Discrimination ok, if based on religion? what else then?

Creavolution, I've never been to Ireland. That's my loss, one I hope to correct before I'm too old to enjoy the visit.But in the U.S., some workplaces and public accommodations had adopted technology that, while not hermetic, did insulate nonsmokers from smokers. Some U.S. airports do this now, the simple secret being the maintenance of negative air pressure using ventilation systems. That is why the wait-staff exposure argument has been used to such effect--nonsmoking customers had been protected, but, theoretically, the wait-staff had not.Perhaps the solution you support is best for Ireland. I wish you much joy of it. I hope the precedent does not later deprive you of a freedom you care about.

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I'm not so sure I agree that the Catholic Church has the right to discriminate against a specific class of adoptive parents if their funding is entirely private. I meant to get to that--but I got distracted by the smoke and flames Law regulates adoption agencies and procedures. While religious organizations have been given (wrongly, IMO) the right to discriminate in hiring against those who don't share their religious beliefs (even when staffing publicly funded activities), it seems to me that allowing them to discriminate against a specific class of persons who seek those services is another matter. Would that not allow some white supremacy church group to accept federal funds to run a soup kitchen and then refuse to serve people of color?In the case of orphans, the government is regulating the adoption process, acting as a guardian: to allow otherwise banned discrimination is contrary to the government's obligations to protect the equal rights of all its citizens and to protect the orphaned children against indoctrination by those providing the services.The Catholic Church has a history here: of, among other things, placing Jewish orphans with Catholic families during the Holocaust, then baptizing them and refusing to return them to the Jewish families/communities afterwards. No doubt workers in Catholic adoption agencies are good, well-intentioned people, but the Church has an institutional interest in self-propagation that is not necessarily congruent with the best interests of the children or of sociey.Governmental regulation of adoption agencies should not allow discrimination in the delivery of services to orphans or adoptive parents. A religious belief that the discrimination is just is an inadequate rationale.

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Sad it is to say that here in the U.S., Land of the Free, Inc., religious institution employers are allowed to discriminate based on the religious beliefs of the prospective employee.Now, if this were a matter of hiring a priest, preacher or snake handler, that would be perfectly understandable: one wants true hypocrisy, after all, not the ersatz stuff. Rather, the license to discriminate based on religious conviction covers all positions, sacred or secular, even the bookkeeper and the housecleaner.But wait--there's more.It is not enough to believe. The religious institution employer may also discharge employees because their lifestyle is considered contradictory to their religious belief, even if the employee shares that belief in general but disagrees on the lifestyle issue in question: in other words, lesbians and gays are fair game. There has not yet been a general purge of thieves, adulterers, onanists, dishonorers of parents, etc.But wait--there's more.These religious institution employers can do all these things even in the context of spending taxpayer money for charitable purposes.This is the true bloody heart of Bush's "faith-based initiatives."I'm glad things are better there. Sorry about that tea party affair.Funny how things work out.

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For openers, could you provide a link to this material on Wiki? Material on Wikipedia, especially when involving contemporary social controversies, requires close scrutiny given the open public edits allowed there. And I'd like very much to see the context and footnoted references.For example, I find this sentence particularly curious:

quote:

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Some media sources have noted that when placed in perspective, the documented cases in the Catholic Church are much lower than incidents of child sexual abuse in the public school system.

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Here the writer contrasts "documented cases in the Catholic Church" vs. "incidents of child sexual abuse in the public school system."On the one hand, the writer contemplates only "documented cases" in the Catholic Church, and, on the other, refers to "child sexual abuse in the public school system" as though that number were a measure as objective as a ruled line. While this does suggest the writer believes the school systems do a better job of detecting the abuse, since their statistics can be stated without qualifiers, the mixed measures are suspect.Further, I'd like to know how many of the public school cases involve the seduction of teenage victims vs. the more classic pedophilic cases of assaults on preadolescents. I condemn both--but the seduction of a 17-year-old does differ from the forcible sodomizing of a 7-year-old in a number of ways.It seems to me that sexual abuse in the public schools is much more likely to be reported: the parents do not have a subordinate religious relationship with the teachers, and most states work hard both to deter and detect such abuse. No doubt some principals, superintendents, and school boards seek to hush up scandal, but I don't see how one could argue their incentives to do so are anywhere as strong as those in the Church, where an accuser must get past the abuser's role as a representative of God, and those to whom the abuse is reported are--as recent history has shown--highly concerned with the interests of the Church they also represent.So I am very skeptical that Church-related cases of abuse are reported as frequently as those in the public schools. Your excerpt seems to assume this is the case, and I'd like to know what evidence supports the assumption. A link to your excerpt would be a good start.

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You're agreeing with me, right?

With all due respect all round, I don't think this thread has gone off-topic. There are many reasons why some believers think their religion should be exempt from standing laws and regulations, among them the historic track record of their religion.One can refute these arguments in several ways, among them pointing out that the religion under discussion does, in fact, have a record no better--or perhaps even worse--than comparable secular organizations.One can also examine instances (such as smoking in public areas) where individuals are restrained from otherwise legal activities based on the perceived public interest.When someone argues that the special nature of an organization should exempt it from laws that apply to everyone else, laws based on a strong public interest in regulating particular activities, not only the logic but the organization itself deserves close scrutiny.