https://pjmedia.com/election/2016/07...gious-freedom/

Gary Johnson Repeats Liberal 'Discrimination' Line on Religious Freedom


When asked about religious freedom, Libertarian presidential nominee and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson repeated the liberal talking points about the dangers of "discrimination." In doing so, he might have sacrificed his chance to earn the support of social conservatives who distrust Donald Trump.
"I just see religious freedom, as a category, of just being a black hole," Johnson told the Washington Examiner's Tim Carney in an interview at the Democratic National Convention. Rather than emphasizing a business owner's freedom to deny serving a public event which might violate his or her conscience, he took a distinctly un-libertarian position.
When asked if he thinks "it's the federal government's job to prevent—" Johnson didn't even allow Carney to finish. "Discrimination? Yes," he said. When asked, "In all cases?" he replied, "Yes. Yes, in all cases. Yes."

For a self-styled "libertarian" talking about religious freedom, this is truly a terrifying answer. After all, in his book Capitalism and Freedom, the libertarian economist Milton Friedman argued that discrimination costs money, and that the government need not outlaw it, as the market will compensate for it eventually, as people act in their own interests.
The current religious freedom debate largely comes down to a simple question, which has worked out in various cases (The bakery owned by Aaron and Melissa Klein in Oregon, for example):
"Does a business owner have the right to deny service to a public event he or she disagrees with on religious grounds?"
B
Specifically, Carney asked about the New Mexico case, where Elaine and Jonathan Huguenin refused to photograph a same-sex wedding. The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that this refusal violated the state's public accommodations law, which bans discrimination by those offering services to the public. The U.S. Supreme Court allowed this decision to stand.
The libertarian position should be an emphatic yes to this question, for various reasons. The right of contract allows either party to refuse a transaction. There are countless others who would be happy to serve a same-sex wedding (in the Kleins' case, there was a bakery which made a cake free of charge for the lesbian couple in question).
Most fundamentally, however, there is a huge difference between denying to sell goods to a specific person (discrimination) and refusing to take an artistic role in a public event.
Libertarians by definition believe in minimal government intrusion into the free commerce of people. There is a governmental interest in preventing discrimination, but it should not extend to forcing people to partake in public events with which they disagree.
It is one thing for the state to acknowledge a gay wedding, it is another to force a Christian who believes marriage is between a man and a woman to publicly serve an event proclaiming a marriage between a man and a man or a woman and a woman.Yet Johnson calls the refusal to take part in such events "discrimination," and warns against the slippery slope of allowing it.
When asked about the New Mexico case, he responded, "If we allow for discrimination — if we pass a law that allows for discrimination on the basis of religion — literally, we're gonna open up a can of worms."
"You're narrowly looking at a situation where if you broaden that, I just tell you — on the basis of religious freedom, being able to discriminate ... discrimination will exist in places we never dreamed of," Johnson warned.
Carney asked if the current federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) could be applied to protect the wedding photographer or the Little Sisters of the Poor.
To this, Johnson responded, "I think what you're going to end up doing is open up a plethora of discrimination that you never believed could exist. And it'll start with Muslims."
"My crystal ball is that you are going to get discriminated against by somebody because it's against their religion," he added. "Somehow you have offended their religion because you've walked in and you're denied service. You."
This is the typical liberal argument in these cases: refusing to serve a gay wedding is the same kind of discrimination as refusing service to a customer on the basis of their sexual orientation. If we allow discrimination in this case, we will have to allow it in all cases.
It is one thing for a liberal to hold these views, but quite another for a self-styled libertarian to parrot them.BY TYLER O'NEIL JULY 31, 2016