{"id":15358,"date":"2016-01-15T13:02:07","date_gmt":"2016-01-15T18:02:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/?p=15358"},"modified":"2016-01-15T13:04:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T18:04:56","slug":"ishop-of-diocese-of-st-augustine-on-conscience-exemptions-for-proposed-lgbt-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2016\/01\/ishop-of-diocese-of-st-augustine-on-conscience-exemptions-for-proposed-lgbt-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Bishop of Diocese of St. Augustine on conscience exemptions for proposed LGBT law"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was glad to see this from my Bishop.<\/p>\n

\n

The Catholic bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine wrote this week to Mayor Lenny Curry and the City Council that any expansion of the city’s anti-discrimination law to cover sexual orientation must have “strong conscience exemptions” for churches, religious organizations and private businesses.<\/p>\n

The Most Rev. Felipe J. Estevez said while the church is opposed to “unjust discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” a change in the law must ensure that people providing employment, housing and public accommodations can still make decisions guided by their “sincerely and deeply held religious beliefs.”<\/p>\n

Estevez’s letter highlights the contentious question of where to draw the line on religion-based objections to expanding the anti-discrimination law to cover lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.<\/p>\n

A bill supported by City Councilmen Tommy Hazouri and Aaron Bowman would exempt any “religious corporation, association or society” from being subject to the anti-discrimination law regarding LGBT people.<\/p>\n

Estevez’s letter says the exemption should be broader to cover church entities, religious nonprofits, professionals, and the private businesses of “people with strongly held contrary religious beliefs.” Source<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A necessary letter considering the trend of the narrow view of religious liberty as espoused and enforced by the Obama administration. Very glad the Bishop mentioned private businesses.<\/p>\n

The authors of the law talk about striking the “right balance”, as if rights can be taken a way or shifted to make everybody even as Procrustes would do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was glad to see this from my Bishop. The Catholic bishop of the Diocese of St. Augustine wrote this week to Mayor Lenny Curry and the City Council that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religious-liberty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15358"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15360,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15358\/revisions\/15360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}