty, all the devil's are here!"
~ Self

Offline GourmetDan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,277
"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan

Offline Luis Gonzalez

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,621
  • Gender: Male
    • Boiling Frogs
My heart is full of JOY!!!

I have hope for America!

Gofundme for this Christian family has now reached $710,000!!!!

God bless Dana Loesch and Lawrence Jones for starting this fund raiser for Memories Pizza!

From the site, a post from Mr Jones:

$710,000 for a small pizzeria?

You'll have atheist pizzeria owners finding Jesus and refusing to serve homos all over Indiana by the middle of next week.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2015, 07:47:44 pm by Luis Gonzalez »
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Offline Luis Gonzalez

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,621
  • Gender: Male
    • Boiling Frogs
NANCY!

QUICK!

PUT UP A BANNER THAT SAYS THAT HOMOS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO POST HERE AND SEE HOW MUCH $$$ YOU CAN BRING IN.
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Offline mrclose

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,233
$710,000 for a small pizzeria?

You'll have atheist pizzeria owners finding Jesus and refusing to serve homos all over Indiana by the middle of next week.
:silly: :silly: :silly: :silly:

Updated interview with the Father and Daughter, owners of Memories Pizza.
(I teared up at the end  8888crybaby)

btw: A little about Gofundme .. They take 8% of the total which is quite fair and They Won't take funding for abortion rights but Will take funding for Pro Life!
Ya-a-a!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxkRvjNrcvs#t=150
« Last Edit: April 03, 2015, 07:54:20 pm by mrclose »
"Hell is empty, all the devil's are here!"
~ Self

Offline MACVSOG68

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,792
  • Gender: Male


       

Laws respecting the establishment of religion are unconstitutional.  Non-religious or secular laws are really religious.  Therefore all secular laws are unconstitutional.   :pondering:
It's the Supreme Court nominations!

Offline Luis Gonzalez

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,621
  • Gender: Male
    • Boiling Frogs
Laws respecting the establishment of religion are unconstitutional.  Non-religious or secular laws are really religious.  Therefore all secular laws are unconstitutional.   :pondering:

 :thud:
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, i have others." - Groucho Marx

Offline GourmetDan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,277
Laws respecting the establishment of religion are unconstitutional.  Non-religious or secular laws are really religious.  Therefore all secular laws are unconstitutional.   :pondering:

You left out the part about 'or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'.

Since secular laws can force believers of any religion to engage in acts contrary to their religion to force 'equal rights' under the law, there really is no free exercise clause in the First Amendment.

What were the founders thinking anyway...

"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan

Offline MACVSOG68

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,792
  • Gender: Male
You left out the part about 'or prohibiting the free exercise thereof'.

Since secular laws can force believers of any religion to engage in acts contrary to their religion to force 'equal rights' under the law, there really is no free exercise clause in the First Amendment.

What were the founders thinking anyway...

Again though, if all secular laws are religious in nature, no law should prevent any free exercise of anything.  I doubt the founders believed secularism to be a religion.
It's the Supreme Court nominations!

Online Cyber Liberty

  • Coffee! Donuts! Kittens!
  • Administrator
  • ******
  • Posts: 80,271
  • Gender: Male
  • 🌵🌵🌵
For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death — if you’re unvaccinated — for themselves, their families, and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm. Sloe Joe Biteme 12/16
I will NOT comply.
 
Castillo del Cyber Autonomous Zone ~~~~~>                          :dontfeed:

Offline GourmetDan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,277
Again though, if all secular laws are religious in nature, no law should prevent any free exercise of anything.  I doubt the founders believed secularism to be a religion.

Again though, if you have to use the 'establishment of a religion' to make that claim while ignoring the 'free exercise' part, perhaps your claim is wrong.

I doubt the founders would agree that the First Amendment allows government to force citizens to act against their religion...


"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan

Offline MACVSOG68

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9,792
  • Gender: Male
Again though, if you have to use the 'establishment of a religion' to make that claim while ignoring the 'free exercise' part, perhaps your claim is wrong.

I doubt the founders would agree that the First Amendment allows government to force citizens to act against their religion...

I'm not arguing what the founders would have thought about any government laws preventing the free establishment of religion, just your contention that secularism is in reality a religion.  If so, then secular laws should be no more constitutional than laws concerning religion. 

It is true as an aside, that states and local jurisdictions did continue with religious tests for office well after ratification of the Constitution.  Some states still do. 
It's the Supreme Court nominations!

Offline GourmetDan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 7,277
I'm not arguing what the founders would have thought about any government laws preventing the free establishment of religion, just your contention that secularism is in reality a religion.  If so, then secular laws should be no more constitutional than laws concerning religion. 

When secular laws are used to prevent the free exercise of religion and force behavior that goes against those religions, it is acting as a competing religion.

Again though, if you have to use the claim that this means that all secular laws are unconstitutional maybe it is your claim that is wrong and not the fact that secularism is acting as a competing religion...

"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." - Ecclesiastes 10:2

"The sole purpose of the Republican Party is to serve as an ineffective alternative to the Democrat Party." - GourmetDan