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While civil rights used to mean that you shouldn’t be denied employment based on an irrelevant personal characteristic, wingers seem to think that civil rights constitute a right not to do your job while still getting paid if doing your job means treating citizens you find distasteful as equals.
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*employment
I look forward to the point in time when, as a Quaker, I can expect the US military to guarantee me full employment while, as a result of my religious beliefs, I refuse to serve in any capacity whatsoever. Since this is part of my sincere Christian heritage, I’m sure that the “Christian legal advocacy group based in Arizona, the Alliance Defense Fund” will back me, and require the military to accommodate my religious beliefs.
That will happen, right?
OK, so if I’m the Town Clerk and I don’t want to marry two religious Christian lunatics because I’m concerned about a couple with double-digit IQ’s home schooling their children, and feel it’s against MY Lord’s wishes, that I’m within MY rights?
No?
Then you have NO case against gay marriages!
‘Cause I don’t want to is fine for 2-3 year-olds. If you don’t have the mental capacity to understand that this is unacceptable as an adult, is not a great selling point for your side.
The only thing you can’t understand about this is the fact that YOU don’t want to understand.
And the fact that people like YOU don’t have the CAPACITY to understand this, is why we have these fucking laws in the first fucking place.
Catholics didn’t pull this crap in town clerks’ offices when divorce was legalized.
Yeah but…
See MAJeff, immediately below.
I think it had to do more with the time in history. Most religious organizations were much more deferential to the state. “Render to Caeser…” and all that.
I always interpreted that as “Give the Romans back their money and drive them out of the land.”
Well, not all of the money; just shave off the Caesar-y bits. Then melt the bits into weapons and give the Romans the pointy ends.
Render indeed!
That was tried. It wasn’t a huge success.
Hey, I was brought up Jewish. What the hell do I know?
So was Jesus.
This is similar to what Catholic Charities pulled in MA, DC, and IL. Serving as an adjunct to the state in providing social services for the state, they’re required to treat citizens equally. The Church’s position is basically that they should be able to get the state funding while refusing to provide services to eligible citizens.
And in the end, they ended up hurting kids and families.
When I am emperor, no government money, not even medicare funds, will go to any religious organization whatsoever for any purpose.
“You in America now!” (Lou Gossett to Levar Burton in Roots).
Yes, you are in America now.
Because, in the end, they don’t care about kids and families. They care about THE FAMILY.
No, they care about patriarchal privilege, which is something else altogether.
Their conceptualization of The Family is inseparable from patriarchal privilege.
Yeah, screw you, Habitat for Humanity!
No grants for you!
I forgot where I saw this, but I was looking at some poll data from 2000-2011 that showed a question very like “Do you support using public funds to aid religious charities?” and in 2000 democrats were very opposed and republicans were very supportive. By 2009, the the lines on the graph crossed with democrats being more supportive and republicans more opposed.
All I can think is that when the shit hit the fan democrats were willing to spend money on anything that helped and republicans had said “fuck you, anybody, austerity for all!”.
see I would say it goes hand in hand with who is proposing to aid the religious charities
Is Habitat a religious organization?
I know lots of the work is organized by churches…
:::googles:::
Well, I’ll be damned. it is.
Wow. You know, I did volunteer work (web sites and general computer help) at the local HFH for a couple years and I never realized that.
I mean, everyone there was Christian, but they were the good kind of Christians. The be nice to people and help the poor kind of Christians, not the crazy, mean ones in the news.
As much as I approve what they do, I agree that no government money of any sort should ever go to any religious organization. Separation of church and state means just that.
Yeah, I used to work above one in Illinois. They simply quit doing adoption services because a gay couple might come in.
This seemed odd because A) It had never happened before, and seems unlikely to be a problem in the future (I can’t imagine a gay couple picking Catholic Charities), and B) It wouldn’t have bothered anyone working there. The employees consisted of a couple nominal Protestants, atheists, a non-religious Jew, and two Muslims (neither practicing). Most of them had MSW’s. They don’t turn out very many conservative Christian MSW’s.
The Roman Catholic Bishops have decided to make a stand on two issues: Abortion and Homosexuality.
Every other doctrinal issue, when it comes to operating with the state, is negotiable. Fucking over queers isn’t.
and Paedophilia.
The Illinois Catholic Charities lost its lawsuit against the state today:
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local/illinois&id=8369428
Interesting coincidence.
What? Nobody cared before, that they discriminated, but the law changes, but our rights are grandfathered in because of forty years of previous contracts?
You want to claim a contract violation because the state won’t let you be medieval on their dime?
Scott, help us out here. I’m no attorney, but someone is getting many billable hours fraudulently, it seems to me.
That’s the Alliance Defense Fund’s business model. Did you see their defense in the Prop 8 trial?
Well, if “fraud” and “incompetence” are synonymous.
This situation is actually worse. This isn’t just someone deciding not to accept a grant or partner with the state. This is someone in the government itself, entrusted with power and authority, refusing to follow the law.
Town Clerks take an oath. They are sworn in.
The issue, though, is that Catholic Charities attempted to do exactly that. The only difference, so far, is that this clerk is getting away with it while CC didn’t.
They’re just looking out for the public’s health and safety. After all, we’re often told that Gay Marriage is the start of a slippery slope, and those can be very dangerous in dress shoes.
Especially the really fabulous dress shoes!
and they are red, because that gets the angels involved, and not just Mike Scioscia
Not to mention Papa Ratzi, at least if they are Pradas.
Yup. And I’m fine with that.
But if you take a job as an agent of the state (“state” in this case meaning any government entity, at any level) then you are bound to apply, enforce, and obey the laws of that state.
It is exactly the same bullshit (which makes me all stabby and steamy) as registered pharmacists, licensed by the state, refusing morning after pills because they think its “abortion.”
Gawd, these people frost my onions.
Exactly. Standing on principle means resigning, which is your right. Saying that you’ll take the state’s money but won’t plow their driveway is the opposite of principle.
Seconded.
Selective biblical literalism is an interesting phenomenon. Jesus gets mad at the gays but doesn’t mind the usurers anymore. There’s no percentage in it.
Driving the moneychangers out of the temple was really symbolically driving the gays out of the justice of the peace’s office.
Its biblical!
A principled person would quit her job and find employment someplace else.
What’s that? No jobs available?
So you mean, like so many people who have to, say, work on Rosh Hashana despite being Jewish, you’ll have to do your job?
Sucks to be you, sweetheart.
She has a job as a farmer.
Her role here is as an elected official who has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution and laws of New York, and is refusing to do so.
While I largely agree with you, this is complicated by Title VII’s religious accommodation guarantee: Employees can request a religious accommodation from work that conflicts with their religious beliefs (29 C.F.R. 1614.605).
So, while it’s probably true that not issuing the licenses at all constitutes an undue hardship for the employer, the delegation to a deputy may be the sort of low-cost accommodation required by the Civil Rights Act.
Right, but she didn’t seem willing to grant the exemptions if the deputy wasn’t available, which doesn’t qualify.
Granting religious exemptions by statute was a mistake, and in a sane world is probably unconstitutional. You take an oath, or work in a licensed profession, or a licensed facility, do your f-ing job, or quit! If you are a Muslim or Jewish butcher, and you take a job in a local Stop&Shop, cut and sell the pork chops or quit.
But it’s not a valid accommodation if it only applies part of the time. At least, that’s my recollection of what the EEOC’s compliance manual says.
Why is it that I’m reminded of Night of the Iguana?
Maxine Faulk: What..uh..subject do you teach back in that college of
yours hunny?
Judith Fellowes: Voice…if that’s got anything to do with it.
Maxine Faulk: Well geography is my specialty. Did you know that if it
wasnt for the dikes, the plains of Texas would be engulfed by the
gulf?
T. Lawrence Shannon (pulling Maxine aside): Miss Fellowes is a highly moral person. If she ever recognized the truth about herself it would destroy her.
Delegation to a deputy might be fine, if that’s what this bigot was doing. However, what she’s doing is making one class of people make an appointment and wait, while others do not.
Moreover, as a resident of the adjacent community of Aurora, NY, pointed out in the comments to the Times article Scott linked to, the deputy is not in the office full time. The office is only open 9 hours per week and the deputy is only there if Rose Marie the Bigot is on vacation or out sick or something like that.
I’m thinking maybe I’ll get a job as a fireman and then refuse to rescue right-wing Christians when their houses burn down. Saving them violates my religious beliefs, so I’m sure they won’t have a problem with it.
Oh dont refuse, just tell them your designated substitute will be along at the appointed time tomorrow
I’m with you, but I probably can’t pass the physical anymore.
This is, of course, the other side of the Randian coin from those who don’t want to pay any taxes, but want the streets maintained and plowed, the cops and firefighters to come when they’re called, and the airplanes to land and take off on time, and not to crash.
You know stories that pop up every once in a while about how the wingers want to all move someplace and secede? I think at one point they picked South Carolina? I want them to do this so badly, both so we can get rid of them, and also so we could watch the situation play out where they’re they only ones there and they have to figure out how to run a country when nobody is willing to pay any taxes and no one is competent to actually govern the place.
Ya know, as much as it pains me, this is an area where I’ll give Willard credit. When it became clear that Romney couldn’t stop same-sex couples from marrying in MA, his administration told the clerks and JOPs: Do your job or resign.
Quick, Email the Perry and Bachmann campaigns. Will be really fun in the bozos’ next debate!
I’m sure Perry and Bachmann know about this already.
And Romney lied in that interview when he said he never used the word “perverse.” I was there.
Willard lie? *faints*
For conservatives, “civil rights” means that they get to do whatever they want without any repercussions of any sort (including mean looks or harsh blog posts).
Also “freedom of speech” means that conservatives can say or do anything they want in any venue, and any criticism of what they say or consequences for their idiocy is a violation of their First Amendment Rights.
Fixed for you.
Even moreso:
I had “private parties” in there, and then took it out. Stupid internal editor.
Note, New York is the same state where law enforcement officials, whose job is purported to to uphold the law, refuse to approve gun carry licenses to anybody who did not donate to the mayor’s re-election campaign.
Four, three, two, one waiting for the outrage.
That’s some quality trolling.
Which mayor? Where? Got a link?
Look, someone said it on the internet, so it must be true. I mean, no wingnuts make up facts out of whole cloth. Lies make Baby Jesus cry, after all.
Mumble mumble gun nut PR flack says rich people (including celebrities) get carry permits in NYC, so it must be POLITICAL CORRUPTION — a form of corruption FAR FAR DIFFERENT from the kind of ordinary corruption that wingnut assholes celebrate where rich people (including celebrities) get special treatment.
Why is it different? Because GUNS AND SHUT UP AND GUNS AGAIN, that’s why!
I heard Obama was cofiscatin’ the guns of law-abidin’ white folks, and handin’ them over to union thugs. But if you post this message on your Facebook profile, the NRA will help you! And you’ll be entered to win a Glock, with a lifetime supply of hollow-tips!
i think it was Mary Rosh that said it
And a Mary Rosh Hashanah to all!
That is so full of win!
There’s a Mayor of the state? The whole state? I didn’t know! And I’ve lived here all my life.
For what its worth, if there are law enforcement officials refusing to do their job on the basis of who a person contributed funds to politically, I’m pretty outraged about that in a general sense.
Are you seriously claiming to have never heard of Mayor McCheese? Dude has branch offices everywhere.
There is no constitutional right to be a douchebag.
No? There’s no apparent constitutional prohibition…