Brickbat: Separation of Church and State

Ynamaku / Dreamstime.com

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination says the state's new ban on gender identity discrimination applies to churches when conducting any "secular event, such as a spaghetti supper, that is open to the general public." That would seem to include the right to use the bathroom of their choice.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

Where Would Jennifer Christ Pee?

[straffinrun]

And who would make the urinal cake?

[EDG reppin LBC]

Good one.

[Chipper-Shredder 2016]

Baptistry?

[Chipper-Shredder 2016]

But it is a commemoration of the Last Spaghetti Supper. Also we watch football during the meal. Who can argue that watching football isn't a religious activity. The Redskins fans have more faith than any group I've known.

[neoteny]

John Hasnas discussed this "clash of rights" more than two decades ago.

[Dark Lord of the cis]

Is this the libertarian moment?

[Chipper-Shredder 2016]

It's a series of moments. Why don't you sieze yours?

[wef]

Yet another reason to choose Islam.

[Radioactive]

except you can't add pork to your meatballs...

[Chipper-Shredder 2016]

No bacon, no alcohol, I will pass.

[AlmightyJB]

Seems like it would apply to a mosque as well. Nobody stupid enough to force that hand though.

[Cyto]

Ugh... you can just see where this is headed.

We got the Americans With Disabilities Act to codify all of the folks that are protected by law.... and pretty quickly a cottage industry popped up with folks running around suing everyone for having the wrong doorknobs or mirrors that are too high.

Now we have this sort of law popping up. It took about 5 minutes for people to start looking for edge cases on gay marriage to harass and prosecute. This would appear to have more teeth. How long before we start seeing people suing Hooters for denying them employment as a waitress because they identify as female?

Huzzah trial attorneys! You've created your ideal future.

[WTF]

Huzzah all the assholes who support this shit, because FAIRNESS!!

[Radioactive]

grab your meatballs and hold on...

[WTF]

Thatsa one-a spicy meat-a ball-a!

[Libertarian]

I can't believe you said the whole thing.

[Rich]

"secular event, such as a spaghetti supper, that is open to the general public."

"Oh, Almighty God, in the sacred name of Jesus Christ bless all who attend this spaghetti dinner, and permit each of them to use only the restroom which You in your divine wisdom have deemed proper."

[Libertarian]

Great point. It wouldn't take a whole lot of imagination to turn any "secular" event into a religious one, would it? Two can play this game.

[Rich]

It's game-playing all the way down!

[kevrob]

You guys ever hear of a "Communion Breakfast?" In Catholic parishes, congregants attend Sunday Mass, where they, presumably, take communion. Afterwords they repair to the church's hall, basement or the school cafeteria, pay a donation, and break their fast on scrambled eggs, bacon or sausage, toast, pastry, etc. If you are lucky, there are pancakes! Much coffee, orange juice and milk is drunk. There's a grace said by the pastor before everybody digs in, and usually some local celebrity with an RC connection shows up and gives a rubber-chicken-circuit level speech: a Catholic elected official, TV weatherman or pro ballplayer would fit the bill. The shared meal is supposed to recall what the early Christians dis when they gathered.

The annual CB was a big deal when i was a kid. My Mom didn't have to cook for 11 people, they served REAL BUTTER, not margarine, and if you wanted cereal they had those mini boxes, like the ones in the Kellogg's Variety pack, so you could get the kind you liked! On the negative side, you were eating breakfast in your Sunday best, so had to take care not to be messy, and you had to break out your manners. The praying was not perfunctory, either.

Emphasizing the religious elements when having a "fellowship dinner," a term some of the Protestant sects are fond of, ought to be enough to keep ghodless heathens like me from attending, though. I will show up at the local Volunteer Fire Dept's fundraising meals.

[lap83]

Or just change the name of it to "flying spaghetti monster supper"

[Rufus The Monocled]

Church: We'd like a permit to re-enact The Last Supper.
Masshole: Super! We love dinners! Before we issue one you must satisfy these conditions.
Church (reads conditions): But it sez here we need to make sure that lesbians and transgender be included.
Masshole: I know! Isn't diversity wonderful?
Church: But there weren't any.
Masshole: Boo! Hiss!
Church: I'm not understanding.
Masshole: Well, there should have been and we just want to make things inclusive. Wouldn't want to exclude people, right?
Church: We can't possibly make one of The Apostles something their not?
Masshole (slowly taking permit back): Why not?
Church: It's, uh, absurd and a lie?
Masshole: I bis you adieu, sir.

/slams wicket window down.

We're fucked.

[Flying Poodle]

Pope: Evening, Michelangelo. I want to have a word with you about this painting of yours, "The Last Supper."
Michelangelo: Oh, yeah?
Pope: I'm not happy about it.
Michelangelo: Oh, dear. It took me hours.
Pope: Not happy at all.
Michelangelo: Is it the jello you don't like?
Pope: No.
Michelangelo: Ah, no, I know, they do have a bit of colour, don't they? Oh, I know, you don't like the kangaroo?
Pope: What kangaroo?
Michelangelo: No problem, I'll paint him out.
Pope: I never saw a kangaroo!
Michelangelo: Uuh...he's right in the back. I'll paint him out! No sweat, I'll make him into a disciple.
Pope: Aah.
Michelangelo: All right?
Pope: That's the problem.
Michelangelo: What is?
Pope: The disciples.
Michelangelo: Are they too Jewish? I made Judas the most Jewish.
Pope: No, it's just that there are twenty-eight of them.
Michelangelo: Oh, well, another one will never matter, I'll make the kangaroo into another one.
Pope: No, that's not the point.
Michelangelo: All right. Well, I'll lose the kangaroo. Be honest, I wasn't perfectly happy with it.
Pope: That's not the point. There are twenty-eight disciples!
Michelangelo: Too many?
Pope: Well, of course it's too many!

[Radioactive]

we love dinners. Seasoned with the tears of orphans and the dispossessed!

[lap83]

The news about gender discrimination (not just on Reason) always seems to center on institutions attended by unpopular people like rednecks (i.e. public schools in the south) and Christians (i.e. churches), as if everyone else has gotten with the program but these hillbillies stubbornly refuse to be on the "right side of history". But it makes me wonder if that is true. For instance, does Hillary share her bathroom with any poor straggling transexual that wanders by? And wouldn't we hear about such situations all the time for the good example it sets for the proles? Or are progs too modest to show off their moral righteousness in such an obvious way? Because that really beggars belief.

[Rufus The Monocled]

NIMBY!

The left are the last to practice what they preach.

Because assholes.

[Rufus The Monocled]

Hillary wouldn't even give her last pea to her own daughter probably asking for a donation to her charity first. Pay to eat bitch!

[Sheriff Bart]

News flash- ANY event held in a church by the church is a religious event. The purpose of inviting non members is to get them to join. If this ruling holds, then churches would have to have members only events to avoid any possibility of being fined.

The most heinous part of the ruling is that now the state of Massholiness thinks it shoud decide what is secular and what is religious.

[Rufus The Monocled]

What it's gonna do is attract piece of shits who have no intention of joining but rather to go harass and snitch and lodging a lawsuit.

Quebec has something similar with its language laws. L'Office de la Langue Francaise is an unelected agency whereby inspectors acting on anonymous complaints harass businesses for using 'too much English'. It is often arbitrary and they can levy fines that can cripple a small-business. I don't respect a society that gives one segment of the population powers to enact punitive measures against another. This is why I think Quebec is a banana republic and doesn't deserve my respect.

It's the same crap here. Like how Obama asked people to snitch on The White House website.

It's illiberal and immoral.

[The Fusionist]

"I speet on you and your so-called poleese of ze language. Your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries."

[Sheriff Bart]

News flash- ANY event held in a church by the church is a religious event. The purpose of inviting non members is to get them to join. If this ruling holds, then churches would have to have members only events to avoid any possibility of being fined.

The most heinous part of the ruling is that now the state of Massholiness thinks it shoud decide what is secular and what is religious.

[JaimeRoberto]

The Puritans never did like the Catholics much.

[Radioactive]

or you either for that matter...

[Ranjit Singh, Author]

.