Posted on 03/30/2015 1:43:41 PM PDT by Responsibility2nd
After litigating religious liberty issues for more than 20 years, I’m used to utter hysteria erupting on the Left when Christians try to assert conventional and traditional religious liberty rights. Perhaps my favorite example was the claim — by a Tufts University student panel — that a Christian group had to be thrown off campus without due process, in part because the Christian group’s insistence on selecting only Christians as leaders placed Tufts students at greater risk of suicide. Yes, suicide.
But for national freakouts, it’s tough to beat either the sky-is-falling rhetoric around the idea that a few Hobby Lobby employees would have to buy their own abortifacients or, more recently, the sheer nonsense of #boycottindiana, the movement to freeze an entire state out of the national economy for passing a religious freedom law similar to the national Religious Freedom Restoration ACT (RFRA) and RFRAs in 19 other states. While it’s hardly surprising to see legally ignorant sportswriters use the language of segregated lunch counters, it’s disturbing to see well-informed CEOs such as Apple’s Tim Cook conjuring up the specter of the Old South.
#related#Simply put, their concerns about systematic invidious discrimination are utter hogwash, and they either know it or should know it. Why? Because RFRAs aren’t new, the legal standard they protect is decades older than the RFRAs themselves, and these legal standards have not been used — nor can they be used — to create the dystopian future the Left claims to fear. After all, the current RFRA legal tests were the law of the land for all 50 states — constitutionally mandated — until the Supreme Court’s misguided decision in Employment Division v. Smith, where the Court allowed fear of drug use to overcome its constitutional good sense. And yet during the decades before Smith, non-discrimination statutes proliferated, and were successfully enforced to open public accommodations to people of all races, creeds, colors, and — yes — sexual orientations.
So what’s really going on here? A toxic combination of anti-Christian bigotry and sexual revolution radicalism. It is simply uninformed and bigoted to believe that Christians are somehow lurking in the shadows, ready to deny food, shelter, and basic services to their gay fellow citizens — blocked from such vicious actions only by the strong arm of the state. In my entire life as an Evangelical, I’ve never met a fellow Christian who wouldn’t gladly serve a gay customer. If there are exceptions to that nearly-universal rule, they are so marginal (and marginalized) in the Christian community that they’re irrelevant not only to Christendom but also to the body politic.
But the Left, ever-vigilant against group-based slights on behalf of favored constituencies, is only too eager to label orthodox Christians as threats to the public.
This bigotry has a purpose. It serves to demonize the last significant constituency standing in the way of sexual revolution radicalism. After all, unless you demonize your opposition, the general public will have little appetite for forcing Christians to pay for abortion pills, forcing Christian groups to open up to atheist leadership, or forcing Christian bakers or photographers to help celebrate events they find morally offensive. After all, there’s no clamor for requiring Kosher delis to stock pork or requiring gay lawyers to represent the Westboro Baptist Church.
While RFRAs protect people of all faiths, from peyote-smoking Native Americans to Bible-toting florists, the Left’s outrage is narrowly targeted — against the Christian people whose livelihoods they seek to ruin, whose consciences they seek to appropriate, and whose organizations they seek to disrupt. #BoycottIndiana isn’t a cry for freedom. It’s nothing more than an online mob, seeking to bully those it hates.
I’m waiting for my nephews to post some weirdness about this on Facebook and then I may post this article in response.
Link does not work.
A greater "threat" than the Red Menace.
Are you now or have you ever been a Christian?
There is a political purge going on and the homofascist media is cheering this time.
I’m thinking that Indiana sounds like a good place for right minded folk to vacation this year . . . in large supportive numbers.
Sorry. I accessed it through Flipboard. It says it’s a National Review Article. I’ll go see if I can find a good link.
Found a direct link.
There’s like 3 liberal women on twitter and 10k bots that agree with them.
Come to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May. This FReeper will be happy to show you around the track. There are plenty of events over three weekends, not just the race itself. And, the concession stands at the track serve the best breaded tenderloin in Central Indiana.
That is EXACTLY what I am thinking. I’m going to Hoosier State and spend my vacation dollars.
You are free attend any church you choose, so long as that church deletes or ignores certain parts of the Bible that are contrary to the officially approved political and social standards of today. The officially approved church doctrine must be preached by a state licensed pastor. Also, you are only permitted to exercise your religion inside of the officially approved church building during officially approved church hours. You may not mention anything about your religious beliefs outside of the building in any public venue.
Unless you are Moslem. Do what you want. Please don't kill me.
Religious freedom is a wonderful thing, comrade.
I like that!
The Leftists are now saying that children should not be permitted to be exposed to biblical teachings or theological beliefs until they reach adulthood. They call it indoctrination, child abuse, and a “war” on science.
Bob Costas - a truly stupid, dishonest, and hypocritical person - devoted an entire half-hour (or was it an hour?) to this topic today. I wished I could have been the one posing the questions, because I could have made him look like the fraud that he is.
I was glad to surrender my freedom to worship in exchange for the assurance that no American was engaging in recreations of which I disapproved. /s
I asked on another thread this.
Is this the law that they’re pooping their pampers over?
Religious freedom restoration act. Provides that a state or local government action may not substantially burden a person’s right to the exercise of religion unless it is demonstrated that applying the burden to the person’s exercise of religion is: (1) essential to further a compelling governmental interest; and (2) the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest. Provides that a person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a state or local government action may assert the burden as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding, regardless of whether the state or a political subdivision of the state is a party to the judicial proceeding. Allows a person who asserts a burden as a claim or defense to obtain appropriate relief, including: (1) injunctive relief; (2) declaratory relief; (3) compensatory damages; and (4) recovery of court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.
Lord, how I despise the Jackbooted Forces of Tolerance.
The "A" in LGBTA doesn't stand for "Ally," it stands for "Asshole."
I’m starting to think the problem is even more fundamental than this. Why should a business be required to provide its services to any particular person? Although I am opposed to discrimination, I also think that a person or business has the right to discriminate in almost any instance. (Exceptions: providing life-or-death goods and services. Maybe a few others like food sales.)
There are male only country clubs. There are female only gyms. There is BET and other companies that may not refuse white customers but they are very black-oriented. I think if you want to have a non-smokers, straight only, male only, Asian only vegetarian restaurant, you should be able to do so. If the market supports it that’s fine. If someone outside that exclusive group can’t get in, and there is demand for it, some aspiring entrepreneur will fill the gap.
Don’t complain if someone hasn’t filled the gap. You want the service, then why don’t YOU start that company? (Not you, Responsibility2nd! I’m referring to the hypothetical complainer.)
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