{"id":71947,"date":"2018-06-07T08:00:29","date_gmt":"2018-06-07T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=71947"},"modified":"2018-06-07T06:41:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-07T10:41:42","slug":"wsj-ryan-anderson-discrimination-law-isnt-supposed-to-punish-the-wicked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=71947","title":{"rendered":"(WSJ) Ryan Anderson&#8211;Discrimination Law Isn\u2019t Supposed to \u2018Punish the Wicked\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If those playing down the importance of the\u00a0<em>Masterpiece Cakeshop\u00a0<\/em>ruling are wrong, those overstating it are also off base. \u201cFamily Guy\u201d creator Seth MacFarlane\u00a0<a class=\"icon none\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SethMacFarlane?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&amp;ref_url=https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/entry\/seth-macfarlane-not-baking-gay-wedding-cake-not-seating-black-people_us_5b156a96e4b010565aae77b6&amp;mod=article_inline\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">claimed\u00a0<\/a>that \u201cit\u2019s a shorter walk than we think, particularly today, from \u2018I won\u2019t bake them a cake because they\u2019re gay\u2019 to \u2018I won\u2019t seat him here because he\u2019s black.\u2019\u00a0\u201d This wildly mischaracterizes Mr. Phillips\u2019s position. The Masterpiece proprietor serves all customers, regardless of sexual orientation, but he can\u2019t in good conscience communicate all messages or celebrate all events. He is motivated by his Christian belief that marriage unites husband and wife, not his customer\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n<p>This disagreement about the definition of marriage occurs among people of good faith motivated by honorable theological and philosophical premises, as Justice Kennedy recognized in\u00a0<em>Obergefell v. Hodges,<\/em>\u00a0the 2015 same-sex-marriage decision. And as he wrote in\u00a0<em>Masterpiece,<\/em>\u00a0\u201creligious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views and in some instances protected forms of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is why states should be careful not to abuse antidiscrimination policy in a way that amounts to an enforcement of an orthodoxy regarding questions about sex on which reasonable people can disagree.<\/p>\n<p>Monday\u2019s ruling won\u2019t open the floodgates to invidious discrimination as critics imagine. But neither should we gainsay its wider applicability. The Supreme Court has said clearly that the government may not punish people because of their religious beliefs. Any generally applicable, neutral law must serve the common good, not punish those whom people in power deem to be \u201cwicked.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/discrimination-law-isnt-supposed-to-punish-the-wicked-1528326381\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If those playing down the importance of the\u00a0Masterpiece Cakeshop\u00a0ruling are wrong, those overstating it are also off base. \u201cFamily Guy\u201d creator Seth MacFarlane\u00a0claimed\u00a0that \u201cit\u2019s a shorter walk than we think, particularly today, from \u2018I won\u2019t bake them a cake because<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=71947\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,576,209,168,114,108,112,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-politics","category-civil-unions-partnerships","category-americau-s-a","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-law-legal-issues","category-religion-culture","category-sexuality","category-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71947"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71949,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71947\/revisions\/71949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}