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Post by millring on Mar 28, 2015 15:15:16 GMT -5
And it just dawned on me...
Because on facebook someone posed their objection to the bill as: (and I paraphrase) "If this were about not serving sinful people, the obese would be refused service at fast food restaurants because they are obvious gluttons. If it's about condemning sin, we wouldn't be condemning only one type of sinner."
It suddenly dawned on me: That's buying the gone-viral assumption that this is, indeed, anti-gay legislation. But the curious thing in that regard is that when asked about any successful legal case in which the RFRA was used to uphold religious rights..........Hobby Lobby was the case given to condemn the legislation. Hobby Lobby wasn't about homosexuality. It was a birth control case.
And further, the implication that the religious are singularly convicted about homosexuality is quite the presumption. I know landlords who wouldn't rent to unmarried couples. To be honest, I think many Christians would, indeed, wrestle with the correctness of feeding the obese, were they put in the position of making such a decision.
But the obese aren't a protected class (though they certainly have powerful people on their side as indicated by the failure of exactly that kind of legislation to pass in Mississippi a few years ago). But if a Christian did feel convicted to not sell fast food to an obese person, I wonder if the government would similarly step in to make sure the obese person was, indeed, served?
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Post by fauxmaha on Mar 28, 2015 15:17:28 GMT -5
Perhaps people will catch on that it was never about wedding cakes. It was about thought-crime.
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Post by fauxmaha on Mar 28, 2015 15:20:42 GMT -5
Again, I just have to chuckle.
Democrats were all for the RFRA when they thought it protected Native Americans using peyote.
Now that they discover it also protects Christians, they are shocked! Shocked! SHOCKED! at it's abject bigotry.
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Post by Doug on Mar 28, 2015 15:29:55 GMT -5
"compelling governmental interest"
To me that means something like stopping a nuke or someone trying to blow up the Senate. It means something serious enough to shoot the person doing it on sight.
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 28, 2015 15:30:03 GMT -5
Can't we talk about something from this century? Like Chris Matthews used to be a Bush loving, Hillary hating conservative? What's up with that? I was watching Matthews when you were still making gay jokes and trust me, that never happened. There was a time when he was fair to both sides but not in this century.
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Post by patrick on Mar 28, 2015 15:31:53 GMT -5
Love isn't always or necessarily expressed in acceptance. Well, see? That means that those who are boycotting Indiana are just showing their love for Indiana!
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Post by millring on Mar 28, 2015 15:35:47 GMT -5
Love isn't always or necessarily expressed in acceptance. Well, see? That means that those who are boycotting Indiana are just showing their love for Indiana! exactly.
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Post by patrick on Mar 28, 2015 15:42:30 GMT -5
I'm waiting to see someone use RFRA to ignore those anti-abortion statutes that are so popular with Republicans. If a doctor decides that it is against his religion to force a woman to have an ultrasound if there is no need for one, or it is against his beliefs to force a woman to listen to some of the nonsense many of these laws require.
I expect the Republicans to support that doctor's rights.
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Post by patrick on Mar 28, 2015 15:47:58 GMT -5
"But the obese aren't a protected class"
I don't think this is true. Proposals have been made that airlines should be able to charge more for people based on weight, or require those over a certain weight to buy two seats. Those have been considerd unconstitutional.
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Post by millring on Mar 28, 2015 15:50:31 GMT -5
"But the obese aren't a protected class" I don't think this is true. Proposals have been made that airlines should be able to charge more for people based on weight, or require those over a certain weight to buy two seats. Those have been considerd unconstitutional. Well, there you go. A christian couldn't refuse fast food service to an obese person either.
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Post by fauxmaha on Mar 28, 2015 15:52:03 GMT -5
I'm waiting to see someone use RFRA to ignore those anti-abortion statutes that are so popular with Republicans. If a doctor decides that it is against his religion to force a woman to have an ultrasound if there is no need for one, or it is against his beliefs to force a woman to listen to some of the nonsense many of these laws require. I expect the Republicans to support that doctor's rights. Regulating medical care seems to fall rather easily into the "compelling government interest" test. Surely Democrats agree. Or have you changed your mind regarding ACA?
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Post by Russell Letson on Mar 28, 2015 15:54:34 GMT -5
Thought crime: "I think I don't have to make a cake with two grooms/brides. That's my thought, which is mine,* and which I'm sticking to, no matter what the law says about public accomodation."
Thought crime: "I think that nearly all non-barrier birth control measures amount to abortion because human life begins at fertilization. (I also think that the only reason to employ birth control drugs is to avoid pregnancy, no matter what doctors and scientists say.)"**
And this Democrat would not have voted to except any otherwise regulatable practice solely because the practitioners' claims of religious privilege (root meaning: "private law"). Including Native Americans, some of whom insist that any really old skeleton found in the Pacific Northwest must be one of theirs because their religion says that they have lived there forever. (The whole Native American belief system situation is complicated by a lot of nasty history, broken treaties, and the toxic effects of a century's worth of bad drug laws.)
But then, this Democrat is also a hardshell secularist, which flies in the face of the ahistorical sentimentality that has ruled the public sphere since the nation's founding.
* With apologies to Miss An Elk. ** BTW, see Rush's mischaracterization of Ms. Fluke's testimony.
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Post by Doug on Mar 28, 2015 15:55:53 GMT -5
I'm waiting to see someone use RFRA to ignore those anti-abortion statutes that are so popular with Republicans. If a doctor decides that it is against his religion to force a woman to have an ultrasound if there is no need for one, or it is against his beliefs to force a woman to listen to some of the nonsense many of these laws require. I expect the Republicans to support that doctor's rights. Regulating medical care seems to fall rather easily into the "compelling government interest" test. Surely Democrats agree. Or have you changed your mind regarding ACA? So it's important enough for the government to kill people (for your benefit).
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Post by dradtke on Mar 28, 2015 16:06:15 GMT -5
I grew up in a segregated south and I don't remember a single business that would refuse to take a black person's money. Age does that to a person's memory, I'm told.
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Post by theevan on Mar 28, 2015 17:03:36 GMT -5
That's certainly more open minded than some religions have been. Still, I don't think it should be considered a sin. Doesn't a sin have to be a willful act? I know some will disagree, but I don't think anybody wakes up and decides to be gay. People are born that way, just as the rest of us are born with an attraction to the opposite sex. For the religious, doesn't that mean that God decided that certain people were going to be born gay? (I suppose that's why some religious people insist that homosexuality is a choice.) Why would a religion then declare that certain people should be denied the chance at a full, happy life? Shouldn't their gripe be with God for not making everybody just like them? Within reason, I think religions should be free to write their own doctrines. They get to decide what is and what is not moral. But defining an inborn trait as immoral is going too far. Homosexuality is not a moral issue. It is not a sin. The "willful act" thing is a subject of theological discussion, but I'll just say those who claim faith in the Christian God don't get to define sin. That would be His job. Regarding homosexuality, I don't believe the Bible ever says that it is a sin to be a homosexual. It is the act that is called sin. The act is an "abomination" because it goes against the order of God's creation. Take that for what you will. With your "within reason" statement you've got me scared. Who decides what is within reason? Presumably an impartial panel of Real Smart People, preferably atheist. Wait, no, let's make it The Government™. That should make all doctrines safe for human consumption, no? Ok, I'm needling.
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Post by millring on Mar 28, 2015 17:19:55 GMT -5
I've been curious about this ever since the discussion started. It's branched off all over the place, but one of those branches is the curious fact that, though Indiana is being excoriated for enacting this law on the basis that it is supposedly anti-gay, the truth is that the lawsuits that have been brought by the government against the religious and on behalf of a gay complainant have been overwhelmingly successful. And that's with the self-same language in the Indiana law already intact in all those cases.
Curiously, everyone supposes that it is still allowable to discriminate in cases where the complainant is not a protected class (race, gender, sexual orientation). We're pretty sure we would still be allowed to make a distinction is somebody who is part of a distasteful group -- the KKK, Phelps church, Kentuckians -- was the party in question. I can't find an accurate answer. I found that these are the criterion by which these cases are currently judged:
The group faces discrimination and stereotyping
Immutable characteristic
Political powerlessness
The characteristic that defines the group doesn't prevent it from contributing to society
Sexual orientation, it would appear (from my googling around) was not judged an "immutable characteristic" until the 2008 U.S. District Court Decision: Perry v. Schwarzenegger. It wasn't until then that a case was made for "sexual orientation" instead of "sexual preference". Presumably "preference" would make something not "immutable". There was scant science offered to make the switch in the court's ruling. The court decided on the basis of testimony that attempts to "correct" sexual orientation were unsuccessful, and, as such, immutability was assumed. And "immutability" is still in question. It still isn't "settled science".
So the Constitutional right to freedom of religion can be abridged when it comes in conflict with:
The group faces discrimination and stereotyping
Immutable characteristic
Political powerlessness
The characteristic that defines the group doesn't prevent it from contributing to society
So, as it currently stands, any court that is hostile toward religion has a pretty broad brush with which to convict those who act on religious conviction.
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Post by dradtke on Mar 28, 2015 17:34:11 GMT -5
Am I the only one (most likely, I usually am) who is chuckling a little at the "this law we just passed isn't a big deal, it's not really going to affect anybody" and the "it's okay to make fun of the fourth grade class, we shouldn't waste time on a state bird law that doesn't really affect anybody?"
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Post by brucemacneill on Mar 28, 2015 17:52:59 GMT -5
How do you think the Purple Finch feels?
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Post by godotwaits on Mar 28, 2015 18:20:12 GMT -5
Where is Indiana?
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Post by millring on Mar 28, 2015 18:35:15 GMT -5
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