Religious Freedom or Discrimination?

[snake in the grass]

Run time: 04:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1zrJ9l4e5U   Posted on YouTube: November 11, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: November 11, 2009 By DU Member: snake in the grass Views on DU: 687

 
Is it a matter of religious freedom for an employer to impose his/her religious views on the employees?

[baldguy]

1. "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's"

If they want to employ people from the whole community without regard to their religious associations, they have to follow the law.

[eagertolearn]

2. Let them close the college!

[kag]

3. Great story!

Glad I'm not Catholic anymore, though I guess you never really escape it. I guess I take some comfort in the thought that unless I gave the church millions of dollars, they'd excommunicate me anyway.

Grrrr.

[Swede Atlanta]

4. Idle threats....

The administration is not going to close the school over this. This is religious grandstanding.

If they were to close the school I would have to ask this question...

Is it more important to prevent impregnation of an egg that will contribute to the continued overpopulation of the planet, depletion of our natural resources and degredation of the earth created and entrusted to man by God than to provide a nurturing advanced education to young men and women?

I often drive past a small assemblage of Catholics on a busy Atlanta street. There aren't usually more than 6-8 of them but there they are every Saturday protesting the existence of a family planning clinic that provides limited abortion services. One sunny Saturday I packed by Bible and headed to where they congregate. I pulled over to a library parking lot adjacent to their assembly area and approached them.

I told them that while I was personally opposed to abortion in that should I find myself in a situation where I had impregnated a woman (hard to do as a gay man but theory here) I would counsel against abortion and encourage carrying the baby to term and finding a suitable home for the baby. That as a personal matter I had moral reasons for not wanting to be party to what I consider the taking of an innocent life.

But I made clear that I didn't feel it was my place to impose those views on men and women in our pluralistic society and that these decisions should ultimately be left to the woman.

They charged back that the problem with that is the unborn have no one to defend them, i.e. they are completely defenseless. I acknowledged that fact but then asked them about their efforts to combat other such evils where people are defenseless.

I asked them how many Saturdays they had been out in protest of the Iraq (and Afghanistan) wars that have led to the deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocent victims. They can't defend themselves against American bombs and mortars. So why is there so much concern about the unborn but not about the born.

I asked them how much effort they had invested in fighting for pre-natal care and health care coverage for all Americans. Pre-natal care is often a benchmark on the mortality and health of a newborn. What about the millions of uninsured Americans.

I asked them how much effort they had invested in fighting global poverty, oppression in countries such as Sudan, disease such as AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, etc.

I asked them how much effort they had spent fighting capital punishment. I asked them how much they had spent invested in caring for and fostering children given up for adoption, etc.

They stared at me like deer in the headlights. So my suspicions were confirmed. They are Johnny one-noters. They worry about keeping the bun in the oven but don't even care much about pre-natal care let alone anything once they are born.