So much for separation of church and state

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by dellinger63

When the 'State' forces a baker in Arizona to bake a cake or a business owner to supply birth control and abortion coverage regardless of their individual religious beliefs it's far more an intrusion of State into the Church than being subjected to a short prayer is an intrusion of Church on the State.

And because some think the baker and business owner act out of hate is the reason I asked if those objecting to prayer hate the religion or the people?

This article does a pretty good job explaining why baking a cake does not equal free speech:

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2013/1...ery-broke-law/

A baker is not being "forced" to bake a cake. If the thought that any of their delicious goods might end up in the mouths of people attending a same-sex wedding is just too much for their religious feelings, then they have every right to give up selling cakes for money and give them away instead, to only male-female pairs of customers or whomever they feel deserves them. But once they decide to enter the marketplace with their product and (they hope) make a profit off of it, they must abide by federal and state laws against discrimination in the marketplace.

As to the birth control thing, Flying Spaghetti Monster only knows what the five conservative Catholics on the Supreme Court will decide, but health care is NOT a "gift" from the employer; it's part of the employee's compensation. The employee, in my opinion, anyway, should get to decide how her compensation is spent. Because, by refusing to pay for health plans that include birth control, companies are just forcing women to pay more for it, out of their wages, which is also being paid to them by the company. The company is "paying" for it every bit as much as if it's included in a health plan. Except that by doing it this way, they are, in effect, cutting the wages of female employees, which seems discriminatory to me, but then I am not a lawyer.

When a company can be executed (or have its execution botched, should it be an Oklahoma company) I'll believe it can have religion.

Either way, not the same thing as state officials selecting which religion is permitted to administer prayer at the beginning of tax-payer funded meetings.