Posted on 04/01/2015 9:52:02 AM PDT by Kaslin
"I could have handled that better."
I don't know if the captain of the Titanic ever said that. But Mike Pence did on Tuesday.
The Indiana governor has managed to step on an impressive number of parts of his own anatomy recently and in the process gravely injured what was already a long-shot ambition to run for president in 2016.
Earlier this month he signed the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act in a private ceremony. In attendance were prominent opponents of gay marriage.
In response, great algae plumes of righteous outrage erupted across the Internet. Gay rights groups, the Democratic Party and the mainstream media, in unison, lost their collective marbles and raised unshirted hell. Know-nothings of every stripe cried out that Jim Crow had returned to the land. Shouts of "boycott!" went forth, including perhaps of the NCAA's Final Four, which for Hoosiers is like threatening a boycott of Easter Mass at the Vatican. The Indiana Chamber of Commerce hied to its corporate fainting couch and begged to be rescued.
Pence, desperate to put out the political fire, raced to a TV studio last Sunday to quench the flames on ABC's "This Week." The only problem is that he arrived at the scene with a rhetorical water pistol hoping to put out a five-alarm blaze.
"Do you think it should be legal in the state of Indiana to discriminate against gays or lesbians?" George Stephanopoulos asked.
"George, you're -- you're following the mantra of the last week online [media coverage]," Pence said. "And you're trying to make this issue about something else."
Well, as they say in formal debate classes, Duh.
Two days later, Pence held a press conference to ask the state legislature to rewrite the law to placate the mob.
Pence still had the better part of the legal argument. Indeed, he and supporters of RFRA have nearly the entire legal argument on their side.
The federal RFRA was passed in 1993, in response to a Supreme Court decision holding that Native Americans weren't exempt from anti-drug laws barring the use of peyote, even for religious ceremonies.
In response, Congress passed a law barring the government from putting a burden on religious practice without a compelling state interest. If someone feels their religious rights have been violated, they can go to court and make their case. That's it. Jim Crow laws forced people to discriminate. RFRA doesn't force anybody to do anything.
The original RFRA was a good and just law championed by then-Rep. Chuck Schumer and opposed by right-wing bogeyman Jesse Helms. It passed the Senate 97-3 and was signed by President Bill Clinton.
In 1997, the Supreme Court held that RFRA was too broad and could not be applied to states. So, various state governments passed their own versions. Twenty states have close to the same version as the federal government's, and a dozen more have similar rules in their constitutions. These states include such anti-gay bastions as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Illinois, where, as a state senator, Barack Obama voted in favor of the law.
The law says nothing about gays and was most famously used to keep the Obama administration from forcing Hobby Lobby and nuns from paying for certain kinds of abortion-inducing birth control.
"This big gay freak-out is purely notional," according to legal writer Gabriel Malor (who is gay). "No RFRA has ever been used successfully to defend anti-gay discrimination, not in 20 years of RFRAs nationwide."
Still, the freak-out was predictable. A year earlier in Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer had attempted to sign a similar law before caving to the pressure. Why would the same crowd spare Indiana?
Yes, Pence hoped to throw a crumb to opponents of gay marriage. But what a miniscule crumb this is.
The war for gay rights has been won, and that's basically fine by me. But there are a few holdouts -- most famously devout Christian wedding planners, florists photographers and bakers -- who don't want to be part of such things. Why a gay couple would want a photographer who is morally opposed to their wedding to snap pictures of it is a mystery to me.
But we live in an age where non-compliance with the left's agenda must be cast as bigotry. Everyone is free to celebrate as instructed. This is what liberals think liberty means today.
Heb 10:34 For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.
“They will move on to the next step which might include human rights tribunals that punish speech and practices critical of homosexuality, including what religious schools and congregations teach about it. And how long will it be until members of the clergy who decline to officiate at homosexual weddings are charged with violating anti-dscrimination laws?”
.....Unless the radical gays want to step into a hornets nest of trouble with the Churches themselves.
And I stand by my statement also.
There is both the REALITY which those of Christian faith hold and the SYMBOLS of Easter, which those who have no faith hold on to.
My stance is better then your stance!!!! </sarc>
“Is that a crime?”
Not yet.
Have you ever heard of the saying, “timing is everything?” It is in this case.
everyone knows that gay-owned businesses will be allowed to discriminate against Christians with no threat of reprisal by the laws, same with Muslims
How many corporations are threatening boycotts of Indiana today? So.... they cannot refuse to do business?
Excellent observation.
Interesting point you make.
BINGO! We have a winner!:)=^..^=
This is the money statement of the thread.
If you can’t discriminate, you’re not free.
The problem the left has with religious freedom starts with the fact that they hate religion unless, like Islam, it’s an ally in the left’s ongoing war against Western civilization.
“This is what liberals think liberty means today.”
My only disagreement with this article is the use of the word “think”.
Liberals/Leftists can’t “think”. They are irrational or insane (or purely evil), as evil as the Marxism they worship. The Leftists hate Truth/God, destroy critical thinking in our children on purpose with Limbic excitement during Latency, to suppress intellectual development (Sex Ed/Global Warming/Evolution/Earth Worship) because they base every assumption on the Big Lie and memorized false “history” which demonizes Truth/God/Wisdom of Ages/Traditions so there can be no transmission of culture to the young (banning Christ/real History from culture). All their perceptions are warped, twisted and false. Critical thinking can never occur-—unless they are purely evil and trying to destroy the USA on purpose.
Many know that these laws which protect sodomizing others will destroy our Constitution and create a “Justice” system which spits on God, spits on Natural Law (Science) and the Natural Rights of a baby (like abortion)-—and that is their purpose—plus to control the emotions of children to make Christians seem “evil” and “bigots” since they have to destroy Christian Ethics in children to collapse the culture (Virtue). Destroying the most rational religion creates irrational children where Good and Evil can’t exist—except in irrational, muslim, pagan, Atheist form: Might makes Right.
All Reason is being ejected from Just Law-—and all these rules and regulations of the last 80 years are based on emotions-—”feelings” and there is no Right Reason in any of their laws whatsoever.
Right Reason and “Justice” (a Virtue) was thrown out with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. when all evil laws and regulations became “Constitutional” when they are actually antithetical to the Constitution and should be “null and void” as Justice John Marshall stated all “law” which promotes evil, vice, welfare (theft), etc., are.
The freedom of association of human rights. To associate and trade with who we choose. This business has nothing to do with religion. And if we continue to retreat to religious freedom that freedom will not last much longer. People have the right to discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, sex, sexual proclivities, looks,etc. etc. Until somebody starts making that case we can expect freedom to be continually diminished.
If somebody does not want to do business with me for whatever reason is fine with me. Let people sort it out for themselves. Always resorting to “religious freedom” is cowardly and counterproductive. I am a Christian.
When will Christians learn to use the law? One well publicized suit against Muslim Butchers forcing them to sell pork chops should put their “equality demands” in perspective.
I think you’re very perceptive.
Thank you. Obviously you are likewise perceptive.
I wouldn’t patronize a Muslim butcher shop in the first place
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