Tuesday, March 31, 2015
So... did the Onion get this one right?
Under the Headline "Indiana Governor Insists New Law Has Nothing To Do With Thing It Explicitly Intended To Do," the Onion reports the following:
INDIANAPOLIS—Addressing the controversy surrounding his state’s recently signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Indiana governor Mike Pence forcefully insisted to reporters Monday that the new law has nothing at all to do with what it was explicitly intended to do. “Let me state directly that in no way is this law designed to allow the kind of anti-gay discrimination that is the law’s single reason for existing,” said Pence, emphasizing that provisions authorizing businesses to refuse service to gay customers were nothing more than the only explanation for the law being drafted in the first place. “Regardless of the widespread misconceptions surrounding it, I want to reassure Hoosiers of all backgrounds that this law will never be interpreted in the way it was unambiguously designed to be from the very beginning.” Pence further clarified that the act’s sole purpose was in fact to safeguard the free exercise of religion it was in no way whatsoever created to protect.
Is that so far off?
With this whole controversy, it seems pretty inescapable that what is most different about the Indiana law (versus similar laws on the books of the federal government and several other states) is the context, which some feel shows that the law was aimed precisely at gay men and lesbians. Not that it will only affect them-- if it was the intent of the drafters to aim it narrowly at anybody, they did a terrible job, and it looks like the first beneficiaries may really be the Church of Cannabis.
Comments:
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A few obvious observations:
1. Mike Pence was not ready for prime time on this. 2016 was always a long shot; now it is a non-starter.
2. Much water has flowed under the bridge since Bill Clinton and Chuck Schumer championed RFRA 22 years ago.
3. The gay rights lobby has offered us a clinic in how to expertly re-frame an issue of public policy over time. Game, Set, Match!
4. What remains is a rational discussion concerning the balancing of freedoms and public and private interests. How much latitude are we going to leave religious people with traditional views of marriage? It looks like we have decided that evangelical wedding planners and photographers and bakers should be required to happily participate in same-sex marriages without complaint. Okay. Should we also compel churches and ministers who sincerely believe same-sex marriage is outside of God's plan to solemnize those unions? Or do we need to provide some space for freedom of conscience?
And if someone says no one is asking for gay unions in evangelical churches or requiring evangelical ministers to perform gay weddings and that would never happen, I will look back on the previous twenty years of this debate and offer a hardy laugh in your face.
Simplest Solution: Allow RFRA to remain in place in Indiana and lots of other states and also connect sexual preference to national, state, and local civil rights laws as a protected class.
1. Mike Pence was not ready for prime time on this. 2016 was always a long shot; now it is a non-starter.
2. Much water has flowed under the bridge since Bill Clinton and Chuck Schumer championed RFRA 22 years ago.
3. The gay rights lobby has offered us a clinic in how to expertly re-frame an issue of public policy over time. Game, Set, Match!
4. What remains is a rational discussion concerning the balancing of freedoms and public and private interests. How much latitude are we going to leave religious people with traditional views of marriage? It looks like we have decided that evangelical wedding planners and photographers and bakers should be required to happily participate in same-sex marriages without complaint. Okay. Should we also compel churches and ministers who sincerely believe same-sex marriage is outside of God's plan to solemnize those unions? Or do we need to provide some space for freedom of conscience?
And if someone says no one is asking for gay unions in evangelical churches or requiring evangelical ministers to perform gay weddings and that would never happen, I will look back on the previous twenty years of this debate and offer a hardy laugh in your face.
Simplest Solution: Allow RFRA to remain in place in Indiana and lots of other states and also connect sexual preference to national, state, and local civil rights laws as a protected class.
Farmer -
#4 We should give businesses the same amount of latitude given those who refuse service because of color. Substitute Black or interracial for LGBT, and the arguments are the same, based on biblical grounds.
Lee
#4 We should give businesses the same amount of latitude given those who refuse service because of color. Substitute Black or interracial for LGBT, and the arguments are the same, based on biblical grounds.
Lee
# posted by 
: 1:11 PM
: 1:11 PM
The Onion got it exactly right. Republican legislators rejected repeated attempts by Democrats to amend the bill to clarify that it could not be used to discriminate against LGBT individuals. Gov. Pence, in his cringeworthy interview with George Stephanopolous, repeatedly ducked the simple "yes or no" question posed to him about whether the law could protect a small business that wished to deny its services to a gay couple. It didn't help that several of those in attendance at the bill's private signing ceremony have made homophobic statements. The Indianapolis Star got it right, too, in the best headline so far this year: "Fix This Now."
# posted by : 2:41 PM
: 2:41 PM
The Fair Housing Laws exempt from anti-discrimination rules owner occupied dwellings of not more than 4 units. The rationale, or at least one rationale, is that the rights of a homeowner to live in his own house under conditions of his choosing are superior to and trump the rights of individuals to choose to live where they wish in every instance.
Should not individuals or closely held small family businesses-the anecdotal family florist- be given similar exemptions, which respect their right to follow personal religious belief, a constitutionally protected right, i the matter of personal services and products they have on offer?
The government could, if it chose, close the housing discrimination loophole, but there is no pressing need to do so. It accommodates as a matter of policy those who find living in the same building with folks of other ethnicities, religions, etc. offensive. The philosophy seems to be, accommodate personal choice wherever it does not seriously adversely impact a defined public purpose.
Of course, the law must be carefully crafted. That may be a novelty for some legislative bodies, but seems to me to be a worthy enterprise.
Unless the LGBT community is hell bent on triumphalism, it seems to me an approach that does not compel unnecessary abridgment of personal religious freedom and individual liberty is something reasonable disputants should be able to endorse.
.
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Should not individuals or closely held small family businesses-the anecdotal family florist- be given similar exemptions, which respect their right to follow personal religious belief, a constitutionally protected right, i the matter of personal services and products they have on offer?
The government could, if it chose, close the housing discrimination loophole, but there is no pressing need to do so. It accommodates as a matter of policy those who find living in the same building with folks of other ethnicities, religions, etc. offensive. The philosophy seems to be, accommodate personal choice wherever it does not seriously adversely impact a defined public purpose.
Of course, the law must be carefully crafted. That may be a novelty for some legislative bodies, but seems to me to be a worthy enterprise.
Unless the LGBT community is hell bent on triumphalism, it seems to me an approach that does not compel unnecessary abridgment of personal religious freedom and individual liberty is something reasonable disputants should be able to endorse.
.
# posted by : 10:44 PM
: 10:44 PM << Home
