An interesting topic with various branches, though the relation of RELIGIOUS FREEDOM to ANTI-DISCRIMINATION LAW is currently the most prominent–seemingly right at the border where exercise of religious freedom may potentially break laws meant to protect the equal rights of others.
It shows how same-gender marriage rights could reach beyond the line where those who seek rights that supposedly take nothing away from rights held by others start to take rights from others, after all. Those who say people who don’t share their orientation are free to mind their own business, & mind their own marriages, lose that high ground if they take away the freedom others have to not participate. Presumably that’s the situation in the New Mexico case of a professional photographer who declined to shoot a same-gender wedding on religious grounds.
I’d more or less assumed that both vendor & client would have equal freedom in choosing whether or not to enter a contractual relationship on a particular assignment, & if so, on what terms, apart from gender &/or religious issues. The idea of forcing a creative professional to take a job that violates his or her own religious convictions, or even aesthetic taste for that matter, seems quite self-contradictory, where taste is in part what’s hired. Why would you want to hire someone for an event whose spirit they did not appreciate? I’d have though a discriminating prospective client would appreciate the respect shown in declining the job on honest grounds, where many false reasons might have been marshaled.
In this case, hiring wedding services seems a small step from hiring a member of the clergy to officiate at the ceremony. Who would dream of demanding a wedding service from a clergy person of another “faith” or “way”? The performance of a wedding sacrament, as well as its details, would not ordinarily be considered a suitable matter for the courts. Who would deny the individual religious agent &/or church the right to determine its own criteria? The county clerk is another matter entirely, of course, bound to set personal religious views aside in matters like licenses.
One church or religious agent approached may decline to provide the service requested, whereas another might be quite pleased. The state, meanwhile, regulates not the religious or sacramental aspect, but the secular only, so may not discriminate on religious, aesthetic, or other personal grounds, including against those who prefer a non-religious ceremony.
This much seems clear & quite simple, yet the issue became a little more complicated in the case of the Arizona legislation the governor there just vetoed, giving as her reason the broadness of wording & potential for unintended consequences, including the loss of considerable business. These were real & relevant issues. Never mind the sound-bite shorthand on which issues are often publicly sold; how a bill is actually worded makes a real difference, often the main difference.
Whether justified or not, such a bill raises the specter of the kind of discrimination cartoonists portray by establishments with signs like “We Serve No Blacks, Jews, or New Yorkers–on Religious Grounds.” It is no easy matter to define where personal & religious freedoms end, but nevertheless it may be both possible & necessary to do so. Professionals play a role in doing so. Where it would criminally unethical to deny medical services on discriminatory grounds, the same can’t be said for most professions, some of which assume more or less total artistic freedom in the choices made.
Surely there’s a significant difference between contracting professional wedding services (whether with clergy person or photographer) and a business serving members of the general public in a public location (using the community’s street & sidewalk, for example). Not that the latter can’t have some standards of dress & behavior, or have to serve all menus for all people. Stillone must respect that community as a whole, not discriminate against its parts.
Some freedom implicitly exists in the kind of products & services offered. Restriction of access may also take many legitimate forms (age appropriateness, dress code, behavioral norms, cost levels, for example) without being considered discriminatory.
The word discrimination contains two quite distinct meanings, meanwhile. The most common these days is that relating to anti- groups (e.g., anti members of particular races, religions, ethnicities, sexual orientations, lifestyles, or cultures). There is another, quite positive use, however, in the sense of “a fine discrimination,” where recognized distinctions are relevant & appropriate. Even a Buddha may hold up a hand the palm of which shows an open eye: see what is.
All meanings, according to one way of looking, represent differences. (A difference that doesn’t make a difference is meaningless.) Meaning is the difference made. Obviously, a discriminating palate may find more meaning in a meal, talk or work of art than a dull one. Meaning requires a context. Something perfectly appropriate in one context is grossly inappropriate in another–name your bodily function or behavior in relation to one or more others for as many examples as you need.
In the case of 99.99% of the proprietors doing business with the public, neither the gender of customers nor their relational preferences has anything to do with the products & services offered. Discrimination on such a basis would therefore be inappropriate, & legitimately a subject of anti-discrimination law. That principle might even apply to pastries, wines, & other products used at a wedding reception. It would presumably NOT apply to those supplying services involving direct participation in a religious sacrament (including its civil equivalent), where such participation runs counter to that person’s religious beliefs.
One kind of respect deserves another.