Indiana's "Religious Freedom Law"

• HitsRus

  

  People that are saying this is allowing businesses to refuse servicing any gay people have no idea what they are talking about.

  This.
  There is deliberate mischaracterization of the law, and some well intentioned people have bought into it, much like the events at Ferguson. Worse, you have politicians levelling charges and making statements without a shred of evidence. In the same way that "hands up don't shoot" mischaracterized the police shooting of MicHael Brown in Ferguson, the law is being attacked as if there actually were instances of this type of discrimination. There is, of course, no evidence of this happening, in the same way that Michael Brown was supposedly shot with his hands in the air surrendering. This is deliberate and it is being fomented by people who will stop at nothing to drive their agenda, and have no regards for the actual truth.
  This is the real enemy here.
• DeyDurkie5

  

  Belly35;1717530 wrote:
  
  
  Is this discrimination?

  Lol shut up belly
• Ytowngirlinfla

  

  The Indiana governor is back peddling now. Trying to change the law so you can't discriminate against anyone.
• superman

  Ytowngirlinfla;1717646 wrote:The Indiana governor is back peddling now. Trying to change the law so you can't discriminate against anyone.

  Gay agenda bullies win again.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  I just do not see the point of the law. Why is it needed suddenly now?
  What changed so dramatically in Indiana for this now?
  
  Apparently the status quo wasn't good enough?
  When did religion suddenly need saving?
• Con_Alma

  Arkansas just passed a religious objections bill and sent it to the governor to sign into law.
• ptown_trojans_1

  

  Con_Alma;1717661 wrote:Arkansas just passed a religious objections bill and sent it to the governor to sign into law.

  What's the point?
  All seems pointless to me.
  
  Even Wal Mart does not see the need.
• superman

  ptown_trojans_1;1717659 wrote:I just do not see the point of the law. Why is it needed suddenly now?
  What changed so dramatically in Indiana for this now?
  
  Apparently the status quo wasn't good enough?
  When did religion suddenly need saving?

  Because slowly but surely religious freedoms are being eroded. if a gay couple can sue a bakery for not making them a cake, where does it stop? What keeps some rogue judge from declaring that churches are a public accommodation and they have to allow gays to get married there?
  What keeps a business owner from telling his Muslim employees that they have to shave their beards to keep their jobs?
  The RFRA is needed for cases like this.
• HitsRus

  

  The Indiana governor is back peddling now. Trying to change the law so you can't discriminate against anyone.

  The governor is not backpedaling so much as he trying to clarify that the law can't be misconstrued or (more accurately)mischaracterized.
• Ytowngirlinfla

  

  HitsRus;1717677 wrote:The governor is not backpedaling so much as he trying to clarify that the law can't be misconstrued or (more accurately)mischaracterized.

  He's 100% back peddling because this weekend he was asked numerous times on talk shows and he didn't say anything about it not being discriminatory against gays.
• HitsRus

  

  superman;1717666 wrote:Because slowly but surely religious freedoms are being eroded. if a gay couple can sue a bakery for not making them a cake, where does it stop? What keeps some rogue judge from declaring that churches are a public accommodation and they have to allow gays to get married there?
  What keeps a business owner from telling his Muslim employees that they have to shave their beards to keep their jobs?
  The RFRA is needed for cases like this.

  [Gay agenda bullies win again/QUOTE]
  
  The law is as much a reaction to "bullying" not just by LGBT community, but atheists and other "progressives" extending their rights by the government hammer against the rights of other groups. The law deals with the intersection of these rights.... non discrimination versus forcing one to violate the principles or practice of their religion.
  

  Apparently the status quo wasn't good enough?
  When did religion suddenly need saving?

  In the past, I would suspect these laws wouldn't have been necessary, because most people would understand that people should not be expected nor required to act contrary to their beliefs and every one acted accordingly. Activists have skewed common sense, and the lack of civility has caused backlash and a need for limits of one's expansion of rights against anothers.

• HitsRus

  

  He's 100% back peddling because this weekend he was asked numerous times on talk shows and he didn't say anything about it not being discriminatory against gays.

  I don't care if you want to call it backpedalling or not, but I find it an absolute shame that he needs to address unfounded and unsubstantiated charges and a public firestorm whipped into a frenzy by activists deliberately mischaracterizing the intent of this law.
• Ytowngirlinfla

  

  HitsRus;1717698 wrote:I don't care if you want to call it backpedalling or not, but I find it an absolute shame that he needs to address unfounded and unsubstantiated charges and a public firestorm whipped into a frenzy by activists deliberately mischaracterizing the intent of this law.

  It's a shame that Americans feel it's okay to discriminate against people. Probably the same Americans who think blacks aren't equal, hispanics aren't equal, women aren't equal, etc. Just as bad as the muslims in the middle east.
• HitsRus

  

  I agree with you 100%, but the discussion is about this law, and this law does nothing of the sort. If you believe that it does, you have been victimized and misled.
• HitsRus

  

  Here is Governor Pence's full statement and clarification of the law, published by perhaps, one of the last bastions of objective media....the Wall Street Journal.
  http://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-pence-ensuring-religious-freedom-in-indiana-1427757799
• superman

  Ytowngirlinfla;1717702 wrote: Just as bad as the muslims in the middle east.

  Yes, because not baking you a cake it's similar to stoning you.
• justincredible

  

  HitsRus;1717709 wrote:Here is Governor Pence's full statement and clarification of the law, published by perhaps, one of the last bastions of objective media....the Wall Street Journal.
  http://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-pence-ensuring-religious-freedom-in-indiana-1427757799

  Paywall.
• HitsRus

  

  Funny....I didn't have a problem with accessing it...
  
  [h=1]Ensuring Religious Freedom in Indiana[/h][h=2]Our new law has been grossly misconstrued as a ‘license to discriminate.’ That isn’t true, and here’s why.[/h] ByMike Pence
  
  Updated March 31, 2015 10:28 a.m. ET 1378 COMMENTS
  
  Last week I signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, known as RFRA, which ensures that Indiana law will respect religious freedom and apply the highest level of scrutiny to any state or local governmental action that infringes on people’s religious liberty. Unfortunately, the law has stirred a controversy and in recent days has been grossly misconstrued as a “license to discriminate.”
  I want to make clear to Hoosiers and every American that despite what critics and many in the national media have asserted, the law is not a “license to discriminate,” either in Indiana or elsewhere. In fact, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act reflects federal law, as well as law in 30 states nationwide. Indiana’s legislation is about affording citizens full protection under Indiana law.
  ENLARGE
  The Supreme Court upheld religious liberty in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Photo: Getty Images
  
  
  I abhor discrimination. I believe in the Golden Rule that you should “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If I saw a restaurant owner refuse to serve a gay couple, I wouldn’t eat there anymore. As governor of Indiana, if I were presented a bill that legalized discrimination against any person or group, I would veto it. Indiana’s new law contains no reference to sexual orientation. It simply mirrors federal law that President Bill Clinton signed in 1993.
  As Prof. Daniel O. Conkle of Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law, a supporter of gay rights, including same-sex marriage, wrote last week in the Indianapolis Star: “The proposed Indiana RFRA would provide valuable guidance to Indiana courts, directing them to balance religious freedom against competing interests under the same legal standard that applies throughout most of the land. It is anything but a ‘license to discriminate,’ and it should not be mischaracterized or dismissed on that basis.”
  People have asked why this is necessary. After all, the U.S. Constitution and the Indiana Constitution provide strong recognition of freedom of religion. But RFRA is in many ways overdue in Indiana.
  [h=4]Related Video[/h]
  
  
  
  Becket Fund Executive Director Kristina Arriaga discusses the controversy surrounding the Hoosier State’s religious freedom law. Photo credit: Associated Press.
  
  
  In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Employment Division of Oregon v. Smith that the First Amendment’s free exercise clause could not be raised as a defense to generally applicable laws, even if the law infringed on a person’s religious liberty. In response, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993. This law limits federal government action that would infringe upon religion to only those acts that did not substantially burden free exercise of religion, absent a compelling governmental interest and in the least restrictive means.
  For example, a public school in Texas in 2008 told a Native American kindergartner that he would have to cut his hair because of the school’s grooming policies. But keeping his hair long was part of his religious practice, which allowed his parents to prevail in federal court under RFRA.
  Many states have enacted RFRAs of their own; 19 states have passed such laws and 11 state courts have interpreted the law to provide a heightened standard for reviewing government action. When President Obama was a state senator in Illinois, he supported Illinois’s version of the law in 1998. Historically, this law has received wide bipartisan support.
  But Indiana never passed such a law. Then in 2010 came the Affordable Care Act, which renewed concerns about government infringement on deeply held religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby and the University of Notre Dame both filed lawsuits challenging provisions that required the institutions to offer certain types of insurance coverage in violation of their religious views.
  Last year the Supreme Court upheld religious liberty in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, based on the federal RFRA. With the Supreme Court’s ruling, the need for a RFRA at the state level became more important, as the federal law does not apply to states. To ensure that religious liberty is fully protected under Indiana law, this year the General Assembly enshrined these principles in Indiana law. I fully supported that action.
  Some express concern that Indiana’s RFRA law would lead to discrimination, but RFRA only provides a mechanism to address claims, not a license for private parties to deny services. Even a claim involving private individuals under RFRA must show that one’s religious beliefs were “substantially burdened” and not in service to a broader government interest—which preventing discrimination certainly is. The government has the explicit power under the law to step in and defend such interests.
  As Thomas Jefferson noted, “No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of civil authority.” I regret that false narratives and misrepresentations of the RFRA have taken hold.
  The hospitality and character of Hoosiers are synonymous with everything that is good about America. Faith and religion are important values to millions of Indiana residents. With the passage of this legislation, Indiana will continue to be a place that respects the beliefs of every person in our state.
  Mr. Pence, a Republican, is the governor of Indiana.
  
  
  
  

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• believer

  

  HitsRus;1717706 wrote:I agree with you 100%, but the discussion is about this law, and this law does nothing of the sort. If you believe that it does, you have been victimized and misled.

  Certainly the MO of the left including their allies in the "mainstream" media.
  
  I've stayed out of this particular foray because I tend to get frothy when it comes to obvious media bias and anything that appears to trample on our guaranteed 1st Amendment rights.
  
  But - dammit - the media once again latches onto another opportunity to stretch truth and reality to serve the purpose of their leftist political agenda...and, as usual, it unnecessarily sets off a shit storm of disinformation designed to mislead the ignorant and unsuspecting.
  
  The bottom-line in this massive pile of rank BULLSHIT for me is that when we trample on the liberties and freedoms of one group to alleged "protect" the liberties and freedoms of another, we lose in a profoundly frightening way, the spirit and intent of what it means to be American.
• believer

  

  HitsRus;1717706 wrote:I agree with you 100%, but the discussion is about this law, and this law does nothing of the sort. If you believe that it does, you have been victimized and misled.

  Certainly the MO of the left including their allies in the "mainstream" media.
  
  I've stayed out of this particular foray because I tend to get frothy when it comes to obvious media bias and anything that appears to trample on our guaranteed 1st Amendment rights.
  
  But - dammit - the media once again latches onto another opportunity to stretch truth and reality to serve the purpose of their leftist political agenda...and, as usual, it unnecessarily sets off a shit storm of disinformation clearly designed to mislead the ignorant and unsuspecting.
  
  The bottom-line in this massive pile of rank BULLSHIT for me is that when we trample on the liberties and freedoms of one group allegedly to "protect" the liberties and freedoms of another, we lose in a profoundly frightening way, the spirit and intent of what it means to be American.
• HitsRus

  

  The bottom-line in this massive pile of rank BULLSHIT for me is that when we trample on the liberties and freedoms of one group allegedly to "protect" the liberties and freedoms of another, we lose in a profoundly frightening way, the spirit and intent of what it means to be American.

  /thread.
• SportsAndLady

  

  Alright hits, believer, Quaker
  
  We get it. We all knew you'd be defending the law and taking it to extremes.
  
  Bow out of the thread now and let some other articles come up so those of us who don't have Fox News shoved up our asses can take an unbiased and objective look at this.
  
  Thanks!
• Ytowngirlinfla

  

  It's funny that these guys are interpreting the law yet the mayor and city council are asking the governor to fix the law. I guess they know more than the lawmakers. It's just racists and bigots hiding behind religion.
• like_that

  

  Ytowngirlinfla;1717805 wrote:It's funny that these guys are interpreting the law yet the mayor and city council are asking the governor to fix the law. I guess they know more than the lawmakers. It's just racists and bigots hiding behind religion.

  Lol, so now they are adjusting it to appease crybabies like you who misinterpreted the law and you still want to bitch?
• WebFire

  Ytowngirlinfla;1717702 wrote:It's a shame that Americans feel it's okay to discriminate against people. Probably the same Americans who think blacks aren't equal, hispanics aren't equal, women aren't equal, etc. Just as bad as the muslims in the middle east.

  I'm going to call bullshit on this a little bit. It's human nature to discriminate, and you've done it yourself. If you say otherwise I will say you are full of shit.
  
  So, we need to use common sense when it comes to this stuff, but since no one seems to have any anymore, we have to have laws that people then lack common sense to interpret correctly, and make a big fucking deal out of nothing.