Think it through: can you compel a church or a religious individual to act against their professed beliefs?
Can you compel a racist individual to act against their beliefs? Yes you can, where those beliefs contravene agreed minimum standards of conduct, i.e. the law. Otherwise, we may not agree with them, but they are free to be racist.
I support freedom of religion, but a religion is no more than a set of beliefs. These beliefs are not necessarily any more sincere, important, or fervently held than any other kinds of belief. Everyone should be able to think what they want, and do what they want with as few exceptions as possible, but the law is supposed to rule out what cannot be reasonably accepted, and it should in this case.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2007-01-26 09:11 am (UTC)Can you compel a racist individual to act against their beliefs? Yes you can, where those beliefs contravene agreed minimum standards of conduct, i.e. the law. Otherwise, we may not agree with them, but they are free to be racist.
I support freedom of religion, but a religion is no more than a set of beliefs. These beliefs are not necessarily any more sincere, important, or fervently held than any other kinds of belief. Everyone should be able to think what they want, and do what they want with as few exceptions as possible, but the law is supposed to rule out what cannot be reasonably accepted, and it should in this case.