Religious Freedom? Do Americans Still Have It?

PrintSmith wrote: An interesting perspective SC, but it ignores the larger point. The larger point is that in this Union the right to worship in accordance with your own conscious is one that is specifically protected by the Constitution. The right for an individual to decide whether or not you wish to work for someone free of any outside coercive forces is another right that is specifically protected by the Constitution. Even though I may agree with the lady about going the extra mile, I cannot, in good conscious, support the trampling of the rights of someone else in the furtherance of my own beliefs.

The very idea that you have the right to hire whomever you wish irrespective of whether the other person wishes to be hired by you undermines the very foundations upon which this Union exists. Clearly a wedding cake, ordered well in advance of the event itself, that is custom made especially for you is an item that you are hiring someone to bake for you and you alone. That fact is so plainly obvious that it is ridiculous on its fact to argue otherwise.

To claim you have a right to my labor when I don't want to labor for you is to say you have the right to enslave me. Even if that is for a few hours instead of a lifetime, it is enslavement nonetheless. If you hired me to chip the slash on your property, paid me in advance for the work and I later decide I don't want to do the work you can't force me to do the work, you can't even go to court and have it force me to do the work. You would certainly be entitled to have the fee that you paid returned to you, but even if you purchase my labor in advance I cannot be made to perform that labor. Why I decide I don't want to work for you is immaterial, neither you nor the government can coerce me to labor against my will. That wasn't always the case in this Union of ours, but it is today.

With all of that in mind, how is it thus permissible to say that, while generally true, when we're talking about a baker and a wedding cake that the Constitution is suspended and that the baker has lost this unalienable right and must labor against their will? If I cannot be made to labor for you to chip your slash, even when I earlier agreed to do that labor and I have been paid in advance to perform that labor, why does that same concept not apply to the baker?

Valid points PS. In an ideal world in which we respected each others beliefs instead of trying to "force" ourselves on one another (and get outraged over the slightest "perceived" insult), I would love to see any person choosing to support those businesses who appreciate, respect, and wish to work for them and businesses having the freedom to choose whom to have for clients without having to comply to a law and letting those who provide the best service succeed and those who don't fail - it's a utopia in which there is no discrimination because there are no beliefs of judgement, marginalization, or belittling.

The problem is, this isn't an ideal world. Without laws passed to force businesses (or any organization for that matter) to do business with blacks we would never have made as much progress as we have for civil rights equality. Without labor laws, we'd still have kids working in factories and women dying in unsafe working conditions because business owners cared more about their bottom line than the people they employed. Personal beliefs just cannot be invoked in business practice and used as a reason for discrimination.

Let's take this scenario as a hypothetical: say a woman goes into a convenience store, anywhere here in the U.S., that is run by a Muslim. She's wearing a skirt and no sleeve button-down shirt. Should he be allowed to refuse her service because her manner of dress offends him? What if she wants to buy a 6 pack and some hamburgers? Can he say no because it offends his religion?

If this slope is allowed to tilt, it will not end well - hence the meme I posted earlier: "Rest assured, the argument you use today to restrict the rights of others will be used tomorrow to restrict your rights as well". As Jim Wright stated, it is Christians pushing it now because there is dawning recognition that gay rights and lifestyle are becoming more and more mainstream and change scares people, and Christians constitute the majority of our population (that scenario above with Muslim business owners can't happen here in the US because they don't have enough political clout or population percentage to effect change by sheer numbers). The cake bakers rights aren't being trampled, all they have to do is bake a cake - not attend the ceremony, bless the couple, or break bread with them - what they do in their personal life is their business. What they do with their business is not. Just as there was push-back against blacks, so now there is against gays. We wouldn't dare try to say that a cake baker can refuse to bake a cake for a black couple because they offend him, that's outrageous. Someday, the same will be said for a gay couple, because it's become commonplace. And unfortunately, it takes laws coercing people to get there because we humans are assholes.