Fortunately, the complete transcript is available, so we can look at exactly what Mike Huckabee said and why there's something wrong with the headline:
DANA BASH: [Y]ou do write very eloquently about it being a religious conviction to oppose to -- oppose gay marriage, but then you also talk about the biblical backings of being heterosexual. So, given that, how do you kind of square that religious conviction with being open to having gay friends?Notice that Huckabee shifted the topic from being gay to having a lifestyle. So right there it's obvious that he's not going to be comparing "being gay to drinking, swearing" — as the headline has it. He'll be comparing acting out on homosexual desire to acting out on a desire to consume alcohol or acting out on the urge to express oneself with profanity. These are all sins in his book, but like anybody else who has friends and believes that a lot of things are sins, he's friends with sinners.
HUCKABEE: Well, people can be my friends who have lifestyles that are not necessarily my lifestyle.
I don't chuck people out of my circle or out of my life because they have a different point of view. I don't drink alcohol, but, gosh, a lot of my friends, maybe most of them, do. You know, I don't use profanity, but, believe me, I have got a lot of friends who do. Some people really like classical music and ballet and opera. It's not my cup of tea.Oddly, he doesn't sound too religious here. Religious belief is just a point of view, a matter of taste.
I would like to think that there's room in America for people who have different points of views without screaming, shouting, and wanting to shut their businesses down.Now, he's shifted the subject again. He's putting believers in traditional religion into the victim position, getting shouted at — bullied. And he's forefronting private businesses, which can have problems with anti-discrimination legislation that conflicts with their religious beliefs.
What worries me in this new environment we're in, it's not just that someone might disagree. They don't want to argue with me, even take a different point of view. They want to close someone's business down, put them really in an economic position of disenfranchisement. I find that very, very disturbing.Huckabee wants to get into the subject of the cake decorator that doesn't want to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple and that sort of thing — which hits a sweet spot for the kind of conservative who wants to preserve traditional values and to oppose what seems like excessive regulation. The moderator Dana Bash does not pursue that topic. She switches to same-sex marriage.
This next part is blabby and repetitious of some of what we've already read, but watch for how Huckabee tries to work his way back to the subject of government regulation burdening religious business owners:
BASH: Governor, you talked about gay marriage. So let's talk about that and how much your own party has changed even since you ran in 2008. According to Pew, in 2008, 19 percent of Republicans supported gay marriage. Now it's all the way up to 30 percent. That's a pretty big jump in not a lot of years. So, you talk about the big tent in the Republican Party. Shouldn't there be room for those who want same-sex marriage to be the law of the land?Huckabee got close to a hypothetical that I like and that I've used in teaching about government regulation that burdens religious business owners. I've encountered people who think that if you are engaged in a commercial enterprise that you should be stuck with the regulations that apply to it and that if these regulations conflict with your religion, you have a way to follow your religion: Close down your business. What I say is: What if there were a law that required all butcher shops to sell pork? Practically everyone can see that this law is unacceptably oppressive to Jews and Muslims.
HUCKABEE: Sure, there's room in the tent. I hope the party doesn't change its overall view. But, you know, the very fact that I talk about the relationships I have with friends who are gay indicate that I'm not a person who shuts everybody out around me who disagrees. To be honest with you, Dana, I find a lot more interesting conversations that I can have with people who don't agree with me. And I accept a lot of people as friends maybe whose lifestyle I don't necessarily adhere to, agree with or practice. Doesn't mean that -- that I can't have a good relationship with anyone or lead them or govern them. But, for me, as it was for President Obama in 2008, this is not just a political issue. It is a biblical issue. And, as a biblical issue, unless, you know, I get a new version of the Scriptures, it's really not my place to say, OK, I'm just going to evolve. It's like asking somebody who's Jewish to start serving bacon-wrapped shrimp in their deli. We don't want to do that. I mean, we're not going to do that. Or asking a Muslim to serve up something that is offensive to him or to have dogs in his backyard. We're so sensitive to make sure we don't offend certain religions, but then we act like Christians can't have the convictions that they have had for over 2,000 years.
Words pour out of Huckabee, and he tends to slide from one topic to another without helping us see the sharp distinctions. He'll make the solid, serious point that people with traditional beliefs feel compelled to stick to those beliefs, then he'll take shot a Obama with the sarcastic "OK, I'm just going to evolve," and then he'll tumble into a muddle that's supposed to be about business owners faced with regulations that force them to violate religious precepts.
It's a muddle because he says "It's like asking somebody who's Jewish to start serving bacon-wrapped shrimp in their deli." Who asks a Jewish deli owner to serve bacon-wrapped shrimp? It's an absurd request, and I guess it's the kind of thing that gets laughs with the right audience, but the use of the word "asking" makes it hard to see that he should be talking about laws that require business owners to do things that violate their religion.
Huckabee offers a second example that subtracts clarity: "asking a Muslim... have dogs in his backyard." Who asks anybody to have dogs in their backyard? This hypothetical drifts even further from the problem of regulating business. Not only is he saying "asking" again, but having dogs in one's backyard is not a commercial enterprise.
So Huckabee is responsible for some of the bad press he's getting at CNN. I'm not writing this long post out of a desire to help him out of his predicament. I just want an accurate argument that focuses on what is really at issue, and I'm annoyed at CNN's picking out tidbits and teasing it with a clickbait headline that makes Huckabee seem more offensive and marginal than he is.
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66 comments:
"What I say is: What if there were a law that required all butcher shops to sell pork? Practically everyone can see that this law is unacceptably oppressive to Jews and Muslims."
I've used this exact analogy. I'd add to it in the sense that its actually worse than that. IN this case Jewish delicatessens have always been kosher. The govt though is chainging the definition of kosher to also include non kosher things, and then telling Jewish delis they are subject to fines because they say they serve Kosher but aren't serving that which the govt says is kosher which isn't.
There's a principle available : freedom of association.
The exception is a monopoly business, or private violence (nice business you have here, shame if you start serving blacks), where civil rights of the excluded come up; but not before.
If you don't make the distinction and just start nibbling freedom of association based on women's feelings, you get the usual mess.
What if there were a law that required all butcher shops to sell pork?
That is completely different. We are not requiring business owners to sell something they don't want to, just serve all customers equally.
The more apt comparison would be if a halal butcher refused to sell to non-Muslims.
What's wrong with the CNN headline 'Huckabee compares being gay to drinking, swearing'?
"Being gay" is an "is" word; "drinking" and "swearing" are gerunds and are verb-derived. So apples and oranges -- bad to compare.
"I'd add to it in the sense that its actually worse than that."
I don't agree that that problem is "worse."
That is a problem of truth in advertising and consumer protection. There's whether the government should get involved in what satisfies a religion, but if stores are going to assure customers that they are kosher, then they could be misleading or defrauding customers. Do you want to say let the buyer beware or leave it to private groups? That's a harder question.
So Huckabee is responsible for some of the bad press he's getting at CNN. I'm not writing this long post out of a desire to help him out of his predicament. I just want an accurate argument that focuses on what is really at issue...
I don't know if Althouse has said this about Walker and immigration, but she should. So far he's made it clear that he's not making his position clear. I want to know what his position is on this, so I can know whether or not I can possibly vote for him. So far he's mouthed a bunch of vague crap that makes me distrust him on this issue.
As Prager (and Althouse) would say, I just want clarity.
And lets assume there is some aggrieved class that govt wants to protect or who's interest they want to promote. And for some reason they can't eat kosher or simply don't like kosher food. They want food that they want to be served at the kosher deli. Because, say the deli is unfairly treating them by not serving X.
The jewish deli could say kosher is kosher. We never had a problem before because people who bought kosher food knew it was kosher.
But now civil society in its infinite wisdom wants to make all things equal and fair and are trying to accommodate those who couldn't/wouldn't eat kosher by calling other things kosher.
and then telling kosher delis they need to serve it because they say they serve kosher. Or they will pay a fine.
"That is a problem of truth in advertising and consumer protection. There's whether the government should get involved in what satisfies a religion, but if stores are going to assure customers that they are kosher, then they could be misleading or defrauding customers. Do you want to say let the buyer beware or leave it to private groups? That's a harder question."
The problem is calling different things the same thing. Gay marriage is not traditional marriage. Having one definition, man and woman, that fit both religious marriage and civil marriage was easy since definitionally they are the same.
But adding gay marriage and not changing the name means that now there is a conflict between religious and civil marriages, brought out by how civil society legalized gay marriage. It did so at the expense of religious freedom, I would argue intentionally.
It would be the same thing if we legalized polygamy but then called it "marriage" Or held bakers to account if they didn't want to serve polygamy cakes." Ah, but you said you served wedding cakes Discrimination!"
That was back when civil weddings were not in conflict with religious beliefs. But now they are because you changed the definition and kept the name the same. (you being civil society, not you personally, obviously)
"There's whether the government should get involved in what satisfies a religion, but if stores are going to assure customers that they are kosher, then they could be misleading or defrauding customers. Do you want to say let the buyer beware or leave it to private groups? That's a harder question."
Who defines kosher? is it civil society, or those practicing the religion?
"That is completely different. We are not requiring business owners to sell something they don't want to, just serve all customers equally."
What are you referring to in your "we are not"?
You're saying X is completely different from Y, but you have no Y in your comment! Based on my post, you could mean, having to make a cake for a same-sex wedding.
Anyway, look at your language: "to sell something they don't want to." No, requiring a Jew or Muslim to sell pork isn't just making them sell something they don't "want to," it's forcing them to do something that for them is a sin (or to close their business). Violate your religion or shut down.
In the cake situation, it's not a refusal to serve gay people as customers, it's a refusal to make a particular type of product.
The question whether making a particular product is a sin to that person is harder than the easily understood sin having to do with pork, but since you care about nondiscrimination, you should not jump to protect religions whose sins you readily understand and religions whose sins seem weird or offensive to you. Ironically, you become a discriminator.
Now, it's a separate question whether govt has a compelling interest that its law serves and whether the law is needed to serve that interest. I think in the case of barring race discrimination, it's easy to approve of a law that requires equal acceptance of customers, even if some business owners have a sincere religious belief in separating the races.
I think the cake question is harder. Does a cake decorator have to put any message on a cake?
and then telling kosher delis they need to serve it because they say they serve kosher. Or they will pay a fine.
Please provide examples.
Freedom of Speech is the icing on the cake.
I am Laslo.
I think Huckabee makes an important point that he doesn't end associating with people he doesn't agree with; and that in fact he has friendly relations with them.
This is in stark contrast to the progressive mindset, which calls for isolating and distancing people with incorrect values. (WaPo: "Liberals are more likely to unfriend you over politics — online and off") Liberal tolerance is just civility bullshit.
Dana Bash was just trying to add bricks to the isolating social wall between CNN's progressive viewership and conservative Mike Huckabee. I think this kind of crap needs to be called out more, and thank you Ann for doing it.
[reposted to add a close parens]
"I don't know if Althouse has said this about Walker and immigration, but she should. So far he's made it clear that he's not making his position clear."
I don't know if you've noticed but I avoid the immigration topic. I refer to it now and then, but I don't delve into immigration. I don't want to talk about it. I get to pick my topics here on the blog, and immigration is one I do not pick.
Freder wrote:
Please provide examples.
I can't exactly provide examples for a made up hypothetical can I. In the case of gay marriage though, the examples are numerous. The baker in colorado for example.
And by the way, when the baker came under fire in CO, they had not yet even legalized gay marriage.
For the record: I don't support any of the candidates in the 2016 election season. I might think some are more nearly acceptable than others, but I don't particularly like any of them.
I have a focus on Walker because I'm in Wisconsin and have been following his story for years.
""That is completely different. We are not requiring business owners to sell something they don't want to, just serve all customers equally."
By forcing a definitional change on people and then saying they are now discriminating because they are not accommodating the definitional change.
Kosher is kosher because of religious reasons. Civil society shouldn't tell religious groups what is or isn't kosher. or force them to accommodate changes to definitions and then get them on technicalities beause they want kosher to mean something different.
"it's easy to approve of a law that requires equal acceptance of customers, even if some business owners have a sincere religious belief in separating the races."
Easy if you value governmentally enforced nondiscrimination over free exercise and free association.
In the civil rights context, there was a strong case for it. But for people who value competing goods, including some enjoying constitutional protection, it's not so easy.
Here's an article about New York law regulating the labeling of kosher foods: "“The Kosher Act merely requires food products marketed as kosher to be labeled as kosher,” U.S. Circuit Judge Christopher Droney wrote. “The Kosher Act does not entangle the state with religion because it does not require the state to enforce laws based on religious doctrine or to inquire into the religious content or religious nature of the products sold.”"
Freder Frederson said: "That is completely different. We are not requiring business owners to sell something they don't want to, just serve all customers equally."
Actually, no, you just changed the situation around. It's much more like how Ann hypothesized.
The challenges being made across the country to business owners isn't to serve all customers equally, it's that if they open a business they must provide variations of their service as customer demand dictates.
This means pharmacists should be required to sell whatever the customer wants (presuming they have a prescription!) and cake decorators have to be comfortable using any words or phrases (including expletives) on their cakes.
This is not customer prejudice - they are not refusing to serve the customer. The pharmacist is not refusing to provide an antibiotic, the cake decorator is not refusing to sell a good cake. And in both cases, the customer can easily achieve their desired end goal elsewhere.
This is using the courts to enforce that the customer, whoever they are, should always be able to get what they want from the service provider.
I guess if a group of KKK members walked into a black tailor shop, they should be able to force the tailor to create for them a bunch of white robes - and that the tailor shouldn't be able to refuse their business?
Religious bakers might also have a problem selling polygamy cakes. Because polygamy is not traditional marriage. (even though you can find example of polygamy in the bible). But there is no conflict because civil society isn't forcing polygamy down anyones throats.
If it were legalized in a state tomorrow, and then polygamists started going to bakers and asking for wedding cakes you'd probably get the same objections.
Businesses should generally be able to decide who they want to do business with--the main reason Congress created exceptions to this rule was that anti-black discrimination fifty years ago was so widespread and dominant that most blacks could not realistically get decent jobs or use hotels, stores or restaurants. Even white businessmen who would have no problem serving blacks were discouraged from doing so by a belief that they would lose more white customers (as well as become pariahs in their communities). The civil rights laws that followed are flawed, but one can understand why such legal protections became necessary--the free market wasn't going to fix this problem on its own.
I don't think anti-gay discrimination is as widespread or pernicious as anti-black discrimination was. You really don't hear much about gay people being kept out of hotels or restaurants these days, or denied jobs--the only items I seem to read about are wedding vendors refusing to provide services for gay marriages. Sure, that's probably upsetting for the gay customers, but in this day and age it seems there are enough alternative options, and if not (say the baker is the only baker in town who can do wedding cakes) we're not exactly talking about major life issues (like access to a grocery store or mechanic, say).
Let the "traditionalist" vendors turn down business--over time, more will fill the gap and gradually opinions on the subject are changing. More minds are changed with conversation and reason than with boycotts and legal action.
"Easy if you value governmentally enforced nondiscrimination over free exercise and free association."
The law is passed through majoritarian political processes, so that means that the people as represented by the legislature value nondiscrimination more than private choice. It's not whether I personally value one thing more than the other, but whether constitutional rights override democratic choice.
I can't imagine wanting a wedding cake that was made by someone who felt compelled by government to violate their religion. Who wants that kind of negativity in their wedding?
But then I can't imagine eating at a restaurant where people were serving me only because they had to and they didn't want me there.
But that's my personal preference. I guess I'd rather leave these things unregulated so I could know about the businesses I want to avoid.
And yet if there were too few places to get my needs met, I'd rather not know!
"Businesses should generally be able to decide who they want to do business with--the main reason Congress created exceptions to this rule was that anti-black discrimination fifty years ago was so widespread and dominant that most blacks could not realistically get decent jobs or use hotels, stores or restaurants. Even white businessmen who would have no problem serving blacks were discouraged from doing so by a belief that they would lose more white customers (as well as become pariahs in their communities). The civil rights laws that followed are flawed, but one can understand why such legal protections became necessary--the free market wasn't going to fix this problem on its own."
In the case of the colorado baker he said he had no problem making them a birthday cake, or selling them cookies, or what have you. He just didn't want to make a cake for a gay wedding.
Separating the idea that he refuses to sell to gays versus making something for a specific occasion/event that happens to involve gay people.
Perhaps this falls under the "might just me" category:
The cake decorating aspect of this is interesting to me in that people are being asked to write something they don't believe in their own hand.
There is something in (Western) nature that goes against handwriting something you don't believe because you are required to do so: typing, for instance, depersonalizes the act, but there is a reason we want a hand-written signature on a legal document rather than type. In this way, hand-writing, whether with ink or icing, can imply agreement at some level.
The icing is mightier than the sword.
I am Laslo.
If gays insist on making this a matter for courts, bakers really should bake them the worst cake they possibly can. Have it be completely unprofessional and inedible. You wanted a wedding cake, there's your cake. Now pay me.
I think CNN uses terms like "being gay" as an intentionally vague term. They do not want people to think of having a desire and acting on it as being separate things.
To my view, 'the good and wise' amongst us have determined that the one true way to deal with homosexuality is to shoehorn it into the template of heterosexual relationships and marriage. Other possibilities remain unexplored: How about being agnostic on how they should live? Let them be celibate, or hedonistic or monogamous?
They do not want clear thinking on the subject: They want the fact that some people are immutably homosexual to be inseparable from the expectation that gay people will each find exactly one partner and get married.
Okay, so imagine you are a baker.
A customer comes in and asks you to bake a cake that has graphic representations of a scatological nature (lots of chocolate frosting,) with some explicit depictions of dead animals with their guts hanging out.
Nothing illegal. Should the law require you to make the cake?
' can't imagine wanting a wedding cake that was made by someone who felt compelled by government to violate their religion. Who wants that kind of negativity in their wedding?
But then I can't imagine eating at a restaurant where people were serving me only because they had to and they didn't want me there.
But that's my personal preference. I guess I'd rather leave these things unregulated so I could know about the businesses I want to avoid. "
Ive worked in food service. So i know you don't screw with the people who are going to make your food. I've seen people get guff from customers then go into the back and spit in the food they were preparing for the customer. or wiping the food on the floor and then packaging it up for the customer.
So I know not to give people serving me food attitude. Why would you put your wedding cake in the hands of someone who has no interest in making it and is compelled to do so. this is your wedding cake for a once in a lifetime event.
I wouldn't trust it to someone who bore me animosity that's for sure.
This discussion is giving me a serious craving for some cake.
In fact, if I saw a cake right now I'd have to cut me slice, I don't care what it says on the cake.
Even if a dude in a wedding dress came at me with a bread knife screaming something about the legal fees he had to pay just to get that cake made...I wouldn't care, that's how bad my craving for cake and tasty frosting can be sometimes. I'd grab a slice and run for it. Zero dignity.
It may be an addiction.
Should we force bakers to make pro abortion cakes? If a religious person had an objection to making such a cake would civil society sue them on grounds that women have a right to choose and by not serving a woman who wants a pro abortion cake, they are discriminatiing against women?
"In the case of the colorado baker he said he had no problem making them a birthday cake, or selling them cookies, or what have you. He just didn't want to make a cake for a gay wedding."
That's why it's not really comparable to stores refusing to serve blacks back in the day.
Would it be possible to define a product, like a "Traditional-Marriage Wedding Cake"? Then you could open (or modify an existing shop as) a Traditional-Wedding Cake Shop offer the product.
I don't know necessarily know what the product would look like, but maybe it could have Gen 2:24 on it (or other messages not supporting homosexual unions). Of course the cake could be defaced by the customer or modified by a third party, but the contract or terms of purchase could include that modification would cause forfeit of attribution to the baker.
Are there legal constraints to prevent such?
A couple things secularists can't wrap their heads around:
1) "Hate the sin but love the sinner" is not an oxymoron. Christians oppose certain actions, not certain people.
2) Homosexual urges are not sinful, acting on them is. Sex is for procreation, so all sex not intended to (or at least open to) resulting in pregnancy is sinful. Gay sex is inherently sinful not so much because both participants are the same sex, but because it cannot result in pregnancy. It is wasting of God's gift, and therefore disrespectful of God.
THe kosher deli would just make up a new word for the old term. I always assumed at this point the Catholic Church will come up for a new name for the Sacrament of Marriage for their definition of "The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life, is by its nature ordered toward the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of offspring"
Huckabee hooey. Baptist preacher is willing to be seen in public having beers and cussing his enemies while eating dinner with his gay friends.
Lie much Huck?
"But then I can't imagine eating at a restaurant where people were serving me only because they had to and they didn't want me there."
Well, imagine you're working at your job downtown and you have limited time to grab lunch and all the nearby lunch spots refuse to serve you. In that case you might not mind grabbing a sandwich there even if they only served you because they were required to. It sucks--knowing the people handling your food don't like you is unsettling--but many of the services denied to black people back then were more central to people's lives. Wedding cakes don't really rise to that level.
I think the cake question is harder. Does a cake decorator have to put any message on a cake?
----------------
How many wedding cakes have "messages" on them? Birthday cakes spell something out, but wedding cakes? They're stacked artistically, with a fountain or something colorful and fancy, and then a couple topper on top. Traditionally.
If a gay couple goes in an orders a wedding cake, just like the straight couple got, out of the book of samples, then can the bakery refuse because now it is a "gay wedding cake"? What if they are providing their own couple figurine topping, as many couples do?
Sure, the couple could send one person in to order the cake, and never give both names in ordering. (again: most cakes don't say, "Congratulations and Happy Marraige, Tony and Tina!")
But the question really is... what makes a wedding cake gay? I agree: a bachelor party cake -- visualize yourself -- could be out of line. But how do you identify if a wedding cake is gay or not?
(Not being facetious. Is there a cake-gaydar amongst the Foodies amongst us? ok, now I am being facetious...)
jr565 said...
Should we force bakers to make pro abortion cakes?
-----------
If someone can define a "gay wedding cake" for me, then maybe someone could explain what a "pro abortion cake" does?
(What kind of bakeries do you people shop at??)
I understand the religious mind wants to join a church that has no sinners. But after we join and we notice they are all undercover sinners.
So next we pretend we are not that bad type sinners like those other sinners. That's it...we can be a church full of a better class of sinners.
But we better class of sinners find we have to reject YOU or we would not look good!
Huckabee is a ringmaster in that circus showtime.
trad
You appear to be (deliberately?) misunderstanding Huck and Christians.
I'm no expert, but I believe that Christians believe that we are all sinners, hence hate the sin, not the sinner. If you believe that all are sinners, then, by definition, you must be friends with sinners, or have no friends.
I think the idea of love your neighbor as you love yourself reflects this. You are a sinner, you love yourself. Your neighbor is a sinner, you love him, even though, like you, he is not perfect.
In any event, you can believe that acting on gay impulses is a sin, and have good friends who are sinners (gay). There is really nothing unusual about it.
I was confused by traditional guy's comment as well.
even saints are sinners!
"The law is passed through majoritarian political processes, so that means that the people as represented by the legislature value nondiscrimination more than private choice. It's not whether I personally value one thing more than the other, but whether constitutional rights override democratic choice."
My point was not to reject the outcome but only to question "easy" acceptance. Legitimate process does not by itself make a result "easy to approve" (the original claim). Construing objections to enforced nondiscrimination as mere "private choice" does not do justice to competing goods, even if they have been devalued in the democratic process.
The issue may a bit too big to handle here, but are you implying that, in general, democratic choice can and should override constitutional rights?
Huckabee is the most interesting candidate in the 2016 field, I think. The Republican debates should make great TV.
I don't like Huckabee but the gay marriage baker and photographer cases are nauseating. This is "law fare" by the extreme wing of a certain group, like the AIDS activists who used to invade St Patrick's Cathedral. It is done to "make a statement" not because they want a certain baker to bake a cake.
They piss people off but that is their point. Just like the fools who invade New York City Sunday brunches and sit staring at the white people. It accomplishes nothing but it feeds the need to appear virtuous in their own psyche.
I'm surprised there was never a case involving a baker who invoked religion in refusing to make a wedding cake for an interracial couple.
I think that there are a lot of indications that Gov Huckleberry is running for President, and I think that giving him the nomination would be horrible for the Republicans. Probably the worst major candidate. Why? He is a larger GOTV social conservative who wears his social conservatism on his sleeve.
Saw an article today that made some sense. Part of the problems that the Dems faced last election at the ballot box involved two groups - white blue collar and college educated middle class w/o graduate degrees. White blue collar used to form one of the big bases of the Dem party, but have been moving Republican strongly for awhile, esp as private sector unions continue to weather. They tend to be more religiously conservative. But the college educated middle class are the big swing demographic these days, and one of the things that makes them swing is social conservatism. The vote against it, and the Republican loses. Absent that, they tend Republican.
Huckleberry is the one Rep. candidate who is strongly associated with the religious right. At least so far. The Dems, MSM, and fellow travelers are, of course, going to try to portray whichever Rep who gets the nomination as a far right religious conservative zealot (unless they are, for example, Mormon, who can just be tarred as weird). Talking southern hokey, playing a lot of gospel music, and talking like a Southern Baptist preacher for so long makes pretending to be socially moderate close to impossible. Which probably makes him all but unelectable nationally.
tradguy: man are you missing the boat. The "religious mind" does not want to join a church that has no sinners (which does not exist this side of heaven). The "religious mind" is directed to live "in the world, but not of the world," which I interpret to mean live in the real world but follow the path exemplified by Christ (who BTW ate dinner with sinners and drew great criticism from religious authorities over it) which is frequently at odds with social pressure.
Immoral and non-Christian urges are to be overcome (in the Christian life) through the strength given by God. Failures are confessed and forgiven. Embracing immoral and non-Christian urges is a clear indication that the sinner is not a Christian, and would not be welcome as a church member, although they are certainly welcome (and invited) to come and learn with the rest of the sinners. The term "living in sin" is broader than sex.
Christians are not imposing some new constraint on homosexuals, homosexuals are imposing a new definition on Christians. God does not reject you, you reject God. There is some irony in that an all powerful God does not get His choice (2 Peter 3:9). And they may (God forgive them) win, but there are consequences.
Protected class. That's the concept people are missing in trying to come up with hypotheticals. Homosexuals have achieved the very enviable position of being a protected class through their particular means of sating sexual urges. While religion is enumerated as protected, judges have not felt the need to honor that protection. And, when the two protected classes clash, judges get to pick their favorites.
Damn, Freder went fascist early.
Damn, Tradguy... that a Garage-level swing-and-a-miss.
You have totally and completely missed the thread of Christianity, going back it its foundations.
Who cares what Huckabee says?
CNN is just shooting in the dark at this point, figuring that any republican will do until they get the likely nominee in their sights.
iowan2 said...
Protected class. That's the concept people are missing
Is this "protected class" concept somewhere in the Constitution?
@Tank...I was deliberately letting my understanding of Christians come out.
As a Calvinist I have a faith that all were once utterly sinners until Jesus made believers Righteous with Jesus's righteousness. After that I take Galatians and Colossians as true scripture that I am entitled to act on.
Why spend any time wrestling with Sin?
Followed a link and found the following observation:
"Something rotten, very rotten has happened to the Left just in my lifetime.
They used to be champions of free speech; and now they are its most vehement opponents.
They use to be able to give some sort of argument or logical reason for their position, even if an incorrect argument; now they have no argument, none of them, aside from wild and insincere accusations delivered in a mechanical fashion without any hope of being believed, phony as a three-dollar bill.
They used to be firmly on the side of the workingman; now they hate the workingman as a white racist oppressor.
They used to be in favor of free love and the sexual liberation; now they object to rocket scientists wearing shirts with cartoon women printed on them, they object to science fiction magazines showing a scantily clad warrior princess slaying a monster, and they call all sex rape, and demand strict segregation of women and men. On the same day as these protests, they appear in front of the Pope, writhing on the ground naked with crosses and crucifixes inserted into their vaginas. So the Puritan rules apply arbitrarily, without sense or order, to anyone or no one.
They used to be in favor of Blacks and other minorities; now their disgust for all the impoverished and dispossessed is plain to see. All they want is to keep the Blacks on the plantation, addicted to welfare, addicted to crack, their children aborted, their parents unwed.
They used to be in favor of the Jews, and other minorities; now they kneel to Islamic Jihad at every opportunity, vowing that those who slander the prophet of Islam will no be in the future, and ergo the Left now curse the Jews, and pray daily for the destruction of Israel, and a new Holocaust in the warhead of a Muslim nuke.
What? You say that his the not what the Left says? That they say they are creatures of purity, goodness, and sweetness, who live only to help others out of the depth of their hearts and the depth of your wallet? No, that was the old Left, back when the Left still had some scraps of sanity and intelligence."
The guy gets it.
@Tank
Protected class is found in the equal protection clause.
It says two middle aged white guys doing the same job, can legally have different pay rates. But if one of the guys is homosexual, the pay rate for him must be equal. In that as a higher pay rate for the homosexual is constitutionaly legal, a lower rate would violate the constitution because homosexuals are a protected class.
Ann Althouse said...The law is passed through majoritarian political processes, so that means that the people as represented by the legislature value nondiscrimination more than private choice. It's not whether I personally value one thing more than the other, but whether constitutional rights override democratic choice.
That's a good point, Prof., but it highlights the problem with decisions of this type being made by the Judiciary (as opposed to the Legislatve). If we hold a vote in my state or nationally and a majority wants to legalize gay marriage, so be it--if you disagree too bad, we all voted. If the vote goes the other way, though, and the Judiciary imposes the decision in a way that fails to convince a large number of people (a la Roe, etc) it's a much tougher pill to swallow, and the argument that the decision was one of majoritarian/democratic decisionmaking is more difficult to make.
[Note that this doesn't mean it's necessarily WRONG for matters to be decided by the Judiciary--it's entirely possible the issue is one of personal rights and the final say must come from the Supremes; in those cases, though, the argument must rely on defining and defending those rights and not on the will of the people, etc.]
Ann Althouse said;
The law is passed through majoritarian political processes, so that means that the people as represented by the legislature value nondiscrimination more than private choice. It's not whether I personally value one thing more than the other, but whether constitutional rights override democratic choice.
This is correct as far as it goes, but the problem is, have the people actually decided that?
I'd argue the people haven't decided that, the courts have.
When women couldn't vote, the courts said, sorry, women can't vote. They didn't say, oh yes, the constitution gives women a right to vote, we just never saw it before written in there.
So what happened next? The people decided women ought to be able to vote.
Is that what is happening with gay marriage? Not even close.
Damn, if I'd have read the comments just a bit further, I'd have seen Hoodlum beat me to it.
Pictures of various abortion cakes:
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=abortion+cake&id=C6F094F41E091FDE84F80A58EF77B8560D8212B5&FORM=IQFRBA
but principally I suppose it could go the other way too. A pro life Christian woman goes to a liberal baker and asks that he make an anti abortion cake.
Ann Althouse said;
I don't know if you've noticed but I avoid the immigration topic. I refer to it now and then, but I don't delve into immigration. I don't want to talk about it. I get to pick my topics here on the blog, and immigration is one I do not pick.
I don't know that the subject is immigration. Seems like the subject is Walker and a lack of clarity.
YMMV
Traditional Guy - you just don't know anything about Baptists or Assembly of God-ers, etc..
There is not a Baptist preacher out there who doesn't associate with "sinners", and I don't know any Baptists or traditional Christians who believe that they are in church with non-sinners either.
You can believe what you want, but I am here to explicitly say that what you are saying is blatantly and obviously untrue.
I know tons of extremely fundamentalist Christians, and they intermix with drinkers, gamblers and homosexuals just fine.
"Love the sinner, hate the sin" pretty much comes directly from the Gospel. Not only are they not mandated to separate themselves from sinners, they are religiously mandated to embrace sinners. And because there is an emphasis on sin and forgiveness in these churches, every believing member will tell you about a lot of their sins if you ask.
Now what the Baptist preacher WON'T be seen doing in public is drinking a beer himself. I know some hilarious Baptist jokes but probably they aren't welcome here. They were told to me by Baptists and are quite genuine.
They are however - and this also comes directly from the teachings of Jesus - NOT PERMITTED TO SAY THAT THE LAW DOES NOT EXIST. In any way. This is because recognizing the law and one's own trespasses against it is essential in order to receive forgiveness and salvation.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+1%3A8-9&version=ESV
So while this may seem odd to you, it's real to any one of them, which brings us back to Ann's point.
Ah, Traditional Guy, you are a Calvinist!!! Well, salvation by works is not the belief of Baptists. Not only do they not believe that you are saved by living a righteous life, they believe you can't live a righteous life, and that even saints do commit sins. That is the original Christian belief, and Baptists are very traditional Christians in that respect.
I'm surprised you don't have a tag "Did I mention I'm totally supportive of my son?"
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