” …The judgement against homosexuality is part of a religious view, and that’s still able to be done even if Prop 8 had not passed….”

Just consider — if a policeman wouldn’t stop a criminal from robbing you because he wasn’t of your faith, or the farmer stopped growing food because of the fact that someone outside his group would eat it, or the teacher forbid to educate a child because of a different viewpoint, then we’d be forced to live in isolated self-sufficient pockets of total adherence to the same views, or society would collapse.

When a person has agreed to do a job, they do that job, regardless of how different they are from the person coming to them. Even the clergy can see that – I’m not Mormon, but I believe that if I came to a Mormon clergy person that they would provide spiritual counsel for me. If I went to a Mormon run restaurant, I’m sure they would feed me. Health care, especially due to its urgency, is going to have at least the same standard.

But the pavillion is publicly used — and once that door is open, then they can’t pick and choose who gets to use it based on religious issues. This would be like restricting the sidewalk in front of the church against non-members. That’s not permissible, because it’s a “public” space. The same argument could have been successfully raised if another religious group (say, Baptists) wanted to use the space.

There’s also a difference between repressing someone’s religious views, and preventing them from restricting a public space for the enforcement of those views. So if the schools were forced to make people engage in homosexual unions, then that would be a repression of a group’s religious views.

But that’s not the same as stating that a school must permit discussion about homosexuals: discussion is not coercion. The infringement of a religious view (IMO) isn’t towards the child that may hear a discussion about homosexuals, but the teacher, who might have to discuss this matter even if it goes against their religion.

But even here, there isn’t a lot of legal backup: there’s still a difference between stating the facts of a situation and placing an affirmation/judgement against them. Like, there are religions that believe that eating pork is sinful, but they’re not exempt from explaining that pig farming is a source of the American diet. The first is a value statement, the second is a factual one. If there are kids who also feel that eating pork is sinful, the expectation that they know it’s a dietary source doesn’t mean they’re being repressed. However, if either the kid or the teacher were forced to say that eating pork is good, then their rights are being oppressed.

You’re right — a group does have a right to religious freedom, but Prop 8 didn’t enforce that: there are plenty of religious groups that forbid marriage against even a man and a woman of different faiths, and that wouldn’t have been altered had Prop 8 failed.

There are definitely cases where parents want to restrict information from their children (for whatever reason.) But that’s not religious expression — it’s not the expression of anything. The judgement against homosexuality is part of a religious view, and that’s still able to be done even if Prop 8 had passed.

Basically, freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from dissenting viewpoints. It does mean that the government can’t force a group to practice, or believe or act in a certain way. But by the same token, they (shouldn’t) be enabling a group to force another group to practice, believe or act in a certain way (or to not act in a certain way.)

The ability to marry, legally, confers the right of two adults to exercise their right to 1) enter into a contract and 2) negotiate the distribution/dispensation of their property.

The religious construct of marriage may (and does) differ — there are religious groups that feel that the man is the wage earner, the keeper of property (even down to the property of the wife) or vice versa. Or that people of different faiths, non-active members of a church (or removed member) can’t get a religiously recognized marriage. Or that women who aren’t virgins can’t get married — a religious group can construct any number of requirements of membership, and there are few legal barriers against it.

But that’s not the legal viewpoint, and that’s why a legal marriage may be unrecognized by a religious group, or a religious marriage be unrecognized by the law.

Although it’s over now, voting against Prop 8 wouldn’t force any religious group to honor any marriage between anyone it didn’t want to recognize. It also wouldn’t have forced any religious group to say that homosexuality is good. Although, it may be that they couldn’t say that it’s bad. I’d label that a requirement of neutrality, in the same way teachers aren’t supposed to tell the kids if they’re Democrats or Republicans (which is not a restriction of a person’s political views.)

I think you think it sucks, because…well, it does suck. But I think your logic behind why you had to vote for it anyway wasn’t quite hitting the real points of the issue.

The question is: how does this group infringe against my rights — but the first question should be, what exactly are my rights, if you know what I mean.

Edit: Yay! We’re friends again!

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_10797630

That though, gives me great hope that many fine, wonderful people will do the right thing next tuesday.