There were times when discrimination was perfectly legal. Do you believe we are more advanced now that we have laws against discrimination? If so, how is that NOT a value judgement on your part?
It is a value judgement on my part. More importantly, the same value judgement has been made by a great many other people, influencing legislators to pass laws.
Actually--people didn't object to inter-racial marriages based on morality. They objected to them-----becasue of the nature of marriage itself: marriage leads to sex which leads to children. Racist objection to inter-racial marriage--was that they didn't want the genes "polluted" in the children.
So what? If a conscience clause is added to discrimination law, the country will be inundated with people with a moral objection to mixed marriage. Some may even be genuine.
The objection to gay marriage is not based on bigotry or hatred. For that matter it isn't even religious in some quarters. The objection to gay marriage is that by definition, it is not marriage. For those who are going to attempt to suggest that we CAN redefine the institution of marriage because marriage is subjective, fine. But then we have no basis to deny an incestual marriage, marriage to an animal, marriage to a tree, polygamy, etc. If your objection is "Oh, please! That is absurd!" Sure it is--but until like---yesterday---gay "marriage" was thought equally absurd.
It doesn't matter what particular individuals think is absurd. Individuals don't make the laws. The laws are made by people who want to be reelected, so they tend to at least listen to public opinion. If public opinion is in favour of same sex marriage and against incest, guess what? Your slippery slope argument has been tried to stop advances in rights for decades. My first ever encounter with a racist was on the top deck of a bus in a small town in England. A fellow passenger saw out of the window a young black female traffic warden. "Good God!" he bellowed" They will be letting them be police officers next! " Most people on the bus agreed with him. It was that sort of town. The point? If public opinion is OK with polygamy, polygamy we will get. At the moment it isn't.
I do not know that people thought inter-racial marriages absurd. Their objection to them, again, was not based on "That is not a marriage" but, in fact, was based on the fact that it WAS a marriage, and given that--they didn't want the gene pool mixed in with blacks who racists saw as subhuman
See--this is what skeptics like you don't seem to get as you sit around with your pinkies in the air at Star Buck's congratulating yourselves on how "enlightened" and "educated" you are because you are good at questioning the assumptions that underlie the arguments people like me make: it destroys your own worldview and arguments too. (I hate Star Bucks coffee. Worst coffee ever. For some reason, however, it tends to be popular with smug liberals. Maybe becasue the chain is West Coast? Hence, my joke about pinkies in the air at Star Bucks.)
You not only undermine my worldview and arguments, you undermine yours as well. If you are going to claim that the only truth that exists is scientific truth, then your views on racism, hatred, bigotry, abortion, etc, are nothing more than matters of opinion and personal taste.
Of course they are just matters of personal taste.
Science taken in and of itself cannot tell us what it means to be a human person subject to rights.
Absolutely true. Science has nothing to say about rights. You are catching on!
Your anti-racism is no better, nor worse than racism. I know darn well that while you understand your position leads to that--you do not personally believe that. The fact is--you believe racists are evil. And that is true--but--you are the relativist, not me. You also believe we pro-lifers want to oppress women--which you believe also evil. Oppression of women is evil, but you are the relativist, not me.
You really don't understand subjective morality at all. It isn't equivalent to no morality. Each person has their own. But we live in a collective society. Anyone whose moral views are markedly at odds with the rest will be ostracised. In effect the prevailing collective moral view becomes the default. But it is subject to change. It is also likely to become enshrined in law and thus become objective.
Here is what I can say:
No Constitutional right is absolute. Rights are always held in tension with other rights. We have religious freedom, but, there are limits to religious freedom when it begins to infringe on another person's rights. How far should religious freedom extend? That is a good question. Should a baker be allowed to refuse to put gay symbols on a cake because speech like that is offensive? If yes, then there are legitimate fears that this could mean someone could refuse to decorate a cake for an inter-racial couple, something no one wants. How do resolve these tensions? As I said--that is for someone smarter than me to answer. I do not know. I can tell you that currently, the SCOTUS has not resolved that specific question. While the SCOTUS ruled in favor of the baker in 2018, the decision was extremely narrow, ruled more on technicalities than substantive points, etc. Cases are currently making their way through the courts, and perhaps the SCOTUS will rule on the more substantive question. The point being, while the outcome of the SCOTUS decision favored the baker, I am not sure he actually won anything--since the substantive legal issue wasn't resolved. I am not a lawyer so this is a lay person's understanding.
My answer to that question is simple. There are examples of conscience exemptions to all sorts of laws. Here it is illegal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. Unless you are a Sikh. Companies with a no jewellery rule must make an exception for crucifixes. Where such exemptions stop is when they affect other people.
"I have a moral objection to same sex marriage, so I am entitled to discriminate against homosexuals who wish to marry each other." is exactly the same argument as:
"I have a moral objection to witchcraft, so I am entitled to burn witches wherever I find them".
Most people find both viewpoints to be wrong. This includes legislators who make the actions, not the thinking or the moral opinions but the actions, illegal.
I am not aware of any cases like that. But then again, how would a baker know that the person they are decorating the cake for is divorced and remarried--unless they are told? The same for a christening cake for an unmarried couple? But in this scenario---the cake is for the child and celebrating the child's Baptism---not the relationship. Thus, if I were the "Christian" in question, from my standpoint, there would be no reason to refuse to bake the cake.
Ok, I will leave it there.
You must be brilliant at Twister.
Which in the end is always the problem with skeptics. The skeptic thinks they are so intelligent and enlightened, as they sit at Star Bucks with their pinkies in the air and congratulate themselves on being part of the enlightened few and look down upon the unenlightened, uneducated masses, never seeming to get that they prove too much with their skepticism.
The skepticism not only undercuts my arguments, they undercut theirs as well. Skepticism for that reason is incoherent and ultimately self-refuting.
Sadly, as you show here, you misunderstand the nature of my argument and my moral position and the relationship between personal moral opinion and collective law, and the nature of conscience versus harm to others. The problem with the absolutists is that they froth at the mouth at the slightest check, allow their emotions to run away with them and make fools of themselves by not reading what they are railing against. Another problem is a tendency to generalise instead of treating their interlocutor as an individual who actually knows what he thinks and doesn't need to be told what he thinks by someone else making unfounded generalised assumptions, which turn out to be wrong.