@HH: Why so cross? Perhaps it would be a good time to give our overwrought imaginations a wee breather?

Not at all. As far as I am concerned — believe any fool thing you like, just leave me and other innocent third parties out of it. I have no interest in whether a couple uses artificial contraception (as long as they don’t ask me to pay for abortifacients, or indirectly to subsidize the abortion industry). I don’t care if somebody sits around concocting novel ways of rearranging the facts of life (as long as they don’t expect my approbation or compel me to go along with their ideology).

When it comes to the right to life, if the state fails in its primary duty to protect that right, then it has no legitimacy or raison d’être.

When your greatest desire is to go to heaven where you’re capable of living in joy knowing some people are burning in hell for ETERNITY just because they don’t acknowledge not just the same god as you, but the same version of that god (which they might not even know about), then yes, THEY is perfectly appropriate.

It’s a pity that you don’t apply that logic when it comes to contraception or abortion or same-sex marriage. It apparently only suits you when it comes to guns.

This is getting really close to classic troll-dom. I, for one, am going to stop feeding the troll.

Same here! And it keeps getting worse and worse, what with all the expose’s coming out about Russian interference! Just read a story today about ads that supposedly featured American blacks endorsing Trump–turns out they were Russian blacks…! (Now I’d imagine that tactic didn’t cause much of the black vote to move to Trump, but still…)

I don’t know why they aren’t far more outraged at the clear prima facie evidence of electoral fraud in the last presidential election.

“[THEY are] completely heartless or just lacking in a conscience”
“[WE] see empathy as a skill, and [THEY] see empathy as a weakness”
“[THEY] see [empathy] as a character flaw to be overcome”
“[THEIR] greatest pleasure comes from watching other people suffer. [THEY ARE] sadistic pig[s].”
“Christianity… tells you that suffering is good for you”
“[THEIR] primary cultural value is greed…but WE are pure”

It’s a matter of balancing competing rights and interests, similar to many other situations in the law. The test should simply be that the state may only infringe conscience rights when it 1) has a compelling interest to do so, and 2) is using the least restrictive means possible to further that compelling interest.

A democratic, pluralistic, egalitarian society naturally would make the broadest possible allowance for the right of conscience, rather than seek to minimize it, wouldn’t you agree?

@HH: Honestly, where do you get this stuff?