Extended Writing Task Religious Grounds

question_id: 5514

Should It Be Legal To Discriminate On Religious Grounds?

Legal discrimination has for the most part been accomplished in the U.S.. This discrimination has recently been seen to involve the accompaniment of religious bodies. Recently a Florida ministry was asked to choose between their religious icons and helping the poor. When an employee of the non-profit that was chosen to negotiate a contract for the simple charity went up to do it with the U.S.D.A . he was told that his ministry must remove its religious icons to receive the food.

This type of discrimination can also be seen on the other side of the belief pool. Those who tend to have a more enlightened spiritual belief have the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) to cry for. This bill allows religious businesses and bodies to take away the rights of LGBT families and individuals. This bill protects state officials from having to state that marriage can be expanded beyond the one women one man criteria.

Is There A Type Of Religious Discrimination That Is More Tolerable Than The Other?

For there to be Religious discrimination at all means that both forms of it may not be able to be stopped. If it is legal to discriminate against someone with an enlightened view on religion, it will always be legal to discriminate against someone with an orthodox view.

It is important to note that in the two examples above one is an example of exercising the separation of church and state too harshly and one is an example of completely ignoring the rule. One is also more disconnected than the other. The ministry member who was asked to gather food for his charity from a government body was allowed to organize his religious charity and carry through with their act of kindness, he simply was not aloud to gather the food needed from a government entity.

Perhaps he is being discriminated in a less harsh way than the atheist who is now being rejected from practicing his lifestyle at all because of a bill that completely stops him? The man can still find a way to run his charity because it is possible for him to gain another source of food; however, it is hard to state that it is ethically justifiable for him to be forced to remove a few portraits because they may broach the separation of church and state.

Are These Practices Ethical At All?

The First Amendment Defense Act can obviously be argued to be ethical in some ways. Many lawyers hold fast on the belief that separation of church and state only applies to government entities. If this is the case it should not be legal for a government entity to decide what marriage is. This bill does not change the way the government views homosexual marriage. It protects individual persons right to control their speech and view on homosexual marriage.

This sounds like a great right to have. One would feel like they have the right to not allow a homosexual into their business because they do not want to endorse their lifestyle on religious grounds; however, one is forgetting that the constitution first and foremost protects an individual’s right to be treated as an equal; therefore, it may or may not be ethical to support this bill. You have to think about the rights of the two individuals or entities involved.

Should It Be Legal To Discriminate On Religious Grounds?

It may be difficult to decide whether these instances are ethical or not. One thing is to be certain, these laws have to be made with the backing of ethics and not morality. Morality is based on the laws of a certain religion while ethics takes in the opinion of the people when it is practiced in a democratic society. Ethics is based on the law of the state.