how boring must indiana be to think of this as fun

From that fivethirtyeight.com article:

On Monday, legislative leaders in Indiana said they would amend the new law to make it clear that it does not permit discrimination against gay and lesbian couples. It’s not clear yet, however, what those changes will be...

I hope they do so quickly, before the anti-gay forces can rally a call-in campaign.

The funny thing is that some are 'not going to go to Indiana' now are people that wouldn't go to Indiana unless they had to anyway.

I just hope that this shit blows up so big it ends up screwing Dan Coats and Mike Pence within the state.

and outside of the state

http://freedomindiana.org/Subaru/

Typical RFRA laws and how Indiana's goes beyondo, or could be used to do so:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/03/30/why-no-one-understands-indianas-new-religious-freedom-law/

lol at Illinoyed signs.

What do they have on the eastern side of the state, "Say BYE to oHIo"?

David French says you leftists are hysterical.

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.

requiring gay lawyers to represent the Westboro Baptist Church

What about the non-murdering lawyers required to publicly defend murderers?

Luke 16:13 ESV
No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

It's pretty clear that these businesses and the governor have made their choice by siding with money.

Props to Wilco. This is the most interesting thing they have done imo.

david french needs to STFU

xp how have the businesses and governor sided with money? by inciting a boycott?

i don't understand how someone can not see this as a basic human rights issue. if a florist can decline to provide flowers for a gay wedding, can a restauranteur decline to serve an interracial couple?

i admit i know very little about the legal reasoning for these laws. am i missing something?

It's amazing how the word "Freedom" is in the law too. So Orwellian.

Yeah, it's like "Right to Work." Who can be anti-freedom?

"Siding with money" meaning legitimizing persecution by moneyed and influential non-people ("The definition of "person" [in the legislation] includes religious institutions, businesses and associations.") and de-legitimizing the interests of real people.

Is there a legitimate use for this? Everything I have read, not once has anyone stated a practical application aside from discrimination.

i guess the thing to remember is that a lot of people don't think of sexual freedom as a basic human right

I don't know what the legal reasoning is, because legally it seems so unreasonable. It just seems like opponents being dicks just to complicate or slow the inevitable, not unlike the insane restrictions being placed on abortion at local/state levels because they were making no headway at the national level. Oh, you're recognizing the rights of gay people? Well, we have rights, too!

Fortunately it looks like similarly beyond the pale laws in Georgia and North Carolina have at least temporarily stalled. The latter ... hoo, boy, was it audacious. Check out this winner that had been stuck in there:

Exercise of religion. – The practice or observance of religion. It includes, but is not limited to, the ability to act or refuse to act in a manner substantially motivated by one's sincerely held religious beliefs, whether or not the exercise is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.

So the NC religious freedom bill was organized religion-optional!

i admit i know very little about the legal reasoning for these laws. am i missing something?

― the late great,

Freedom!

Insofar as this kind of law (mainly the federal version) protects individuals and minorities against discrimination by governments---vs. the observance of religious holidays, the wearing of headscarves, etc---there's a legitimate function. Insofar as it allows non-governmental actors, like merchants, to make second-class citizens out of individuals and groups, with religion as an alibi --well, that's what some say the Indiana law allows, and perhaps encourages. late great, those articles I linked clarified some of this for me (and the WaPo piece compares the Indiana-type laws to the limits of the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision).

but srsly this is the latest and perhaps last gasp of the anti-homo movement. It knows it has lost and probably will lose before SCOTUS in June. These state legislature are all they got. Which is why Dems consistently suck at playing the long game. They don't give a shit about local politics until their paymasters at Apple et al. get miffed

Cool so we can just start our own religions and ignore federal laws?

Never thought republicans would be the ones leading us towards anarchy but this is funny.

i kind of see this as a byproduct of confusion around the nature and function of individual conscience, after repeated extensions of the idea. once you had pharmacists and whoever insisting on refusing to sell birth control, and (around here) muslim cab drivers insisting on refusing to transport alcohol or dogs, it must have started seeming like a bandwagon kind of thing, esp. in america - 'well then WE ALL GOT OUR BONES TO PICK, religious ones!' etc

- makes it easy to exploit for cynical/political purposes, because after all you're gonna find a lotta people who are iffy on what exactly would be going on when a person claimed a ~very important religious value~ made them not able to in good conscience do something

© ilx poster ryan-esque answer

From Alfred's quote of David French:

forcing Christian bakers or photographers to help celebrate events they find morally offensive

Taking photographs of people doing things is not the same as celebrating those acts. Ask any journalistic photographer who covers a war. All you are doing is recording what is in front of your camera. In the case of a professional wedding photographer, he or she is being paid to point a camera, make sure the settings are correct for a good exposure, and to compose a pleasing arrangement of people or objects in the frame. If you don't want to photograph weddings, then don't photograph any weddings. Otherwise, keep your opinions of the celebrants to yourself.

Baking a cake that will be eaten some other time, by someone else, somewhere else has nothing to do with celebrating whatever occasion might accompany that eating. The only thing that makes a wedding cake a wedding cake is that it is taken to a wedding and eaten there. As the baker, this is none of your business. Your business is baking a fucking cake and getting paid for it. What happens next is moot.

From the way the RRW talks about these things, you'd think the baker was being asked to consecrate communion wafers or the photographer was being asked to officiate at the ceremony or sign the marriage certificate, instead of their being commercial adjuncts hired to do a perfectly secular job.

ah but do we not all share in celebrating sacraments, if they be true

Can't wait to see what happens should someone non-Christian dare attempt to invoke this new law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/30/indiana-marijuana-church_n_6970028.html

well, SCOTUS recently affirmed the right of a Muslim in prison to grow a beard.

½ inch beard!

I imagine not every employee at the offended businesses feel this way, what about the person working at a cake shop that doesn't discriminate? Must they bow to the religious authority of their employers? Isn't that a little insane?

I hate all this talk about cake. Cake sucks.

like, gay and straights should form this anti-cake alliance

gods gonna smite you

in favor of pies?

in favor of rhubarb pies?

Must they bow to the religious authority of their employers? Isn't that a little insane?

― ©Oz Quiz© (Adam Bruneau), Tuesday, March 31, 2015 3:38 AM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

technically speaking that was what United States v Lee's ruling was specifically prohibiting, though SCOTUS's latest interpretation of RFRA further muddies those waters

tarts >> pies >> cakes

This is especially baffling cos the one or two times I went to church the only thing I remember is they made a big deal about giving out free bread and how it was such a cool thing Jesus did. How is that different from serving cake? What is wrong with people? They spend literally every weekend re-enacting the time their savior GAVE THEM FOOD.

unless you believe in transubstantiation

xp need more tarts in my life tbh. think I've only had a tart at a buffet.

xp how have the businesses and governor sided with money? by inciting a boycott?

― Team Foxcatcherwatcher (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, March 30, 2015 9:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This and the Hobby Lobby case are both examples of the disturbing trend of bestowing religious qualities on corporations. It is telling that the governor signed this bill in a private ceremony closed off from press and the public. This bill is meant to serve private interests over those of the public.

It is a very dangerous trend to ascribe religious rights to corporations imo. For one thing it is anti-democracy; Christians overwhelmingly dominate in politics, and corporations have a much greater sphere of influence over politics than the average individual citizen. And both are well-accustomed to using self-victimization to consolidate power.

well-put

http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/nascar-joins-the-ranks-against-indianas-new-anti-lgbt-law

If NASCAR has turned against Indiana this shit is over

Cake sucks.

jesus, and you like karaoke

my name is Alfred

@BryanJFischer
Indiana will soon find it is impossible to satisfy the homosexual lobby. They will immediately be back for more. And more.

hott

another Chuck Tingle tingler!