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Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

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Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#241

Post by SilverRed »

_8j50 wrote: post #222
SilverRed wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP point is still clear. If the law says "You must do x unless you have a religious exemption" then why should anyone at all be expected to do x if clearly it isn't important enough to enforce on all people. If your religion includes killing people, it is still illegal regardless of your religion. So it seems reasonable that any law which can be overridden by a religious exemption should be dropped for all people…

There are established laws that take all it that into account. But new law should be crafted with people's legitimate beliefs in mind. You mention murder but how about something more controversial like a Christian baker being forced to make cakes for gay weddings? How is that not analogous to compelled speech and regulated religion? It is one thing for the government to restrict gay weddings, it is another to enforce…

>something more controversial like a Christian baker being forced to make cakes for gay weddings?

I don't think this changes anything really. If religious people can use their religion as a valid reason for discrimination, why shouldn't everyone be able to discriminate?

To me, I think everyone should have exactly the same legal rights. Either everyone has to bake the cake or no one does.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#242

Post by throwawaylinux »

dotancohen wrote: post #211
throwawaylinux wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s a big difference between an Orthodox Jew being required to work on Saturday, and someone who just likes college football. You can't just leave me hanging there! What's the big difference? What if that Saturday watching football is the person's passion and the only time of the week they feel happy? Who is a 3rd-party to step in and be the decider of what other peoples' wants and needs and feelings and belief…

> > Accommodations that come from deepseated beliefs need to be treated with utmost respect. > I don't think they need to at all. Do you have a deepseated belief that people should not murder? What about people who don't have such a belief?

These flimsy rhetorical questions are not the cunning gotchas you think they are. What about people who have a deepseated belief that they should murder?

Clearly "deepseated belief" is not a good basis to hand out rights to people, and a belief does not have any "need" to be given any particular respect based on how deep seated someone's faith in it might be.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#243

Post by junon »

sneak wrote: post #239
junon wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your home address? What's your social security number? Send me some nudes, everyone has genitalia right? Leave your door unlocked when you go to bed tonight, you have nothing to hide right? This is such a bad and harmful take.

My home address and SSN are secret. Imagery of my face and fingers is not. There's a big difference between what you and I are talking about.

It's not about having them, it's about how they're using them.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#244

Post by jobigoud »

programmarchy wrote: post #130
TOMDM wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the person you're replying to is arguing all exemptions of conscience should be ubiquitous. That we shouldn't have to rely on religion to fight that proxy battle for us.

For military service the term conscientious objector comes to mind which Wikipedia defines as “ [refusal] on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion” which seems appropriate to me.

"Refusal on the ground of freedom of thought" is enough to convey exactly the same without loss of meaning. No need to mention religion, no need for religion-specific exemptions.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#245

Post by jobigoud »

iammisc wrote: post #141
ryandrake wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where do you draw the line? What if I have a deeply held religious belief that human sacrifice is required by god? Can I then go around killing people? There’s got to be some kind of limit.

There is endless jurisprudence on this topic. Basically the government draws the line at where your beliefs affect others and there are different levels of urgency the government must show to trample on religious rights depending on the risk to the counterparty.

> Basically the government draws the line at where your beliefs affect others

Circumcision shows that this is not even the case.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#246

Post by bigwavedave »

slapfrog wrote: post #17
keithnz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a religion, with many denominations. Not quite sure what the criteria is for when something varies such that it wouldn't be considered Christian.

> It is a religion, with many denominations. The whole of it defies neat categorization. People who self-describe as Christians can't even universally agree which texts are authentic and holy and which are heretical frauds. The only thing they all universally share is the inclination to call themselves Christians (more than a few are eager to contest whether other self-described Christians are in fact Christians.) On…

> People who self-describe as Christians can't even universally agree which texts are authentic and holy and which are heretical frauds. The only thing they all universally share is the inclination to call themselves Christians.

Interesting perspective- when I was much younger, I was taught that a Christian is anybody who believes that Christ is the Savior and that he atoned for the sins of humanity. Is there an "official" definition?

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#247

Post by [deleted] »

jobigoud wrote: post #245
iammisc wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is endless jurisprudence on this topic. Basically the government draws the line at where your beliefs affect others and there are different levels of urgency the government must show to trample on religious rights depending on the risk to the counterparty.

> Basically the government draws the line at where your beliefs affect others Circumcision shows that this is not even the case.

[deleted]

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#248

Post by pwgentleman »

SilverRed wrote: post #241
_8j50 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are established laws that take all it that into account. But new law should be crafted with people's legitimate beliefs in mind. You mention murder but how about something more controversial like a Christian baker being forced to make cakes for gay weddings? How is that not analogous to compelled speech and regulated religion? It is one thing for the government to restrict gay weddings, it is another to enforce…

>something more controversial like a Christian baker being forced to make cakes for gay weddings? I don't think this changes anything really. If religious people can use their religion as a valid reason for discrimination, why shouldn't everyone be able to discriminate? To me, I think everyone should have exactly the same legal rights. Either everyone has to bake the cake or no one does.

The problem is the definition of "discrimination". Everyone _is_ able to discriminate all the time. I'm free to discriminate between cookie flavors I buy, or discriminate between genders of people I date. What the law forbids is not _serving_ people because of the color of their skin or their sexual preferences.

And that is also not the case of Jack Phillips. He didn't refuse to serve gay people, and IIRC the accusers on the case were regular clients.

He refused to _design_ a custom cake for a gay wedding, which is akin to a Jewish t-shirt designer refusing to design a logo involving a Swastika, or a black transgender baker refusing to bake a cake that says "white lives matter" or "sex is immutable".

This seems much more related to compelled speech than sexual discrimination.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#249

Post by dang »

blunte wrote: post #103
motohagiography wrote: post #24

Good. Religious exemptions are pragmatic canaries for state overreach. People are not livestock, even if states and employers like to treat them that way. The idea of a religious exemption isn't just some pastafarian variation, it represents a very real line between the individual and group and whether one is a citizen or mere property. This is the marking issue with biometrics. Are you a being with agency, or are yo…

Religion is as much bullshit as most political parties are. It's a few people trying to control and profit off masses. I we humans were half as rational and scientific as we believe ourselves, we would put energy into proving or disproving religious beliefs. But that is taboo, or rather it is off limits since so much of formerly ill gotten monies are now available to fight against such investigations.

Please don't take HN threads into religious flamewar. It's not what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#250

Post by _8j50 »

adinisom wrote: post #219
SilverRed wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OP point is still clear. If the law says "You must do x unless you have a religious exemption" then why should anyone at all be expected to do x if clearly it isn't important enough to enforce on all people. If your religion includes killing people, it is still illegal regardless of your religion. So it seems reasonable that any law which can be overridden by a religious exemption should be dropped for all people…

As an atheist that's one thing I like about religion: preserving religious freedoms helps preserve the freedom of all people. That said it's not a pure good. Religions can push for oppressive laws that match their beliefs.

As an atheist I would expect you to understand "good" in your opinion might be "bad" in others'. For example, I think some forms of oppression are good. Like by all means opress jihadism,death cults and hardline communism.

Also, secular laws are seen as opressive to religious people.being forced to make a secular sign feels as opressive as being forced to pray at school. Both are a majority population implementing shared belief

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