Tuesday, March 19, AD 2024 9:02am

Bingo

Ronald Reagan on Liberal Tolerance
Attorney David French over at National Review Online nails it in regard to the uproar over the Indiana Religious  Freedom Restoration Act:
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.

Go here to read the rest.  The Left is going to make this country a tolerant country if they have to trample every right in the Bill of Rights to accomplish it.
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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 6:21am

Exponential bingo!
.
Indiana isn’t assaulting gays, liberal lying liars (I repeat myself again!) are viciously attacking religion.
.

Because gays and florists are more dire threats to the Repuiblic than nucular Iran, Hillary destroying government documents in her email server, and ruinous Obama corruption and incompetence.

Don Lond
Don Lond
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 8:12am

Did I miss the strong directives and response to this major issue coming from the USCCB? Shouldn’t theey of all persons have something to say of value about this very public abuse of religion?
Perhaps they’re busy working on illegal immigration or even prepping for the coming Global warming events?

WK Aiken
WK Aiken
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 8:57am
Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 9:03am

What these statutes seek to provide is small bits of protection against state harassment and sometimes private civil suits brought against merchants of various sorts for exercising what should be their legal franchise to refuse to do business with certain parties. They are favored by academics, who are nothing if not insistent on their absolute prerogatives in their own domain, and by lawyers, who are nothing if not insistent upon their prerogative to insert their sticky fingers into everyone else’s business. Freedom of contract and freedom of association is a necessity to protect us from the self-centered and the predatory.

Philip
Philip
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 10:12am

WK Aiken.

Viewed your link. Nice story she told of her brother’s use of contraception that failed, then the “choice” @ Murder Inc. to allow the fetus to live. Strange it is that she started her ( two second speech..her words.) with telling the crowd that the haters will always hate. Assuming a group of Ind. Pro-Life group was present. Strange to me is the probability that the only reason she has a new nephew IS BECAUSE of the “haters.” The haters presence in public throughout the state have been praying in front of Death Mills for years…and the sixteens year old mother may have been influenced by this “hate” group that teaches every life is precious and sacred.

Ms. Katy is a hypocrite.

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 11:07am

Religion is something you do in the privacy of your bedroom. And only then with the door locked, the shade down and the curtains drawn.
.
Unlike, say, sex, which is always and everywhere to be publicly celebrated.

Philip
Philip
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 11:48am

Ernst Schreiber.

MacBeth Act 1 scene 1….Foul is fair and fair is foul. Old Bill Shakespeare. Visionary.

Dennis D
Dennis D
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 3:02pm

“Things have come to a pretty pass, when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life.”—Lord Melbourne, Prime Minister to Queen Victoria

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 3:33pm

God creates. Man procreates. Homosexuals do not know what they are doing.
The homosexual hates God for creating him. The homosexual hates his parents for procreating him. The homosexual needs to blame someone for his hatred because the homosexual hates and calls his hatred love. The homosexual has begotten hemorriods for his beloved, not a very well liked expression of affection. Then there is the diverticulosis and the colonoscopy. Sometimes the expression of the homosexual’s love is a death sentence known as HIV/aids, but mostly it is wanton despair.
The homosexual hates God. Therefore, the most appropriate person to blame for the homosexual’s hatred of God, God’s creation and himself, is the Christian.

Sancho
Sancho
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 3:41pm

In its opposition to being demonized this editorial does a pretty good job of demonizing “the Left”. Certainly some of the concerns are justified, but it’s much more likely that most of the opponents to the law are well-intentioned human beings that don’t want to discriminate against gay people and aren’t aware of widespread abuse of Christians that would justify this new legislation. Instead of promoting more spiteful rhetoric, perhaps this site would better serve the Lord by explaining why this law was so necessary. Have there been dozens of cases of Christians being forced to violate their conscience in Indiana? If so, then the public needs to be educated, not yelled at. If not, then are we guilty of the same fear-mongering and exaggeration we condemn in others? It’s getting harder to paint these kinds of issues as us against them, Right against Left, when what gave this story its legs was such quick and strong opposition from the business community. I’ve never really thought of the NCAA, for example, as a bunch of Leftists hell bent on persecuting Christians (though incidentally they happen to do a fine job of exploiting lots of minority Christian athletes). Anyway, if this isn’t about the right to discriminate against homosexuals in any way then it can easily be solved by making them a protected group against discrimination across the state. God bless…

PRM
PRM
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 3:53pm

Among the many depressing things about the past few days is the illustration of how corporate money, allied with mob hysteria, is able to trump the democratic process, in effect to nullify a law duly passed by a legislature duly elected by the people.

As for Governor Pence, I’m sure his heart is in the right place. But as the poet says:
A politician is an arse upon
Which everyone has sat, except a man

Patricia
Patricia
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 4:43pm

Here is more food for thought on all this misery and control:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/03/tolerance-is-over/#comments

Art Deco
Art Deco
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 5:14pm

Why should they have any greater protection under the Law than other Americans? What rights do homosexuals lack that other Americans enjoy?

If you’re persuaded you’re Special, you want the right to hire a lawyer and compel other people to be your bitch if they call B.S. on your displays of narcissism. Being an ordinary schlub participating in voluntary transactions in a free society is not good enough for the Special. As for the relationship between the Special and Anthony Kennedy, let’s just say its an exchange of ego satisfactions constructed around social class prejudice. (And manifest in interminable judicial opinions advancing what is a preposterous thesis).

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 10:09pm

Well, in fighting the good fight here in AR, I have found that folks I thought were my friends would run me out of the public square, get me fired from my job, call me a liar, tell me to never talk to them again, call me a hater, etc. because of my religious belief.

I have found myself thinking, since I am not being buried alive, seeing my family killed/enslaved in front of me, being burned alive, being shot, being forced into slavery, or being decapitated–like those Christians in the Middle East are—U actually don’t have it that bad.

Now that doesn’t mean I am not going to fight for our rights.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 10:49pm

I have also sent a message to the LGBT crowd & the so called “Human Rights Campaign” on twitter. It basically says that if they want legislators to vote their way that they don’t need to spit on them (like they did here at the Capitol in Little Rock, yesterday. I didn’t warn them against yelling insults at legislators like they did here, yesterday, as well.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 10:53pm

“Being an ordinary schlub participating in voluntary transactions in a free society is not good enough for the Special.”

This statement wins my comment if the week award!

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 11:35pm

A couple of other things.

It is downright scary to me how the average Arkansan, who is not of the conservative political persuasion, has completely mixed up the concepts of “public” vs “private” until everything in their mind is public. I tried, valiantly while taking abuse to explain to people that they have rights on public property that they don’t have on private property. For example: we can protest all day outside of a business as long as we are on a public sidewalk. As soon as we step off the public sidewalk & step onto the private property protesting, we can be hauled away by a police officer. The argument I kept hearing from those who disagreed with me was that when a private business is operating, it becomes a “public” business. I think a 3 year long friendship has been ruined over my telling one such person that what they described was Communism where the govt controlled all property. These religious freedom bills are not just about religious freedom in my mind. They are also about govt’s encroaching control of private property & the destruction of the concept of private property. Without a string concept if private property, there is no freedom.

Some poor LGBT person somehow invited me to a Facebook page event organization page for a protest at our state Capitol this morning against the Religious Freedom Protection Bill that us now in its way to the governor of AR for his signature as of this afternoon. (He has agreed to sign it by the way.) Boy did I have some fun on that Facebook page. :-D.

The moderator of the page let me know in no uncertain terms that if a business used the public sidewalks that “he” paid taxes for–that that private business “had Damn well better serve” him. He had no response when I pointed out to him that private dwellings as well as churches had public sidewalks running in front of them. I also got no response when I pointed out that those who did not want to participate in gay marriage also helped pay for those same sidewalks.

One person yelled at me that she was a Christian, too, and wanted to know what sin was going to be picked on next to keep someone out of a private business like a bakery. She said us gay marriage was a sin, then so was over eating, and divorce. She got livid when I told her that eating & divorce were not religious rites and that marriage was.

Another person told me that she knew that I was a (with emphasis) string Catholic, however she disagreed with me on the Religious Freedom bill b/c she had always taught her children to show respect for other people. Huh? I had never discussed my faith with this woman. I told her that completely apart from my faith that I had such libertarian leanings when it comes to personal property rights that I was livid when the state of AR decided a few years back that it should tell business owners that they couldn’t let people smoke in their businesses any longer. The business owners should determine those things for themselves.

Then there was the “walking dead” look from the person that I asked, “Why should the govt be able to tell me that U have to violate my religious beliefs with my own private property, energy, & time.

One person just could not deal with the concept of marriage being a religious rite. They told me if I believed that marriage was a religious rite that govt should get out if the marriage business all together. And I said, “Yes, govt should get out if the marriage business all together.”

Well, I could go on. However, I’m sure y’all get the picture.

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Tuesday, March 31, AD 2015 11:46pm

“I’ve never really thought of the NCAA, for example, as a bunch of Leftists hell bent on persecuting Christians”

Welcome to the real world of amoral sports where all that matters is money and no moral judgement on sexual perversion. Let me give you a heads up. The National Foootball League is vehemently anti-Christian worldview as well.

Clinton
Clinton
Wednesday, April 1, AD 2015 12:38am

It’s astonishing, the chutzpah of those crying #BoycottIndiana. I don’t
recall any of them calling for a boycott of, say, Saudi Arabia, which actually
does practice the sort of religiously-based anti-homosexual discrimination
they’re trying to pin on Indiana.
.
Corporations such as Apple, Nike, and WalMart are protesting the legislation in
Indiana and Arkansas, and there’s even talk of “reducing or not expanding
their corporate presence” in those states. Yet they all happily do business
with markets like Saudi Arabia…

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Wednesday, April 1, AD 2015 1:16am

Below are links posted to the website of the most effective pro-life, pro-family, traditional marriage lobbying organization in the state of AR re: the Religious Freedom Bill that passed yesterday afternoon here in AR.

https://familycouncil.org/?p=11934

https://familycouncil.org/?p=7406

Barbara Gordon
Barbara Gordon
Wednesday, April 1, AD 2015 1:21am

And 3rd article from the same group about Connecticut boycotting Indiana for having basically the same religious freedom protection laws that Connecticut had already inacted.

https://familycouncil.org/?p=11951

Of course, the ironies on this stuff are endless.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, April 1, AD 2015 5:19am

The human being, the sovereign person, has a personal space, that you all must agree. If the personal space of a person must be transgressed to form a contract, that is criminal.
Anyone who can read and has read the Constitutional First Amendment knows that the free exercise of religion cannot be prohibited “or prohibit the free exercise thereof” not by anyone in public office, not by anyone created equal who tries to impose a ban on the free expression of religion on any sovereign person, because every person who is a citizen constitutes government with his sovereignty.
During the Democratic National Convention, God and the mention of God, was banned four or five times. The Democratic National Convention chose Barrabas. When Barrabas comes with his brutality, the DNC will blame God. God will then be banned anew for allowing Barrabas to murder and maim, rape and sack and plunder.
Only “IN GOD WE TRUST” and our freedom to trust in God is one of our founding principles. For those who cannot read, they must learn. For those who hate God, too bad.
“Lord, when did we see you naked and hungry?” “At the Democratic National Convention”
If Governor Pence caves into political pressure and disavows our heritage, he will be inviting Barrabas and Barrabas will come.

Philip
Philip
Thursday, April 2, AD 2015 3:51am

Barrabas entered in 1963. Our nation has been kicking God out ever since.
Kill the divine healer…give us the murderer! And the Father of Mercy said; So be it!

Sancho
Sancho
Thursday, April 2, AD 2015 11:06am

“Why should they have any greater protection under the Law than other Americans? What rights do homosexuals lack that other Americans enjoy?”

Civil rights laws protect minorities based on past and present discrimination. They don’t necessarily create “greater” protection (though I suppose in cases like affirmative action you could argue that they do), but respond to discrimination that exists to explicitly prohibit it. If you think civil rights laws are unconstitutional or ineffective, fair enough. But if Indiana wants to clarify that this law is not meant to facilitate certain kinds of discrimination against homosexuals it can merely add them to the other classes of minorities that the state already protects. It appears that Republican lawmakers are planning to do something of the sort. This is relevant to your second question as well because right now (in many places) homosexuals lack the right to legal protection against discrimination afforded to others.

Don Lond
Don Lond
Thursday, April 2, AD 2015 11:40am

Of course the heart of the underlying issue, when one speaks of protecting minorities against discrimination* has been lost in the cultural wars of the political forces. What constitutes a protected minority? Is it their behavior? Why can’t pedophiles, rapists, or those who practice bestiality, be considered part of that protected group?
*BTW; discrimination is both good and bad
a: (Bad) I would not let any black person from Detroit marry my daughter.
b. (Good) I would never walk a back alley in Detroit alone after midnight.

Sancho
Sancho
Thursday, April 2, AD 2015 4:35pm

“Well we can see that is untrue since women, a majority, are given “minority” status under such laws.”

Fine, make that “minorities and women” if that is a meaningful distinction to you.

“They most certainly do. Try firing a member of a protected class who works for the government.”

You’re confusing the prosecution of the law with the law itself. You may have also overlooked the qualifying word “necessarily” in my response. That said, anecdotally I’ve seen others “try” with perfect success. But if you can cite some studies indicating an unreasonable difficulty for government employers to fire incompetent women, racial minorities, elderly, or people of faith, I’d be interested in reading some of them.

“Certainly unconstitutional in flagrantly violating the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.”

Civil rights legislation may not have been the best remedy, but these “guarantees” were being ignored on a wide enough scale for certain minorities (and women) that further legislation was implemented to make them harder to ignore. This is a similar phenomenon to that which motivates the RFRA laws, despite already existing constitutional and other legal guarantees of religious freedom.

“In short where they are not a protected class they enjoy the same civil rights as a heterosexual white male.”

You can put it that way, although gender and race are covered under civil rights laws. Or you can say, they have fewer civil rights than we do as Catholics. I’m not particularly interested in semantic games, but if you want to say that in these places they technically have the same civil rights as heterosexuals because heterosexuals have no rights based on sexual orientation either, then I guess that’s true. Besides the point, but true.

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