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Indiana Gov. signs "religious freedom" bill into law

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by SnarkShark, Mar 26, 2015.

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  1. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member


     
  2. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    As many threads on this site are run off the rails by our more conservative members, so, too, has this one, to the point where no comedians are funny, JFK was in the Tea Party, Christians are the true persecuted parties in America and posters who make repeated, sour posts are in fact the true hopeful ones.

    It's a posture and it's a bore. It feels like a college debate round, where one side is waiting to see if a judge tells them they won because they kept arguing their side better. But no judge is coming.
     
  3. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Yes, of course ... everything was so on the up-and-up until those conservatives started popping off.
     
    old_tony likes this.
  4. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    One thing is certain after reading this thread:

    YankeeFan is either banned, pissed or dead.
     
  5. JayFarrar

    JayFarrar Well-Known Member

    That's not at all what Alma said but no matter for it has gotten truly serious in Indiana: Wilco has cancelled its upcoming show there.

    When you've lost the dad rockers, what do you hope to win?
     
  6. Alma

    Alma Well-Known Member

    You can defend it if you like, but when the posts start to be complete trolls -- no liberals are funny, no comedians are funny, JFK would have led the Tea Party brigade -- well...it doesn't seem to be something you'd do. You're pretty set on nuance, at least in this thread.
     
  7. Ace

    Ace Well-Known Member

    Well, Sunshine, if they use guns to kill people, we have a well-established pattern of shrugging of gun violence because we don't want to trump anyone's constitutional right to own and operate an assault rifle.

    So it's not that Americans hate religious massacres; it's that we really, really like guns.
     
  8. Amy

    Amy Well-Known Member

    Even a holder of an endowed chair can be disingenuous in writing a persuasion piece (if I were writing something defending the law, I'd likely structure my argument similarly). I agree, and have made the point several times, that RFRAs are not evil in and of themselves. I agree that this would have to be raised in a court action and a court would have to find the RFRA protected their behavior. However, he also says:

    “Under the Indiana RFRA, those who provide creative services for weddings, such as photographers, florists or bakers, could claim that religious freedom protects them from local nondiscrimination laws. Like other religious objectors, they would have their day in court, as they should, permitting them to argue that the government is improperly requiring them to violate their religion by participating (in their view) in a celebration that their religion does not allow.”

    The law is no way restricted to “those who provide creative services.” It applies to any person including some corporations whether or not creative services are involved. It is in no way limited to weddings, although that was the focus of the law’s proponents and all subsequent discussions.

    The cases in which RFRA acts have not been cases of “religious objectors” although it probably accurately describes the proponents of the Indiana bill. Every decided case I’m aware of – use of drugs in ceremonies, growing beard, feeding homeless in parks (I believe there is a Dallas case as well as the PA case he refers to) involve people actively performing obligations of their religions. They were not “objecting” to anyone else’s legal activities. They were not objecting to the generally applicable laws that restricted their legal abilities to carry out those obligations. They weren’t objectors, religious or otherwise.

    The Virginia professor linked in another post was similarly misleading in making his argument why the law is so benign echoing of the “religious objector” designation and mischaracterizing the basis for and importance of the Hobby Lobby decision.

    The case isn’t “one of the minority of wins for religious objectors” – it is the only “religious objector” case of which I am aware. The importance of Hobby Lobby to the current situation is its approval of the idea that at least some legal entities could have religious beliefs; and finding a protectable religious belief where there is no direct connection to any “immoral conduct” and where that belief impacts (although not necessarily denying) how someone who doesn’t share that belief exercises his or her legal rights.

    He was also misleading in this paragraph:

    “State RFRAs are quite unlikely to affect discrimination claims…So far, the religious claimants have lost all of those cases, including the wedding photographer under the New Mexico RFRA, and the florist in Washington under a RFRA-like interpretation of the state constitution.”

    The New Mexico case was not decided under that State’s RFRA. He admits the Washington case was “RFRA like” but it was not an RFRA. Of course, those are in other states with laws that, even if an RFRA or RFRA-like, are not identical to Indiana’s law and would not bind Indiana courts even if the language was identical because a state court is not bound by a decision of another state court with the same or similar law.

    Those cases do not mean that it’s likely a religious objector in a gay wedding case in Indiana would lose. Maybe yes. Maybe no. But if the answer is so clearly no, why do the proponents of the bills, including these two professors who admit their desire to protect service providers who don’t want to serve gay weddings, also argue the law is required to allow them to do so?
     
  9. MisterCreosote

    MisterCreosote Well-Known Member

    Don't forget "No one gets outraged at Islamic terrorist attacks."
     
  10. Mr. Sunshine

    Mr. Sunshine Well-Known Member

    Whine some more, Alma.
     
  11. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Gish Gallop.
     
  12. trifectarich

    trifectarich Well-Known Member

    I don't watch FOX, and reading the last few pages of this thread, I'm reminded why I made that decision. Enough with all the yelling and screaming. Carry on, people; see you on a different thread.
     
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