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I think saying religion is beyond the individuals control might need revising.
yea, but religion is a protected class for reasons that have to do with the fact that it is intimately tied with ethnicity and with the fact that American society has a strong respect for religious freedom that is respected in various laws: the 1st amendment, tax laws on churches, and hat crime laws.
About time we passed some hat crime laws! The hats I see people wearing today are horrible!
Hat crime.
I agree, take the damn stickers off the bill, it makes you look stupid. Also, every time I see it I half expect a shop employee to run up and detain the person for shoplifting.
Religion is a protected class for reasons that have to do with the fact that it is intimately tied with politics and politicians who are religious.
Do you not believe a person has the same moral right to protection from discrimination for their religion or lack thereof as they have for their gender or ethnicity?
“Generally beyond the individual’s control”?
Most people’s religion is either the religion they were raised in, or a response to that upbringing (e.g. I hate you, so since you are Catholic, I’ll be Baptist).
That response sounds like a choice to me. You could just as easily have chosen Pentecostal, Atheism, or Wicca.
There’s a question of group identity, which is a choice, and a question of belief, which can be influenced by choices (choosing to accept certain evidence, for example), but which is not a choice itself (you see the evidence you’ve got, and draw a conclusion). It’s a tricky area, since there are choices involved, but saying that someone can choose their beliefs from scratch (not their professed beliefs, but what they actually believe to be true) doesn’t entirely hold up. If you put an apple on the table, then another apple, then count them, you’re going to believe that 1 + 1 = 2 (unless you reject the evidence as being flawed in some way).
Hate crimes: as opposed to the typical “warm and fuzzy” crimes.
For a hate crime, doesn’t Mr. DA have to prove he was more violent because he thought Al was Mexican?
Seems like sexuality is a choice – certainly anyone depriving you of that choice is guilty of a crime (rape). Being a behavior or pattern of actions, why would that be protected?