There was a question brought to light several years ago. Is it better
to discriminate against someone who's business involves doing their
art-form or other creative work for their religious or personal
spiritual beliefs, or against a customer who is using their
product in an
event that they don't agree with?
While the most obvious situation I know of involves weddings, however there
are numerous other situations this could become a very real issue with
too. While I don't know for a fact that this has happened with other
such events there is no reason to beleive that there could not be such
a conflict in the future or that there are not other situations that
were simply not so public.
Prior to having started to engage and I suspect
(though I am not certain) even encounter Jesus in the course of my artwork (which
has impacted some of my artwork in
thrilling ways I truly could never have predicted) I was engaging in other spiritual
practices that I won't go into here that with the exception of causing the biggest creative
block of my life never produced anywhere near as noticeable a set of results be it as
an artist or as a matter of spirituality. However if having engaged in any spiritual
practice that I have done in my lifetime (including the ones I no longer engage in) over
the years has taught me anything it's that spirituality, be it within the context of o
rganized region or an individuals personal spiritual beliefs absolutely changes what
that person creates, how they create it, and their ability to create it.
However partly because the type of event I have up until this point heard about
where this is an issue occurs the most, I am going to say this:
Firstly I don't care if society will recognize them or not I will not recognize
any marriage that is between anything other than one man and one woman.
Secondly as of when other forms of marriage were recognized by the Supreme
court of the United States I stopped recognizing the state institution
of marriage as valid in any way. As of that day I recognized marriage as a
matter of either a personal or religious matter to be handled via contracts
between one man and one woman and if they so choose by the conducting of
religious rights.
Thirdly my reasons were not religious but were motivated by other reasons, and
through the years since reinforced by a combination of everything I ever
heard about biology and all forms of spirituality I have learned enough
about to have any sense of what they have to say about marriage, male,
and female.
Fourthly if by some crazy miracle I ever found someone, fell in love, and
got married this all being the case if someone said they had a spiritual
objection (be it in the context of religious or individual beliefs) to
any future marriage I might enter into that is the last person I would
want baking my cake, or having anything to do with any future wedding
I might someday have.
While I don't personally face this issue the same way with
my artwork as some other artists do
because almost anything I
would sell would pretty much be off
shelve stuff, I know another artist who at one point did have to ask herself the question
when she started seeing if she could turn her calligraphy into a business if she would be
doing wedding invitations at all because of exactly the legal issues that go into it. While
I don't know what she is doing these days I know that the facing the question of having to
violate her religious beliefs in the course of doing business when she would be doing
something that isn't off the shelf but does involve her actively engaging her art-form
for that purpose wasn't something she could exactly something she was comfortable with.
Perhaps the only thing more ironic is that to my knowledge she never had her
creative work and her spiritual life intersect anywhere near as strongly or
powerfully as I did. Though it's entirely possible if she hasn't she could
some day.
But again there are some differences here:
I engage in my art-form creating
pictures that I in some cases turn
into off the shelf
products. What happens after that is basically
for me an automated process, and I hope anyone who purchases my
artwork finds the customer
service and quality of the goods to be as good as I have found
it or better regardless.
While I am not going to encourage people to use my
artwork in a way
that goes against my spiritual beliefs (in fact please don't) what
I am doing is a very different process and it doesn't involve me
enaging with anyone or participating in something if someone does
use it that way. From where I am standing once the artwork
has been turned into a product
who buys it and what people do with it (as long as they respect
my intellectual property rights) after it's sold is a matter to be
settled on the spiritual plane of existence if
my products
are being used in a way that I consider wrongful.
What the artist I am referring to would be doing if she is still doing
that type of business and she even does wedding invitations these days would
be actively engaging in her art-form to create a custom product. What
she is doing isn't a turn key process no matter what it looks like. In
fact if it were a truly turn key process she probably wouldn't be doing
them by hand at all considering what modern technology is capable of.
While I don't know if or at what level her spirituality is involved so
directly in any of her art-forms (as she did last I heard do other types of art for both
hobby and other types of business as well) it's a perfect example of something
where I have no reason to believe it isn't or couldn't be far more involved
than anyone cares to think about.
While I know of people who their rule was they be very happy to do something
for birthday party that they would never do for a wedding even if it was the
same person asking about getting something done for both at the same time
the fact is there is a rather large difference between a spiritual or
religious event and event that has nothing to do with spiritual or religious
matters, or at least no spiritual or religous matter where there is a breach
of ones own spiritual or religous beliefs. Unfortunately an artist who does
something that isn't just turn key, or off the shelf isn't in a position to
say it's no a matter for the spirit realm as their work is specific to that
event because there is more that goes into that process for them even if it
does not appear that way to people who are outside that process.
While same sex marriage is the situation I most commonly hear this about (thus
far at least) a serious question I would ask is should that person be asked to
do her art-form of a wedding for someone of a pagan faith if she is a Christian
even in the course of doing business? Should someone who is Pagan be asked to
do their engage in their art-form even as a business matter for a Christian
wedding? Normally nobody would think about this, but after the type of
spiritual experiences I've had I would be the first to say no they probably
shouldn't force the matter.
While I would say they do need to be able to point to someone who can do a comparable
job creating something for them, at a comparable price, and at a comparable
distance (or shipping time and cost depending on the product
and method of doing business involved) to prevent some other problems if they can
give such a referal than they should not be legally obligated to voilate their beliefs. For those who
are forced to choose between their faith and their business because such a referal
is something that for whatever reason is outside their capablity to give I think
a friend of mine would probably be saying something along the lines "give to
earthly government what belongs to it, and the divine what belongs to the divine".
Nobody would be arguing any of these points in most developed countries as of the time
I wrote this if we were talking about a ritual human or to the best of my knoweldge
even animal sacrifice. While obviously not the same thing, and most people today
would probably say far worse than people thinking it's okay to have the wrong
combination of people getting "married" it's still a violation of the spiritual
belief systems of anyone who has prior to me writing this expressed any disagreement
with "marriages" that by definition have a combination of people that means it is not
a marriage and also expressed any opinion to me on the subject of human or animal
sacrifice.
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