Lowry: Arizona bill the victim of a smear campaign
"The bill was roughly 998 pages shorter than much of legislation that passes in Washington. Clocking in at barely two pages, it was easy to scan for disparaging references to homosexuality, for veiled references to homosexuality, for any references to homosexuality at all."
"They weren’t there. A headline from The Week declared, "There is nothing Christian about Arizona’s anti-gay bill." It would be more accurate to say that there was nothing anti-gay about Arizona’s anti-gay bill.
"The legislation consisted of minor clarifications of the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which has been on the books for 15 years and is modeled on the federal act that passed with big bipartisan majorities in the 1990s and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton."
If you’ll excuse a brief break from the hysteria to dwell on the text of the doomed bill, it stipulated that the word "person" in the law applies to businesses and that the protections of the law apply whether or not the government is directly a party to a proceeding (e.g., a lawsuit brought on anti-discrimination grounds).
"Eleven legal experts on religious-freedom statutes — who represent a variety of views on gay marriage — wrote a letter to Gov. Brewer prior to her veto explaining how, in addition to the federal government, 18 states have such statutes."
"The letter argues that, properly interpreted, the federal law that inspired the Arizona statute covers cases that don’t directly involve the government and covers businesses. So Arizona’s changes were in keeping with a law once championed by none other than Sen. Ted Kennedy."
"A religious-freedom statute doesn’t give anyone carte blanche to do whatever he wants in the name of religion. It simply allows him to make his case in court that a law or a lawsuit substantially burdens his religion and that there is no compelling governmental interest to justify the burden."
In CO, we have a cake shop get sued because the owner refused to create a decorative wedding cake for two homosexuals. The owner did not refuse to sell them a cake, he just said he would not create something that went against his religion. The homosexuals sued and the cake shop owner lost. It's on appeal and not resolved.
I wonder if the Sistine Chapel would have ever been painted if Michael Angelo had refused to paint it based on his religion? This logic means any artist could be coerced into providing his or her skills regardless of their religious views.
Doesn’t matter didn’t poll well for Brewer.
Well cousin Mike, I read your post and am a bit confused.
But whatever information you provided why couldn’t maybe the Republican s have provided while the hysteria climaxed?
I got an opinion about that fiasco last week and I might make some of you mad but hear me out.
As America is to understand it, Arizona passed a law that would allow, a florist say.... to refuse to service a same-sex wedding as his religion does not allow it.
Right there I’m thinking....damn. How the hell many florists are going to turn down a nice paying gig due to religious beliefs? Not to mock...no, no...not to mock. But you can get a chicken sandwich at Chick Filet no matter your sexuality.
Religious beliefs do not necessarily include denial of service is what I’m saying here.
All my wonderful common sense tells me that this was a rather silly thing for Arizona to pass a law, to please the errant baker who doesn’t want to bake a wedding cake for Bob and Bill.
I think this law was deliberately passed for this very eventuality.
For back in 1964, when I was a young blossoming maiden, this country enacted a law that disallowed businesses from discriminating against black people by denying them service.
The Civil Rights is a good law and has stood the test of time no mind those abusing its intent.
All of a sudden we’re going to enact another law that would deny service to a homosexual....this from a business with a license to conduct commerce in the public domain?
What the thing was was a political nightmare and typical of the Repubs. It makes no sense and I’m sure cousin Mike has some kind of reason why I’m wrong.
The reason I am usually right and cousin Mike....well he’s usually right too.
But The Wise I, yon ladies and gems, has the common sense of it.
Somebody got fooled by that mess in Arizona. Best thing, never mind the Super Bowl, is for the thing to have been vetoed and let it go down the memory drain.
Republicans....PR is just not that party’s strong suit.
PS-and please don’t give me this “THAT’S NOT WHAT THE LAW MEANT” crap. As I described is how the media hysteria came down and someone should have figured it out.