Indiana Bill Allowing Rejection Of Gay Customers

[Brian 2.0]

I don't post much anymore but I really can't stand the law stepping in to force anyone to do anything they feel strongly against. A business should reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. If you don't like it take your business elsewhere, whine about it online, or picket the establishment.

 

I can say the same in reverse...

 

If you don't like the laws established for running a business in this country, then don't start a business, or take your business to another country that allows for your religious beliefs to bleed into your running of a business.  

 

Businesses are not people, and do not have the same religious rights as people do.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Brian 2.0

[Brian 2.0]

Governor won't sign bill:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/31/politics/arkansas-religious-freedom-anti-lgbt-bill/index.html

 

EDIT:  This is a different state.

 

Man, this issue gets around.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Brian 2.0

[jerryp48]

Nice dodge. 

 

You stated "I really can't stand the law stepping in to force anyone to do anything they feel strongly against. A business should reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason. If you don't like it take your business elsewhere, whine about it online, or picket the establishment."

 

This is exactly what the civil rights act did. It forced businesses to serve people regardless of skin color. This is something that people felt was morally wrong and something that many felt very strongly about. I assume that you think this is/was a bad idea. What about Loving v Virginia. Should county clerks have been required to issue marriage licenses that they were strongly opposed to in the wake of that decision? Should Judges have been required to marry mixed race couples in marriages they found morally repugnant? It seems, based on your statement, that you think these laws and decisions were bad. I just wanted to make sure that I understood your position properly.

Thanks,

John

You're example about county clerks is not the same as a business. Government services are funded by all taxpayers. Businesses are funded by their patrons.

Regardless of how right it may seem using the law is the wrong course of action. Be careful what you wish for.

So I guess because you're comparing the two you put homosexual lifestyle on par with the skin color. I don't.

Go ahead and have the last word. I'm done.

[Gray]

I disagree though in the way its applied. At what point does all forms of devious sexual behavior get protections? Equal protections can really only ultimately work in a morally sound society.

 

Well, what gay or straight people get up to in the bedroom is really none of my concern, but that's not what we're talking about here. 

[thesometimesaint]

You simply cant begin making laws that govern every little aspect of what should or should not be "religious freedom". Thats where we are at right now. If we choose to follow the road of all these anti-discrimination deals pretty soon we are going to have to have to be monitored even in our homes!

 

Again; Never said it did. There are plenty of laws I feel are stupid, unenforceable, or dangerous to liberty.  The difficulty for you is I think all laws need to pass the smell test of if the proposed law strengthens everyone's rights or decreases those rights for reasons of race, creed, color, religion, national origin, sex, and increasingly sexual orientation.

 

You are forgetting the 4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects^, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

 

The US Supreme Court has already ruled that Anti-sodomy laws are an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. Thus unenforceable. I have no desire to be in your bedroom, or anywhere else in your home, and object to any law that prohibits any two/or more consenting adults from doing what they want sexually in the privacy of their own home.

 

[JLHPROF]

This was HILARIOUS to me... this will SERIOUSLY damage the BOOMING trend of catered pizza reception dinners that are SO popular right now at gay weddings.... ha!

But seriously... even this lowly but defiant pizza parlor won't withstand the crushing weight of our intolerant, facist big gay steamroller!!! Mwhahahahaha...

 

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/indiana-pizzeria-won-t-cater-gay-weddings-forced-close-gains-55k-donations

 

Well, this restaurant doesn't even cater and was responding to a hypothetical situation question.

And the backlash has caused them to close their doors.

 

However a Go-Fund-Me page has raised $128,000 as of 9:45 this morning and it is going up every minute. (Report says $55,000 but I just checked the site).  Considering the average pizza place probably clears a half to 3/4 million, a year, they'll probably get enough to shut up shop for a while till this blows over.

 

Reminds me of the poor pro-cop/anti-cop backlash against the little Family Tree restaurant in Utah  back in November.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/1788985-155/facebook-peterson-restaurant-broadhead-post-dansie

Their Yelp page was overrun with fake reviews too.

Edited April 2, 2015 by JLHPROF

[Mormonmaniac]

Well, what gay or straight people get up to in the bedroom is really none of my concern, but that's not what we're talking about here.

Aids is an epidemic largely so because of the male gay population and their behavior. That, is my concern.

[Mormonmaniac]

Again; Never said it did. There are plenty of laws I feel are stupid, unenforceable, or dangerous to liberty.  The difficulty for you is I think all laws need to pass the smell test of if the proposed law strengthens everyone's rights or decreases those rights for reasons of race, creed, color, religion, national origin, sex, and increasingly sexual orientation.

 

You are forgetting the 4th Amendment: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects^, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

 

The US Supreme Court has already ruled that Anti-sodomy laws are an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. Thus unenforceable. I have no desire to be in your bedroom, or anywhere else in your home, and object to any law that prohibits any two/or more consenting adults from doing what they want sexually in the privacy of their own home.

So, how is what you say any different than a person who wishes not to sell to a gay person? Why should the government care or stick their noses in on things they have no business doing?

[Daniel2]

Dup

Edited April 2, 2015 by Daniel2

[thesometimesaint]

Aids is an epidemic largely so because of the male gay population and their behavior. That, is my concern.

 

Only in this country and only for a limited time. In the rest of the world the AIDS virus is not a respecter of persons.

 

 

So, how is what you say any different than a person who wishes not to sell to a gay person? Why should the government care or stick their noses in on things they have no business doing?

 

When you are in business you're open to the public. You don't get to decide who of that public can purchase your product based their race, creed, color, religion, national origin, sex, and increasingly sexual orientation.

[JLHPROF]

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/indiana-pizzeria-won-t-cater-gay-weddings-forced-close-gains-55k-donations

 

However a Go-Fund-Me page has raised $128,000 as of 9:45 this morning and it is going up every minute. (Report says $55,000 but I just checked the site). 

 

$205,000 now.  That's $77,000 in 3 hours, or a little more than $25,000 an hour.

 

Seriously, I don't approve of SSM either.  Can I have a nice quarter mill...?

[Daniel2]

Aids is an epidemic largely so because of the male gay population and their behavior. That, is my concern.

Self destructive behaviors which result in HIV transmission, like promiscuity, are concerning in both the heterosexual or homosexual population.

Given your concerns, have you thought of any possible solutions that could decrease such behaviors among gay men? Do you think it would be valuable to encourage gay men to enter into more stable, less (or even non-) promiscuous relarionships?

Do you feel that denying gay men services in places of public accommodations or personal health care providers has or will be successful in decreasing HIV transmission?

Edited April 2, 2015 by Daniel2

[thesometimesaint]

$205,000 now.  That's $77,000 in 3 hours, or a little more than $25,000 an hour.

 

Seriously, I don't approve of SSM either.  Can I have a nice quarter mill...?

 

A foole and his monie be soone at debate,

which after with sorrow repents him too late

Thomas Tusser

[JLHPROF]

Great new WSJ article on the Indiana law.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-intolerance-1427760183

 

 

The New Intolerance Indiana isn’t targeting gays. Liberals are targeting religion.

March 30, 2015 8:03 p.m. ET

 

In the increasingly bitter battle between religious liberty and the liberal political agenda, religion is losing. Witness the media and political wrath raining down upon Indiana because the state dared to pass an allegedly anti-gay Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The question fair-minded Americans should ask before casting the first stone is who is really being intolerant.

The Indiana law is a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) that passed 97-3 in the Senate and that Bill Clinton signed in 1993. Both the federal and Indiana laws require courts to administer a balancing test when reviewing cases that implicate the free exercise of religion.

 

To wit: Individuals must show that their religious liberty has been “substantially burdened,” and the government must demonstrate its actions represent the least restrictive means to achieve a “compelling” state interest. Indiana’s law adds a provision that offers a potential religious defense in private disputes, but then four federal appellate circuits have also interpreted the federal statute to apply to private disputes.

The federal RFRA followed the Supreme Court’s Employment Division v. Smith ruling in 1990 that abandoned its 30-year precedent of reviewing religious liberty cases under strict scrutiny. Congress responded with RFRA, which merely reasserted longstanding First Amendment protections.

In 1997 the Supreme Court limited RFRA’s scope to federal actions. So 19 states including such cultural backwaters as Connecticut, Rhode Island and Illinois followed with copy-cat legislation, and Indiana is the 20th. Courts in 11 states have extended equally vigorous protections.

Indiana was an outlier before the new law because neither its laws nor courts unambiguously protected religious liberty. Amish horse-drawn buggies could be required to abide by local traffic regulations. Churches could be prohibited from feeding the homeless under local sanitation codes. The state Attorney General even ruled Indiana Wesleyan University, a Christian college which hires on the basis of religion, ineligible for state workforce training grants.

 

In February, 16 prominent First Amendment scholars, some of whom support same-sex marriage, backed Indiana’s legislation. “General protection for religious liberty is important precisely because it is impossible to legislate in advance for all the ways in which government might burden the free exercise of religion,” they explained.

That hasn’t stopped the cultural great and good from claiming Indiana added the religious defense in private disputes as a way to target gays. If this is Indiana’s purpose, and there’s no evidence it is, this is unlikely to work.

The claim is that this would empower, say, florists or wedding photographers to refuse to work a gay wedding on religious grounds. But under the RFRA test, such a commercial vendor would still have to prove that his religious convictions were substantially burdened.

And he would also come up against the reality that most courts have found that the government has a compelling interest in enforcing antidiscrimination laws. In all these states for two decades, no court we’re aware of has granted such a religious accommodation to an antidiscrimination law. Restaurants and hotels that refused to host gay marriage parties would have a particularly high burden in overcoming public accommodation laws.

In any event, such disputes are rare to nonexistent, a tribute to the increasing tolerance of American society toward gays, lesbians, the transgendered, you name it.

The paradox is that even as America has become more tolerant of gays, many activists and liberals have become ever-more intolerant of anyone who might hold more traditional cultural or religious views. Thus a CEO was run out of Mozilla after it turned out that he had donated money to a California referendum opposing same-sex marriage.

Part of the new liberal intolerance is rooted in the identity politics that dominates today’s Democratic Party. That’s the only way to explain the born-again opportunism of Hillary Clinton, who tweeted: “Sad this new Indiana law can happen in America today. We shouldn’t discriminate against ppl bc of who they love.”

By that standard, Mrs. Clinton discriminated against gays because she opposed gay marriage until March 2013. But now she wants to be seen as leading the new culture war against the intolerant right whose views she recently held.

The same reversal of tolerance applies to religious liberty. When RFRA passed in 1993, liberal outfits like the ACLU were joined at the hip with the Christian Coalition. But now the ACLU is denouncing Indiana’s law because it wants even the most devoutly held religious values to bow to its cultural agenda on gay marriage and abortion rights.

Liberals used to understand that RFRA, with its balancing test, was a good-faith effort to help society compromise on contentious moral disputes. That liberals are renouncing it 20 years after celebrating it says more about their new intolerance than about anyone in Indiana.

 

Turning this issue on its head is interesting.  Is it that Christians are intolerant of homosexual couples rights or is it the homosexuals are intolerant of Christian beliefs concerning homosexuality.  Or is it both?

[rockpond]

Great new WSJ article on the Indiana law.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-intolerance-1427760183

 

 

Turning this issue on its head is interesting.  Is it that Christians are intolerant of homosexual couples rights or is it the homosexuals are intolerant of Christian beliefs concerning homosexuality.  Or is it both?

 

In reality, it's probably a little of both with way to much political posturing thrown in.

[Gray]

Aids is an epidemic largely so because of the male gay population and their behavior. That, is my concern.

 

If that's your concern, you should be supporting monogamous gay marriage. 

[Gray]

Great new WSJ article on the Indiana law.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-intolerance-1427760183

 

 

Turning this issue on its head is interesting.  Is it that Christians are intolerant of homosexual couples rights or is it the homosexuals are intolerant of Christian beliefs concerning homosexuality.  Or is it both?

 

Gays are asking for equal protection under the law. Christians seem to be asking for the right not to give equal protection to gays or anyone else they think are unworthy of their services. 

[Mormonmaniac]

If that's your concern, you should be supporting monogamous gay marriage.

Im not so sure there could be such a thing. Man on man relationships were not meant to work.

[JLHPROF]

Gays are asking for equal protection under the law. Christians seem to be asking for the right not to give equal protection to gays or anyone else they think are unworthy of their services. 

 

Gays are asking for equal protection under the law even if it means taking away another person's agency in providing a service.  That is just as intolerant as what is being done to them.

There is a razor thin line between not being discriminatory and not having to perform a business function they disagree with.

 

Should a children's bookseller be required to carry "Heather Has Two Mommies" to serve the gay community?

How about if it's a Christian bookstore?

Should a family owned bed and breakfast be required to allow a homosexual couple to share a bed in one of their rooms in their home?

Should a Christian student be required to study/read novels supporting or even describing homosexuality in order to pass a class?  Should a Christian school be required to teach them?

 

The line gets vary hazy...

[Analytics]

Gays are asking for equal protection under the law even if it means taking away another person's agency in providing a service.  That is just as intolerant as what is being done to them.

There is a razor thin line between not being discriminatory and not having to perform a business function they disagree with.

 

Should a children's bookseller be required to carry "Heather Has Two Mommies" to serve the gay community?

How about if it's a Christian bookstore?...

 

A repeated misconception on this thread is what the law actually says and how it would be applied.  This has absolutely nothing to do with forcing businesses to provide goods or services they don't offer.  Rather, the issue is the motivation for why the service or good is being denied.

 

For example, if somebody goes and asks for a wedding cake for their same-sex marriage, it has always been legal to say, "sorry, we don't carry any plastic decorations of two guys holding hands for the top of the cake," and it has always been legal to say, "sorry, we don't decorate cakes with rainbow frosting."  Likewise, it has always been perfectly legal to say, "sorry, I don't have time to prepare a cake the week of your wedding, so I'm not going to."

 

What is illegal in states with non-discrimination laws is to say "sorry, I'm not going to bake you a cake because you are gay."

 

If a photographer or a baker really doesn't want to take photographs or bake a cake for gays, all they need to do is be savvy enough to state they choose not to do the work for either a vague legal reason or no reason at all.  But if the photographer or baker says, "I am turning you away because you are gay," they are either being inept about how to quietly turn away gays, or they are being tools in the culture wars.

 

The intention of the new law is to allow bakers to say, "normally, it would be illegal to refuse to bake you a cake because you are gay, but since discriminating against gays is my religious belief, my freedom of religion gives me a special privilege to legally discriminate against you."

[Analytics]

Great new WSJ article on the Indiana law.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-intolerance-1427760183

 

"...In February, 16 prominent First Amendment scholars, some of whom support same-sex marriage, backed Indiana’s legislation. “General protection for religious liberty is important precisely because it is impossible to legislate in advance for all the ways in which government might burden the free exercise of religion,” they explained.

 

"That hasn’t stopped the cultural great and good from claiming Indiana added the religious defense in private disputes as a way to target gays. If this is Indiana’s purpose, and there’s no evidence it is, this is unlikely to work...."

 

 

Turning this issue on its head is interesting.  Is it that Christians are intolerant of homosexual couples rights or is it the homosexuals are intolerant of Christian beliefs concerning homosexuality.  Or is it both?

 

The highlighted part of the WSJ quote is factually false.

 

According to The Indianapolis Star, 

 

 

 

Last year, after a Republican-led push in the Statehouse failed to advance a possible amendment to ban same-sex marriage in the state constitution, The Indianapolis Star reported in June that the issue could spawn "a whole new debate about religious liberty for churches and businesses."

 

With the headline "Indiana same-sex marriage fight not over yet," the report said: "... the fight at the Statehouse could shift to legislation intended to protect business owners and churches that deny services to same-sex couples on religious grounds."

 

It quoted same-sex marriage opponent Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana: "If there is no way to protect marriage as the union of a man and a woman, then we must protect the freedom of conscience, thought and speech on marriage in Indiana."

 

Another conservative group, the Indiana Family Institute, became more vocal about protecting religious liberty as judges started to overturn state bans on same-sex marriage.

 

As the group saw it, the legalization of same-sex marriage infringed upon their rights to freedom of speech and religion. It looked to RFRA to guard against that....

 

See RFRA's Roots Tied to Gay Marriage Fight for the full article.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Analytics

[carbon dioxide]

Gays are asking for equal protection under the law. Christians seem to be asking for the right not to give equal protection to gays or anyone else they think are unworthy of their services. 

I don't think the intention of most Christians is to deny equal protection.  I think they just don't want to be involved with certain activities they disagree with.   If someone else wants to give them the services, they are fine with that. 

[tonie]

What is illegal in states with non-discrimination laws is to say "sorry, I'm not going to bake you a cake because you are gay."

 

 

This is not accurate. 

 

Indiana does not include sexual orientation or gender identity in non-discrimination laws; neither does Utah and many other States.

 

In Indiana, it has always been legal to say "Sorry, I'm not going to bake you a cake because you are gay."  This fact, is what is so fascinating about the uproar over Indiana's current bill. A religious person, in Indiana, has never needed a RFRA in Indiana to deny, employment, housing, goods or services to gays.

 

 

The intention of the new law is to allow bakers to say, "normally, it would be illegal to refuse to bake you a cake because you are gay, but since discriminating against gays is my religious belief, my freedom of religion gives me a special privilege to legally discriminate against you."

 

 

This is not accurate either. The amendment that was signed prohibits denying gays goods or services based on religious beliefs of the provider of the goods or services.

Edited April 3, 2015 by tonie

[tonie]

What needs to be made clear and maintained, is that  Washington (florist case), New Jersey (Church Pavilion case), and Colorado (Baker case) each:

 

Prohibit discrimination against gays.

Do not have RFRA laws.

 

 

 

 

 

It should be remembered that at least one of the States in dark purple permits discrimination against LGBT concerning the provision of good or services.

 

What LGBT Civil rights maps also means is that every State shaded in grey it is permissible to deny employment, housing, goods or services to LGBT.

Edited April 3, 2015 by tonie

[tonie]

New Mexico has had a RFRA since 1999/2000, that law did not provide a viable defense for the photographer who refused to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony.  The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled that:

 

"we hold that as a matter of New Mexico law, the New Mexico Religious Freedom Restoration Act is inapplicable to disputes in which a government agency is not a party."

 

 

Indiana's bill (unamended) sought to allow relief for a person claiming religous freedom, even when the government was not a party to the suit.