Mississippi legalizes discrimination for religious reasons

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Magical Realist, Apr 5, 2014.

  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Not that I have any reason for EVER visiting Mississippi. But wow, are these people living in the 50's?


    JACKSON, Miss. -- "Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant signed a bill Thursday that supporters say will assure unfettered practice of religion without government interference but that opponents worry could lead to state-sanctioned discrimination against gays and lesbians.

    The bill, called the Mississippi Religious Freedom Restoration Act, will become law July 1. It also will add "In God We Trust" to the state seal.

    An early version of the bill, considered weeks ago, was similar to one Arizona's Republican governor, Jan Brewer, vetoed after business groups said it could hurt that state's economy. Supporters say the final Mississippi bill bears little resemblance to the failed Arizona measure.

    Outside the state Capitol on Thursday, more than 75 gay-rights supporters protested against the bill. Jeff White of Waveland, a founder of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Lesbian and Gay Community Center, said as someone who is gay and Jewish, he worries such a new law could make him more vulnerable to unfair treatment.

    "It's the first time in my life that I've actually considered moving out of Mississippi," said White, 32. "It made me physically ill the past few days, realizing what they're trying to do."

    Bryant signed the measure within hours of receiving it Thursday, during a private ceremony. The bill says government cannot put a substantial burden on the practice of religion. Though the bill is vaguely worded, supporters said an example of would be a zoning law to limit the location of a church, mosque or synagogue but not limiting the location of a secular business.

    The small signing ceremony was attended by a few elected officials, lobbyists for the state's influential Southern Baptist Convention and Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council. The council, a conservative Washington-based group, has pushed states to enact laws that mirror the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act that President Bill Clinton signed in 1993.

    Perkins said Mississippi becomes the 19th state to enact its own religious-practices law since 1996.

    "Those who understand the importance and cherish the historic understanding of religious freedom are grateful for leaders who respond to fact and not fictitious claims of those who are trying to quarantine faith within the walls of our churches or homes," Perkins said in a statement."
     
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  3. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Hypocrisy and Hatred

    Two points:

    (1) This won't last in the courts.

    (2) "Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven." (Mt. 6.1, RSV)
     
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  5. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Will somebody please remind me why the hell we decided to take the South back?
     
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  7. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, but who really reads that shit?
     
  8. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

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    You think these people actually read and understand the bible
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Brief Notes

    Brief Notes

    Fraggle Rocker: Pride. Do you want to be the president on whose watch the United States of America finally fails? (There are also economic considerations; the whole exercise of buying the Louisiana Territory began with an attempt to secure New Orleans for American shipping.)

    † † † ​

    PJdude, Spidergoat: Mayhaps, but the common barb overlooks a problem of rhetorical form.

    (1) Christian conscience: This isn't Christianity, regardless of what they try to call it.

    (2) Religious freedom: These people still have the right to assert their religious freedom.

    (3) Religious freedom: So do people who aren't Christians. Including homosexuals, atheists, and other people the courts have chosen for generations to wilfully disrespect in deference to this cruel, fake Christianity.​

    It's not that I disagree with your common critique, but, rather, it seems like a shiny thing to play with while issues of consequence continue to move around us. If people's focus was more on the issue instead of the self-proclaimed "Christians"?

    That is to say, yeah, I get exactly what you mean. But isn't this a problem in the legal question? Religious freedom? For what religion? Well, sure, it's "theirs", but neither is it what they call it. The only reason they call it "Christianity" is because they want Christians to vote with them. Kind of like how everybody imagines themselves the good guys.

    Religious freedom is one thing, but there is the consideration that it is usually measured against Christian privilege; if your religious freedom denigrates American Christian privilege, it is less likely to be considered religious freedom.

    The reality is that in my life, it cannot be said that God instructs me to prohibit, shun, or hate homosexuals and homosexuality. And, yet, where is your or my religious freedom in all this? It's not, because we're not Christians.

    And, sure, there still exists the question of why equality must necessarily mean Christian supremacy, but I think it is also important to call out the fraud. This isn't Christianity. It's hatred, trying to ride the coattails of Christianity to traditional privilege.

    Honestly, I think it would be highly appropriate at some point for a judge to tell Hobby Lobby, or one of these other allegedly Christian groups complaining about this, that, or the other, that the Court will be happy to consider the rights of Christians in the context of religious freedom, just as soon as an actual Christian files the complaint.
     
  10. quinnsong Valued Senior Member

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    1,621
    I can just hear the response to the judge," Suh, but we are Christians, not those wussy kinda Christians suh ,true vengeful Christians." Vengeance is mine saith the Lord! Except no one is hurting them so why the vengeance?
     
  11. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    We already have legal discrimination based on sex and race. These are called quotas. This is not called discrimination, even if a specific modern white male victim did nothing in the past that justifies this legal discrimination. From the comments, does the consensus only allow certain groups to be discriminated this way but not the ones that vote for the democrats? The conservatives are learning to use the democratic playbook.
     
  12. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Functional Problems?

    The problem with this sort of argument is that it must necessarily—in order to be valid—presuppose an observable "equality" that has never existed in society. Otherwise, the implied solution to discrimination issues is to just leave the supremacists to their supremacy.
     
  13. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Instead, it fails a century and a half later, after the party of Abe Lincoln redefines itself as reactionary, moves its headquarters to the South, and does its best to bring government to a halt.

    It's only our 12th-largest port, measured by value of shipments rather than tonnage. We could get along without it. Without the Dixiecrats -- oops I meant to say "Republicans" -- the government wouldn't be so deadlocked and they could do their job of improving our economy. The only thing we'd miss about New Orleans is Mardi Gras.

    I thought that line in Romans meant, "Vengeance is mine alone," that mere mortals are supposed to leave that important stuff to the Man Upstairs. After all, mere mortals make mistakes so you can hardly leave something as important and deadly as vengeance in their hands!

    As for "who is hurting them," whah Suh, it's all them Yankees, colored people, immigrants, intellectuals and hippies, hurting us with their scandalous ideas..
     
  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    Notes and (ahem!) Notes

    We ain't dead, yet. Maybe it wasn't the best show we could have managed over the years, but we've had our high points, and if, say, the Cold War, Nazis, and robber barons couldn't do us in, it would be tragic if this cohort managed to finally pull it off.

    We are still the United States of America.

    As to N'Orleans, well, we'd have to establish a Jazz Musicians' Refugee Fund. And as much as we might thank Austin and Houston for giving those folks a place to play after Katrina, what are the chances Texas would go with them? And imagine that: The Austin Wall. Kind of like Berlin, except with a statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan.

    Then again, can you imagine a Day of Silence in New Orleans? Nary a note to sweeten that sticky, stinking air?

    I admit, that would be something to hear.
     
  15. quinnsong Valued Senior Member

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    1,621
    Yep, but you can read and comprehend! My mother always cites the above passage when she feels she has been slighted or hurt in some way, her God will exact revenge on any person that she deems deserving and not only that she prays for revenge.
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    Usurpers

    I would add that many, for fear of things they do not understand, abandon their faith in God and call down His authority for themselves. Ignorance begets fear begets hatred, and by that hatred some are so blinded they would usurp God's authority simply because they don't trust Him enough.
     
  17. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    Tiassa,
    A religion is defined by how it's practiced in reality. There is no "real" version and another fake version. The written version of Judaism and Christianity happens to enshrine the social norms of it's believers at the time, as does the modern version.
     
  18. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Logic and Desire

    Is that more how you want it to be?

    That is to say, sure, I can felch bacon out of little boys and call it a religious freedom issue if I want, but can I call it a Quranic principle and how dare you oppress Muslims?

    You know, setting aside the whole conspiracy theory for a moment, how dare anyone oppress David Koresh's religious freedom as a Christian to keep a harem of little girls.

    Hell, the Catholics should have thought of that decades ago. No more child abuse scandal.

    If someone like Mike Hucakbee wants to argue that his discrimination is about being "on the right side of the Bible", then, yes, being on the right side of the Bible also means opposing those adulterous "marriages" I've noted previously.

    You know, logic? If/then?

    If the heart of the argument is that one's religious freedom is violated if they cannot choose which sins to direct public policy against for the sake of sex discrimination, it just doesn't work.

    Of course, it depends on one's priorities. Some would rather surrender a circumstance in which religious identification has no obligation to decent integrity. It's kind of like saying the 9/11 hijackers were patriotic Americans, or something.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    CNN Political Unit. "Mike Huckabee: Not 'homophobic' but on the 'right side of the Bible'". Political Ticker. April 8, 2014. PoliticalTicker.Blogs.CNN.com. April 8, 2014. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...omophobic-but-on-the-right-side-of-the-bible/
     
  19. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    24,690
    Perhaps because I was not taught fairytales as a child.

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    On the balance I was not very happy with my parents, but they taught me three things that have served me well over the past 70 years:
    • We're all the same, even if we look different.
    • Violence is never the right way to resolve a disagreement.
    • There are no gods, angels, etc. If you want something, you have to make it happen.
     
  20. quinnsong Valued Senior Member

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    1,621

    Hey at least that,my parents took Chaos Theory to a whole nutha level.
     
  21. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Not sure I understood that, but all I'm saying is that one's religious beliefs can be anything one believes. And I also agree that religious freedom has limits defined by law.
     
  22. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    Atheists have been taught myths by their leaders. They seem to think religion is only about fairly tales. It is about human nature and can be used to explain why the atheists can't open their minds to the bigger picture.

    Why would someone who claims to be rational, live by a stereo-type? It has to do with aspects of human nature they are either unconscious or of which atheists have little control. Religion helps with this deficit of brain skills.
     
  23. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    54,036
    If it were only about human nature, it would be called philosophy.
     

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