Pence signed it: Add Indiana to the list of states with "religious freedom" laws

[Deus Naturae]

The government does not have the right to infringe upon individual rights.


Business owners, on the other hand....

You don't have the right to force someone else to serve you.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

The government does not have the right to infringe upon individual rights.


Business owners, on the other hand....

You don't have the right to force someone else to serve you.

Except that The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits all kinds of discrimination in public accommodations like supermarkets and restaurants, was upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The government does not have the right to infringe upon individual rights.


Business owners, on the other hand....

Don't have that power either because they can't force you to deal with them regardless of your desire. (Unless they get the government to force you, but that's a separate issue.)  Of the various arguments put forth by the pro-forced intercourse side, this is absolutely the weakest I've seen so far.  While I don't agree with the position put forth by bedstuy and Andrew, I respect the way they state it, for while I disagree with their premise, I find their argument from their premise to be utterly logical.  The one you just made I don't respect for it is based upon utter illogic.

[Deus Naturae]

The government does not have the right to infringe upon individual rights.


Business owners, on the other hand....

You don't have the right to force someone else to serve you.

Except that The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits all kinds of discrimination in public accommodations like supermarkets and restaurants, was upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Obviously I'm speaking about rights in the sense of principles, not legal realities. Just like how everybody has the right to life, despite the fact that many are murdered.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

The right to discriminate based on gender, race, color and national origin is pretty important to you, I guess. What important principles!

[Deus Naturae]

The right to discriminate based on gender, race, color and national origin is pretty important to you, I guess. What important principles!

It's called the right to freedom of association, and it logically implies to right to associate or disassociate oneself with or from others based on hatred, bigotry, and all kinds of terrible motivations, just as the right to freedom of speech logically implies the right to spew all kinds of hateful and bigoted nonsense. Our rights mean nothing if we only protect the right to do things that we approve of.

I don't want to be like Snowstalker in that one SOTU thread and keep repeating the same quote over and over again, but I feel like I need to reiterate this:

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[afleitch]

Are you seriously quoting H L Mencken? A man who was a critic of democracy and believed strong men had the right to rule the weak? A man who conflated 'race' with caste and talked about racial stocks? A man that said talking to a coloured women was like speaking to a child?

I mean seriously?

A man who said this;  'The educated negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations ahead of him.'

You are quoting HIM to back up your argument?

[Torie]

It seems to me that government power can be used to protect things like freedom of speech or right to assemble, even when restrictions on freedom of speech or assembly may not directly cause physical or economic harm.  Even if one individual's freedom or speech or assembly rights are impinged, I don't think the individual's case so trivial that they can't bring a case against that impingement.  Why then would defending people's rights to be treated equitably in business transactions need to pass some kind of critical mass test before such defense can be undertaken?  And I still fail to see how expecting the owner of a cake store to sell already available products to customers willing to pay the seller's price for them as the imposition of a "substantial burden" on them.  But now Indiana and some 19 other states protect the cake store owner. 

Yes, I find a rather sharp difference between a guy selling something over the counter to someone who goes in their store (really none of his business as to why someone is purchasing the product), to a guy having to spend the day filming a gay wedding ceremony, when gay marriages is against his religious views.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

Are you seriously quoting H L Mencken? A man who was a critic of democracy and believed strong men had the right to rule the weak? A man who conflated 'race' with caste and talked about racial stocks? A man that said talking to a coloured women was like speaking to a child?

I mean seriously?

A man who said this;  'The educated negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations ahead of him.'

You are quoting HIM to back up your argument?

Opposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 seldom puts you in good company.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It seems to me that government power can be used to protect things like freedom of speech or right to assemble, even when restrictions on freedom of speech or assembly may not directly cause physical or economic harm.  Even if one individual's freedom or speech or assembly rights are impinged, I don't think the individual's case so trivial that they can't bring a case against that impingement.  Why then would defending people's rights to be treated equitably in business transactions need to pass some kind of critical mass test before such defense can be undertaken?  And I still fail to see how expecting the owner of a cake store to sell already available products to customers willing to pay the seller's price for them as the imposition of a "substantial burden" on them.  But now Indiana and some 19 other states protect the cake store owner. 

Yes, I find a rather sharp difference between a guy selling something over the counter to someone who goes in their store (really none of his business as to why someone is purchasing the product), to a guy having to spend the day filming a gay wedding ceremony, when gay marriages is against his religious views.

This is pretty much my position as well, though maybe I'd go a little bit further.  If the cake is baked, and it is up for sale then there can hardly be a substantial religious burden in merely selling it to the customer, whoever that customer is. If someone asked for something to be created specifically for an event which the creator of that product disagrees with, then I believe there is a strong claim as being a burden on the conscience. As a person involved in creative arts, this principle is important to me.

And substantial burden is the standard set up by the RFRA laws. It doesn't matter that some people may want to use it as an excuse to carte blanche discriminate against a person. There's nothing in this law to suggest it could be read that way.  The possibility that someone without an understanding of the law might use it as an excuse to do something they aren't allowed to is not generally a sufficient reason not to have that law allowing certain freedoms.  Discrimination against gays in employment or public accommodations is not prohibited in Indiana, but that's simply because there haven't been any laws prohibiting it. The law just passed is in no sense the reason for it.

btw, that H.L. Mencken quote is great. That Mencken himself was one of the scoundrels he mentions shouldn't diminish it's value ad hominem.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

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What does this even mean? Your language is so empty and vague and broad that it means absolutely nothing, and can be interpreted in an infinte number of ways.

Religion can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways?  Imagine that!

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If by antisocial behavior you mean limiting one's social interaction in certain ways, yes, it very much is for a great many religions.   You are free not to like it, but do not pretend you are not thereby restricting religious freedom in a time-honored fashion.  Wide scale persecution, at least in the modern Protestant West, has rarely been merely on account of belief in the abstract divorced from social manifestations.

[afleitch]

But why do you elevate religious freedom over other freedoms in law? The right of a man to live accordingly to his conscience without legal interference as long as that conscience is derived from religion? You've never answered that, nor have you dealt with a possible redress of that. If you're going to create a law to empower the religious to discriminate carte blanche, why not empower those they may potentially be discriminated against, to discriminate against the religious in turn?

[bedstuy]

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What does this even mean? Your language is so empty and vague and broad that it means absolutely nothing, and can be interpreted in an infinte number of ways.

Religion can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways?  Imagine that!

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If by antisocial behavior you mean limiting one's social interaction in certain ways, yes, it very much is for a great many religions.   You are free not to like it, but do not pretend you are not thereby restricting religious freedom in a time-honored fashion.  Wide scale persecution, at least in the modern Protestant West, has rarely been merely on account of belief in the abstract divorced from social manifestations.

Fundamentally, this is about where Christians freedom ends and my freedom starts. 

Can I really have freedom in a society where it's acceptable to fire me, to deny me housing, transportation, a place to live or the basic right to be a member of the "general public?"  No.  We don't live in our own libertarian unabomber shacks.  If it's legal to discriminate against gay people, I'm not truly free because I can be treated like a pariah just for who I am. 

It's not like I go to Christian churches and business and demand that I be allowed to sing show tunes and have a drag show.  Nobody is forcing anyone to love gay people or stop being religious nutjob.

The pro-discrimination crowd is having things both ways.  They want to have the benefit of being open to the general public, but they want to exclude certain parts of the general public.  But, it doesn't work that way.  Either you accept the general public as it is, or you create a private membership club.  Simple as that.

[Simfan34]

Are you seriously quoting H L Mencken? A man who was a critic of democracy and believed strong men had the right to rule the weak? A man who conflated 'race' with caste and talked about racial stocks? A man that said talking to a coloured women was like speaking to a child?

I mean seriously?

A man who said this;  'The educated negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations ahead of him.'

You are quoting HIM to back up your argument?

Uncomfortably enough, Mencken was in many ways the intellectual godfather of New Deal liberalism...

[King]

Are you seriously quoting H L Mencken? A man who was a critic of democracy and believed strong men had the right to rule the weak? A man who conflated 'race' with caste and talked about racial stocks? A man that said talking to a coloured women was like speaking to a child?

I mean seriously?

A man who said this;  'The educated negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations ahead of him.'

You are quoting HIM to back up your argument?

Uncomfortably enough, Mencken was in many ways the intellectual godfather of New Deal liberalism...

I guess in the same way Hitler was the godfather of Israel, yeah, that's true.

[Simfan34]

Are you seriously quoting H L Mencken? A man who was a critic of democracy and believed strong men had the right to rule the weak? A man who conflated 'race' with caste and talked about racial stocks? A man that said talking to a coloured women was like speaking to a child?

I mean seriously?

A man who said this;  'The educated negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a negro. He is, in brief, a low-caste man, to the manner born, and he will remain inert and inefficient until fifty generations of him have lived in civilization. And even then, the superior white race will be fifty generations ahead of him.'

You are quoting HIM to back up your argument?

Uncomfortably enough, Mencken was in many ways the intellectual godfather of New Deal liberalism...

I guess in the same way Hitler was the godfather of Israel, yeah, that's true.

Yes, that's right- that statement was categorically wrong. Don't know what I was thinking there. Yikes.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

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What does this even mean? Your language is so empty and vague and broad that it means absolutely nothing, and can be interpreted in an infinte number of ways.

Religion can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways?  Imagine that!

You know damn well I wasn't talking about the vagueness of religious beliefs, but rather your phrase "I defend the rights of _____", which literally means nothing because pretty much everyone agrees with that. It's as meaningless as saying you love freedom.

Stop dodging my questions.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

If by antisocial behavior you mean limiting one's social interaction in certain ways, yes, it very much is for a great many religions.   You are free not to like it, but do not pretend you are not thereby restricting religious freedom in a time-honored fashion.  Wide scale persecution, at least in the modern Protestant West, has rarely been merely on account of belief in the abstract divorced from social manifestations.
[/quote]
You are free not to associate with people you do not like in your personal life, but when a business claims to be open to the public for business they cannot cite religious beliefs to discriminate, because a business has no religious beliefs. Indiana's law grants corporate personhood and says "religious freedom" can be invoked as a defense when the government is not a party, which makes you objectively wrong when you claimed the text was the same as the federal law and the laws in 19 other states.

----------------------------
So here's what's been happening in this entire thread with you: You keep dropping your own arguments, cherry picking people's posts, and keep stating truisms ("I support people's rights to live out their faith" Yeah, everyone does, until you violate anothers' rights). You keep running away from points when people have shown you to be flat-out incorrect or point out flaws in your logic or call you out for your truisms. When someone calls you out on your points, you completely ignore it, or try and spin it like you just did above.

Basically, you are avoiding saying anything of substance, then running away from your own arguments, dropping them like flies. You're not arguing anything. You don't seem to be able to understand that "religious freedom" is not a trump card to violate others' rights here in the United States. I'm getting the vibe that you don't really want to reveal the real reasons why you support this law.

If you don't like gay people, just come out and say it.

If it's something else, just come out and say it.

Stop beating around the bush and hiding behind your truism of "I support the rights of others to live out their faith", because that means nothing. The Big Bad Government is not going to come after you for what you believe or what you say; only if you act. You keep ignoring that. I'd expect something a little better from someone with nearly 13,000 posts over 7 years.

If you're not going to man up and debate this properly, then I'm not wasting my time on a useful idiot for the religious right or a closet bigot hiding behind "religious freedom", whatever you are.

[Blair]

Can we all accept this is Pence trying to shore up the largely conservative, largely homophobic republican base?

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has come out against his state's attempt to pass a "religious freedom" law. "What's the problem they're trying to solve?"

http://www.wral.com/mccrory-expresses-displeasure-with-nc-religious-freedom-law-proposals/14549302/

Meanwhile, in Indiana, paperwork has been filed to create the First Church of Cannabis.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/paperwork-filed-with-indiana-secretary-of-state-for-first-church-of-cannabis

[Phony Moderate]

Can we all accept this is Pence trying to shore up the largely conservative, largely homophobic republican base?

This whole saga feels like the Religious Right's last major stand on the issue of teh gayz.

[user12345]

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory has come out against his state's attempt to pass a "religious freedom" law. "What's the problem they're trying to solve?"

http://www.wral.com/mccrory-expresses-displeasure-with-nc-religious-freedom-law-proposals/14549302/

One of his more sane moments.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Can we all accept this is Pence trying to shore up the largely conservative, largely homophobic republican base?

This whole saga feels like the Religious Right's last major stand on the issue of teh gayz.

As I said... death throes.  You are correct.  The SCOTUS has settled this when it came to race and they'll settle this when it comes to sexual preference in due time.   

[user12345]

Mayor Of Indianapolis Signs Executive Order Protecting LGBT People:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/greg-ballard_n_6972928.html

Connecticut Bans State Funded Travel to Indiana
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/connecticut-indiana-boycott-lgbt_n_6969684.html

Indiana GOP Plays Stupid on Backlash
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/indiana-anti-gay-law_n_6969286.html

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Mayor Of Indianapolis Signs Executive Order Protecting LGBT People:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/greg-ballard_n_6972928.html

Connecticut Bans State Funded Travel to Indiana
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/connecticut-indiana-boycott-lgbt_n_6969684.html

Indiana GOP Plays Stupid on Backlash
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/indiana-anti-gay-law_n_6969286.html

Gay Indianans... you sanctuary from rural rubes who despise you has been revealing.  FF Mayor. 

[publicunofficial]

Indiana House Speaker is "disappointed" in the way Pence has defended the bill to the public.


If this bill is just a bit of red meat to the base in order to get Pence something to talk about for a future election (President or just re-election), I think it's backfired at this point. The left was always going to hate this bill, but a lot of moderates are coming out against the bill as well, and I can't imagine the right thinks any more highly of Pence than before; after seeing him refusing to answer straight yes or no questions about the bill.