Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
OK, I respect the fact that you are consistent.
But what about the Bill Of Rights? Why doesn't the Bill Of Rights, absolutely, irrefutably, prevent the government from forcing these people into violating their beliefs?
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I don't know Paul's understanding of the Constitution. From what he has said before, it sounds like he doesn't have one. That it's too complicated and better left to "experts." But he usually does agree with the progressive interpretations of it. So his answer, if he ventures one other than "the Court has decided" type of stuff, might be in line with the Progressive Living Constitution theory. That is, the Bill of Rights means whatever the current Court says it means.
So, then, by that interpretation, if the Court says you must violate your beliefs or face a penalty, then that is the choice you are left with.
You, apparently, hold to the original understanding that the Constitution is, as progressives like to say, a charter of negative liberties. You understand that it is irrefutable that it will "prevent the government from forcing these people into violating their beliefs". But progressive belief, that the Constitution is a living, evolving (on its own, without necessity of amendment) thing, holds that it has evolved into a charter of positive rights. That is, rather than being a document which limits government, it has become one which more fully empowers government.
The conflict lies between originalist and progressive definition of rights pertaining to the Constitution. In the main, originalists view rights as belonging to the people and as such, as you say, are not to be violated by government. And whatever "rights" the government has, are those granted to it by the people as expressed by constitutional enumerations. On the other hand, progressives view rights, in the main, as belonging to the government which, in turn, can dole out rights to the people, and so can, therefor, make defunct original, "outdated," so-called unalienable rights.
How does this apply to the question at hand--what are the "rights" of the bakers, et. al., and of the gays, et. al.?
The originalist view only partially holds at this time since full rights have already been re-interpreted by anti-discrimination laws to apply to various select groups rather than being universal. But, even so, a quasi-originialist view would hold that the bakers, et. al., must sell whatever they have in stock if requested by any buyer who belongs to a select group. And would certainly allow a successful suit against a proprietor who refused to sell his stock to any buyer, espescially to a protected group. But it would not consider it a right of any buyer to demand what the proprietor does not have in stock, or would never have, due to personal belief or prerogative.
The Progressive view, on the other hand, would hold that the proprietor, must fill the demand of a buyer, especially of a protected group, for the generic type of the proprietor's product, even if that version of his product violates his personal or religious beliefs and he has never made such a version.
One might say, other than the blatant transfer of power from the people to the government, that a major distinction between the originalist and progressive Constitutions is that the former allows those with conflicting bigotries to live together with equal "rights," but that the latter allows one bigotry to trump another.