http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/30/your-questions-on-indianas-religious-freedom-bill-answered/ the ACLU endorsing the federal RFRA law in 1993 is icing on the cake
If that is all then such a law is not needed as funding for abortions has already been blocked and as the Hobby Lobby case shows companies can opt out from even paying for insurance that might be used to pay for abortions or even contraception.
I brought this up before but the problem with this argument is that it would call into question the whole concept of a business that operates in the public realm. This wouldn't just affect the Civil Rights act but would also call into question the Americans with Disability Act and a whole host of others. For example a business could just say that we shouldn't be required to put in a handicap accessible toilet stall since we only want to serve able bodied people or even we shouldn't be required to have 32" wide doors because we only want to serve thin people. The problem with viewing this as only an argument about free association is ignoring that when one opens a business in the public realm there is an implicit contract between the owners of the business and the public that the business is actually serving the public. Not just serving who they want to serve. In return the business gets things like corporation, protection from litigation through licensure and the ability to advertise and operate a public storefront. What would happen though if business' could serve just those they wanted while excluding others that would distort the market in ways that wouldn't be good since movement of good and capital is being blocked for non-economic reasons.
"Icing on the cake?" The Indiana bill is substantially different than the 1993 act and the fact that Indiana is pushing its own bill should cast light on that. Even right wing nut Jan Brewer saw this when AZ attempted their own Indiana bill when she vetoed it in 2014.
The intent of the federal law is quite different from the Indiana bill. The federal law's intent was to protect minority groups such as Native Americans who wanted peyote legalized for religious reasons. It had nothing to do with the protection of Christians' desire to discriminate.
You clearly don't understand or chooses to ignore the difference between RFRA and this Indianan law. 1- Indiana law said ANYONE (individual, any org, partnership, llc, corp, company, firm, church, religious society, or other entity is the text) can discriminate and hate based on their religious belief. The RFRA apply only to an individual person. IOW, everyone and everything can now discriminate and hate based on religious belief. This isn't about protecting individual religious belief (which is already protected). This is about allowing anything you can imagine the "freedom" to discriminate and hate. 2- It's completely open up to interpretation of what religious belief is. The Indiana law said any exercise of religion, even those NOT central to a system of religious belief is reason enough. IOW, if anyone/anything have an extreme view, they can discriminate and hate based on that. It doesn't have to be at all in line with the central system of any religious belief. This is an extreme law. Stop trying to pretend it's the same as other laws passed.
Let me ask you two questions. First, if this law isn't substantially different than the RFRA law what is the point other than rhetorical of having this law? Second, while according the ACLU the RFRA cannot be used to for businesses to not serve homosexual patrons do you think this law can?
re the second point, it cannot. wrt the first, there's a SCOTUS case that says the fed RFRA does not necessarily flow down to the states. read the article, it's worthwhile, written by a lawyer, who happens to be gay.
I didn't have any questions. And if you didn't realize, I wasn't even thinking about discrimination against gay. The law is so open ended and general, it's discrimination about anything you can make up. On answering questions - apparently it has been answered so completely in the Governor and GOP legislator heads, they seems completely shocked at the negative reaction. So much so that now they said they will change or write another law to clarify. Yeap, answered alright. Oh, and the negative feedback isn't just from citizens, businesses but many lawyers stating it will cause great confusion... a law created by very sure minded individuals completely out of touch does that.
again, read the article. the law, like the fed RFRA, is a "shield, not a sword" and does not allow discrimination of any kind.
Yes I read the article and first off for what is supposed to be a factual response he sure does include a screed against Obama but what should really call into question any credibility the writer has is that he cites Twilight. On to the substance the piece doesn't really address in detail any of the issues as it is pretty vague on the specifics or the impacts of the law. As it notes there are differences in applications from the federal law to the states but it isn't clear how state differences or differences in the various state laws play out. The writer asserts that these laws are really the same yet misses that how state laws work can very quite a bit depending upon both interpretation and also with other state laws. Consider how similar self-defense laws have very different consequences in various states, for example how the stand your ground law works differently in Florida versus other states. In the case of this law while yes the text of the law doesn't mention anything about "gay", "homosexuals" or "gender" and yes IN doesn't have a law specifically banning discrimination on those that is precisely why the IN law could lead to potentially very different outcomes. While yes the federal RFRA and other state RFRA's haven't proven to be shields in regards to protection of discrimination IN isn't the Federal government, and it isn't IL. The overall legal context and how laws and different community standards have to be considered. At the moment we don't know the full affects of this law and given Gov. Pence's vague and evasive answers he and the state legislators might not either. And if they are being vague and evasive the writer of that piece is certainly being too. His response is basically well this is the same as other laws ignoring the fact that IN isn't really the same.
Also just to add if the law is as clear about not allowing discrimination then what is the point of trying another legislative fix that Gov. Pence is pushing for?
Yea, a shield to discriminate. If it was that clear about not allowing discrimination of any kind, no one would care and there would be just one legal opinion on it. There are all kind of opinions out there from what is the intention of the law to the implications of it. The article is just but one of the many of opinions, including those from legal background. You can argue how much implication it has and what the intention was, but you can't simply said it doesn't allow discrimination. The way it's written, it's absolutely can be used to protect businesses (and more) to discriminate based on any level of religious beliefs.
Fingers crossed for the first time a Muslim refuses to serve a Christian, citing faith, in Indiana and everybody being a-ok with it because freedom.
The people who pushed for the law have said their intent was to protect religious "freedom" like the cake-baker that doesn't want to make a wedding cake for a gay couple.
There was a case a couple of years ago in Minneapolis about Muslim cab drivers who refused to carry passengers with alcohol. These weren't passengers who were drunk or drinking in the cab just people carrying bottles of alcohol that they purchased on trips abroad. The Minneapolis St. Paul Airports commission stripped those cab drivers of their licenses to do business with the airport and they sued on freedom of religion grounds. The cab drivers lost their case.
Crappy federal law begets crappy state law. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8Dctocak6Hw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
