Indiana passes anti-gay legislation - nation begins boycott

[Crossroads Inc.]

@LaCroix.

They can.. To a certain extent...
Basically a Shop CAN say "I do not want to serve you, please go."
But what it can NOT do is say "I do not want to server you BECAUSE YOUR GAY"
That is a no no... And is EXACTLY what these people WANT to be able to do.

See thats the rub., If these people simply say "I don't like you, please leave" Well, its not nice, but they can do it. But they don't do that, they WANT to flout their "religious superiority" And go "I don't want to serve you because your gay"

[LaCroix]

@LaCroix.

They can.. To a certain extent...
Basically a Shop CAN say "I do not want to serve you, please go."
But what it can NOT do is say "I do not want to server you BECAUSE YOUR GAY"
That is a no no... And is EXACTLY what these people WANT to be able to do.

See thats the rub., If these people simply say "I don't like you, please leave" Well, its not nice, but they can do it. But they don't do that, they WANT to flout their "religious superiority" And go "I don't want to serve you because your gay"

Oh...

Now that's reprehensible.

[General Zod]

One question to clarify - why can't the shops refuse to serve someone, anyway, without such legislation?

In Austria( and I guess in pretty much all of Europe, and probably most of the world), doing business with someone falls under the freedom of association clause - you are not forced to do business with any person, period. Well, except the rare case you are selling some really necessary-for-survival stuff (like pharmacies, I think) - there you can't refuse business, but there are exemptions, for even grovcery shops can ban you from entering their premises if you misbehave.

I was under the assumption that this would also be the case in the US.

I think desegregation had a lot to do with it because it let racist store owners refuse to serve anybody who wasn't white, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

[Elheru Aran]

In general: The onus is upon customers to prove that they were being discriminated against if they are asked to leave an establishment. If they have reasonable basis to conclude that they were discriminated against (for example, a gay couple trying to get a wedding cake is told "we won't make you a cake because it's against our beliefs"), then that's generally considered illegal-- obviously it's much easier to prove racial discrimination than religious, though.

In general as well, any establishment has the right to refuse service for whatever reason, as long as it isn't an *illegal* reason (gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, etc). There are certain exceptions; for example, religious groups are permitted to exclude non-believers from certain ceremonies (say a Mormon temple rite). However, any establishment offering service to the general public is strictly prohibited from discriminating against a protected class. A Taco Bell manager can't tell rowdy kids to leave because they're black (or white, or Hispanic, or Asian), but he can tell them to leave because they're being rowdy.

[Broomstick]

There aren't any. These laws have been proposed and put forward in multiple States but Indiana is the first to actually pass and sign it.

Incorrect. Factually incorrect.

Our next door neighbor Illinois has nearly exactly the same law. A major difference is that Illinois ALSO prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, which Indiana does not.

The Indianapolis city council today called on the state to pass a law making sexual orientation and gender identity legally protected classes which would, essentially, fix this toilet-paper of a bad law. Indianapolis has had that law on the books for the city for 10 years, but state-wide that protection does not exist.

[Lost Soal]

There aren't any. These laws have been proposed and put forward in multiple States but Indiana is the first to actually pass and sign it.

Incorrect. Factually incorrect.

Our next door neighbor Illinois has nearly exactly the same law. A major difference is that Illinois ALSO prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, which Indiana does not.

The Indianapolis city council today called on the state to pass a law making sexual orientation and gender identity legally protected classes which would, essentially, fix this toilet-paper of a bad law. Indianapolis has had that law on the books for the city for 10 years, but state-wide that protection does not exist.

Then its not the same law. The protests and boycotts are specifically over the right to descriminate against LGBT because of religious beliefs with zero legal recourse for the discriminated party. This is the first such law to grant such broad "protections" and if Indiana is not made to understand the price of doing so, it'll simply be a message to every other Republican state that they can get away with it and will find a way to do the same.

[Rogue 9]

The state is in an absolute uproar over this; I don't think I've ever seen people get so worked up over anything the state government has done before, even when Pence created an executive workaround to remove the powers of the elected state school superintendent (who got more votes than he did in the same election, I might add) or when Daniels forced Daylight Stealing Time on us. It's unreal; the Indianapolis Star ran a full page editorial on page A1 this morning condemning the governor and calling for passage of a non-discrimination law modeled on Indianapolis' ordinance and the furor shows no sign of slowing down. Multiple major businesses have canceled expansion plans in the state, Gen Con is threatening to move to a different state at the end of their contract, concerts have been canceled, the works. This is looking to cost the state economy hundreds of millions of dollars annually if not into the billions when all's said and done, and if anything will get Pence's attention, it's that.

[Borgholio]

I just read that Pence is scrambling to try and pass a law that adds LGBT to the same protected classes as race and religion, but I suspect much of that is just PR to try and calm things down enough so he can quietly forget about it.

[Gaidin]

Yeah, about that...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the ... oycotting/

EDIT: removed the map image as it was breaking the forum. Its in the above link.

Yea no.

What Makes Indiana's Religious-Freedom Law Different?

The new statute's defenders claim it simply mirrors existing federal rules, but it contains two provisions that put new obstacles in the path of equality.

No one, I think, would ever have denied that Maurice Bessinger was a man of faith.

And he wasn’t particularly a “still, small voice” man either; he wanted everybody in earshot to know that slavery had been God’s will, that desegregation was Satan’s work, and the federal government was the Antichrist. God wanted only whites to eat at Bessinger’s six Piggie Park barbecue joints; so His servant Maurice took that fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1968 decided that his religious freedom argument was “patently frivolous.”

Until the day he died, however, Bessinger insisted that he and God were right. His last fight was to preserve the Confederate flag as a symbol of South Carolina. “I want to be known as a hard-working, Christian man that loves God and wants to further (God’s) work throughout the world as I have been doing throughout the last 25 years,” he told his hometown newspaper in 2000.

Growing up in the pre-civil-rights South, I knew a lot of folks like Maurice Bessinger. I didn’t like them much, but I didn’t doubt their sincerity. Why wouldn’t they believe racism was God’s will? We white Southerners heard that message on weekends from the pulpit, on school days from our segregated schools, and every day from our governments. When Richard and Mildred Loving left Virginia to be married, a state trial judge convicted them of violating the Racial Integrity Act. That judge wrote that “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents … The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

That’s a good background against which to measure the uproar about the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was signed into law by Governor Mike Pence last week. I don’t question the religious sincerity of anyone involved in drafting and passing this law. But sincere and faithful people, when they feel the imprimatur of both the law and the Lord, can do very ugly things.

There’s a factual dispute about the new Indiana law. It is called a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” like the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1993.* Thus a number of its defenders have claimed it is really the same law. Here, for example, is the Weekly Standard’s John McCormack: “Is there any difference between Indiana's law and the federal law? Nothing significant.” I am not sure what McCormack was thinking; but even my old employer, The Washington Post, seems to believe that if a law has a similar title as another law, they must be identical. “Indiana is actually soon to be just one of 20 states with a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA,” the Post’s Hunter Schwarz wrote, linking to this map created by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The problem with this statement is that, well, it’s false. That becomes clear when you read and compare those tedious state statutes. If you do that, you will find that the Indiana statute has two features the federal RFRA—and most state RFRAs—do not. First, the Indiana law explicitly allows any for-profit business to assert a right to “the free exercise of religion.” The federal RFRA doesn’t contain such language, and neither does any of the state RFRAs except South Carolina’s; in fact, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, explicitly exclude for-profit businesses from the protection of their RFRAs.

The new Indiana statute also contains this odd language: “A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding.”[/i] (My italics.) Neither the federal RFRA, nor 18 of the 19 state statutes cited by the Post, says anything like this; only the Texas RFRA, passed in 1999, contains similar language.

What these words mean is, first, that the Indiana statute explicitly recognizes that a for-profit corporation has “free exercise” rights matching those of individuals or churches. A lot of legal thinkers thought that idea was outlandish until last year’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, in which the Court’s five conservatives interpreted the federal RFRA to give some corporate employers a religious veto over their employees’ statutory right to contraceptive coverage.

Second, the Indiana statute explicitly makes a business’s “free exercise” right a defense against a private lawsuit by another person, rather than simply against actions brought by government. Why does this matter? Well, there’s a lot of evidence that the new wave of “religious freedom” legislation was impelled, at least in part, by a panic over a New Mexico state-court decision, Elane Photography v. Willock. In that case, a same-sex couple sued a professional photography studio that refused to photograph the couple’s wedding. New Mexico law bars discrimination in “public accommodations” on the basis of sexual orientation. The studio said that New Mexico’s RFRA nonetheless barred the suit; but the state’s Supreme Court held that the RFRA did not apply “because the government is not a party.”

Remarkably enough, soon after, language found its way into the Indiana statute to make sure that no Indiana court could ever make a similar decision. Democrats also offered the Republican legislative majority a chance to amend the new act to say that it did not permit businesses to discriminate; they voted that amendment down.

So, let’s review the evidence: by the Weekly Standard’s definition, there’s “nothing significant” about this law that differs from the federal one, and other state ones—except that it has been carefully written to make clear that 1) businesses can use it against 2) civil-rights suits brought by individuals.

Of all the state “religious freedom” laws I have read, this new statute hints most strongly that it is there to be used as a means of excluding gays and same-sex couples from accessing employment, housing, and public accommodations on the same terms as other people. True, there is no actual language that says, All businesses wishing to discriminate in employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation, please check this “religious objection” box. But, as Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.”

So—is the fuss over the Indiana law overblown?

No.

The statute shows every sign of having been carefully designed to put new obstacles in the path of equality; and it has been publicly sold with deceptive claims that it is “nothing new.”

Being required to serve those we dislike is a painful price to pay for the privilege of running a business; but the pain exclusion inflicts on its victims, and on society, are far worse than the discomfort the faithful may suffer at having to open their businesses to all.

As the story of Maurice Bessinger shows us, even dressed in liturgical garments, hateful discrimination is still a pig.

Your article is just so damn fascinating...ly wrong.

[Dalton]

I just heard that Arkansas sent a similar law to Gov. Hutchinson

[Rogue 9]

So either they haven't been paying attention or they think everyone's so fixated on Indiana that they won't notice. Cute.

[bilateralrope]

So either they haven't been paying attention or they think everyone's so fixated on Indiana that they won't notice. Cute.

Or they don't think that Arkansas gets enough business from people who care for it to suffer the same fate.

[Elheru Aran]

So either they haven't been paying attention or they think everyone's so fixated on Indiana that they won't notice. Cute.

Or they don't think that Arkansas gets enough business from people who care for it to suffer the same fate.

Yeah.... I don't know if it's going to fly because it's the home state of Wal-Mart, which has already come out and said they aren't going to support any similar measures. Apple likewise has said as much, although I doubt they have as much pull with the state as Walmart does.

[Gaidin]

These corporations always have the balls to say stuff. My question is if they have the balls to do stuff. Sure, walmart will say this. Will walmart up and move? One whose name I can't remember stopped a work in progress in Indiana, but would they have done more than say words if that work was already done?

[Prannon]

Corporations lobby. Corporations provide campaign money. These things don't really impact the everyday schlums who vote, but it sure can impact the politicians.

Honestly, once the furor is started, just seeing the big names coming out and saying "You're doing bad things we don't like" has a huge impact on the public conversation. I mean, take a look at what Rogue 9 said up above... that's the sort of stuff that starts damage control on the part of the Man.

[Flagg]

I just read that Pence is scrambling to try and pass a law that adds LGBT to the same protected classes as race and religion, but I suspect much of that is just PR to try and calm things down enough so he can quietly forget about it.

Of course. He get's to call for their protection knowing no bill will be put on his desk to sign which does so.

[Kon_El]

Despite what many conservatives are current yelling about...
This debate is NOT akin to "Going to a Jewish Deli and asking for a Ham sandwich" Nor is it akin to "Going to a cake shop and asking them to put Pornography on a cake" NOR is it akin to someone "Going to a Christian book store and asking for books on Atheism"

All three of which are "arguments" I have heard in defense of these so could Religious protection laws.
The Far right needs to get it through it's skull that this has nothing to do with someone ASKING for something that can't get. Gay people aren't going into cake shops and asking for Porn, they are asking for CAKE.

I think the point is that by providing a wedding cake, photography, flowers, etc. for a gay wedding they are participating in a ceremony that they believe it is forbidden by their religion. In that way it does seem similar to forcing a Jewish deli owner/Butcher to handle pork.

To be honest it's not hard to see this creating more push back against legalizing gay marriage from more liberial Christians who would otherwise be ok with it.

[Flagg]

How is providing services for homosexuals in any way against their religion? The OT says "don't have sex with someone the same sex as you" essentially. There's nothing about refusing to provide them service. I bet they provide services for marriages where the couple has fucked out of wedlock and the bride to be got knocked up and is as big as a house, or marriages where the bride and/ or groom has been divorced. So unless making fucking wedding cakes with 2 grooms or 2 brides on top or providing professional photography meant that you had to participate in a fucking gay orgy I don't see why they have any right to refuse service to anyone. And I'm going to laugh my ass off at the first wedding cake designer who refuses to make a cake for an interracial couple on religious grounds and watch the stupid assed conservadouches try to explain why that should be OK, too.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It's not true that you could be sued for telling someone "I will not bake you a cake as you are a sodomite" in Indiana right now, as that kind of lawsuit has only ever succeeded in states where there is an ENDA that includes public accommodation -- which is the state of providing a service open to the public in general. This law is actually entirely preventative, and so are the ones in most of the US conservative states. They're an inoculating/preventative opening maneouvre to establish good position in an anticipated second phase of the War of Laws that Alabama initiated by Moore's defiance of the federal court system over gay marriage itself.

[Kon_El]

How is providing services for homosexuals in any way against their religion? The OT says "don't have sex with someone the same sex as you" essentially. There's nothing about refusing to provide them service. I bet they provide services for marriages where the couple has fucked out of wedlock and the bride to be got knocked up and is as big as a house, or marriages where the bride and/ or groom has been divorced. So unless making fucking wedding cakes with 2 grooms or 2 brides on top or providing professional photography meant that you had to participate in a fucking gay orgy I don't see why they have any right to refuse service to anyone. And I'm going to laugh my ass off at the first wedding cake designer who refuses to make a cake for an interracial couple on religious grounds and watch the stupid assed conservadouches try to explain why that should be OK, too.

Are you seriously expecting matters of religion to follow logical consistency?

[Zaune]

The state is in an absolute uproar over this; I don't think I've ever seen people get so worked up over anything the state government has done before, even when Pence created an executive workaround to remove the powers of the elected state school superintendent (who got more votes than he did in the same election, I might add) or when Daniels forced Daylight Stealing Time on us. It's unreal; the Indianapolis Star ran a full page editorial on page A1 this morning condemning the governor and calling for passage of a non-discrimination law modeled on Indianapolis' ordinance and the furor shows no sign of slowing down. Multiple major businesses have canceled expansion plans in the state, Gen Con is threatening to move to a different state at the end of their contract, concerts have been canceled, the works. This is looking to cost the state economy hundreds of millions of dollars annually if not into the billions when all's said and done, and if anything will get Pence's attention, it's that.

I just hope he doesn't respond to this by doubling down on it and coming up with something worse, as people with unpopular opinions and a huge persecution complex are wont to do when called out on their bullshit.

And last I heard, NASCAR were weighing in, which is courageous of them but also a little worrying. If the Indianapolis 500 ups sticks and moves to another state then there might actually be riots.

[Alferd Packer]

And last I heard, NASCAR were weighing in, which is courageous of them but also a little worrying. If the Indianapolis 500 ups sticks and moves to another state then there might actually be riots.

That's IndyCar, which actually runs two races at Indianapolis (a Grand Prix on the old F1 course, and the actual 500 on the oval). NASCAR races the Brickyard 400 at Indy, usually at the end of July. But still, that's the only time they come to Indy, and I'm sure it's a huge weekend for the track and the local economy.

[Borgholio]

The governor of Arkansas is not going to sign their own religious bill until there are added protections in there to protect against discrimination. Looks like he doesn't want to deal with the same shitstorm. See? Sometimes money talks in a good way.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/31/politics/ ... index.html

[Crossroads Inc.]

Meanwhile, the law claims it's first "Victim"

Memories Pizza -- the first Indiana business to declare it would refuse LGBT business -- got blasted on the Internet and by phone, but the owner says there's been a huge misunderstanding ... sorta.
Kevin O’Connor tells TMZ he's had to temporarily close his business after he told a reporter he would refuse to cater a gay wedding under Indiana's new Religious Freedom Restoration Act. O'Connor says he was immediately flooded by threatening phone calls, and social media postings.
O'Connor wants to clear up one thing: He says he would never deny service to gay people in his restaurant. However, due to his religious beliefs, he does not believe in gay marriage ... and that's why he wouldn't service one.
Meanwhile, he says the threats have been serious enough that he's closing his pizza joint ... at least until the dust settles.
Indiana's controversial law has raised a lot of questions, not the least of which is ... what gay wedding would hire a pizza place to cater?


Read more: http://www.tmz.com/2015/04/01/memories- ... z3W9LSJjCl

So... Just to put things into perspective.. This guy decides to be all high and mighty and goes on local radio talking about how he has no problem using the new law to deny service to gays!
Then gets into a MASSIVE Shitstorm when it gets onto social media, and then he gets called out on it.
Then guy Backpedals furious, and, to avoid people further calling him out, decides to close his own restaurant rather then deal with anger people. Again no one forced, he isn't being "put out of business" he just doesn't want to deal with all those angry gays upset at his innocent comments!

As some might imagine, the religious right latched onto this story like a starving Remora. Far Right blogs have been PLASTERED with this guy as being "Crucified" by the evil gay conspiracy, and are calling him A Martyr of the Anti Religious gay movement! When all that is really happen is that the wonderful "Free Market" that they love to worship is simply responding to this clowns comments.

[Broomstick]

The thing is that the conservatives/rabid religious have told themselves so often that people like them are the majority they are shocked, shocked, when they discover that their views are not the majority. But can they consider they are wrong? Of course not - it's still everyone else against them.