(04-04-2015 11:16 AM)DefCONNOne Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 09:47 AM)TerryD Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 09:48 PM)DefCONNOne Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 09:19 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 08:51 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  I think that's your opinion. I've yet to get a single reply on the actual text of this law.

All of this is a horrible piece of legislation:

4 Sec. 9. A person whose exercise of religion has been
15 substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by
16 a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending
17 violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative
18 proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other
19 governmental entity is a party to the proceeding. If the relevant
20 governmental entity is not a party to the proceeding, the
21 governmental entity has an unconditional right to intervene in
22 order to respond to the person's invocation of this chapter.

Quote:
23 Sec. 10. (a) If a court or other tribunal in which a violation of
24 this chapter is asserted in conformity with section 9 of this chapter
25 determines that:
26 (1) the person's exercise of religion has been substantially
27 burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened; and
28 (2) the governmental entity imposing the burden has not
29 demonstrated that application of the burden to the person:
30 (A) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental
31 interest; and
32 (B) is the least restrictive means of furthering that
33 compelling governmental interest;
34 the court or other tribunal shall allow a defense against any party
35 and shall grant appropriate relief against the governmental entity.


It introduces the First Amendment (which only applies to state action) as a defense in civil litigation against any person ("party").

It also permits one to invoke this act if one's religious belief is "likely" to be substantially burdened.

Why have this law at all? Why include sexual orientation?

Why now has it been amended? Is the "fix" good enough?

Not many people think this law was anything but a Tea Party, Born Again Christian driven political move.

It backfired. The Tea Party is overreaching. Even the "country club" wing of the Republican party is tired of these guys, along with most of the rest of the country.

So after reading your take on an (fully?) ajudicated law that is on the books nationally and in 19 states, which is what Indiana was trying to piggyback; do you, or do you not, support "involuntary servitude"? Because that's what you (if I'm reading the above correctly) and the Gatstapo want.

No. But I also don't want a discriminatory law specifically so designed by its drafters.

This law was NOT the same as the Federal one or the other state laws like you infer.

This original law extended "religious personhood" to FOR PROFIT CORPORATIONS and mandated the use of the First Amendment in private lawsuits as I said above.




"There’s a factual dispute about the new Indiana law. It is called a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” like the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1993.* Thus a number of its defenders have claimed it is really the same law. Here, for example, is the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack: “Is there any difference between Indiana's law and the federal law? Nothing significant.” I am not sure what McCormack was thinking; but even my old employer, The Washington Post, seems to believe that if a law has a similar title as another law, they must be identical. “Indiana is actually soon to be just one of 20 states with a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA,” the Post’s Hunter Schwarz wrote, linking to this map created by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The problem with this statement is that, well, it’s false. That becomes clear when you read and compare those tedious state statutes. If you do that, you will find that the Indiana statute has two features the federal RFRA—and most state RFRAs—do not. First, the Indiana law explicitly allows any for-profit business to assert a right to “the free exercise of religion.” The federal RFRA doesn’t contain such language, and neither does any of the state RFRAs except South Carolina’s; in fact, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, explicitly exclude for-profit businesses from the protection of their RFRAs.

The new Indiana statute also contains this odd language: “A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding.” (My italics.) Neither the federal RFRA, nor 18 of the 19 state statutes cited by the Post, says anything like this; only the Texas RFRA, passed in 1999, contains similar language.

What these words mean is, first, that the Indiana statute explicitly recognizes that a for-profit corporation has “free exercise” rights matching those of individuals or churches. A lot of legal thinkers thought that idea was outlandish until last year’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, in which the Court’s five conservatives interpreted the federal RFRA to give some corporate employers a religious veto over their employees’ statutory right to contraceptive coverage.

Second, the Indiana statute explicitly makes a business’s “free exercise” right a defense against a private lawsuit by another person, rather than simply against actions brought by government. Why does this matter? Well, there’s a lot of evidence that the new wave of “religious freedom” legislation was impelled, at least in part, by a panic over a New Mexico state-court decision, Elane Photography v. Willock. In that case, a same-sex couple sued a professional photography studio that refused to photograph the couple’s wedding. New Mexico law bars discrimination in “public accommodations” on the basis of sexual orientation. The studio said that New Mexico’s RFRA nonetheless barred the suit; but the state’s Supreme Court held that the RFRA did not apply “because the government is not a party.”

Remarkably enough, soon after, language found its way into the Indiana statute to make sure that no Indiana court could ever make a similar decision. Democrats also offered the Republican legislative majority a chance to amend the new act to say that it did not permit businesses to discriminate; they voted that amendment down."

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/what-makes-indianas-religious-freedom-law-different/388997/


There is little doubt that this was a fundamentalist Protestant move to legislatively allow corporations...corporations....for profit...the right to offensively claim religious belief as a weapon to intentionally discriminate against a specifically targeted group.

It is (or was, depending on the extent of the "fix") a horribly bad law more at home in a theocracy than a democracy.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, you've posted a very one-sided (anti-RFRA) article. Which leads me to believe that you support discrimination against those who're religious and gladly support "involuntary servitude". I found this, which tries to not be one sided...

http://dailysignal.com/2015/04/01/qa-on-indiana-would-restaurants-be-allowed-to-turn-away-lgbt-customers/

(04-04-2015 12:22 PM)TerryD Wrote:  Look at the bolded text of the original Indiana law. The article points out exactly what I did prior to even finding the article and just from my review of the text.

Gov. Pence could not even answer a simple, direct question as to whether this law was discriminatory.

Why? Because he knew it was. That was the entire idea of the law.

(04-04-2015 10:51 AM)CardinalZen Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 10:42 AM)ken d Wrote:  CardinalZen, may I ask you one question? If a white person believes that God does not want races to mix, should he be allowed to refuse to serve blacks in his restaurant?

If your answer to that is yes, then I understand why you support this bill. If it is no, then perhaps you could understand why I don't.

Yes. And I fully support the rights of people to go somewhere us to eat. A white person like that should have the right to open that kind of restaurant, but they do not have the right to be successful. Likewise, it should not be illegal for a black person to refuse serving whites.

Or more generally, it should not be illegal to be a misguided bigot. I think the foundation for such laws are ultimately unconstitutional.

Nice try though, painting me as racist.

(04-04-2015 12:43 PM)billings Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 12:22 PM)TerryD Wrote:  Look at the bolded text of the original Indiana law. The article points out exactly what I did prior to even finding the article and just from my review of the text.

Gov. Pence could not even answer a simple, direct question as to whether this law was discriminatory.

Why? Because he knew it was. That was the entire idea of the law.

the far right spin machine was in full force saying this was just like the other states when in fact the circumstances were very different. Big business has crushed the far right on this issue and they retreated in Indiana, Arkansas, and Georgia to name a few states.

(04-04-2015 10:42 AM)ken d Wrote:  CardinalZen, may I ask you one question? If a white person believes that God does not want races to mix, should he be allowed to refuse to serve blacks in his restaurant?

If your answer to that is yes, then I understand why you support this bill. If it is no, then perhaps you could understand why I don't.

(04-04-2015 11:17 AM)perimeterpost Wrote:  You have an embarrassingly poor understanding of American history. Your fantasy hypothetical of allowing bigoted business owners to openly discriminate with the expectation that that the target of their prejudice can simply go somewhere else is just that- a fantasy. Your hypothetical suggestion was put into practice for 100 years in this country, Jim Crow was an abject failure and a wretched stain on our nation's history.

(04-04-2015 11:17 AM)perimeterpost Wrote:  You can't begin to understand the shame and humiliation a black man would have felt driving with his family from Detroit, MI to Biloxi, MS to attend a funeral and finding that once he entered the segregated South there were no easy to find rest stops off the highway for people of color, forcing him to pull over to the side of the road so his wife and daughter could go to the bathroom in the woods like animals. No American deserves to be degraded this way. The suggestion that minorities can simply go somewhere else is a proven lie.

(04-04-2015 11:17 AM)perimeterpost Wrote:  This is the cold, ugly reality of allowing business owners to openly discriminate against minorities all in the name of Jesus and Freedom. You should be ashamed for suggesting such a disgraceful solution.

(04-03-2015 06:56 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  You might be the only one on the planet that believes laws don't force people to do things.

(04-04-2015 10:51 AM)CardinalZen Wrote:  Yes. And I fully support the rights of people to go somewhere us to eat. A white person like that should have the right to open that kind of restaurant, but they do not have the right to be successful. Likewise, it should not be illegal for a black person to refuse serving whites.

Or more generally, it should not be illegal to be a misguided bigot. I think the foundation for such laws are ultimately unconstitutional.

Nice try though, painting me as racist.

(04-04-2015 12:53 PM)ken d Wrote:  But let's not get confused about whether this is a religious issue. It absolutely is not. I believe, and I hope, that most Christians do not agree with your position that discrimination based on race should be legal.

(04-04-2015 12:53 PM)ken d Wrote:  I would hope they would agree that your position is immoral, and that any god that would require it is immoral as well. Your position is one of anarchy - that one shouldn't have to obey any law if he claims to have a religious objection to it.

(04-04-2015 12:53 PM)ken d Wrote:  Our society has rejected that. But we have to continually fight those who would overturn years - even centuries - of progress. We'll never stamp out bigotry, but we owe it to ourselves and our country to keep trying.

(04-04-2015 02:50 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-03-2015 06:56 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  You might be the only one on the planet that believes laws don't force people to do things.

Not sure what to tell you. A law can only punish someone for carrying out a transgression. It does not apply force to prevent the transgression.

(04-04-2015 02:51 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 10:51 AM)CardinalZen Wrote:  Yes. And I fully support the rights of people to go somewhere us to eat. A white person like that should have the right to open that kind of restaurant, but they do not have the right to be successful. Likewise, it should not be illegal for a black person to refuse serving whites.

Or more generally, it should not be illegal to be a misguided bigot. I think the foundation for such laws are ultimately unconstitutional.

Nice try though, painting me as racist.

It's not illegal to be a bigot.

It is illegal to discriminate. And it should be. So far, I've yet to see any coherent argument from you explaining why the opposite should be true.

(04-04-2015 02:59 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  So, you are saying that they threat of ex post facto force does not count?

And maybe you can explain this...

The various cases that have this hornets nest stirred up, are cases of no action. Why does choosing 'not' to bake a cake for a particular type of wedding constitute a transgression? There is no act. There is only inaction. It is the state that would compel the service to be performed against the will of the laborer.

(04-04-2015 03:01 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  Because it's immoral to demand labor from another who chooses to withhold it?

(04-04-2015 03:02 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 02:59 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  So, you are saying that they threat of ex post facto force does not count?

And maybe you can explain this...

The various cases that have this hornets nest stirred up, are cases of no action. Why does choosing 'not' to bake a cake for a particular type of wedding constitute a transgression? There is no act. There is only inaction. It is the state that would compel the service to be performed against the will of the laborer.

You claimed the law was forcing people to do something they didn't want to do. I explained that a law can't force anyone to do anything. There's not really much more to be discussed on that.

Discrimination is a choice, not a lack of a choice.

(04-04-2015 03:01 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 02:51 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 10:51 AM)CardinalZen Wrote:  Yes. And I fully support the rights of people to go somewhere us to eat. A white person like that should have the right to open that kind of restaurant, but they do not have the right to be successful. Likewise, it should not be illegal for a black person to refuse serving whites.

Or more generally, it should not be illegal to be a misguided bigot. I think the foundation for such laws are ultimately unconstitutional.

Nice try though, painting me as racist.

It's not illegal to be a bigot.

It is illegal to discriminate. And it should be. So far, I've yet to see any coherent argument from you explaining why the opposite should be true.

Because it's immoral to demand labor from another who chooses to withhold it?

(04-04-2015 03:04 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 03:01 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  Because it's immoral to demand labor from another who chooses to withhold it?

No one is demanding labor from anyone.

If one chooses to discriminate, he/she will be punished according to the law.

(04-04-2015 03:09 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  Are you really down to arguing that government enforcement of laws doesn't matter because the government force shows up after the perceived infraction? If so, I'm not sure that this is a discussion worth having.

(04-04-2015 03:11 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  And in this case, the discrimination manifests as the withholding of labor.

(04-04-2015 02:52 PM)CardinalZen Wrote:  

(04-04-2015 12:53 PM)ken d Wrote:  But let's not get confused about whether this is a religious issue. It absolutely is not. I believe, and I hope, that most Christians do not agree with your position that discrimination based on race should be legal.

You can believe and hope all you want, but you do not speak for all Christians. And there are other beliefs to consider as well. You don't speak for them either.

Besides, my thoughts on this matter are not so much 'discrimination should be legal', as they are 'discrimination should not be illegal'. The first suggests that the state has acted to allow something. The second is more in tune with the concept of 'inalienable rights', i.e. the state has restrained from acting.

(04-04-2015 12:53 PM)ken d Wrote:  I would hope they would agree that your position is immoral, and that any god that would require it is immoral as well. Your position is one of anarchy - that one shouldn't have to obey any law if he claims to have a religious objection to it.

I guess the cause makes the martyr, doesn't.

There are people lining up all over the place to break laws that they think are immoral. I would much rather that we limit the number of laws so that people don't have to choose between their principles or getting arrested.

(04-04-2015 12:53 PM)ken d Wrote:  Our society has rejected that. But we have to continually fight those who would overturn years - even centuries - of progress. We'll never stamp out bigotry, but we owe it to ourselves and our country to keep trying.

Have you even thought about that at all? How many more laws would you have us pass to achieve your perfect society, free of discrimination?

Do you know why there's still bigotry? Bigotry is part of the human condition. We're all imperfect creatures. Trying to perfect humanity using laws doesn't work. In the end, the essence of humanity is freedom of conscience, the right to choose. You cannot legislate virtue, but you can crush the human spirit under the weight of countless laws and regulations.