Opponents of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act gather for a protest on the lawn of the Indiana State Capitol on March 28. (Doug McSchooler, The Associated Press)
Re: “Do liberals really care about rights?,” April 5 Ross Kaminsky column.
Ross Kaminsky argues that business owners do not need to serve a customer if doing so would violate their religious beliefs on the grounds that said customers could just go somewhere else. That misses the point entirely. While it is true that they do not have a “right to commerce,” as he calls it, at that particular store, they do have a right to be treated the same as everyone else, regardless of who they are or what others think of them. This is the most fundamental right of all, and if you deny someone this right for whatever reason, you are indeed discriminating against them, plain and simple.
Just as “states’ rights” was not a legitimate justification for Jim Crow laws in the South, “religious freedom” is not a valid rationale for discriminating against homosexuals.
Evan Young,Longmont
This letter was published in the April 12 edition.What Ross Kaminsky does not acknowledge is that refusing a service, in this case based on sexual preference, to a customer who can easily get that service somewhere else, is by nature an erosion of the customer’s right to equality.
The tough question is: at what point is the right of religious freedom trumped by other rights? And under what circumstances? Clearly, this balance of rights changes over time. What was acceptable in the past may not be acceptable today.
I suspect we would all agree that some past religious core beliefs are unacceptable in today’s society — say, those that were held by some New Guinea natives: cannibalism. Some core beliefs held by religious people today are also abhorrent. Think of the Islamic State.
Also, what Kaminsky does not seem to understand is that by the nature of our human society, governments are the arbiters for these decisions.
Charles Sherwood,Avon
This letter was published in the April 12 edition.The politically correct community would like to be able to force an individual to work for their benefit against the individual’s will. This is involuntary servitude and is expressly forbidden by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. If the individual is religiously inclined, this force of law would also violate the individual’s “freedom of religion,” which is expressly stated in the First Amendment, as “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof … .” Forcing an individual to violate his or her religious beliefs explicitly, patently and egregiously violates “prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
At one time in the United States, one government-approved group forced another group to do its bidding. This situation was resolved in April 1865. The 13th Amendment was adopted in December 1865 to make certain this would never happen again. In brief, it states, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States … .”
The politically correct group is treading on dangerous ground.
Douglas McCulloh,Lakewood
This letter was published in the April 12 edition.It is interesting to observe that some conservative columnists, including those in your paper, are putting forth the concept that discrimination in the public square is somehow the highest form of liberty. I suspect the level of enthusiasm for discrimination is inversely based on the likelihood that the proponents of this practice would ever be on the receiving end of it. While I’m not exactly sure in what America that individual liberty is supposed to be solely contingent on third-party religious approval, it must be noted that American citizens were literally killed fighting for the right for all to be served in businesses. For these conservatives to now affix a “yeah, but” onto the very concept of public accommodation law spits on the corpses of those murdered Americans. Please don’t pretend that you are advocating for something different here, because you’re not.
Pete Miesel,Broomfield
This letter was published in the April 12 edition.If a baker refused to provide a wedding cake to an interracial couple because it violated the baker’s religious beliefs, most of us would be appalled, and we would approve if the government said, “Make wedding cakes for all couples, or don’t sell them.”
If a florist refused to deliver flowers to a Muslim wedding because it violated the floristap religious beliefs, most of us would be appalled, and we would applaud if the government said, “Make wedding floral arrangements for all couples, or don’t sell them.”
Yet, now, merchants want to refuse to provide goods to a gay or lesbian wedding on the basis of religious beliefs, and some people are applauding, and even sending money to the merchants.
Why?
What makes gay or lesbian weddings so different, that merchants should be able to refuse only them goods or services on the basis of religion?
Peter Gross,Denver
This letter was published in the April 12 edition.America’s freedom of religion is being gradually rewritten as the freedom to the private practice of religion. Freedom of religion only after someone crosses the threshold of their personal residence, or place of worship, is no longer freedom of religion. Religion is far too multi-dimensional to have private application alone. The carte-blanche forcing of a proprietor to aid directly in something that is anathema to that owner’s conscience violates that vendor’s freedom of religion.
Freedom of religion must have both private and public protections; this is the high standard of American religious liberty.
Terry Hodson,Golden
This letter was published in the April 12 edition.
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