Dear Editor:
Nice to notice my letter on religious freedom [May 3] produced a response [May 10] that asked me a question.
The writer answered the question without waiting for my response.
What is the truth?
Briefly: Our constitution provides freedom of religion in belief and practice. No one can discriminate against freedom of religion by demanding a violation of his/her sincerely held religious convictions.
Example: U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the owners of Hobby Lobby cannot be forced to provide health insurance for employees' contraceptive abortions, the direct killing of an innocent human being. So, a caterer cannot be forced to participate [provide] refreshments for a LBGT "marriage" when the caterer holds a sincere religious conviction that participation/cooperation in such a ceremony violates his/her sincere religious conviction of marriage being between one male and one female.
Further:
• "Discrimination" has many meanings, only one of which concerns illegal discrimination. Proper writing does not use the same word to convey conflicting meanings of the same word in the same sentence/paragraph. Discriminate basically means to make a choice. Choices occur constantly in human activities. I may be a discriminating person who chooses white sauce rather than red on spaghetti; what does that have to do with unjust, illegal discrimination?
• Anatomically, humans are male and female - the sole combination able to procreate a human being and thus continue the human race.
• When sexual preferences and gender identities multiply, one needs to pause. Are all these really needed? Philosophically, when a person reasons to a conclusion and then proceeds to reason from a faulty conclusion, that person cannot come to a correct conclusion but only multiplies and confuses the conclusions. Scientifically, one might apply entropy, a physical constant of the universe, namely, the process of physical/energy systems by which an organized system moves to a disorganized/disordered state; the process is not reversible of itself.