Even with the low expectations that I have for Thomas, his opinion seems shockingly bad - like, he has to be able to imagine what sort of shenanigans that would have opened the door for if his opinion had been the majority
It seems like the company doesn’t give a damn what religion you are. They just want you to look a certain way.
It’s just a joke, at this point. A generational embarrassment for the court.
Oh, no shit. Why would a black man care about people being discriminated by because of their color???
I’ll just leave this here…
Funny how your choices become beyond scrutiny the moment you label them as religious.
I don’t get to choose my race, my gender, my sexual orientation, etc. I do get to choose my creed. Yet for some reason the US constitution protects it as if it weren’t a choice.
At some point it becomes hard to avoid the conclusion that Thomas is from Bizarro World, where his job was to render the worst possible opinion on every case that passed his desk. But that would put him in line with many other of our political leaders. When do we get honest and just assemble them into a Troll Party?
That story is getting long in the tooth. Nothing was dont about it and nothing will be done about it. Just add it to the 21st century’s tab.
Happily, in this country, they can’t always get what they want.
This cartoon wrongly conflates your opinion of a stupid religion with the even handed treatment the government, an employer and businesses are required to give. You are not required to be tolerant of anyone or anything, unless you’re running a business. Keep on bigoting all you want.
Edit: pronouns
Because for most religions (except my own), they are all irrational and only someone that was brought up to believe that everything in science makes sense…with the exceptions of things that go against my own personal beliefs which I can explain away. And that’s how people think of them.
You are something like 90%+ likely to remain the same religion as your parents – even if you may not entirely believe in it, you still adhere to the culture based around it. When you apply statistics to this, you have less than a 10% chance of being able to apply choice. At this rate, even if everyone that would choose to go against their parents did so and completely disbelieved in religion altogether, it would still be a few generations before the nonbelievers would be in the majority.
By that logic we shouldn’t begrudge people their prejudices either. After all the capacity to exercise choice in overcoming those opinions are similarly difficult.
Most discriminatory beliefs are passed on through the same social-family mechanisms that religious views are passed on by. The chances of a person being able to willfully overcome the hatred taught to them at a young age is about the same.
Hypothetical:
Let’s say I own a retail store that sells clothing and other fashion related merchandise. The success of the brand depends on people’s perception of the products we sell (and the people selling those products).
I have 2 employees who insist on wearing special garments while at work.
The first employee insists on wearing a bloody clown suit, for deeply held, but ultimately secular reasons.
The second employee insists on wearing the same bloody clown suit, for deeply held religious reasons.
It would be entirely even-handed for me to tell the first employee that it is unreasonable for them to wear a bloody clown outfit to work.
Yet were I to tell the second employee not to wear the same outfit to work, all of a sudden I would be a bigot?
Yes, you would. And your reality-based example is the reason why no one is starting any more businesses.
No one said we shouldn’t begrudge them ever. However, there is a belief that if a person’s religious beliefs don’t specifically affect other people, or your job, we shouldn’t tell them not to believe in it. I mean, my first job as a teen had folks from a religious sect that required hair to be a certain length for women, and always in skirts or a dress…oh yeah, and they didn’t believe black people had a soul and were not really human. So…the folks working there were allowed to wear skirts because even though it wasn’t uniform, it didn’t hurt anything. However, they weren’t allowed to not wait on black people or to make disparaging remarks.
You can do what you want, so long as it isn’t affecting the core business. In the post, she was there to sell clothing. She wore the clothing. She had a scarf and it didn’t cover her clothing, just her head. She wasn’t there to sell the look of her hair. Therefore, wanting her to show off her head was not necessary to the clothing.
So you think my argument is invalid because:
- A bloody clown outfit is an extreme example.
- Businesses operate successfully under the burden of the laws as they are now.
Neither of these really address the point I’m trying to make. Which is in case you missed it:
In the U.S. you get a free pass for your views no matter how banal or hateful, so long as those views are religious. It protects some harmless things like conspicuous headwear, but it also protects some pretty harmful things such as Mississippi’s ‘Religious Freedom’ legislation, which allows for legalized discrimination against gays and lesbians.
You cannot protect people from discrimination for things they have no choice in (e.g. race, gender, sexual-orientation) if in the same breathe you wish to protect the right to hold and exercise discriminatory beliefs (e.g. Religiously informed homophobia).
I did miss your point, since the rest of us are talking about a Muslim headscarf, and you’re apparently on about the Westboro Baptist Church.
2 faces of the same coin. Don’t let the benign specifics of this instance, prevent you from grasping the logical extension of this policy.
Religious views can be banal (like a headscarf), or they can be horrendous (like the Westboro Baptist Church).
You protect them both with legislation which blithely conflates religious choice with things like race, sex, and orientation.
