Originally posted by kescwi:
Crap, on phone and didn't to hit post, oh well.
He has admitted, and qualified before that, they don't have a chance.
What I'm interested in, because there are probably big time law firms that eclipse the GD board working on this very issue, what he sees.
Shit family two generations ago never would have been able to comprehend Monsanto's legal rights to seed, so this notion of a for profit business claiming religious protection may not be too far down the road.
Posted from
Rivals Mobile
This may get long, because contrary to what some on here believe, this is a VERY narrow and nuanced issue (now irrelevant due to the facts thrown out by ecouch, but let's ignore that for academic purposes). Ignore the Ninth Circuit case, which doesn't apply to private actions. It merely states that states cannot limit the rights of gays. But anyway, the potential for a loophole (which would only apply to morons who think it's a better idea to be for-profit than non-profit (Just take a salary from the non-profit! It's how many charities have wealthy employees!)) is what is interesting. In order to fix issues, you have to be able to properly identify them, and this is a potential issue. And I think everyone can agree that, at a minimum, organizing as a for-profit potentially exposes this chapel to liability. So, that's the first step.
Ok. So, onto the chapel. For a moment, ignore the chapel as a venue. I will address that later. Instead, we need to start with the ministers of the chapel. Because this is academic, at this point, let's assume these ministers are ministers of the No Gays Allowed Church (NGAC). This religion does not recognize gay marriage. No minister of this church may be forced to marry gay couples. That should be agreed.
What product does this chapel offer? The immediate answer is "marriage." But the real answer is more narrow (and is at the crux of this entire exercise). What it actually offers is NGAC marriages. This marriage doesn't only exclude gays, it excludes anyone who is not NGAC. Gays just happen to be in that group. This would be a business that offers a religious service (odd and a little frightening, especially considering the ridiculous humanizing of corporations in
Citizens United, etc.).
If this church allowed people to bring their own ministers, it would be required to accommodate every faith, including those who recognize gay marriage. They would have to allow gays to bring ministers to perform their ceremonies. This would mean that, effectively, the chapel would merely be a venue for marriages (potentially one that provides ministers, but that is irrelevant, because they would have to accommodate all faiths and groups).
If they did not allow customers to bring ministers, but provided both NGAC and Lutheran ministers, it would be required to provide a minister that would perform a gay marriage as an accommodation. In this instance, the service offered would be more broadly be defined as marriage, not merely NGAC marriage. It is far more difficult to argue that this is purely a religious service, as there are multiple denominations involved.
Going back to the first example (NGAC only, no outside ministers allowed), what accommodation would they be required to make? Their business is NGAC marriage (arguably a religious service). So, how can they offer an NGAC marriage to gays, if NGAC marriage does not allow it? If the product definition (and the only product) is so narrow as to exclude almost everyone, there is a strong argument that forcing an accommodation for gays is forcing them to offer a product that they don't offer to anyone (including heterosexuals). An analogy would be forcing a Christian bookstore to sell books about Buddhism (very very poor analogy, but this issue is so unique and so narrow that it's difficult to come up with a good one, so give it little weight).
That is the point. There is an argument that you can't actually grant any relief in this case, given the potential facts above. With the new facts provided, there is zero reason that this venue (and that is what its business is) can exclude gays, because it is not religious, merely exclusionary. That was long, and may have excluded some things I had intended to include at the beginning, but spending more time on a subject that has been rendered irrelevant isn't on my schedule for tonight.
This post was edited on 10/23 2:05 AM by beardownboiler
