Yes and no. Due to the nature of police work, you can assert the illegal discrimination created a hostile work environment, which in police work can be deadly, therefore acting to remove the danger can be cast as a coerced action. So if he can successfully argue their religious discrimination reasonably made him feel as if he was in danger due to the deteriorating working conditions and the nature of his work, suing is no longer an impossibility.

That is the First Amendment viewpoint.

It is one I do not hold.

Free speech is a trick by those who hate Truth.

You’re free to publically speak the Truth. You can think whatever Lie you want (like gay marriage is a thing).

Also, he should have made them fire him. Because they might not have. Evil likes to bluff.

Andi: Ask and you shall receive. :)

Thanks

This is where it all falls apart. It is the law of unintended consequences. It is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out or is forced into an unwanted, legally binding marriage. It is the modern version of the shotgun marriage, except in this case it is not the bride’s father with the gun, it is the overbearing, overreaching, tyrannical, freedom-hating government marrying two unwilling victims for no good reason. In the former case, the groom took liberties, but in the second case it is the government taking liberties.

So, to mis-paraphrase Raymond Donovan, which government office does the now-gay-married markedup2 go to, to get his straight reputation and unwed liberty back?

I would think that that question would be a key question to ask any potential hire, no?

You can do a job and keep your personal beliefs to yourself.

Mutual respect, teach it, live it, demand it.

In the powers that be proactive reaction to wanting to minimize potential bias accusations in a future context they have caused a real problem today. Lawyers will be figuring this one out.

James Street wrote, ” I’m keeping a list of all the law firms defending conservatives that Robert names in his blacklisted articles. I feel I may need them. Soon.”

I should do an update article listing these firms. Their number has grown, and I bookmark them as I come across them in my articles.

First of all the phrase “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution, and secondly the 1st Amendment was NOT written to protect government from religion, but to protect religion from government. The police leadership are either evil, idiots or both.

What the 1st Amendment says is “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

First Liberty Institute. I’m keeping a list of all the law firms defending conservatives that Robert names in his blacklisted articles. I feel I may need them. Soon.

As the old Baptist preacher said, “If you want easy don’t become a Christian. Look what happened to the Boss.”

I heartily approve of the “if you don’t like it, leave” approach that Kersey took. The “stay and fight” approach is how we ended up with the various “equal opportunity” laws, which are obviously in tension, if not conflict, with freedom of assembly.

You can’t have both. Either I can manage my property however I wish or I’m constrained. If I am constrained, I see no reason not to equally constrain public officials.

If I am forced to give a “marriage discount” to any two beings who claim to be married, putting up a billboard in the lobby saying “your sort of marriage isn’t” is violating the spirit, if not text, of the law.

My personal preference would be “it’s my business, I’ll give discounts to whomever I please with whatever justification – or lack thereof- that I please.” We do not live in that world and I’m not sure that’s entirely a bad thing.

The fairness argument that government-recognized marriage comes with stuff that cannot be worked-around by other legal means is a strong one. The most obvious example being Social Security survivor benefits, which have nothing to do with children, but rather keeping the spouse off welfare. Wills, Trusts, and Power-of-Attorneys can get around a lot of things, but one cannot get around that one. Recognizing “gay marriage” is certainly not the only way out. A one-sentence law would fix it: All occurrences of the word “marriage” in all statutes are hereby replaced with “marriage or civil union” and “spouse” with “spouse or partner”.

As a personal note: I was gay-married regardless of whether I wanted it or not due to state common-law marriage laws.