Anti-Discrimination vs. Religious Belief

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The example cited in the OP is very specific. The woman desired artificial insemination which is elective and certainly not a treatment for a an illness, life threatening or not. In my experience with doctors and hospitals I have never been asked what my sexual orientation is. I have never gone to a doctor to request artificial insemination but assume there would be a discussion as to why. For one thing the doctor would need to know if there were in medical reasons for or against it. I assume the doctor would want to know the marital status because, and again I assume, there could be legal problems if the spouse didn't concur.

I have a serious problem with all these "protective laws". As we have moved from a pastoral life to an urbanized life things have become much more complicated. People live close together and it is easy to infringe upon someone else. So we create laws to protect us. Some are unfortunately necessary but the more protective laws we have the more rights we lose.

 

Actually, the Hypocratic Oath that they took requires them to provide medical services tio anyone. The only procedure they could, and I sincerely hope they would, be granted a pass on would be abortion.

Private business, They can't force it, but most of the time, does it really matter what the customer is as long as their money is the right colour? Hell, I'm sure you could even overlook some tarnish on the coins...

LMAO.

I'll go one step further: With a dangerous product, some responsibility is to be taken in administering it. If a Pharmacist saw me coming in and asking for a non-perscription Narcotic painkiller more often than I would normally be, they should ask questions, and if they don't buy my excuses, or think I'm using the product improperly, they should refuse service. At the very least, they should discuss the product with me to see that I'm using it right. Medications, firearms, alcohol, tobacco, pornography, or other entertainment not meant for children could all fall under this juristiction. But that's another topic, likely less contentious...

You are free to set a dress code or other conduct requirement on your customers. If you disapprove of a customer's behaviour in your store, you are within your rights to require them to leave.

 

What about the "protective laws" that give special status to religion? Have a problem with those as well?

 

Thats not what i was inferring drew, the way the law is written you can refuse anybody for any reason(or no reason even). If you kmow 100% certain that they haven't had a drink in YEARS, you can refuse them service. It just seemed funny to me at the time that this is the only legal product that i know of that the government tells you to discriminate over.


As far as the original scenario, i have to agree with nakia. They didn't insult her, make fun of her, or stop her from getting the treatment. Heck they even recommended where to go to get the treatment, so what was the harm?
I feel strongly that this will be overturned when it gets to the US Supreme Court.

 

I agree. There are way too many laws that protect big business, big healthcare, big churches and big labor. How about some "protective laws" for the individual?

 

I generally think that, if the service is necessary (heating, medical needs, etc.) or government provided (if the patient pays for the service with government aid, he/she decides where it goes and this doesn't count), then it has to be available to everyone. Short of that, I think any business should be able to refuse service to anyone they want. If that means blacks as well, I'm sorry to the blacks and I will personally act to change the social situation that causes them to be discriminated against, but I don't feel the law is the way to do it.

On a side note, I personally think all public utilities (water, gas, electricity, etc.) should be handled by the government, simply because these systems must necessarily be a monopoly. If the gov't is going to oversee the monopoly already (they do in the US), then why shouldn't the gov't just run it and pay for it with taxes?

 

Because NOG, the gov't has been shown numerous times to not be able to run things as efficiently as private business. Just look at the postal service.
Actually the competition between the electric company & the gas company help moderate the price of each. EX. hot water tank-gas or electric, home heat- gas or electric or even wood.
I used to live in a city that was the electrical provider. Now they didn't have power plants, just bought it from Duke power at the rate charged between power companies. 3 blocks away was duke power territory, a house of roughly the same sq footage & family size had power bills about 35% less than those on city power. When we had the ice storm back in dec '02, we lost power & were without it for 20 days. Duke power had it back up for the neighbors done the road in 4-8 days.
cities have a limited set # of people who can work on electrical(water, gas, etc) systems. Once those are working at full speed thats it. However large companies, like duke power, were able to send in Extra workers from parts of the country that didn't have issues to increase the size of the work crews by in some cases 1000%.

 

Martaug, I hope you are being sarcastic, because naming the most efficient postal service in the world; a service that greatly undercuts any and all private sector competition while not only providing equally dependable service and (with the exception of the re-tooling due to the 911 and the Anthrax scares) running without receiving even a penny from the federal government as an example of government incompetence and inefficiency, you are either one of the funniest guys I've ever met or are comically misinformed.

 

Drew, please tell me you are being sarcastic. The postal service is a great example of government incompetence and inefficiency.

http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.17488/pub_detail.asp this says it much better than if i condensed it.

"please note the U.S. Postal Service need not recoup losses by subsequently raising prices in the competitive market. In addition to using rents from its monopoly, however, the USPS can simply earn long-term losses and remain in business. Unlike a private utility subject to rate-of-return or price-cap regulation, for example, it has substantial ability to carry losses forward into future periods of the ratemaking process. The USPS lost $200 million in 2000, $1.7 billion in 2001, and $676 million in 2002, but continues to operate. Such losses would likely have driven a private firm into bankruptcy."

and from forbes :http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/08/20/ap5342532.html
Faced with losses that could near $1.5 billion this year, the U.S. Postal Service is offering early retirement - without incentives or bonuses - to thousands of clerks, mail handlers and supervisors.


Do you know any businesses other than govt run ones that survive year-in & year-out while LOSSING money?
So drew, you either live in a fantasy world were the US post office actually makes money or you are the funniest guy i know

 

Never mind. It isn't worth it.

 

Simple question drew, what other business do you know that can loss (on average) 3/4 of a BILLION dollars a year for the last 8 years & stay in operation?

 

A business that doesn't want to raise its stamp prices, had to modernize all of its equipment in order to deal with the increased security requirements put in place due to 911 and the Anthrax scare, and not interested in making a profit. That said, give UPS or Fed-Ex a call and ask them what it'll cost to mail a letter. It'll cost you a hell of a lot more that 37 cents.

 

Uh, drew, you really don't know much about the postal service do you? Thats because BY LAW "Competition in "extremely urgent letters" is allowed under certain conditions:The private carrier must charge at least $3 or twice the U.S. postage, whichever is greater (other stipulations, such as maximum delivery time, apply as well); or, alternatively, it may be delivered for free."

Since the mail monopoly only applies to nonurgent letter mail, the USPS is losing a significant amount of business to their competitors in other services, who offer lower rates. For example, FedEx and others have captured 90% of the overnight mail business

As far as saying "well how are they going to know if it is urgent or not", enter the U.S. Postal inspection Service (from wiki)
"U.S. law provides for the protection of mail. Postal Inspectors enforce over 200 federal laws in investigations of crimes that may adversely affect or fraudulently use the U.S. Mail, the postal system or postal employees. The USPIS is a major federal law enforcement agency.

The USPIS has the power to enforce the law by conducting search and seizure raids on entities they suspect of sending non-urgent mail through overnight delivery competitors. For example: according to the American Enterprise Institute, a private think tank, the USPIS raided Equifax offices to ascertain if the mail they were sending through Federal Express was truly "extremely urgent." It was found that the mail was not, and Equifax was fined $30,000."

A private company fined $30,000 for trying to save a little money. How messed up is that?

Sorry drew, you ain't got a chance of winning this argument. You may as well move on to the next.

Hey! has anybody else noticed that the name of this thread is misspelled? shouldn't it be "religious" not "relgious"

 

Ok, Martaug, you've convinced me. Drew, I already knew the Postal System was wack, I just hadn't really thought through the consequences of gov't provided utilities.

 

Martaug, the postal service doesn't own its own planes, you know, which is why they charge so much for overnight service. It has always been a different kind of business. Just as in every other type of business, smaller companies (the postal service is the third largest employer in the country, after all) that focus only on a small niche service are quite able to undercut the prices their competitors prices in some areas. Until 911 (and particularly the Anthrax scare), the postal service was able to provide its services to the American people without using even a penny of tax dollars for most of its existence. After the re-tooling is completed, it will stop relying on tax dollars once more.

 

Drew, just stop, this isnt even funny anymore. No jets? Well than somebody did one heck of a wrong paint job on these 727's then : http://www.airliners.net/open.file/073508/M/ & http://www.airliners.net/open.file/562022/M/

 

While you are at it, consider the "consequences" of what happens with a private company like Enron and what they did to their natural gas customers in California.

 

Martaug, the postal service does the vast majority of its deliveries by renting space from airlines and cargo planes (and using ground service for local deliveries, of course), not with private jets, which was the point I was trying to make. Can we stop playing semantics, already? It is getting really, really irritating. I get that you think profit-driven free enterprise is always better than government service. You'll never change your mind about it, so I'm not going to bother to try.

 

What semantics?
You said they didn't have their own planes & i gave you pictures of their planes.
The have stopped using commercial jets as they were getting bumped by the airlines. The have an agreement now to ship a lot of the mail via Fed-Ex planes too.

 

A question. Does the post office come even remotely close to owning enough planes to do it's deliveries or doesn't it? We both know the answer to this. The post office rents excess space in order to save money and resources, and this is how the vast majority of their non-local mail gets shipped. I'm sure you already know all of this, so can we cut it out already?