Does anyone truly think that the new Indiana Freedom to Discriminate bill will hold up under scrutiny? I can imagine that as soon as the law goes into effect, there will already be a line of people willing to be plaintiffs and the ACLU or somebody would already have a case plan ready. Meanwhile, I’m hoping anybody actually trying to discriminate will have their business shut down by protests and boycotts. Let’s face it, this isn’t Chick Fil’A or some massive corporation trying to discriminate, these are small private businesses like that photographer or bakery. Those will have little will or power to fight massive outcry.
If the national RFRA is not only upheld, but faithfully used by the courts to interpret the 1st amendment, what makes you think the state versions will be struck down?
All the law says is that the state must prove a compelling interest to substantially burden religious freedom. In what way do you think that’s unconstitutional?
Third, how will there be a massive outcry? The only people who are going to win are people who would actually be forced to violate their religious beliefs. I don’t think anyone’s going to have sympathy for the state vs. the little guy, or in a likely case, a little wedding planner who would rather not do a gay wedding. I’m not sure what virtue there is in forcing people to participate in gay weddings.
From a pure political standpoint, our side will be reminding voters that once again, the left can’t be trusted. They promised this wouldn’t happen, went so far as to call those who said it would liars and scaremongerers, and now they are going ahead and trying to do it: force people to participate in gay marriages who don’t want to. They lied. They always lie. All liberal promises have are merely tactical.
How’s that workin’ out for ya so far?
We haven’t begun to campaign yet. Never underestimate the right-wing noise machine.
When did you ever stop?
Despite the fact that there are already state-level RFRA laws, and despite the fact that many individuals can actually discriminate for any reason they choose, the media decided to focus on the Indiana law and caught us off guard.
You simply refuse to get it, don’t you?
It used to be so easy when you could gin up your base and put anti-SSM measures on the ballot. Now that you have to actually live in the 21st and not 17th centuries, it’s gonna be hard for Team Red.
It isn’t just the media focusing on the Indiana Let’s Hate Gays law. Apple Corporation and the NCAA, other states all are reconsidering how much business to do with Indiana. But you can rejoice in how happy this makes your ultra-right wing base. If you aren’t gay, female, black, poor, or Hispanic there might be room for you in the Republican Party!
And while they’re at it, a whole passel of GOP candidates have endorsed legislation that would outlaw abortion after 20 weeks.
This includes Jeb, Rubio, Walker, Perry, Paul, Cruz, Christie, Santorum, Huckabee, Jindal, Carson, Lindsey Graham, Carly Fiorina, and Gov. Pence.
Oh, I agree that government should need a compelling interest in order to substantially burden religious practice.
But regardless of how the Nine Wise Souls see it, I personally don’t classify taking pictures or baking a cake in exchange for money as “religious practice.”
And it’s times like these that I wish I owned some sort of retail business, so that I could refuse to serve the religious yahoos who support legislation like this, on the grounds that they’re Pharisees who are corrupting Christianity. It would give me great pleasure to use their own weapons to discriminate against them.
Because if there’s one thing Jesus was all about, it was avoiding all contact with people he considered to be sinners. I can certainly see why that became (apparently) a Christian value…
Not accurate.
The Indiana Law differs from the Federal Law and most state laws by assigning the same religious rights to businesses as are assigned to persons and by acting as a defense against private lawsuits as well as against government interference. While a couple of states have similar language to one or the other of those provisions, only Indiana has both.
This was not “the media deciding to focus” on Indiana, but Indiana taking their law to a greater extreme than any previous legislation.
Pretty much the same as all conservative promises. ::: shrug :::
Businesses are regarded as persons by the law, even if the law is not written to say that. Thus the Hobby Lobby decision, which was decided under the RFRA.
Legislatures do not get to say who a person is and isn’t. I think we can all see where that could go horribly wrong.
Let’s hear an example. I can cite several:
Voting rights- Liberals make tactical compromises in the Help America Vote Act that tighten up the system while making it easier for people to vote, then turn around and either sue or simply illegally fail to cooperate when states carry out their responsibility to do purges under the Act. The courts, of course, ruled in Florida’s favor:
Immigration enforcement- support better enforcement of immigration laws in exchange for amnesty, then call even workplace immigration enforcement “Un-American”.
But anyway, your admission that this does indeed happen is enough. We have reason not to make deals with Democrats on issues where they can’t be trusted.
Chris Christie is kind of in, kind of out for 2016: http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/08/politics/election-2016-chris-christie-comeback/index.html
He’ll block that bridge when he comes to it.
When states carry out their responsibilities under that act, liberals do nothing, or applaud them. When states use that act as a fig leaf to carry out exactly the sort of activity that the act was designed to prevent, liberals fight back against it as hard as they can. In both cases, they are keeping their promises.
That’s not what a court ruled. In order to do a purge right, you need good data. The administration refused to give Florida the data, then turned around and had the chutzpah to claim that Florida couldn’t do a good purge because they didn’t have good data!
In the end, the law, and Florida, prevailed. But it was a striking example of bad faith on the part of a Democratic administration and liberal activists. we’ll see a lot more of that when an immigration bill passes. Amnesty will happen quickly, but enforcement will be blocked in the courts by activists and slow walked by Democratic administrations.
Republican candidates eschew accountability when reporters start quoting their own words: