Posted on 03/30/2015 6:36:22 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Indiana has adopted a state-level version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), thereby imposing a “strict scrutiny” legal standard when the state government or local powers pass laws that interfere with the free exercise of religion. For this, Governor Mike Pence and Indiana’s legislators have been denounced as gay-hating monsters, a claim that was never made about President Bill Clinton, who signed the federal RFRA, or about the people and powers of such liberal states as Connecticut, which is one of the 20 states with a RFRA. Another dozen or so states have constitutional provisions similar to those in RFRA.
Indiana’s law is controversial for two possible reasons. The first is political: Democrats, unhappily laboring under the largest Republican congressional majority since before the New Deal, are looking to pick fights over issues such as gay rights, abortion, and environmental regulation, believing that this will help their fund-raising and invigorate their demoralized partisans. The second reason might be more substantive: Indiana’s law, like some other state RFRAs (but unlike the federal statute, which has been interpreted in different ways by different courts), expressly states that it allows religious practice to be raised as a defense not only when the government is a party to the controversy but also in litigation undertaken by private parties under state law — including laws that prohibit discrimination against homosexuals. Which is to say, this is another skirmish in the endless battle of the Big Gay Wedding Cake.
Critics say that Indiana’s RFRA amounts to a license to discriminate; it isn’t — far from being a blanket grant of immunity, it simply allows religious liberties to be raised as a defense in lawsuits. That religious liberties may be offered as a defense is not a guarantee that this defense will be accepted by a court.
The RFRA story is tangled. The original impetus for the federal law was a Supreme Court decision holding that American Indians need not be granted exemptions to drug laws so that they may use peyote in religious rituals, a fact that surely must be a comfort to the senior senator from Massachusetts. The federal RFRA aimed to restore the constitutional standard that the Court jettisoned in that case. At first, the federal law applied both to the federal government and to state and local governments, but it was later restricted to federal applications when the Supreme Court found that Congress had overstepped its constitutional authority in preempting state and local governments. As a result of that decision, many states adopted their own versions of RFRA.
RFRA enjoyed wide bipartisan support until the Hobby Lobby case reminded Democrats that they care a great deal more about Obamacare and contraceptive subsidies than they do about the religious liberties of people who hold views that inconvenience the Democrats’ political platform.
RFRA, in both the federal and the Indiana versions, is a piece of law aimed at allowing for the emergence of social compromise. RFRA reasoning does not give religious persons or institutions the power to simply ignore laws that conflict with their consciences; rather, it compels the government to demonstrate a compelling government interest when it burdens religious expression, and to accomplish any substantial burdening of religious liberty in the least invasive manner. Both of those requirements — compelling government interest, least burdensome means — are open to a considerable degree of interpretation, which is of course by design: That is what allows a modus vivendi to emerge.
Gay-rights activism is, just at the moment, very much oriented toward preventing the emergence of any social compromise on the matter of homosexual marriage, which is why tradition-minded florists and bakers, generally conservative Christians, are being targeted for prosecution as enemies of civil rights. In terms of government interest, homosexual couples planning wedding receptions in Connecticut are a good deal less compelling than were black Americans who were effectively circumscribed from public life — political, social, and economic — under the machinery of oppression constructed by Democrats after the Civil War. Among other things, the market provides same-sex couples plenty of other options. But gay-rights activists insist that the situations are morally and politically identical. That this view is rightly received with some skepticism by the general public — including much of the public inclined to support gay marriage and similar issues — is why the increasingly fanatical homosexual activists reject the notion that religious liberty might even be raised as an issue in the case of a wedding planner who does not wish to be involved in the blessing of a homosexual union. Their goal is a coercive coast-to-coast regime with no room for social compromise at all.
Gay Americans in Pennsylvania and Florida do not seem to have been very much burdened by those states’ RFRA statutes, nor by similar constitutional provisions in such bastions of reaction as Massachusetts and Minnesota. But individuals such as Jack Phillips of the Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado have been made into outlaws because their religious scruples compel them to forgo the custom of clients planning same-sex weddings. There is no guarantee that Indiana’s RFRA will prevent that sort of heavy-handed coercion in the Hoosier State, but it creates the opportunity for coming to a sensible arrangement that respects the dignity of all parties involved. And that, needless to say, is why the people who perversely call themselves liberals oppose it.
One must ask, while providing goods and services for the proponents of deviance, what is the manner and extent of affirming their behavior. If, for example, by providing a wedding cake for a gay marriage, one is really saying, “I agree to participate in your celebration.” For many people, and for good reason, such a provision gives the appearance of evil, and that is enough to resist/fight/cease from such provision. I will probably never be in a position to sell a cake to someone who insists upon it - my baking is not very good - but if that were ever the case, a firm rebuke at the time of delivery would probably not make them want to do business with me any more. The time may be coming, however, where merely a firm rebuke will invoke the powers of godless deviants who think it is their right never to be offended.
Congress is given the power to regulate specific forms of commerce--certainly not any commerce;--but interstate commerce, commerce with foreign nations & with the Indian tribes. While in the corruption that has taken place in Washington, this power has been improperly used to try to legislate a form of social or moral uniformity between the States, any logical review of the history of settlement, prior to the Constitution, will demonstrate just how inappropriate such interpretation of Constitutional power is.
The several States represented very different cultures on moral issues at the time of ratification. That is why there were no powers related to establishing uniform social or moral values; why the "Police Powers," the rights to deal with health, safety & morals, were left to the States.
The court, since the 1990’s has tended to reign in the broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause via the 10th Amendment, but this only means those who challenge the law will engineer standing and issue. For instance a charter buys company refusing to take a gay glee club from Indiana to Illinois, or a florist refusing to deliver to a gay wedding across state lines, or a pharmacy refusing to fill a perscription, etc. The challenge will not be “organic”, it will be a set up.
But this may be out dated as we speak. I saw an interview this morning where two Indiana GOP Representatives said the bill does not and should not allow anyone to refuse service to anyone, so if the law is being misinterpretted as such, they will work to change the law to be more clear. Don’t know what the law is supposed to do then, and what they thought they were writing, but these Reps, seem to be on the way to caving.
But isn”t the florist, the photographer, the wedding cake maker “participating”- in the wedding ritual when they perform their service? These type of services are unique, creative expressions from the provider. These are not off the shelf type of items you sell in a store.
Is there no instance in which a provider of a service can deny that service?
Do you want this law changed?
I guess the court is likely to give us an answer to your question.
I think the law was already covered by the federal act (see Hobby Lobby decision), and will turn out to cost Indiana a lot of money to defend what amounts to a publicity stunt that is in the process of backfiring.
So far today the majority of the commentaries I have heard and seen on the issue all amount to, “it doesn’t say that. We didn’t mean this to be a license to discriminate...”. Even Rush is saying that this bill is not about that. How is an effort that results in Republicans all over the country standing up and saying, “we don’t want to be seen as anti-gay”, be a victory?
Well the cat’s out of the bag now - You are nothing but a liberal troll.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3273822/posts
Se, I’m not making waves or causing trouble. We need more strategic thinking and less reactionary thinking. Instead of being a step forward, we gave them arrows for their quiver. Now the retreat will be hailed as a victory for the left.
And with Gov. pence looking at a Whitehouse bid, if he doesn’t sign the amended law he will be asked about nothing else throughout his campaign, and if he does he’ll be called a traitor on this board. He’s in a no win scenario.
Like I said, we need more strategic thinking.
Yeah. Not wanting to do stupid things to achieve conservative ends, that’s a liberal troll. In two weeks, when everything I have predicted has come true, then I will happily accept your apology. Christians are willing to forgive.
Your concede defeat with every post and continue to live under a bridge.
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