Firing someone for being a bigot does not violate religious liberty.
Thomas Banks is suing Ford Motor because they fired him over a homophobic tirade. He claims that his religious freedom was violated. He is wrong.
He wasn't fired for his beliefs, he was fired for attacking Ford Motor for being an equal opportunity employer that refused to discriminate against its employees based on sexual orientation. This was a violation of the companies anti-harassment policy.
As a Christian, I am unaware of any commandment of Jesus for his followers to be hateful or hostile or discriminatory. There is no justification within the faith to be uncivil.
Banks is free to believe whatever he wants. He is free to practice his religion. He is not free to harass fellow employees.
I am not sure what happened to civility. When I was growing up, I was told to be respectful to other people, and not to do anything that would hurt other people. It breaks my heart to see this value fall out of favor, or be labeled as "political correctness."
Democracy requires an open, honest, fact-based discussion of policy. We cannot pretend that inconvenient facts don't exist. Homophobia has no scientific or factual basis. There are no facts left to put on the table. It can be upsetting when an opinion fails under the weight of the facts, but when it happens we have to accept the well reasoned case, and either change our opinions or at least understand that we have no valid argument to make anymore.
I am not sure what to do about all this. I hope there is a path we can take back to civil public discourse, but right now I just cannot see what it is. Do you have any thoughts?