ObameconomyFollow

I have no issue with religious clubs at school, but I don't see why rules that stop them from creating clubs that follow their doctrine (assuming for the moment they exist) should be removed because of this. They might be wrong for other reasons, I'm not interested in discussing this, but their failure to make allowances for religious beliefs is irrelevant.

Perhaps my reply above yours has been enlightening.

Nope. Be more specific. Maybe give an example?

Cite?

T-shirt, Schmee-Shirt. I want to know about the "many" schools where I wouldn't be allowed to wear a cross or Star of David on a necklace.

Yep. If it's OK to forbid the expression of a belief in society at large, or within the school specifically, then allowances should not be made for religious beliefs, and if that happens to prevent you expressing some of your religious beliefs then I don't care. That is to say, if you believe the Qur'an tells you to kill all Jews and it is illegal to say "we should all be killin' Jews" it should be illegal to express that belief of yours.

Legally, I do not believe we should distinguish between religious and personal beliefs - . Personally, I hold in contempt any belief based purely on religious scripture (beliefs inspired by scripture but justified by reason are fine), but I don't believe the law should do the same.

Ok. But the Constitution says that we can't be discriminated on the basis of our race, our gender, or our religion. Now. For the sake of argument, let's pretend that it also says "or our sexual orientation". It doesn't actually, but let's pretend it does for the moment.


So. My right not to be discriminated against on the basis of my religion is protected by the constitution, and your right not to be discriminated against on the basis of your sexual orientation is as well. But what happens when my religion declares homosexuality to be a sin? Who's "right" wins?

If I express my belief that homosexuality is a sin, then I'm discriminating against you, right?

But if I'm *not* allowed to express that belief, then you are discriminating against me, right?

Who wins and why?


The question is whether or not an expression of an opinion contrary to a group counts as "discrimination" against that group. If I'm not advocating an action which harms you, am I discriminating against you? Not in a broad sense. Of course, if my club has a rule which says that all members have to refrain from sin, and homosexuality is a sin, we could say that this would discriminate against homosexuals retaining membership in the club.

But here's the thing. It's my club, right? I'm not forcing you to adhere to the rules of my club, nor to join the club, nor are you penalized for not being a member of the club. But if the club is not allowed to exist because it expresses the belief that homosexuality is a sin, then your mere existence anywhere in the world prevents my from having my club and expressing my beliefs.


One position on the issue infringes upon the actions of the other. One does not. IMO, the club should be allowed and it should be allowed to hold its own beliefs and have its own rules. And everyone else is free to not join the club, make jokes about them, etc. It's free speech right?


At least, that's how I view this. We have to look at the rights of both sides, not just one.




That's a somewhat absurd end point. It would be illegal to kill regardless of whether the person was Jewish or not. Whereas, interestingly enough, it would only be discrimination to oppose membership if the person was homosexual (or a woman, or a minority group). Oddly enough, there are tons of minority based clubs on campuses in which expressions on race are made in ways to make people not of that specific minority really uncomfortable (similar to how a homosexual being considered a sinner would). Yet they are not subject to nearly the level of scrutiny which religious clubs are.


I'm just asking that they be treated the same. It's quite clear that they are not. I'm not "for religion" at all. I am, however, for equality and liberty. And in this case, I see that equality being broken.




And yet we do. And it's strange because as I pointed out earlier, in theory religious views can't be discriminated against. Yet they are. All the time.... I'm not asking for special treatment. That's equally wrong. But what we're seeing is discrimination against those who hold religious views. And pretty completely systematic discrimination as well...

Just out of curiosity, did you just compare criticizing voluntary membership in a religion to condemning people who are born gay? Not sure if your example was just hastily put together and you didn't really mean anything by it or if you're being being a silly goose angry white guy.

I honestly don't know because I can't bring myself to read most of this thread

tl;dr + varus = easily distracted

I don't think gbaji realizes that his right to discriminate ends when it interferes with my liberty, to make it simple.

There are so many other things in the world that do all of those things, it's sort of silly to single one out. Mostly, you should be afraid of people. It's the people who are using religion as a tool to do those things, not the religion itself. Fear of religion in general is sort of silly. Fear of amoral people in places of power using that power for ill seems more reasonable to me.

Now, I'm not a fan of most organized religions, either, don't get me wrong. I disagree with a lot of their teachings, and I agree that some of the ideology can be down right hateful. And there are a lot of Christians in power in this country who can use their power to push some of the more hateful ideas that Christianity espouses. That doesn't mean that my neighbor, who is the sweetest old man I've ever met, should be feared because he goes to church on Sunday.

I was being facetious, because there have been a few stories I have heard about girls being sent home for wearing Wiccan symbols.

Let me put this in perspective. There is a case the Supreme Court just decided to see. The issue is not over whether or not a religious club can exclude members who are not religious, but whether or not they can exclude them from leadership positions in the club. The very fact that this is a question tells you how far off the issue has become from what you and I and most reasonable people think is acceptable.

Now, IIRC this is at a university, not a high school, but I'm going to assume that high schools are even more strict than colleges. Also, I think you haven't been reading this forum long enough (or paying attention) if you don't think there are lots of young atheists out there who'd think there was nothing funnier than to join the local Christian bible study club purely to disrupt it from within. And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is more or less exactly what is driving this particular case.


So yeah. It may not seem like a big deal to you, but it does happen and with greater frequency over time.




I was mostly talking about expressions of religious opinion, not just a broad statement of being religious. For example, a t-shirt with a bible passage condemning homosexuality would be considered offensive and would be in violation of the dress code. A t-shirt with a darwin fish on it would almost certainly not. Yet both can equally be said to be attacks on other groups of people, right?


Can we agree that protections against discrimination and defamation are not applied equally? We tend to apply them more forcefully for specific groups and much less so for others. If you are of the correct skin tone or gender or sexual orientation, you're protected far more than others, and religious people (especially christians) are protected the least. Some animals are just more equal than others in our system. No matter how much our ideals say this shouldn't be the case, it's pretty obvious when you look around that it is.


It shouldn't meet with such surprise when someone just points this out.