Indiana's freedom to discriminate law

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Magical Realist, Mar 29, 2015.

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  1. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Every freedom in the Bill of Rights has reasonable limitations. Freedom of Religion is no exception, nor does it always extend to the extreme of creating your own government and legal system to support it. The only exceptions to this rule would be, as the National Review correctly pointed out, a reservation for Native Americans, and even their tribal law is subordinate to the U.S. Constitution in most cases, just as it applies in U.S. territories that have not yet become states or in military reservations or our embassies overseas. Last time I checked, Indiana was not such a reservation, and even if it was, the same supreme rule of the Constitution still applies.
     
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  3. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Didn't that law come about because of a photographer would not agree to film a lesbian wedding, because the photographer had religious objections based on the traditional definition of marriage.

    This lack of service resulted in militant protests, against the photographer, that including harassing anyone who would dare use their photography service, resulting in that business driven out of business. The new law os designed to protect people from being bullied, by homosexuals militant groups, because of religious beliefs. This law would make harder for homosexual militants to drive someone out of business for practicing their faith.
     
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  5. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    I'll be very reluctant to call gay groups advocating in such fashion militant, just because they call out a hypocritical photographer. It's exactly the same people crying religion as an excuse for gay bashing (Leviticus, 20:13), that stuff their face with bacon (ALSO Leviticus, 11:7!!!). So people feigning righteousness are very selective as to what part of the random texts they claim to adhere to. Which would make them hypocrites, and I see it as a civic duty to call that out, also for the hypocrites' own sake. It's pretty obvious, that Pence sympathies with that photographer and don't give a rats' ass about them disgusting perverts. Maybe he was twittled as a child by a drunk uncle or a vicar, I don't know.

    This nonsense is like drawing Muhammed, it's got nothing to do with religion and never had, never will be. Religion is merely people's half ass excuses for doing, what they would've done anyway, under those circumstances. And aparently a certain number of people want to select queers for hatred, now that they can't get away with doing it to niggers and spics these days.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2015
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  7. Photizo Ambassador/Envoy Valued Senior Member

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    Love:
    Love is kind and patient,
    never jealous, boastful,
    proud, or rude.
    Love isn’t selfish
    or quick tempered.
    It doesn’t keep a record
    of wrongs that others do.
    Love rejoices in the truth,
    but not in evil.
    Love is always supportive,
    loyal, hopeful,
    and trusting.

    It even goes so far as to insist these virtues be extended to one's enemies. Of course, we are not talking about love here. We're talking about hate.

    Be of good cheer...the identities of the haters are known to Him.
     
  8. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    I understand that they are changing the wording of this new law so wait to see what develops.
     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Hate now given the cover of religion, by law. A common scene, in this world - but always ugly, even so.

    Btw: one difference between this kind of law in Indiana and some other places is that Indiana does not legally protect the standard abused minority categories, such as gay people, from bigotry. So it gives bigots the cover of religion, as was used to cover race and gender based bigotry before the Federal government stepped in, in a State without the normal secular curbs on their treatment of others.
     
  10. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    This would be a matter for civil court proceedings (suing for damage(s) incurred by not having a wedding photographer, or a countersuit for business lost by means of a boycott), not abridging the Bill of Rights or the constitution to uphold an unreasonable extension of freedom of religion that has been inappropriately used in order to discriminate against the right of a client to have someone from their agency to photograph a record of their wedding.

    Neither situation rates escalation to the level of the Supreme Court.
     
  11. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Customers have the total right to boycott any business they see as promoting discrimination or bigotry. So what is this law going to do? Force people to do business with this homophobe under law? Ofcourse not. The photographer will go out of business whether there is a law or not. The only thing the law MIGHT do is keep him from having is panties sued off him. Such are the costs of discriminating against minorities in the name of religious freedom.
     
  12. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Recycling

    The funny thing about that point is that Mr. Pence says that's not part of the law or why it was passed; his interview with George Stephanopoulos is the stuff of political legend. Then again, the Indiana Republican has been saying a lot of stupid things lately:

    Six days ago, on March 26, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed his state's new “Religious Freedom Restoration Act" into law, and he couldn't have been more pleased.

    “Today I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, because I support the freedom of religion for every Hoosier of every faith," the governor said in a statement released shortly after he signed Senate Bill 101.

    Three days ago, on March 29, Pence agreed the law may need to be changed.

    Gov. Mike Pence, scorched by a fast-spreading political firestorm, told The Star on Saturday that he will support the introduction of legislation to “clarify" that Indiana's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not promote discrimination against gays and lesbians.

    Two days ago, on March 30, Pence reversed course, saying the law would not be changed.

    “Look, we're not going to change the law, OK?"

    One day ago, on March 31, Pence held a press conference to say the law must be fixed.

    “Let me say I believe this is a clarification, but it's also a fix .... We will fix this and we will move forward."[/i]​

    And then yesterday afternoon, still on March 31, Pence told Fox News' Sean Hannity the law doesn't need to be fixed.

    “I stand by this law. The law doesn't need to be fixed."

    So, which is it?

    Ove the course of just six days, Pence has endorsed the law, then endorsed changing the law, then opposed changing the law, then re-endorsed changing the law, only to then oppose changes again.

    At this point, I'm a little confused about the Republican governor's true intentions. Or more to the point, I suspect the governor himself is a little confused about his own intentions.


    (Benen↱)

    Still, though, Pence is trying to push a line that the law has nothing to do with discrimination; as Benen noted:

    If you watched Pence’s press conference closely yesterday, there was one word he used 12 times: “perception.” At one point, the governor said, “[T]his is a perception problem.” Later the governor added that he’s determined “to correct the perception that’s taken hold.”

    It seems Pence is convinced that there is no real problem with his anti-gay measure; there’s only the appearance of a problem.

    And that was his line with Stephanopoulos, too. The underlying argument―

    ―is that "religious freedom" includes the right to discriminate and be cruel, and everybody else is obliged to sit by and say nothing. It is just another version of a popular conservative canard, that disagreement equals a violation of rights. Sarah Palin liked that bit. So, too, do the hardliners protesting library books on the grounds that their First Amendment rights are violated if this or that author is not censored according to specific religious standards.

    It's hypocrisy. It's stupidity. And as excuses go, there is no fellatio metaphor sloppy enough to make the point about cheap whoring.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Benen, Steve. "Mike Pence's contradictory assurances". msnbc. 1 April 2015. msnbc.com. 1 April 2015. http://on.msnbc.com/1aixzai
     
  13. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Fundamentalists: "Don't back down Governor Pence!"

    "In an interview yesterday, Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver said that a potential fix to Indiana’s new “religious freedom” law ensuring that it would not effectively legalize discrimination would be “devastating,” comparing such a move to negotiating with terrorists.

    “There is nothing to clarify and there is nothing to fix,” Staver told Jim Schneider on VCY America’s “Crosstalk.”

    “This is what the homosexual lobby wants to do: they want to intimidate [Indiana Gov. Mike Pence] so much, they want to try to embarrass him into doing something that is absolutely foolish, that will promote their agenda,” Staver added.

    “It’s kind of like with these terrorists, it’s hard to negotiate with terrorists because they have a zero-sum game. It’s hard to negotiate with these people who simply are irrational and are inventing things that just simply don’t exist. You’re not going to placate them by trying to come back and pass a clarification to a law that doesn’t need any clarification at all.”


    Staver told host Jim Schneider that gay rights advocates are promoting “anti-Christian hatred,” warning that the gay rights movement has “given a tolerance message, and what is behind that is, frankly, demonic. It wants to literally overpower, it has no interest in protecting religious freedom, it wants to crush it.”

    “This is the wakeup call for the church,” he said.


    Staver said that conservative Christians in America are in the same place as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor in Germany who died as a result of his opposition to Nazi rule.

    The gay rights movement, Staver said, is all about “absolute intolerant bigotry, hatred towards Christians and people of faith,” and even the “criminalization of Christianity.”

    “They want to literally crush religion, the free exercise of religion, and freedom,” Staver said. “That’s what this agenda is about. So I say stand your ground. This is a Bonhoeffer moment and Gov. Mike Pence better not back up on this issue.”

    - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/conte...es-are-acting-terrorists#sthash.Npn97Izt.dpuf
     
  14. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    To quote Stephen Fry on QI: "That is what philosophers call a false syllogism."

    The nazi regime were a cult of mass murderers, while gays develop an alternative hormone production and mating behavior, perhaps as a biological consequence to the gross over population of the human world. Not exactly an analogy, that holds up. Also, the paradox is, that many gay people are eagerly religious, Christian or otherwise. The irrational hate comes much more from the religious groups, while the gay groups only ask what's fair according to humanism. Again, not that it has anything to do with religion per se, other than the religious fractions in the Western world are indeed under pressure, and aparently they're looking for an easy scape goat. 'Cause it can't be because there are flaws in their way of life, I guess. And people can't use blacks, Hispanics or Jews these days, so now gays are up, it seems. Who ever people think are too weak to fend for themselves.

    This Staver would be one clear example on how this legislature can indeed be interpreted as carte blanche for systematic bigotry. He was probably also twittled as a child.

    What would Jesus do, I wonder?
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2015
  15. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Let us do this other way. Say the photographer was gay. He was asked to photograph a religious couple who he heard speak openly against homosexuality. They did not know the photographer gay, but his feelings are hurt and he says, no. He offers to give them the number of another photographer who is also good. He is has the right to refuse business.

    The couple has a chip in their shoulder and feel they are being singled out because of their religious views. They call their friends and activists to help bully and intimidate the photographer. They also try to undermine his business by intimidating his customers, following some to their homes. Would this be be OK? The answer is no even though this is a parallel. The reason is the dual standard.

    The law was intended to make a single standard by taking away the dual standard.
     
  16. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Are you quoting something absurd, or is that what you believe? If the latter, you need to step back and actually think, instead of whatever the hell that was. If the former, support it with a link.
     
  17. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    I don't think it's that absurd, it would at least provide a plausible biological mechanism behind the emergence of homosexuality in human beings: Overpopulation. It's a bit odd to be homo, actually, biologically speaking, because the only thing we need to do with our otherwise pointless lives is to breed; subconsciously, we know we have to die and there isn't any life after death, otherwise none of us would make the effort of actually raising a family (or cry at funerals, for that matter). But there's way too many of us on the planet today. And if some individuals get enamored towards their own gender, as opposed to the heterosexual standard, they are less likely to breed and thus further exacerbating the problem. Overpopulation stresses us and makes us kill and rape and mame each other seemingly for no reason, other than from the stress of overpopulation. Take a stroll through New York, why don't you? This is also seen in so many other animal species; you ever seen too many hamsters in too small a cage? They do exactly the same, which is horrid to observe in those otherwise cute little fluffy rodents. I personally see overpopulation as humanity's biggest problem, we're basically drowning in our own success. And hell, maybe homosexuality is just the natural solution from Mother Nature. Which would make gay bigotry and persecution even more stupid.

    I do have the impression, that there are fewer gays in rural regions versus urban. And consequently, that there are more anti-gay biggots in rural regions, because they're not exposed to the phenomenon as often. But then I also don't know if actual statistics would back that up, I could be wrong.
     
  18. joepistole Deacon Blues Valued Senior Member

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    Well, the whole point of the law, the reason for the law , is to make discriminatory practices legal. So anything short of that defeats the intent.
     
  19. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    We used to think that about sickle cell anemia. It kills you! Why would we ever retain a genetic trait that can kill you? Turns out there are some benefits we didn't understand at first.
     
  20. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Wow. You live a pretty insular life, hm?

    By the way, it's maim and bigot, and frankly your parochial viewpoint is a bit offensive.

    Yes, you could be wrong.
     
  21. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    Huh? Why would it be offensive? I'm saying there might be a natural mechanism to reduce the threat of population explosion, causing homosexuality to emerge in some individuals during their adolescence. Ie. more in a densely populated region than in more sparse one. (which is most of the planet these days). I find it a fascinating idea.

    And I'm lost on the word "parochial", I have to say. "Relating to a church parish?" Narrow-minded? Local patriotic? I don't understand the context.
     
  22. Dr_Toad It's green! Valued Senior Member

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    Narrow-minded. Read more.
     
  23. CEngelbrecht Registered Senior Member

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    You need to explain to me, why that notion would be offensive. 'Cause it's certainly not what I'm going for. Do you have an issue with humans being an animal species, or what is it?
     
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