Try not paying taxes due to reasons of conscience stemming from funding a war machine ;)

I am very surprised to read some comments which are so little inclined to blame Justice Bardwell’s attitude. My parents contracted an interracial marriage long ago and here I am. Just to say I feel very concerned by such a subject.

Your opinion about “kind of reasoning” sounded right to me, but it shifted in an inappropriate way to the question of abortion in itself, as abusively said in some comments.

As we say in France: “Comparison is not reason”.

Beyond design, I personnally appreciate reading topics from you about different things, not just container or design matters.

Were he a private company employee, this would be a completely different conversation. But he’s not – he works in the public sector.

There must be a level of expected transparency and equality, so that if a pharmacist refuses to dispense medication in one instance, aside from medical objections, it must refuse to dispense that medication in all instances and that objection must be posted and clearly stated. If the objection is clearly stated there should exist a professional courtesy where one objecting pharmacist refers patients to another pharmacy that does not object to the dispensation of that specific medication on grounds unrelated to medicine.

If such constrains are not required then I find there are grounds for discrimination. As a result such a lawful requirement, or condition, must exist to protect such practitioners from discrimination law suits. I find anything less would allow a disgraceful level of bias that is both an embarrassment to the practitioner and the customer.

The ability to object to a practice on personal qualifications is incredibly far reaching. Imposing a limitation on such is likely to inflict unforeseeable harms in completely unrelated fields. I believe such harms could like impose interference with many safety practices where objectivity is not a legally defined quality.

Once the regulations are set, I feel my duty as a professional is to comply listlessly with the regulations I feel are wrong or dumb and those I agree with vigorously. But I comply with them all. If one of them were so malevolent or counter-productive that I couldn’t comply, then I need a new job or, at least, not to be surprised if I’m closed down.

So, I would say this: As a citizen I have the right to support or oppose mixed-race marriages, abortions and contraception. If I am receiving public funds, I have the right to quit my job (or trade cases,) but I don’t see where I have the right to obstruct or divert public funds from the public purpose, as defined through the political process.

This was an interesting post to revisit after hearing of the “oath-keepers,” by the way.

And I continue to be fascinated by how few of the commenters have even so much as glanced at the contraception side of all this, focusing instead exclusively on abortion.

In fact, a lot of you seem to think I’m trying to trivialize abortion and contraception conscience protection laws. Guess what? I’m not. I’m prodding at a strange multi-way junction in our collective thinking. Furthermore, I’m pointing out how the forces that are shaping the controversy around Justice Bardwell may repeat themselves in other areas, given certain changes to society that are even now under discussion.

On which point some of you will no doubt assume that I oppose those changes, when that isn’t necessarily the case either. But that’s normal for me, so it won’t bother me any more than I’ve been bothered by what’s gone before. (Disappointed by one comment, yes, but only for the odious impulse it betrayed.)

Now since we’re talking about this I don’t see how it can be spun that the man isn’t racist because if he wasn’t he would have given them a marriage license because if the man was white or if both of them were of a single race he would have gladly given them one. Not believing that a white woman and a black man who love each other have the right to marry is racist — plain and simple. According to law he has a right to believe that himself as long as he doesn’t do bodily harm to an individual based upon their race. In Tangipahoa Parish the Justice of the Peace is an elected official, so when taking office he promised to uphold the law. Now according to law those two have the right to marry. He should lose his job on those grounds, and it was on those grounds that the governor acted. If he’s found to be wrong in his actions his license would be revoked and he would be out of office. All of this took place before any national media caught wind of the story.

I don’t believe this bears any comparison to the Conscience Protection law aside from the simple refusal similarity. I can see how you’re trying to form a comparison, but it’s illogical because the reasoning behind the law isn’t stated in the Times-Picayune article you linked to. People on both sides of the issues all try to politically charge something that has nothing to do with political beliefs. The law is one in a series of legislations that were established to reduce healthcare costs in the state. One of these methods is to reduce frivolous lawsuits, and there were accounts where doctors were sued because they refused to give abortions. With a law stating that a doctor has the right to refuse to perform an abortion he/she cannot be sued for not performing one.

A doctor’s not performing an abortion has nothing to do with pro life or pro choice; it has to do with a doctor’s comfort level with doing such. I’m personally pro choice, but I would be greatly uncomfortable with giving an abortion; if I was a doctor I wouldn’t do abortions. Now, a doctor doesn’t have a law stating he is required by law to perform an abortion on someone. A justice of the peace has a law stating that he is to issue marriage licenses to couples who meet the state’s requirements for marriage. Completely different.

Plus, Justice Bardwell seems to have kind of a stupid conscience.

The difference is in status – elected official versus service provider. I don’t know the requirements of a judge but if he can decide which he will and won’t marry I think to call this racial discrimination is an overreaction – he appears to honestly care about the kids being abused by society rather than refusing service to a racial group.

A pharmacy tech that refused to give out birth control pills was fired – that’s the employer’s right I suppose – just as it is the right of the Judge’s employer (the people as such) to “fire” him next election.

Conscience has no degrees – you either follow yours or you are without principle. Simple.

In part, the justice is right, I

But Eric, I do enjoy blogs about design =)

The Justice of the Peace followed his moral compass in denying these folks a marriage license. Whether that moral compass is off several degrees is another matter. In my opinion he’s a racist but that’s my opinion.

The fact is that he broke the law by denying a public service to someone based upon the color of their skin. When it boils down, that’s what he did.

A doctor, like any other service provider, can decline to provide any service. If they feel that abortion is murder, that’s their call to make because it’s their practice.

Having said that, if they receive federal or state funds for services, they should follow the law of the land. If the law says “you will provide these services” and the doctor has a moral problem with it, he/she has the option of refusing public funds.

I’m all for people making decisions based upon their own moral code. Sometimes the decisions are a bit dubious in their merit or acceptability but that’s very subjective.

When you work for the people, accept payment from the public or administer the law, you must obey the rules of the road.

This guy should be fired… period. There is nothing we can or should do beyond that because his morals are his own. I don’t buy into the idea that you can punish someone for what he thinks. He violated his employer’s policies and should be subject to the same rules as any other employee.

In a loose sense, these issues are similar. When you get a bit tighter on focus, though, they’re very different and should be treated differently.

Just my opinion.

If the answer is “in any case where said marriage would be illegal”, that’s just a dodge, and furthermore equates legality and morality in a way I think very few people would find acceptable. I don’t think any of us would want the government dictating a moral code, and almost none of us would want someone else to dictate their morals as a legal code to the government.

From a legal standpoint, both abortion and marriage are identical: they are legal, and have been ruled to be Constitutionally protected. Regardless of what any of us thinks of them, the rulings exist and continue to stand. Drawing a distinction between the two on Constitutional grounds is, at present, impossible. Drawing a moral distinction is, of course, quite possible. (I am not, by the way, seeking to equate the two morally.)

Furthermore, and this was interesting to me as well, nobody took on the question of conscience protection laws related to contraception. And here I really do mean contraception, as in The Pill and related medications, which prevent fertilization. To return to the continuum of seriousness, is contraception more or less serious than marriage? If it’s less serious, then should we force all pharmacists and doctors to provide contraception to those who seek it, regardless of their personal beliefs? If it’s more serious, why so, and how does it meet the threshold test for permitting people to refuse participation even when their job would otherwise call for it?

And finally, we might argue (as some have) that as a government employee, Justice Bardwell is obligated to conform to the law regardless of any personal feelings about it. Does that hold if marriage is ruled a Constitutionally protected right for all couples, regardless of gender? Does the same reasoning still hold in cases where medical providers are partially or wholly funded by taxpayers? Would doctors in a clinic that receives money from the government be then required to carry out any legally available procedure or dispense any legally available medicine, regardless of their own beliefs? At what point does one become a government employee? Is it a question of who issues the paycheck, or who supplies the funds that enable the paycheck?