Patterico's Pontifications

3/30/2015

Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act: How About a “General Freedom Restoration Act” Instead?

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 12:10 pm



I’m not sure why Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act is getting all this press when 19 other states and the federal government have similar laws.

But to me there is a more fundamental principle at stake. If the courts interpret laws to require makers of wedding cakes or photographers to participate in weddings that violate their religious beliefs, the courts are forcing these people to engage in labor against their will. I don’t believe courts should ever be doing that if a participant has not agreed to engage in the labor.

At its most basic level, our culture has begun to define “rights” not merely as people’s right to be left alone by the government, but as their entitlement to force others to do their bidding.

Thus, a “right” to health care is nothing more than using government coercion to force doctors to give their services to people for a non-market wage. (If they do it for a market wage, no “right” need be enforced.)

A “right” to affordable housing is nothing more than using government coercion to force property owners to provide housing at a non-market rent. Alternatively, this “right” can be vindicated by using government coercion to take money from citizens through compulsory measures (taxes) to subsidize rent. Either way, government is using coercive measures to force people to do things.

And a “right” to a wedding cake or photos is nothing more than using government coercion to force bakers or photographers to provide goods or services against their will.

There is nothing exalted or high-flown about this. It is simply one group using collective brute force to bend others to their will. To me, you shouldn’t need a “religious freedom” law to fight this. Mere “freedom” alone should suffice.

So: instead of a “Religious Freedom” Restoration Act, how about a “Freedom” Restoration Act? Let’s take away government’s power to coerce people to do things where it is not necessary to maintain order or vindicate property rights. A radical notion, no doubt, this idea of actual “freedom.” And yet, it is the principle we should always be striving for.

339 Responses to “Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act: How About a “General Freedom Restoration Act” Instead?”

  1. Ding.

    Patterico (15be32)

  2. ISTM there is a very great difference between denial of common services based on a condition, and choosing not to participate in expressive activity associated with repugnant conduct.

    Rich Rostrom (d2c6fd)

  3. It is simply one group using collective brute force to bend others to their will.

    Well, yes. Isn’t that the progressive project in a nutshell?

    I agree we need a General Freedom Restoration Act. When you look at college campuses with their speech codes and how they are denying people their due process rights, usually under pressure of the Dept. of Education using Title IX as a bludgeon, we can see how this is going to go.

    But this shirtstorm over Indiana’s mild RFRA shows us how it is to be done. Devolve power from the centralized mega state to the fifty states. It’s what the left is so afraid of. That’s why they’re shrieking like vampires sprinkled with holy water.

    It burns!

    Steve57 (b69525)

  4. 2. ISTM there is a very great difference between denial of common services based on a condition, and choosing not to participate in expressive activity associated with repugnant conduct.

    Rich Rostrom (d2c6fd) — 3/30/2015 @ 12:33 pm

    Yes. That’s why the progressives and media allies are deliberately lying about it. I saw Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in some interview saying “There’s been a lot of misunderstanding about this law…”

    No, there’s no misunderstanding. The left is deliberately lying. The progressive left is saying this is “anti-gay” and people can refuse to serve gays just because they’re gay because if they let the truth get out about what these laws do and how common they are 90% of Americans would just shrug, thinking that’s how things ought to be.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  5. ISTM there is a very great difference between denial of common services based on a condition, and choosing not to participate in expressive activity associated with repugnant conduct.

    But what if you, or I, or society, does not deem the conduct “repugnant” but the person involved in expressive activity does?

    Who gets to decide whether it’s “repugnant” enough (or at all) such as to justify refusing to engage in the activity?

    And why must it be expressive activity? If a guy comes into a tax preparer’s office wearing a “Heil Hitler” T-shirt that says Jews should be killed, must the preparer do that guy’s taxes? Do we have to wring our hands over whether doing taxes is an “expressive” activity?

    My position could open up opportunities for people to engage in racism, sexism, etc. I understand that. But such businessmen/women will lose profits as a result of their racist, sexist, or whatever stance. The market should address such behavior. We don’t need government for this.

    Patterico (15be32)

  6. This argument was lost a long time ago, when businesses were defined as public accommodations, to make it illegal for a business owner to refuse to serve blacks.

    The historian Dana (f6a568)

  7. Thus, a “right” to health care is nothing more than using government coercion to force doctors to give their services to people for a non-market wage. (If they do it for a market wage, no “right” need be enforced.)

    Of course that’s true. But that’s the left’s vision of the future, as described by Barack Obama in his 2001 Chicago NPR radio interview. He lamented the fact the Bill of Rights is a system of “negative rights” (note how the left spends a lot of time coming up with pejoratives for good things they hate). A system, he noted sadly, that says what the government can’t make or stop you from doing.

    He wants to replace it with a system of “positive rights” (note how the progressives spend a lot of time thinking up euphemisms for the nasty things they want to do). A new bill of rights that says what the government must do for you. Like provide you health care. Or food.

    but the government doesn’t produce anything. So these “positive rights” only serve to empower Barack Obama and his ilk. They empower government, first by overriding what’s actually in the Constitution. Then by empowering them to be able to force people to do all sorts of things.

    Like buy “health insurance” that are really direct wealth transfer payments. And, the next step, force doctors and other health care professionals to provide services.

    I keep thinking of the natural end to that kind of thinking. Cuban doctors forced by their government to work in Venezuela in exchange for oil. Several of whom have successfully escaped to the US and sued Cuba in US courts for slavery.

    I wonder if this crappy, one way, Iran-like deal Obama made with his fellow travelers in Cuba cuts these people off at the knees.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  8. 6. This argument was lost a long time ago, when businesses were defined as public accommodations, to make it illegal for a business owner to refuse to serve blacks.

    The historian Dana (f6a568) — 3/30/2015 @ 12:44 pm

    Which was totally unnecessary, since Jim Crow laws existed to force businesses not to serve blacks.

    After the Civil War there were plenty of carptbaggers, and locals even, who would have been perfectly happy to make money serving blacks. The problem the racist Dixiecrats discovered is that there weren’t enough racists. Or at least people who were sufficiently racist.

    Modern leftists want you to think Jim Crow laws allowed evil “privileged” White Christian males to indulge in their natural racist sexist homophobic tendencies, which only the loving, just hand of an all intrusive federal government can stop. That’s the myth.

    The truth is that not enough people wanted to discriminate. Putting the racist business owners at a disadvantage. Jim Crow was needed to force everybody to discriminate to fix that problem.

    I’ve lived in and visited countries where it’s perfectly legal for a business owner to discriminate. Which is nearly all of them, since they have this weird idea about free enterprise and private property. It’s the business owner’s place, he can serve or not serve who he or she wants.

    But they don’t have anything like Jim Crow laws, because America’s warped mindset has never been universal. And guess what, the next business or maybe the next one after that will serve you. It’s no big deal.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  9. To force a person, a business or a business owner to serve anyone they don’t want to serve is no less than slavery or involuntary servitude. I don’t care if it’ about race, religion, sex or if the bastard s just plain too ugly to serve. No one has the right to force another to serve them. No free person is my slave and I have no right to demand service from anyone in a free market.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  10. “This argument was lost a long time ago, when businesses were defined as public accommodations, to make it illegal for a business owner to refuse to serve blacks.”

    The historian Dana (f6a568) — 3/30/2015 @ 12:44 pm

    Being black, I’ve never understood why it was necessary to force businesses to serve blacks. All they needed to do was get rid of the Jim Crow laws. At that point blacks could have then taken their business to whomever wanted it. I sometimes believe the public accommodations law was passed to protect racists from the rewards of their own stupidity.

    Mike Giles (ea55d1)

  11. I agree as long as you put up a warning where people can see it so they know before hand like negros have the mark of cain on them and are filth(book of mormons) so go somewhere to have your illegtimate baby then this hospital. You offend my religious beliefs. The mormon church changed so they wouldn’t lose their tax exempt status costing the church billions. NOT ME!

    truther (0fe8cc)

  12. O/T but this is incredible on so many different levels:

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/03/deal-with-iran-its-in-allahs-hands.php

    John Kerry is in Switzerland, negotiating with (or on behalf of) the Islamic Republic of Iran. On Friday, a reporter asked whether a nuclear arms deal can be reached by tomorrow’s deadline. Kerry’s reported reply: “Inshallah!” “Allah willing!”

    I know 13 year old kids who want to mow lawns who can negotiate better than this. They think “negotiate” means capitulate, give away, throw in stuff the other side didn’t ask for, as long as he can walk away with something.

    In this case not even a piece of paper. Or his shorts. Just an oral agreement; what they’re calling a narrative.

    And could this administration better tie this latest outrage to the disgrace Bo Bergdahl deal? Inshallah? It’s in Allah’s the Mullah’s hands? That’s what he’s saying. The only thing that could make the parallel more perfect is if they invite Bo Bergdahl’s dad back to the Rose Garden non-signing, unwritten narrative celebration to offer an Islamic prayer of gratitude.

    They want to micromanage our lives because it’s easier. That’s why Kerry wants to take on global warming. It doesn’t exist. So it can’t be mean to him like the Iranians.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  13. How about a yellow star of David, truther? That seems to fit your fascist mindset.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  14. You know, truther, the symbol that tells you “don’t shop here, Aryan!”

    Steve57 (b69525)

  15. People who say that SNL is not funny anymore are just wrong. This weekend’s sketch–a takeoff on Starbucks’ race campaign shows Pep Boys attempting to open equally uncomfortable dialogue with their customers on sex and gender issues.

    http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/03/genderflect-with-pep-boys.php

    elissa (d7465e)

  16. You guys are obviously not progressives. The Civil War was not fought so that nobody would be forced to work for someone he did not want to; it was fought so that Abraham Lincoln could marry Edwin Stanton.

    nk (dbc370)

  17. sieg heil!

    truther (0fe8cc)

  18. elissa, that is hilarious.

    Patterico (15be32)

  19. 10. ..Being black, I’ve never understood why it was necessary to force businesses to serve blacks. All they needed to do was get rid of the Jim Crow laws..

    Mike Giles (ea55d1) — 3/30/2015 @ 1:37 pm

    It’s because it was the Democrats who brought the South Jim Crow. The purpose was to tell business owners how to conduct their business.

    The Democrats controlled the WH, the Senate, and the House in 1964. They weren’t going to give up their power to tell people how to run their businesses.

    1866, 1964, whatever. The last thing the Democrats want is a free country.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  20. I very much doubt that any business could reuse to provide service to gays, per se. THe cake maker would have to make the cake for the gay wedding. He might be able to avoid the the two grooms at the top of the cake, but even then I don’t think so.

    Things get sticky, though, when the service being provided is of a religious nature. Not wanting to officiate a gay wedding ceremony is NOT “discriminating against gays”, but being unwilling to commit an heretical act. If religious freedom means anything, it protects that.

    I got married in a Lutheran church, with a Lutheran minister. Neither of us was Lutheran — the church and pastor rented themselves out to all parties willing to submit to a Christian ceremony. Would they be forced to conduct a gay wedding in their sanctuary? I’m sure that one could claim they could be under anti-discrimination laws. The RFRAs are aimed to counter that.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  21. I tried irony and sarcasm but it was to subtle for you menses’! By the we ran you racist scum out of the democrat party and the republican party kicked lincoln out and allied you in.

    truther (0fe8cc)

  22. Ann Althouse would say (and, today, has said (in a comment thread) that your argument, however correct in a John Stuart Mill sense, was legally foreclosed in the 1960s by such SCOTUS rulings as the Heart of Atlanta case.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Atlanta_Motel,_Inc._v._United_States

    Mitch (341ca0)

  23. truther does know that “truther” means “stupid” doesn’t it?

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  24. You’re a funny guy, truther! The dems are still all-in on Jim Crow and racial segregation.

    http://nypost.com/2015/03/27/nyc-councilwoman-it-might-be-beneficial-to-assign-public-housing-by-ethnic-group/

    A Brooklyn city councilwoman wants to know why “blocs” of Asians are living in two Fort Greene housing projects — and suggested it would be “beneficial” to assign housing by ethnic group.

    “How is it that one specific ethnic group has had the opportunity to move into a development in large numbers?” Laurie Cumbo, who is black, said at a council hearing on public housing Thursday…

    1866, 1964, 2015, whatever. We can’t have any of that “mixing of the races” stuff, sez the Democratic party.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  25. The problem was that the refusals to serve blacks were often not voluntary under Jim Crow. It was enforced by law at times, or by social pressure. A hotel that rented to blacks very shortly only rented to blacks, and similarly for restaurants and other service businesses. It was ingrained in Southern culture. There was at least as much force being used on businesses to conform to Jim Crow as was used later to break the rule.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  26. Every time the subject of school vouchers comes up, it’s the Democrat unions warning that it will mean black faces in white schools.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  27. Nailed it. Good post.

    scrubone (c3104f)

  28. Will the left try to boycott the Final Four and, if so, what will the response of the basketball community be?

    DRJ (e80d46)

  29. Our esteemed host wrote:

    Thus, a “right” to health care is nothing more than using government coercion to force doctors to give their services to people for a non-market wage. (If they do it for a market wage, no “right” need be enforced.)

    Not exactly: what the left are trying to create is a “right” to health care in which doctors and hospitals will be paid for everyone’s health care, by compelling everyone (“everyone” meaning everyone who actually works for a living) to pay for everyone’s (meaning: really everyone!) health care. It does not mean, necessarily, a non-market wage.

    There is a form of your definition of a right to health care, in that hospitals cannot turn away someone in an emergency situation just because he doesn’t have health insurance.

    The economist Dana (1b79fa)

  30. The mob wants not only power, but the right to abuse their power.

    Previously, this was known as the “Reign of Terror”, but that phrase is sexist, racist, classist, and triggering, so there will be a new name. George O, call your office ….

    htom (4ca1fa)

  31. A troll wrote:

    “…I tried irony and sarcasm but it was to subtle for you menses’! …”

    Menses?

    Really?

    That goes in the All Star Troll Beclowning Book, am I right?

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  32. I tried irony and sarcasm but it was to subtle for you menses’!

    Why don’t you try good spelling and grammar? We have a much better chance of understanding you if you use that.

    Chuck Bartowski (11fb31)

  33. This is, of course, about abortion really. Still. The Left was upset with the national RFRA stopping the state from forcing the Little Sisters of Charity to wear diaphragms and is now going to toss up every surreal horror scenario possible in order to sway public opinion.

    Public opinion, which almost always turns to “Can’t we stop this bickering!”, may well decide that these religious nutters are being mean to those nice gay people. It’s been known to do that from time to time.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  34. I don’t think there will be a general boycott, DRJ. The date is too soon to alter location, and hotel stays, travel arrangements, production equipment, ad buys, etc. If your kid or grandkid is playing or if you’re an alum of one of the participating schools you’re going to want to experience these games and the basketball hoopla around them regardless of your personal politics. With all the TV cameras around there will likely be loud and ugly demonstrations by people who think that the final four games are more about them and their “rights” than about collegiate basketball. I hope they don’t manage to completely ruin it for the kids.

    My school’s having had some bad past experience with the PC folks at the NCAA I’d guess that Indy might have trouble keeping future tourneys, though, unless this gets “resolved”.

    elissa (d7465e)

  35. Still, it would be an interesting “match-up,” elissa. The leftist, largely white feminists and gays vs the male, largely black basketball community.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  36. The market should address such behavior.

    yes yes yes simply publicizing who the bigots are what want to do the prejudice on the gays should be plenty recourse for people

    and that’s what these laws help to clarify

    granted this is maybe not the smartest battle for Team R to pick these days

    but anti-gay bigotry is sort of their thing

    fish gotta swim birds gotta fly

    happyfeet (831175)

  37. 30. The mob wants not only power, but the right to abuse their power.

    Previously, this was known as the “Reign of Terror”, but that phrase is sexist, racist, classist, and triggering, so there will be a new name. George O, call your office ….

    htom (4ca1fa) — 3/30/2015 @ 3:34 pm

    Yes. Neo-neocon has a good post up about that.

    http://neoneocon.com/2015/03/30/about-indianas-religious-freedom-law/

    The topic makes me weary, weary, weary, to see that everything that we predicted is coming to pass. What began as a simple “gay people ought to be able to get married” morphed seamlessly into “anyone who doesn’t agree is a bigot and must be destroyed” (see Eich, Brendan) and then into “if you offer a service and we want you to facilitate the wedding ceremony you have no right to refuse on religious grounds, even though there are plenty of other people eager and willing to participate instead” and then on to “a state that passes a law protecting those religious rights must be boycotted.”

    Essentially people religious people have figured out that there is an agenda. Actually, they figured that out a long time ago. But it has become obvious to people like neo-neocon, and I daresay Pat (who I also think figured it out long ago). It’s about who rules.

    Christians and other religious people know the real object of gay marriage, like all other elements of the progressive project, is to destroy any independent source of authority. There will be no live and let live.

    The real problem progressives have with the Bible is that it tells people what is right and wrong. And they hate that, because progressives demand to be the sole source of what is right and wrong. Like every other totalitarian movement that ever came before it.

    It also says that Christ is God. And progressives hate that, too, because government is their god.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  38. There is no “right” to health care. Justice as there is no “right to life”. Both are privileges that can be taken away. The declaration of independence is a meaningless scrap of paper unless backed up by the continental army and before that the minute men on lexington green. This is why libertarians oppose violence so they don’t have to fight for what they want to do.

    truther (f215aa)

  39. Mr Giles wrote:

    Being black, I’ve never understood why it was necessary to force businesses to serve blacks. All they needed to do was get rid of the Jim Crow laws. At that point blacks could have then taken their business to whomever wanted it. I sometimes believe the public accommodations law was passed to protect racists from the rewards of their own stupidity.

    Getting rid of Jim Crow laws would not have gotten rid of custom, of habit, or culture. If the owner of a drug store lunch counter (an example I use because those things were very prevalent in the South during the sixties) didn’t wish to serve Negroes, the fact that the law requiring segregation no longer existed does not mean that he’d start serving black customers. Such an owner might well have concluded that serving blacks would result in a loss of business among white customers, and the only way he could actually know would be to start serving black customers, and see what happened; that’s a heck of a big burden to put on a small businessman. The public accommodation laws helped the small businessman, because now he had no choice but to serve black customers, and his white customers knew that he had no choice, and that it was useless to take their business elsewhere.

    Our host sort-of addressed this:

    My position could open up opportunities for people to engage in racism, sexism, etc. I understand that. But such businessmen/women will lose profits as a result of their racist, sexist, or whatever stance. The market should address such behavior. We don’t need government for this.

    That’s actually a position taken under current conditions, after decades of the public accommodations laws; such a position taken in the sixties wouldn’t have been a loss of profits, but the maintaining of profits under the then-present conditions.

    The question is simple, but stark: was the government’s goal of promoting racial integration throughout society so important that it outweighed the right of the individual to behave as he wished in business and society? Under the libertarian philosophy expressed by our host — and something with which I agree — it does not matter how compelling a government interest is, such does not outweigh the rights of the individual. Alas! The courts have taken the position that a compelling government interest does outweigh the rights of the individual, and that the most our individual rights hinder the government is the requirement that the government’s form of action must be as narrowly tailored as possible to achieve such interests when they come into conflict with individual rights, and that, of course, means that the government can do anything it wishes, as long as it can convince the right jurists that its means were no more expansive than need required.

    My junior high English teacher now wishes to rap my knuckles with a ruler for that overly long sentence! 🙂

    Which leads to the obvious question: are we pleased enough with the results, with the integration of society that we, in hindsight, approve of the public accommodations and civil rights laws? Did the end justify the means?

    The most blatant bit of reasoning I can see concerning that was Justice Sandra O’Connor’s majority opinion in Grutter v Bollinger. In approving the Affirmative Action mechanism of the University of Michigan Law School, the Court admitted that the program violated the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment, saying that the Court expected that twenty-five years from then the Court would see no need for Affirmative Action plans to be maintained, that (in effect; even Justice O’Connor wasn’t dumb enough to say it directly) in June of 2028 the Court would see no need for a compelling government interest to outweigh individual rights.

    And if my junior high English teacher would have wanted to rap my knuckles for an overly long sentence, our host might wish to rap my knuckles for an overly long comment!

    The Southern Dana (1b79fa)

  40. Indiana law does not require you put up a sign or tell people you hate gays and won’t do business with them. I wonder why? $$$$$ thats why!

    truther (f215aa)

  41. Hey truther, care to tell us what that “menses” thing was all about?

    elissa (d7465e)

  42. Mr M wrote:

    The problem was that the refusals to serve blacks were often not voluntary under Jim Crow. It was enforced by law at times, or by social pressure. A hotel that rented to blacks very shortly only rented to blacks, and similarly for restaurants and other service businesses. It was ingrained in Southern culture. There was at least as much force being used on businesses to conform to Jim Crow as was used later to break the rule.

    I hope that our host will forgive, or at least understand, my use of the expression, but I did hear it many times growing up in the South: nigger lover. There were plenty of times that if you expressed an opinion that blacks ought to be able to do something or other, you were a nigger lover.¹

    And I grew up in a small town in Kentucky, one with a black population that really wasn’t that large, maybe 10 to 12%. There are plenty of smaller towns across the South where the black population was significantly higher.
    ______________________
    ¹ – I chose to spell out the offending word, rather than mealy-mouth it with n*****, because in this case, it should be stated directly. I understand that our host may wish to edit his comment, or tha it might go into moderation.

    The Dana from Kentucky (1b79fa)

  43. elissa asked:

    Hey truther, care to tell us what that “menses” thing was all about?

    I’m pretty sure that he was using a sarcastic plural of men, kind of like Gollum pluralized eggs as eggses.

    The Dana who spotted it (1b79fa)

  44. 37. …yes yes yes simply publicizing who the bigots are what want to do the prejudice on the gays should be plenty recourse for people

    happyfeet (831175) — 3/30/2015 @ 3:57 pm

    But we know who the bigots are. The stompy feet leftists who demand somebody bake them a cake OR ELSE.

    The progressive fascists who are calling Christians “Nazis.”

    The Christian hate fest won’t end until no Christians are left. It’s happened before. In fact, Christ told his followers to expect that.

    Matthew 10:22-23

    You will be hated by all because of my name, but whoever endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to another.

    John 15:18-23

    If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  45. (9/11?) truther wrote:

    Indiana law does not require you put up a sign or tell people you hate gays and won’t do business with them. I wonder why? $$$$$ thats why!

    Probably because most businesses wouldn’t refuse to do business with homosexuals in areas which didn’t infringe on their religious beliefs. Bakers who would decline to participate in a same-sex “wedding” by baking the cake would almost certainly not choose not to sell regular pastries to a customer who was homosexual, because all he would be doing is participating in a person eating, and not somehow giving approval to that person’s lifestyle.

    Of course, in most instances, the baker wouldn’t know that a particular customer was homosexual if all he did was come in to buy a cupcake.

    The Dana who spotted truther's bovine feces (1b79fa)

  46. 40. …Getting rid of Jim Crow laws would not have gotten rid of custom, of habit, or culture. If the owner of a drug store lunch counter (an example I use because those things were very prevalent in the South during the sixties) didn’t wish to serve Negroes, the fact that the law requiring segregation no longer existed does not mean that he’d start serving black customers…

    The Southern Dana (1b79fa) — 3/30/2015 @ 4:03 pm

    You would have simply seen a new wave of carpetbaggers in the 1960s like the South saw in the 1860s. No vacuum goes unfilled, Dana. If Southerners wanted to leave all that money on the table, that would have been cool with a lot of other people who would have happy to put it in their pocket.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  47. Well, I’m just DELIGHTED that this law gives media and all America the chance to ignore Hillary’s server, her private intelligence operation, and the president’s disgraceful “nuke negotiations” with Iran. Just delighted.

    elissa (d7465e)

  48. well they weren’t really interested in that, in the first place, elissa,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  49. elissa–

    It would be the NCAA tournament or the western drought or something Lady Gaga said, if it wasn’t this.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  50. Mr. 57 I think you paint with too broad a brush – the vast majority of christians have no problem baking cakes (cakeses?) for gay people cause of they don’t wanna discriminate on people

    this idea that anti-gay bigotry is synonymous with Christianity is really not supported by the evidence I don’t think

    happyfeet (831175)

  51. the push behind this kerfluffle, not the bill, is the Arcus Foundation, which is back by Soros Money, and it’s current director, is Kevin Jennings, former NAMBLA board member, and safe schools czar,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  52. Mr 57 wrote:

    You would have simply seen a new wave of carpetbaggers in the 1960s like the South saw in the 1860s. No vacuum goes unfilled, Dana. If Southerners wanted to leave all that money on the table, that would have been cool with a lot of other people who would have happy to put it in their pocket.

    In most of those places, that economic niche was already filled, by black businessmen catering to the black communities. What you are talking about would be a businessman who came in and started a new business, specifically to cater to an integrated customer base.

    Things just didn’t happen that fast; societal and cultural integration occurred not over weeks or months, but several years; a new business such as the one you suggested would have failed long before the culture caught up with it.

    Societal and cultural integration occurred because of integrated schools. The adults in he sixties were set in their ways, even if they didn’t see themselves thus. It was those of us who went to school with blacks — in my case, blacks and whites were the only two racial groups in town — and got used to an integrated setting before adulthood who were better able to deal with integration outside of school.

    The economist Dana (1b79fa)

  53. If it wasn’t the Indiana law, the media would distract the public with stories about the racist name “Redskins” is still with us, how toned Michelle’s arms are and she looks great in that expensive designer dress, and how Bruce Jenner broke the news to his/her daughters.

    Any port in a storm, elissa.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  54. If I were a business, forced to participate is something I found abhorrent, I am pretty sure it would not be my best work. Now, I don’t particularly care about gay weddings, but “first they came for the Christians…”.

    The cake taste would be slightly off or a name would be misspelled or the two guys on top would be Richard Nixon and Fidel Castro. As a minister, I’d confuse the names, mess up the words, and mention Christ an AWFUL lot, perhaps with readings from Leviticus (no, not you, the book). As a photographer, the lens cap would be on for the first half hour, the flash would break, and I’d “run out of film.”

    Sometimes all you have left is passive-aggressive.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  55. take Angie’s List please, this is a business that lost 52 million dollars last year, a real
    profile in courage,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  56. #43: And I heard that phrase, too, in Southern California, in the early 60’s. Wasn’t really sure what it meant (I was like 7), but it didn’t sound good. Like having cooties or something.

    Later, in my early 30’s, I was in a relationship with a young black lady, so I guess some people may have thought that, but VERY quietly, to themselves.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  57. take Angie’s List please, this is a business that lost 52 million dollars last year, a real
    profile in courage,

    I find it very useful myself. Sorry they knuckled under to the gay mob. I don’t think it will serve them well.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  58. Mr M wrote:

    If I were a business, forced to participate is something I found abhorrent, I am pretty sure it would not be my best work. Now, I don’t particularly care about gay weddings, but “first they came for the Christians…”.

    The cake taste would be slightly off or a name would be misspelled or the two guys on top would be Richard Nixon and Fidel Castro. As a minister, I’d confuse the names, mess up the words, and mention Christ an AWFUL lot, perhaps with readings from Leviticus (no, not you, the book). As a photographer, the lens cap would be on for the first half hour, the flash would break, and I’d “run out of film.”

    And then you’d be the businessman who was getting sued for ruining that “wedding” by deliberately not doing your best.

    Of course, I’m not sure how you’d be mentioning Jesus with readings from the Third Book of Moses. 🙂

    The Dana who isn't an attorney (1b79fa)

  59. Mr M wrote:

    Later, in my early 30′s, I was in a relationship with a young black lady, so I guess some people may have thought that, but VERY quietly, to themselves.

    In the small town in which I grew up, there were no interracial couples of which I ever heard then. That simply Was Not Done.

    The Dana from Kentucky (1b79fa)

  60. 51. Mr. 57 I think you paint with too broad a brush – the vast majority of christians have no problem baking cakes (cakeses?) for gay people cause of they don’t wanna discriminate on people

    You are correct. Actually, the Bible tells them they can’t discriminate against gays.

    this idea that anti-gay bigotry is synonymous with Christianity is really not supported by the evidence I don’t think

    happyfeet (831175) — 3/30/2015 @ 4:30 pm

    The “anti-gay bigotry,” isn’t. What it boils down to is who gets to tell them what’s right and wrong. This isn’t all about gay marriage, Mr. feets. If you want me to dredge it up all over again, I can bring up those Washington and Illinois pharmaceutical regulations that deliberately targeted Christians because they were written to force them to sell abortifacients. Those were eventually tossed out. But the fascists are getting better at writing those sorts of laws and regulations to slip them by the courts.

    Obamacare is one big push in that direction. Because it’s written in such a way that the government has arrogated itself the power to decide what is and what is not religion. So the Little Sisters of the Poor, and Mother Theresa herself if she tried to open a hospice in Washington DC that would serve everybody, would have to pay for birth control/abortifacients.

    Because, because, …anti-woman Christofascists!

    In light of the recent Supreme Court decision defending the right of certain business owners to opt out of ObamaCare contraception mandates that violate their religious convictions, many leftist proponents of socialized healthcare have openly ridiculed the ruling and those who may benefit from it.

    Among the latest to weigh in is Democrat New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. In a press conference this week, he suggested that anyone whose religion teaches that the murder of an unborn child is wrong should simply not open a business in America.

    “You’re born with a religion or you adopt a religion,” he asserted. “You have to obey the precepts of that religion and the government gives you a wide penumbra – you don’t have to form a corporation.

    Read more at http://www.westernjournalism.com/heres-chuck-schumers-condescending-advice-pro-life-business-owners/#3z4jCO709gFQTvCU.99

    In the past it used to be OK for Catholic Charities adoption services to tell gay/lesbians that they didn’t place children with same sex couples, but then give them a list of agencies that did.

    That’s not enough for the fascists. They said, “No, Catholic Charities, YOU will place children with these couples or we’ll put you out of business.” And they did in a lot of states.

    The writing is on the wall, and religious people aren’t going out of business and becoming second class citizens without a fight.

    Capisce?

    Steve57 (b69525)

  61. Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle was former GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels’ 2004 campaign manager. Just so you know. Whether you personally think Angie’s List provides a worthwhile service or not, Oesterle is not someone deep from the enemy camp out to cause trouble for Indiana.

    elissa (d7465e)

  62. yes and as with Scalise’s aide, jumped the gun, without thinking,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  63. 41.Indiana law does not require you put up a sign or tell people you hate gays and won’t do business with them. I wonder why? $$$$$ thats why!

    Boy, you retarded radical leftists really have a problem with logic and reality. How the hell does a baker not wanting to participate in a homosexual wedding translate to “hate”? Just because one declines to do business with someone does not necessarily mean he “hates” them or anyone else. The only person who spouts “hate” here is you with your constant: “every month 100,000 minorities turn 18 and hate Republicans” nonsense. BTW, every month 210,000 non minorities turn 18 and , you guessed it, they hate democraps!

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  64. if anyone were likely to be agitated, it would be this fellow,

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/30/your-questions-on-indianas-religious-freedom-bill-ianswered/

    narciso (ee1f88)

  65. If the owner of a drug store lunch counter (an example I use because those things were very prevalent in the South during the sixties) didn’t wish to serve Negroes, the fact that the law requiring segregation no longer existed does not mean that he’d start serving black customers. Such an owner might well have concluded that serving blacks would result in a loss of business among white customers, and the only way he could actually know would be to start serving black customers, and see what happened; that’s a heck of a big burden to put on a small businessman. The public accommodation laws helped the small businessman, because now he had no choice but to serve black customers, and his white customers knew that he had no choice, and that it was useless to take their business elsewhere.

    I was not old enough and did not live in the south at the time to know what was what down there. Some say it was the Jim Crow laws that gave widespread segregation and institutional racism their strength, and just doing away with the Jim Crow laws would have allowed the non-racists to show their true colors.
    I take it that you are saying that alone would not have been enough.

    Laws saying what one must be just do not change human behavior very well, and the human heart not at all; in fact, sometimes people just don’t want to be told what to do.

    What do we have 50 years later? A whole lot of folk who think whites are as racist as ever and the only reason any black person gets a break is because a law forces the white man to act right.
    Not only has that not helped race relations, in many ways it has not helped the black community as a whole.

    Your argument is that if only the Jim Crow laws were repealed, individual people would risk too much if they tried to be non-segregationist.
    Well, I may have failed to do the right thing as much as anybody at the time, but the truth is that change for good happens only when people have the courage to do good.

    Instead of the opportunity to demonstrate that many could do the right thing of their own free will, we institutionalized for ever the idea that the majority of whites are racist and will always be racist unless you have laws telling them they can’t be. And even then, they will still be racist and you will need to be vigilant to protect your rights every time you turn around.

    The results we have do not prove to me that the enforcement of anti-discrimination was much better in the long run than enforced discrimination. t5hat is not to say that I think discrimination is no big deal, it is and to some degree however it was minimized was good in the micro setting. But in the macro setting I don’t think the overall well being of the black community has prospered as hoped for, at all.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  66. Of course, I’m not sure how you’d be mentioning Jesus with readings from the Third Book of Moses

    I said it would be all messed up. And how do they know what my best is, or expect me to do it under duress. Maybe I’d have a panic attack halfway through. Or faint. They can sue me, then I can sue them for “intentional infliction of emotional distress” leading to a medical emergency.

    The point is that if they really want to force people into serving them, they may get it, but you cannot blame people for shuffling along like the slaves they’ve become.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  67. 53. In most of those places, that economic niche was already filled, by black businessmen catering to the black communities. What you are talking about would be a businessman who came in and started a new business, specifically to cater to an integrated customer base.

    The economist Dana (1b79fa) — 3/30/2015 @ 4:34 pm

    So, “the darkies” were happy in there place in Dixie?

    Steve57 (b69525)

  68. #25 The problem was that the refusals to serve blacks were often not voluntary under Jim Crow. It was enforced by law at times, or by social pressure. A hotel that rented to blacks very shortly only rented to blacks, and similarly for restaurants and other service businesses. It was ingrained in Southern culture. There was at least as much force being used on businesses to conform to Jim Crow as was used later to break the rule.

    Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/30/2015 @ 2:21 pm

    You make a very good point – In the late 60’s through the early 80’s, many bars had “Dress Codes” which were really designed to keep blacks out of bar. In those days, the young ladies did not like to have blacks flirting/ attempting to date them etc. If the bar let a few young black men into the bar, the entire cast of young female patrons would start going to a different bar and within one – two weeks, the bar would lose 90% of its customers.

    joe (debac0)

  69. What MD from Philly said.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  70. In the small town in which I grew up, there were no interracial couples of which I ever heard then. That simply Was Not Done.

    My mother, who grew up in pre-war Maryland, wasn’t very happy. Which was probably part of the attraction.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  71. “You do, you believe, you think, … as I do” will be the death of us, as a culture, a society, a people, a species. Why must we so constantly and loudly proclaim the specks in others’ eyes, when we remain so blind to the logjam in our own?

    htom (4ca1fa)

  72. Well, I may have failed to do the right thing as much as anybody at the time, but the truth is that change for good happens only when people have the courage to do good.

    Your point is well taken, but I think they were more concerned about ending the practice than in anyone’s spiritual growth.

    The REAL point I was trying to make @25, though, is that the current situation isn’t like Jim Crow. I have never seen a sign that says “No gays”, and outside of pickup bars and self-chosen ghettos like West Hollywood, there isn’t much segregation. There are some people who shun gays, but that’s just normal. There are people who shun blondes and dog-lovers.

    So, the argument for anti-discrimination laws here is not the same as the one then.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  73. The physician missing from Philadelphia wrote:

    I was not old enough and did not live in the south at the time to know what was what down there. Some say it was the Jim Crow laws that gave widespread segregation and institutional racism their strength, and just doing away with the Jim Crow laws would have allowed the non-racists to show their true colors.

    I take it that you are saying that alone would not have been enough.

    Schrödinger’s cat: we can’t know what the result would have been without seeing it, but my guess is that it would have taken about a generation, until those kids who went to integrated schools became adults and businessmen themselves.

    I was in a segregated school system until between the fifth and sixth grades, when integration was achieve the way that happened so often in the South: the black school mysteriously burned to the ground. There was no forced busing, because there was only one school left. I don’t remember any real problems among the students; whether there was more resentment among the adults, I do not know.

    I was a bit of a special case, because I had attended an integrated school before, kindergarten and first and second grades in Antioch, California, but integration there meant whites and Hispanics, not whites and blacks. At the time, I didn’t really know that there was some sort of difference, and my best friend was a Mexican boy named Tino, who lived across the street.

    The small town Dana (1b79fa)

  74. The left’s toilet bowl of hypocrisy is clogged with their BS and overflowing. Only the progressives don’t notice.

    …We were told at the time of Hobby Lobby that companies can’t have consciences. We were told that they can’t have feelings. We were told that they can’t corporately opine on moral or legal questions as might an individual, and in consequence they can’t be worthy of praise or admonition. What, one wonders, has changed? It couldn’t be, could it, that progressives are opposed to the idea that corporations are entities that are capable of holding opinions and taking political stands . . . until they are needed in a fight that they care about?

    Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/416190/corporations-cant-have-consciences-unless-they-oppose-mike-pence-charles-c-w-cooke

    “You Christians can’t have consciences or opinions,” say the fascist left. “Unless they’re ours.”

    Steve57 (b69525)

  75. yesterday https://patterico.com/2015/03/29/bumper-sticker-as-harbinger/#comment-1752115

    Can I go into a halal shop that caters muslim events and insist they serve pork at my gay wedding or face anti discrimination charges? And I’d like an ice sculpture of the prophet too

    Does anyone know the answer to that?
    I do know that courts have held that wedding halls that are not attached to a religious institution are not allowed to deny their places to homosexual marriages.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  76. Mr 57 wrote:

    So, “the darkies” were happy in there place in Dixie?

    People behave as their customs and habits have them behave. I have no reason to believe that people accustomed to going to an all-black diner would suddenly choose to stop patronizing a black businessman just to help a white businessman who promised an integrated lunch counter. I can see the possibility that such would be a novelty, and get an initial surge of business, but my guess is that it wouldn’t have been successful.

    The small town Dana (1b79fa)

  77. Steve57, there was quite a row in my state a few years back about Catholic Charities’ (who received millions of dollars in state funds) adoption practices. Following the legalization of same-sex civil unions effective June 1, 2011, Illinois required Catholic Charities, because it accepted public funds, to provide adoption and foster-care services to same-sex couples just as they serviced different-sex couples. CC requested an exemption on religious grounds but was denied. When CC said it would refuse to place children with same sex couples, Illinois declined to renew its contracts with Catholic Charities for adoption and foster care services. Without the needed funding Catholic Charities closed most of its Illinois affiliates. They had provided such services for over 40 years.

    Obviously, taking state funds put them in the position of having to operate under state laws. Many Illinois Catholics who had helped with, and donated to, and worked for CC over the years felt it was a mistake for CC to quit the service they had provided so long and so well, and that they should have willingly gone ahead and placed children under the current law. The state lost a valuable resource, and adoptable kids lost a safe environment and a caring professional advocate. You and others will have to decide if the principle was worth it.

    elissa (d7465e)

  78. i capeechie i just think that having pandered to anti-gay bigots so vehemently and for so long the Republican Party finds itself caught wrong-footed on this issue Mr. 57

    it looks like people are having a hard time giving them the benefit of the doubt that this is more about freedom than it is about giving people a license to hate on gay people

    reap reap reap

    sow sow sow

    pickle pickle pickle

    happyfeet (831175)

  79. The physician on vacation wrote:

    Some say it was the Jim Crow laws that gave widespread segregation and institutional racism their strength, and just doing away with the Jim Crow laws would have allowed the non-racists to show their true colors.

    Pun intended? 🙂

    Almost all laws have their basis in what the public support: the Jim Crow laws were passed because the whites at the time supported such laws. The laws came into effect in the 1890s, and by the 1960s, at least in the small town South, were simply customary; that’s Just How Things Were. Perhaps if the public were asked their opinion on those laws in the early 1960s, such laws wouldn’t have passed — there’s no way to know — but legislative repeal of the existing laws would have been harder to achieve.

    The people who would have had to have rocked the boat were the people with the most to lose, the small businessmen. It’s one thing to have said, “I think we ought to get a group of white and black people to go down and have dinner together at the Chat’n’Chew,” because they would be causing, at most, only a scene. It’s another thing entirely for the owner of the restaurant to say, “I’m opening the restaurant to blacks as well as whites,” because he would have been (potentially) risking his business.

    The philosophical Dana (1b79fa)

  80. seeRpea asked:

    Can I go into a halal shop that caters muslim events and insist they serve pork at my gay wedding or face anti discrimination charges? And I’d like an ice sculpture of the prophet too

    Does anyone know the answer to that?

    The Dana who isn' (1b79fa)

  81. What many people may not know is that most adoptions are private. The consent of both parents is required. There are cases where the parents rights have been terminated for gross abuse and neglect, and their consent is not required the children having been made wards of the state, but guess what? Those are the kids that nobody wants to adopt, anyway.

    As far as Catholic Charities social workers go, I’m glad they’re out of business to whatever extent they’re out of business. I’ve dealt with them in Juvenile Court, as sub-contractors for DCFS, and they were the most worthless, ignorant, lazy wanton pickles you’d never want to meet.

    nk (dbc370)

  82. seeRpea asked:

    Can I go into a halal shop that caters muslim events and insist they serve pork at my gay wedding or face anti discrimination charges? And I’d like an ice sculpture of the prophet too

    Does anyone know the answer to that?

    I don’t know about halal, but a kosher shop would be able to make the claim that doing so would not only violate their faith, but also ruin kosher pans and utensils for future kosher use.

    The Dana who isn't Jewish (1b79fa)

  83. It’s not actually a “principle.” It’s more of a commandment.

    Matthew 28:18

    Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

    If He defines marriage, then it isn’t as if you can have a different opinion about it and still call yourself a Christian.

    Matthew 19

    “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

    While he was referring back to Genesis 1 and 2, that was his big chance to say “forget about all that crap you read in Leviticus 18 and 20.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  84. Surahs 7 and 26, are even less congenial than say Romans or Corinthians,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  85. The question will always remain academic because Muslims do not put up with s**t like that and the drama queens know it.

    nk (dbc370)

  86. Obviously, taking state funds put them in the position of having to operate under state laws

    Elissa–

    What about a wedding service where the minister officiator says: “… by the power vested in me by the State of _______ I now pronounce you man husband and wife.”

    That vesting of civil power might come with strings someday. What then?

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  87. It’s kind of funny how the tolerant types pretend they’re all kinds of respectful of people’s religious beliefs out of principle…

    whenever adherents of that religion will kill you if you aren’t.

    Following the success of the “Book of Mormon” I expect the Southpark folks who dropped plans to have an episode depicting Muhammad to come up with a daring, provocative, risk-taking new theatrical production about Quakers.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  88. seeRpea asked:

    Can I go into a halal shop that caters muslim events and insist they serve pork at my gay wedding or face anti discrimination charges? And I’d like an ice sculpture of the prophet too

    Does anyone know the answer to that?

    Two separate issues.

    The first: only if the halal shop offers pork as part of its business. You cannot ask them to sell items they do not normally sell.

    The second: if they have a line of business in customer-designed ice sculptures, then maybe, otherwise no. Although if there is no good reason to have an ice sculpture of the prophet other than offending them, then perhaps not. It’s not quite the same as making them make a normal cake for your SSM.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  89. seeing as that Shahzad fellow, almost blew up their headquarters some years back, that’s a safe bet,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  90. That’s West Virginia that I know for sure. All officiators, religious or civil, are licensed by the state. It’s the dark side of establishmentarianism.

    nk (dbc370)

  91. You bring up an important point, Kevin. The states license adoption agencies just like they license pharmacies. It’s a complicated area of administrative law but I’m under the impression that in some states it’s virtually impossible to operate a licensed adoption agency without qualifying for state contracts.

    So it’s not just a matter of taking the filthy lucre. There are plenty of other opportunities for anti-religious zealots to make mischief.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  92. If one can be forced to perform actions that are heretical to one’s faith, then there is no freedom of religion. Now, courts take a dim view of invented faiths, so a Church based on not paying taxes, or in not renting apartments to colored people, might not pass muster. But there must be clear limits.

    The gay mob is trying to muddle this issue, of course.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  93. Kevin M@88- I’m sorry, I don’t understand your question. But probably no matter because the nuances of any one else’s wedding ceremony are not a political issue for me and I doubt I’d have an opinion to share, anyway. My singular point about Catholic Charities (where you collected the quote) was they could not function as a viable entity without significant public support. They were not self supporting without tax dollars. I did not think that was addressed in Steve57’s earlier post. They did not *have* to go out of business. They weighed the options available and chose to.

    elissa (d7465e)

  94. What if the bakery prepares the cake but refuses to put two men or two women on the top?

    DRJ (e80d46)

  95. Steve–

    Really the only way out is to abandon the civil side of the ceremony to the state. The Church conducts a religious ceremony not recognized by the state. If the couple desires civil recognition, they ought to go down to city hall and have it formalized.

    I will point out that the Catholics have been half-way there for years — they ignore civil divorce entirely.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  96. What if the bakery prepares the cake but refuses to put two men or two women on the top?

    Or simply finds those items impossible to get from their normal distributors. There is no special talent required to order something from Amazon. The couple can do it themselves.

    http://www.amazon.com/Porcelain-Antique-Rhinestones-Marriage-Figurine/dp/B00GIWF0FE/ref=sr_1_21?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1427765046&sr=1-21&keywords=wedding+cake+two+grooms

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  97. Wouldn’t the bakery’s refusal to buy the cake topping from Amazon violate an anti-discrimination statute? As you point out, it’s easy to do.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  98. Elissa–

    Churches combine a civil and a religious marriage ceremony. At the conclusion one is married both in the eyes of God, and the eyes of the State. The State has deputized the minister to perform this civil function. Suppose the state says: “Well, now, Mr Minister, to continue your exercise of this civil power, we require you con conduct same-sex marriages.” What does the minister say if his church teaches that this would be wrong?

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  99. I found one of those articles about pharmacy regs I was looking for.

    http://www.becketfund.org/morr-fitz/

    …The aim of the rule was clear from the outset. Governor Rod Blagojevich announced that its purpose was to stop religion from “stand[ing] in the way of” dispensing drugs and to force pharmacies to “fill prescriptions without making moral judgments.” Governor Blagojevich announced that pharmacists with religious beliefs about these drugs should “find another profession.” VanderBleek and Kosirog had each spent more than twenty-five years building a pharmacy career—being told to “find another profession” at mid-life because they had the wrong religious beliefs was an unwelcome mandate…

    Karma is a b***h. One of the reasons the reg was unconstitutional was because Blago just couldn’t keep his big mouth shut about what he was trying to do.

    This does go to the heart of why the Christians are getting such a bad rap, though. The pharmacists weren’t making moral judgements about the women coming in to buy the abortifacients. They were making moral judgements about what their religion allowed them to do. They couldn’t participate in a possible abortion, no matter how remote the chance.

    It’s like the Catholic Charities adoption agencies. They couldn’t place a child with a gay couple. In both cases the effected organizations referred them to another who could. Which should be a reasonable accommodation.

    The proper analogy isn’t going into a Halal or Kosher butcher shop and demanding a ham sandwich. The proper analogy is demanding that someone who wants to operate a butcher shop eat a ham sandwich to get or renew a business license.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  100. #99: A judge is going to listen to this level of pettiness? “I DEMAND YOU PUSH THE BUTTON!!” C’mon. If need be, the baker can offer a catalog and ask each patron to order their own.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  101. What does the minister say if his church teaches that this would be wrong?

    He tells his parishioners to get their marriage license signed and witnessed by the County Clerk for official purposes, and he will perform the religious ceremony and give them the Church’s certificate of marriage. He’s no longer a government agent.

    nk (dbc370)

  102. elissa @95, I wasn’t specifically addressing Illinois when it came to adoption.

    I was when it came to pharmacy regs. But I wasn’t singling out your state. I mentioned Washington at the same time which tried a similar stunt.

    http://www.becketfund.org/court-strikes-down-law-requiring-pharmacies-to-dispense-the-morning-after-pill/

    They were a bit smarter than Blago when they went about this. They wrote a neutral appearing set of regulations that didn’t appear to single out religious pharmacists. Had they been as smart as Hillary! and done all their real work on a private, hidden network they might have gotten away with it. But they left a papertrail that proved their real objective wasn’t to ensure women got a needed drug (they couldn’t prove that as there had never been a case of a woman who wanted to buy plan B and couldn’t) but to put those pesky godbotherers out of business.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  103. 103: as I said in #97. I was restating the question for elissa.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  104. A judge is going to listen to this level of pettiness? “I DEMAND YOU PUSH THE BUTTON!!”

    An “administrative judge” employed by the *Human Rights Commission*? Absolutely. He will, yes he will. It’s not about tolerance, it’s about approval. It’s about conforming to official thought.

    nk (dbc370)

  105. 105. I type slow.

    nk (dbc370)

  106. Is there a State that allows for an adoption agency to operate without receiving funds from the State? I don’t think so. The Catholic Church and a few Religious Orthodox Jewish groups are known to stop providing community services and functions when doing so would involve a violation in their faith practices and beliefs. IIRC, the Amish or Quakers have done the same.

    As for marriages by a minister – this is not an automatic that a minister is recognized by the gov’t. In fact I was recently at a wedding where the marriage certificate had to signed by someone who had not officiated the wedding.

    Society is in the proverbial hand basket. In addition to this situation we have the Judiciary deciding that the ‘hecklers veto’ trumps freedom of expression, open mocking of belief in a singular G0d , disdain for people who do not want to live off the public trough, persecution of men just for being males, breaking down of the meaning of gender, open embrace of immoral behaviors, etc etc etc. The USA is going down and is not coming back up, Rule Americana lasted less than 100 years and with it the ideals of the American founding.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  107. I type fasst but make a lot of mistakes.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  108. I think nk is correct in #106. I can definitely see an administrative judge forcing someone to click a button.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  109. I was just reminded of something by an article bit bait on The Hill about labor Unions.

    I think most Union rules are just bunk and an excuse to create paper work and pad work time.
    However , back when i was doing freelance work i had the respect for the Union Shops not to violate their rules nor do anything that would cause them to do so (yes, I had the authority to do both).

    It is not hard to avoid trampling on other peoples beliefs, this utter lack of respect for no real purpose other than to show and display disrespect is part of the breakdown of society.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  110. 108. Is there a State that allows for an adoption agency to operate without receiving funds from the State? I don’t think so.

    Yes, I was wondering the same thing myself @93.

    Society is in the proverbial hand basket. In addition to this situation we have the Judiciary deciding that the ‘hecklers veto’ trumps freedom of expression, open mocking of belief in a singular G0d , disdain for people who do not want to live off the public trough, persecution of men just for being males, breaking down of the meaning of gender, open embrace of immoral behaviors, etc etc etc. The USA is going down and is not coming back up, Rule Americana lasted less than 100 years and with it the ideals of the American founding.

    seeRpea (c1462d) — 3/30/2015 @ 6:42 pm

    Speaking of which.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-next-earthquake/2015/03/29/93d7599c-d3d5-11e4-ab77-9646eea6a4c7_story.html

    …By declaring Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations dead and blaming Netanyahu, Obama laid the predicate for a decision to go forward with a U.S.-backed U.N. Security Council resolution that would set the terms for a final peace settlement. Envisioned as an updating of U.N. Resolution 242, which has been part of the framework for the Mideast “peace process” since the 1960s, the idea would be to mandate the solution to the questions Israelis and Palestinians have been unable to agree upon for decades, such as the future status of Jerusalem. Not incidentally, it would provide Obama with the Mideast legacy he has craved since his first day in office.

    Whether or not it accelerated Palestinian statehood (and most likely it wouldn’t), Obama’s initiative would set off an earthquake in U.S. foreign relations and for Israel’s standing in the world.

    …There would be other effects, of course, among them an unprecedented breach in U.S.-Israeli relations…

    Ayatollah Obama is destroying us abroad as well.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  111. If need be, the baker can offer a catalog and ask each patron to order their own.

    I think the court would look at what the bakery does for male-female wedding customers and expect the bakery to do the same for the SSM couple. If the bakery orders and provides wedding cake groom-bride toppings, then the court would say the bakery should provide groom-groom or bride-bride toppings for SSM customers. On the plus side, maybe the bakery will be lucky enough to alternate male and female SSM customers so the toppings even out. On the negative side, the bakery owners’ religious views don’t seem to matter anymore.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  112. The next step, of course, is suppliers of bakery toppings will have to be approved by the wedding cake topping division of the government anti-discrimination bureaucracy. To be on the list of approved suppliers requires businesses to pay fees, of course, and maybe donate some money/gifts to the local/state/national licensing authorities. The cost of wedding cakes will go up but we’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that our religious wedding cake values are being safeguarded by the very best bureaucrats.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  113. if you can’t eat it then it don’t belong on top of no cake now do it

    happyfeet (831175)

  114. That’s a different division, happyfeet. You need to take your concern up with the USDA’s Food Safety Division that is conveniently located at FoodSafety.gov.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  115. Your point is well taken, but I think they were more concerned about ending the practice than in anyone’s spiritual growth.

    My point wasn’t about anyone’s spiritual growth, it was about how people function, and how society, a whole bunch of people, function.

    If you want a society based on the enforced behavior from the government, then make laws telling people what to do, and crank up the armed force to enforce it.
    If you think a free society is dependent largely on the good will of people willing to live by the rules, then you make rules to punish the worst offenses.

    Do you think that the state of black America today is some proud thing to hail? For sure many individuals have taken advantage of their insured rights and I do not for a moment begrudge that at all, but there are huge populations too willing to go all Ferguson who think they need Obama and Holder to take care of them.

    I’d like to stop that practice.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  116. Really the only way out is to abandon the civil side of the ceremony to the state. The Church conducts a religious ceremony not recognized by the state. If the couple desires civil recognition, they ought to go down to city hall and have it formalized.

    Kevin M, my local diocesan weekly newspaper recently carried an opinion piece wondering if that wasn’t where this would all end up. A buddy of mine married a German gal in Germany, and that’s how they do it there: you go to the local clerk or registrar for the civil ceremony and then appear in church for the religious ceremony. Maybe we should be moving in that direction.

    JVW (a1146f)

  117. don’t think I won’t

    happyfeet (831175)

  118. Really the only way out is to abandon the civil side of the ceremony to the state. The Church conducts a religious ceremony not recognized by the state. If the couple desires civil recognition, they ought to go down to city hall and have it formalized.

    That’s the best case scenario to me, but most Protestant churches are so eager to get on the SSM bandwagon that they’re embracing it. Then they can claim they are tolerant and so much better than churches that think the Bible stands for something else.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  119. Let me hasten to add that IMO churches are free to take whatever position they want on SSM. My concern is what the government does, not what various churches or denominations do. But the more denominations and churches that sign on to the view that opposing SSM is discriminatory, the more likely it will be that the government will say the same.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  120. @75 I mentioned that on this issue the left’s toilet bowl of hypocrisy is clogged with their BS and overflowing.

    This is a different issue, but the left’s clogged toilet bowl of hypocrisy has flooded the bathroom, and now it’s soaked through and polluting the apartment downstairs.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2015/03/30/white-house-to-senate-dems-if-you-oppose-us-on-this-terrible-iran-deal-the-gop-wins/

    …In recent days, officials have tried to neutralize skeptical Democrats by arguing that opposing President Barack Obama would empower the new Republican majority, according to people familiar with the discussions…

    Remember how Prom Queen used to like to falsely accuse Republicans of “putting party ahead of country?”

    Yeah, he’s begging Senate Dems to do exactly that.

    The party of projection strikes again.

    OK, we can get back to the lefty hypocrisy on how it’s just all kinds of krazy to think companies can have any morals or opinions.

    Unless those morals and opinions are those of the left.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  121. The original point was that human rights were not granted by government, but that a just government would protect the rights given by God.

    When the state claims authority to tell people what they should or should not do in relation to their belief in God, the state is no longer just.
    That said, there is no place for a Christian to forcibly resist a government short of something as outrageous as a Nazi situation.

    But, hey, being forced out of business because of adherence to their faith has been known for centuries and will continue for centuries, until the centuries end.

    But somehow some people think it is more important to be able to demand a wedding cake from someone they disagree with than just about anything else.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  122. DRJ–

    1) If they feel strongly enough, they could ask each patron to select their own, irrespective of orientation.

    2) Is ordering a same-sex topper really anathema to their religion, or just something the don’t like to do, but must to stay in business, like opening on Sunday or offering their service to atheists. Is it a mortal sin, or heresy? They don’t actually have to participate, do they?

    3) As I’ve said before, forcing someone to do a service for you is unlikely to get their best effort. Anyone who does this, then complains about the service has only themselves to blame.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  123. But the more denominations and churches that sign on to the view that opposing SSM is discriminatory, the more likely it will be that the government will say the same.

    And again, if a church is forced to do something that is heretical to their beliefs, there is NO religious freedom whatsoever. The Mormon Church (last I looked) does not admit blacks to the preisthood. It’s not some dodge they cooked up, they have long felt that way due to Mormon teachings. Similarly, the Catholic Church cannot be forced to conduct a SSM as a religious ceremony. Pretty sure the Catholics will take some rather extreme action first (closing churches, excommunication politicians, interdiction, etc).

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  124. I thinked they changed that rule in the 70s, that’s one of the things they got on Romney about.

    narciso (ee1f88)

  125. Abortion on demand in any situation and flowers and wedding cakes by force…is that really what America wants to live and die on?

    If she does, she will likely get her wish.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  126. re #124:
    1) good idea
    2) depends on your religious leadership decision. quite a few would say “no involvement at all” *
    3) i believe that is what the videographer did, filmed just the feet, lost video, etc.

    * btw: remember Blue Laws? next up in this campaign will be Red Laws – demanding business be open on all Sabath’s.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  127. I think Penn of Penn and Teller has said that if someone thinks he was going to hell for doing “X”, to be told that would not be hateful, what would be hateful would be to say nothing about it.

    It’s not about not liking specific people, it’s about believing there is a way that leads to life, and a way that leads to death. Some want to force acquiescence to the way that leads to death.
    Individual people will have their own convictions about how to “go the second mile” with people while at the same time not giving their assent to behavior they think is misguided and harmful. I am sure there will be times it includes going to jail and losing businesses.

    Jesus said if the world hated Him, they would hate His followers.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  128. JVW (a1146f) — 3/30/2015 @ 7:12 pm

    That’s how they do it in Mexico.

    felipe (56556d)

  129. If I were a business, forced to participate is something I found abhorrent, I am pretty sure it would not be my best work. Now, I don’t particularly care about gay weddings, but “first they came for the Christians…”…. The cake taste would be slightly off or a name would be misspelled or the two guys on top would be Richard Nixon and Fidel Castro….. Sometimes all you have left is passive-aggressive. — Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/30/2015 @ 4:38 pm

    That’s why the people most adamant that an unwilling business serve them — and initiating a lawsuit if they don’t get their way — must be quite contemptible, self-righteous, self-entitled and obnoxious. And stupid too. Certainly if they’re trying to extort goods and services from a provider of food—with much of the public knowing full well how such things can be subtly and easily sabotaged.

    I recall Jesse Jackson (that big-hearted, noble, wonderful sage and saint) saying that when he was a short-order cook and was dealing with a noticeably unpleasant customer, he’d spit in their food. Touche!

    Another thing: I bet the most self-righteous gay activists out there who will be the first in line to sue a business for refusing service, at the same time, also will expect (and demand) the public shed big tears for homosexuals suffering from STDs galore, particularly HIV/AIDS.

    Pardon me if I find that my tear ducts are a bit dry.

    Mark (80d334)

  130. 120. …most Protestant churches are so eager to get on the SSM bandwagon that they’re embracing it. Then they can claim they are tolerant and so much better than churches that think the Bible stands for something else.

    DRJ (e80d46) — 3/30/2015 @ 7:17 pm

    The ones that are embracing it are the churches that decided the Bible not only doesn’t mean anything, it’s not really the Word of God. But the only reason they can embrace it is because they drive out every single member who knows better. Look at the Presbyterian Church – USA.

    http://www.layman.org/2012-statistics-show-dramatic-decrease-in-pcusa-membership-congregations/

    It isn’t like all the people they drove out of their church stopped being Christians. The only ones who stayed are the ones who don’t take it seriously.

    The problem is these churches make headlines when they essentially say that they’ll change their beliefs to adopt to changing societal conditions. Who or what do they worship? Public opinion of course. Certainly not God. Which when you get right down to it is a form of idolatry. One of my favorite Christopher Hitchens quotes is from an interview he gave to a liberal Unitarian minister who wanted the old atheist to like her, so she tried to assure him that she wasn’t one of those Bible-thumping conservative Christians who actually believed what was in that dusty old book. Naturally, she’s from Portlandia:

    http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/news-and-profiles/people-and-profiles/articles/christopher-hitchens

    The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

    I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

    Bingo. The thing about many British atheists is most of the old-school atheists know what’s in the Bible. Many of them have a Bible simply because it was so important to the history of Western Europe. They don’t believe what’s in it. And they’re happy to tell people who call themselves Christian but confide they don’t believe it either that they’re really atheists, too.

    But people like Ms. Marilyn Sewell (I can’t bring myself to call her Minister, and it’s not because she’s a woman but because I have no idea what she’s a minister of) is they give secularists the impression that we all just use the Bible as an excuse to justify whatever it is we want to believe.

    So they wonder why those Roman Catholics or Baptists or Orthodox Jews don’t get with the program and change their “policies,” too. The only reason they can come up with is that it must be rank bigotry.

    And, really, why do a bunch of bigots hiding behind such a clearly meaningless pile of texts deserve legal protection like the RFRA?

    Damage done. And it’s done by a group of Mainline Protestant churches that are nothing like what they used to be in terms of membership let alone theology.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  131. Kevin M:

    Is it a mortal sin, or heresy?

    I think there are two ways to answer this question. I don’t know the religious answer but from a secular standpoint, we have freedom of religion so everyone can decide for themselves. At least we used to. Now we have anti-discrimination lawyers and bureaucracies overseeing bakeries.

    DRJ (e80d46)

  132. Strictly speaking, it’s blasphemy. Mockery of a sacrament. Like the satanists’ black mass.

    nk (dbc370)

  133. 124. …2) Is ordering a same-sex topper really anathema to their religion, or just something the don’t like to do, but must to stay in business, like opening on Sunday or offering their service to atheists. Is it a mortal sin, or heresy? They don’t actually have to participate, do they?

    Kevin M (25bbee) — 3/30/2015 @ 7:24 pm

    FYI, nine of the Ten Commandments are confirmed in the New Testament. The keeping holy the Sabbath day thingy didn’t make the cut.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  134. From the wonderful world of 3-D printing, there are now sugar printers that can be programmed to print sugar toppings for wedding cakes (and many many other things; I don’t think Royal Icing is especially tasty, but that’s a minor thing, and what the edible ones have been.) Rumor has it that software can use images of the happy couple and their clothing to make very personal toppers.

    I have no idea of the religious significance or complications of a mechanical sugar printer. Probably couldn’t be used on a Saturday and be Kosher.

    htom (4ca1fa)

  135. The ones that are embracing it are the churches that decided the Bible not only doesn’t mean anything, it’s not really the Word of God.

    The left has corrupted and trashed just about every facet of this society, including religion and the military (ie, army chaplains no longer being allowed to easily and confidently quote scriptures, much less the ethos of Nidal-Hassan-ism).

    We’re circling the drain, folks.

    (But at least I’ll have good reason to feel just a bit less remorseful if — or when — Sharia-law fanatics start pushing their own agenda throughout the West, since much of the left will receive more than its fair share of heat from Mohammed’s fundamentalist, reactionary foot soldiers.)

    Mark (80d334)

  136. Unitarians long ago departed from mainstream Christianity. There is a reason UU churches often provide a corporate shelter for Wiccans.
    The real question for the believer, in this sort of case, is the religion in question mistaking Scripture teaching in the context of its own era versus something that is applicable in all places and all eras. Do you adhere to the instructions handed down in the name of St. Paul that more or less tell women to mind their place, or view them as a product of a culture that was overwhelmingly dominated by men, and therefore not applicable in our society? Especially when that same St. Paul wrote such things as 2 Corinthians 3 (“the letter killeth”).

    kishnevi (9c4b9c)

  137. in the context of today’s error, no recycling is a sin, Paul has tough standards for everybody, the rebellions, the upstanding and the religious, none escape his scrutiny

    narciso (ee1f88)

  138. re #137: anyone worried about the item being Kosher is not getting married on a Saturday.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  139. htom, you would be correct. There are three or four obvious reasons those printers could not be used on Shabbat…preparing a cake, writing or creating a 3D object, use of electricity, etc. But presumably someone demanding a SSM topper would not be too concerned about such things.

    kishnevi (91d5c6)

  140. St. Paul’s teaching on sexuality in Romans and elsewhere seems more foundational in principle than reflective of a given social context.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  141. Telling them to keep silent in church is good advice; they should give their jaw a rest sometime.

    nk (dbc370)

  142. If you think the Unitarians are bad, check this out. It’s not from the Onion.

    http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/02/muslim.minister.defrocked/index.html

    For nearly 30 years, Redding has been an ordained minister in the Episcopal Church. Her priesthood ended Wednesday when she was defrocked.

    The reason? For the past three years Redding has been both a practicing Christian and a Muslim.

    … Ten days later Redding was saying the shahada — the Muslim declaration of belief in the oneness of God and acceptance of Mohammad as his prophet.

    But Redding said she felt her new Muslim faith did not pose a contradiction to her staying a Christian and minister.

    “Both religions say there’s only one God,” Redding said, “and that God is the same God. It’s very clear we are talking about the same God! So I haven’t shifted my allegiance…”

    This, folks, is nuts. Somebody should take the Episcopalian church out behind the barn and put a bullet in it if one of their ordained ministers can’t see a conflict between being a Christian that declares Christ the Son of God and Islam that says Christ the prophet is going to come back on the day of judgement as a jihadi who is going to break all the crosses and send the Christians to hellfire for insulting Allah by saying he could have a son.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  143. MD, I was thinking of the passages in the so called Pastoral Epistles (Timothy, Titus), to which nk referred, on how women should keep silent in church, etc….not his discussion of sexuality. Those are the same epistles which modern scholars like to claim are pseudoepigraphical letters written possibly two or three decades after Paul’s death.

    kishnevi (91d5c6)

  144. no frock for you

    happyfeet (831175)

  145. Steve, you did notice that was a step too far for the EC, and she was defrocked?

    kishnevi (91d5c6)

  146. 143. St. Paul’s teaching on sexuality in Romans and elsewhere seems more foundational in principle than reflective of a given social context.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84) — 3/30/2015 @ 8:44 pm

    Well, yes and no. The reason Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time condemning certain practices is because he was in Israel. That’s why when people ask why, for instance, didn’t he condemn homosexuality, it would have been entirely unnecessary. The Mosaic law already did.

    But Paul in his letters like Romans and 1 Corinthians was dealing with entirely different cast of characters. He had to remind those people that they couldn’t keep doing things and be Christians.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  147. 148. Steve, you did notice that was a step too far for the EC, and she was defrocked?

    kishnevi (91d5c6) — 3/30/2015 @ 8:54 pm

    Yes, but did you notice they only defrocked her after asking her to recant? Bishop Geralyn Wolf gave her a “time out” and only relieved her of her duties to so she could “to reflect on the Christian faith and her beliefs.”

    http://www.christianpost.com/news/episcopal-priest-defrocked-after-refusing-to-recant-muslim-faith-37847/

    …Redding was given until March 31, 2009, to resign or recant her Islamic ties…

    That’s the mind-boggling thing. They would have let someone who couldn’t see the conflict between being a Muslim and a Christian remain an Episcopalian priest.

    That’s just nuts, too. None of these people can possibly take their Christian minister gigs seriously.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  148. So, Feets, if a vegan with a catering business politely declined to help cater a BBQ at which meat was being served, would you accuse her of being filled with hatred against meat eaters?

    If a Muslim photographer politely declined to work an event at which a statue of Mohamed was being unveiled, would you accuse him of seething hatred against people who make statues of Mohamed?

    If not, how does politely declining to participate in a gay wedding prove that someone is full of seething hatred against gays? In none of these incidents was anything hateful actually said about gays by the people who were being sued for the terrible crime of wanting to live their own lives according to their own moral beliefs–nothing close to the vile hatred that you spew out regularly against conservative Christians.

    Do you think there is any chance that you might be projecting your own hatred and intolerance on the people you hate? After all, it’s not like they have actually done anything to deserve such a level of bile and spite. But have to have something to say about them them to justify your hatred, don’t you? And since they haven’t actually DONE anything hateful, it must be hate itself that they are guilty of. Just like you.

    Cugel (103343)

  149. Which leads to the obvious question: are we pleased enough with the results, with the integration of society that we, in hindsight, approve of the public accommodations and civil rights laws? Did the end justify the means?

    Lol, as the kids say. Tell me more about this glorious integration of society.

    Patterico (eb0373)

  150. some religions receive more consideration than others:

    http://spectator.org/articles/62226/max-blumenthal-slimes-ayaan-hirsi-ali

    narciso (ee1f88)

  151. all these hypotheticals are so complicated

    just be nice to people and treat them fair

    you’ll be fine

    if you’re too bigoty to be in the wedding business then find something else to do and let other people do the wedding stuff

    it’s not for everybody you know – some people just aren’t really cut out for working with the public

    happyfeet (831175)

  152. This argument was lost a long time ago, when businesses were defined as public accommodations, to make it illegal for a business owner to refuse to serve blacks.

    The historian Dana (f6a568) — 3/30/2015 @ 12:44 pm

    You mean it was lost a long time ago when the Dred Scott decision was made. Or was it lost a long time ago when Plessy v Ferguson was made. Please, explain these things to me. When does unconstitutional law stand just because it has stare decisis?

    NJRob (d36337)

  153. If the owner of a bake shop demand an employee make cakes for gay weddings and the employee balks for religious reasons, I would tell the employee they are SOL.

    But if the cake maker himself refuses because the purchaser is gay, or too short, or wears stupid looking shirts, or whatever? Cake purchaser is SOL. And should be. They are just trying to use violence to force others to do things they don’t want to do, when those people never agreed to. I have no sympathy.

    Good to know happy is all for fascistic government control if it aligns with his prejudices.

    Patterico (15be32)

  154. “just be nice to people and treat them fair”

    Mr. Feets – I agree. Don’t use the power of the state to force people to do things which violate their religious beliefs, which are protected in the Constitution. That’s just deliberately hateful and bigoted.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  155. He’s always been that way. He calls his prejudices “just be nice.”

    Steve57 (b69525)

  156. Mr. Feets – I agree. Don’t use the power of the state to force people to do things which violate their religious beliefs, which are protected in the Constitution. That’s just deliberately hateful and bigoted.

    And fascistic and anti-freedom. Typical of failmerica.

    Patterico (15be32)

  157. “And fascistic and anti-freedom. Typical of failmerica.”

    Patterico – It’s the New Tolerance, or something.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  158. It wasn’t all that long ago, NJRob. I was in high school. It was the Heart of Atlanta Motel case, construing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in an instance of private discrimination. The motel owner raised the 13th Amendment — that it was involuntary servitude — as a defense. The court dismissed that argument with one paragraph in the opinion and an airy wave of the hand.

    nk (dbc370)

  159. 156. If the owner of a bake shop demand an employee make cakes for gay weddings and the employee balks for religious reasons, I would tell the employee they are SOL.

    But if the cake maker himself refuses because the purchaser is gay, or too short, or wears stupid looking shirts, or whatever? Cake purchaser is SOL. And should be. They are just trying to use violence to force others to do things they don’t want to do, when those people never agreed to. I have no sympathy.

    Good to know happy is all for fascistic government control if it aligns with his prejudices.

    Patterico (15be32) — 3/30/2015 @ 9:38 pm

    Unfortunately the reality is it’s the other way around.

    http://eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/5-29-13.cfm

    Agency Charges Trucking Company Failed to Accommodate and Wrongfully Terminated Two Muslim Employees For Refusal to Deliver Alcohol Due to Religious Beliefs

    I have no idea how that case turned out, if it’s even over.

    I do know that Target will accommodate Muslim employees who refuse to handle pork products. So they were probably on the receiving end of some EEOC attention at some point in the past and don’t want a repeat session.

    http://www.nbcnews.com/id/17665989/ns/business-us_business/t/target-shifts-muslims-who-wont-ring-pork/#.VRop1hibr_Q

    Steve57 (b69525)

  160. Good to know happy is all for fascistic government control if it aligns with his prejudices.

    this is not verdad not even a little

    i haven’t said anything about the government

    between you and me i’m not a fan of the government

    me personally i think the bigots should be named and shamed by regular normal people and then we let the market address such behavior

    which can happen whether or not indiana passes extra laws or not

    happyfeet (831175)

  161. So you’re fine with the law then.

    Patterico (15be32)

  162. it’s not really my law to be fine with or not fine with

    it’s looking like it might could end up being a very expensive law for Mr. Pence and his constituents, and i guess that’s probably the lens i look at it through

    happyfeet (831175)

  163. Mr. feets, you do realize that Illinois has a law like it, right?

    And Obama voted for it.

    Indiana’s religious freedom law drew an attack Sunday from the White House even though Indiana Republicans say President Obama voted in favor of similar legislation as an Illinois state senator in 1998.

    Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/29/white-house-hits-indianas-religious-freedom-law-am/#ixzz3VwIXapL2
    Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

    How does it feel living in bigot central?

    Steve57 (b69525)

  164. So that’s what they said about Chik fil A. It didn’t happen. That’s what they said about Duck Dynasty. It didn’t happen. The specter is just that — a specter.

    Indiana was around long before Angie was a gleam in the milkman’s eye. It’s going to be around long after Angie’s List goes into bankruptcy.

    nk (dbc370)

  165. it feels like springtime

    today anyway

    it might could be another head fake

    happyfeet (831175)

  166. Yeah, nk, a lot of people who got their panties in a wad over this “anti-gay” law are now saying, “Uhh, never mind.” Because nothing makes people look like idiots to travel from a state that already has a RFRA law to protest Indiana’s new law. I bet a lot of people drove down from Chicago to protest this outrage.

    Nothing, except for idiot celebrities who are vowing on Twitter to never perform in Indiana again. And then go on to schedule performances in states that have had these laws for years. Then everybody on Twitter points and last.

    No, wait. Probably the ultimate was the governor of Connecticut who vowed to sign an executive order banning state-funded travel to Indiana for being a bunch of Xtofascist hate mongers.

    Wait for it.

    Connecticut has the same law.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  167. * points and last laughs.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  168. re #162 (& #156): the law or administrative agencies will look to see who has the ‘upper hand’ and rule against them. since the bakery or chapel has the ability to resist, they are deemed to have the upper hand and their religious beliefs are of no consequence. Since the employer has the ability to fire, they are deemed to have the upper hand and their insensitivity to the religious beliefs are of full consequence.

    The pork handling is interesting. I could understand that case on both sides. Unless they applied to jobs in the butcher department. The muslims really do have this , at least , custom, about avoiding contact with pigs. Think i mentioned before that the Israelis halted public bus bombing attempts by planning on putting bags of pig blood on the buses. I think Hindus have certain rules about touching cows as well. The case law for ‘respecting’ an employees religious beliefs do seem to stop at where it interferes with the employers business. So wearing a beard or turban would be deemed needed accommodation – but truck deliveries?

    I just wonder – can a caterer order his Muslim employees to work at a homosexual wedding? If a homosexual couple can force a service provider to provide the service , can they also mandate that any employee they deem anti homosexual marriage to be employed at that wedding?

    re #161: is that the case where they used the Commerce Clause as the toolbar to wedge in?

    re #164 & 165: I’m not fine with the law. If you check the comments made on Sunday there was a post to blogger explaining his opposition to the law as passed. The law is simply not well written, especially in regards to how it contradicts other laws already on the books. This law also seems to go a bit further than other State and the Fed RFRA laws. I read somewhere that the intent of the law was to protect some practices and beliefs of Amish and American Indians. Maybe they should split the RFRA up , deal with the general idea in one and the Amish/AmericanIndians in the other.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  169. re #170: Mayors of Seattle (who is homosexual and is civic married to a male) and San Fransicso, and Governor of Washington have also banned city funded travel to Indiana. I write also because I don’t see that the Governor of CT has rescinded or revoked his signed executive order to do so.

    re #168: is Angies List still in line to get the city of Indianapolis to fork over 50 Million dollars to stay in a downtown building?

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  170. me personally i think the bigots should be named and shamed by regular normal people and then we let the market address such behavior

    Happyfeet, you’re so full of it. You’ve regularly used in your postings here at patterico the word “gay” in a pejorative, condescending way. Of course, you may claim you have a right to use it for the same reason that black guys will proclaim they have a right to use, and love to spew, the “n” word to one another. Uh, not that there’s anything wrong with that…

    Mark (80d334)

  171. hmm, so are the ‘No Shirt No Service’ , ‘No Shoes No Service’ legal?

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  172. The case law for ‘respecting’ an employees religious beliefs do seem to stop at where it interferes with the employers business.

    The lunacy of modern-day liberal society, in which various people are more and more drunk on the idea of self-entitlement, is best illustrated by UPS, where a sight-impaired (ie, legally blind) person not too many years ago claimed that he was the victim of unfair discrimination due to UPS’s policies disallowing someone like him from driving trucks.

    Ya can’t make this s- – – up.

    I know the Boy Scouts of America are facing an increasingly no-win and Hobson’s-choice situation in the future, where parents of Boy Scouts molested by troop leaders have sued the BSA for not screening out such predators, while political pressure (courtesy of the left) has been applied to the BSA to start permitting gay adults to serve as troop leaders.

    Ya can’t make this s- – – up.

    Mark (80d334)

  173. I don’t know, seeRpea. I just saw one sentence about them threatening to pull out or not expand or something like that. I liked one line, “It’s going to keep a lot of talent out”. Like …?

    nk (dbc370)

  174. It wasn’t all that long ago, NJRob. I was in high school. It was the Heart of Atlanta Motel case, construing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in an instance of private discrimination. The motel owner raised the 13th Amendment — that it was involuntary servitude — as a defense. The court dismissed that argument with one paragraph in the opinion and an airy wave of the hand.

    nk (dbc370) — 3/30/2015 @ 9:54 pm

    I’m sadly aware that our right to free association is ignored. The court doesn’t explain why it doesn’t apply or has been repealed. It just says no.

    The people have decided they’d rather be emotional than follow the law.

    NJRob (d36337)

  175. re #176: I wonder if you noticed as I did that when the priests accused/discovered of molesting (altar) boys stories were popping up all over the place, never was it pointed out that priests were homosexuals preying. it is like NAMBLA doesn’t exist.
    I’d like to see in the next court case bought against the Boys Club someone for the Boys Club argue that just as female only and black only lead clubs are okay, heterosexual only lead clubs are too.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  176. Mr Feet wrote:

    if you can’t eat it then it don’t belong on top of no cake now do it

    No candles on your birthday cake for you, buddy!

    The snarky Dana (f6a568)

  177. Mr 57 wrote:

    Well, yes and no. The reason Jesus didn’t spend a lot of time condemning certain practices is because he was in Israel. That’s why when people ask why, for instance, didn’t he condemn homosexuality, it would have been entirely unnecessary. The Mosaic law already did.

    In the end, we have very few of Jesus’ actual words; surely he said more than was recorded!

    However, the left are quite fond of saying that Jesus did not explicitly condemn homosexual activity, and it’s true enough that no such statement by the Lord was ever recorded, but in the Sermon on the Mount he stated, explicitly:

    Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.…

    Matthew 5:17-18. The law included an absolute prohibition on homosexual activity, and thus was covered by Jesus’ statement.

    The Catholic Dana (f6a568)

  178. Our esteemed host replied:

    Which leads to the obvious question: are we pleased enough with the results, with the integration of society that we, in hindsight, approve of the public accommodations and civil rights laws? Did the end justify the means?

    Lol, as the kids say. Tell me more about this glorious integration of society.

    Is your place of employment all white?

    Our neighborhoods have tended to remain mostly segregated, because those are the living patterns that people have chosen, but if you go into a restaurant, it’s reasonably probable that there will be patrons of another race therein. Most of us work or have worked in jobs with a racially integrated staff. Most of us went to integrated schools. No one is surprised on a bus or subway or airplane when some of the other passengers are of a different race — and aren’t all required to sit in the back — but that is a clear change from not that long ago.

    We have what is essentially forced integration at the points at which the law can reach; in the places the law cannot reach, not so much.

    The historian Dana (f6a568)

  179. NJRob wrote:

    You mean it was lost a long time ago when the Dred Scott decision was made. Or was it lost a long time ago when Plessy v Ferguson was made. Please, explain these things to me. When does unconstitutional law stand just because it has stare decisis?

    When it has the police power of the state behind it.

    That might not be the answer you wanted, and I’d guess that it isn’t the answer that you’d like, but the fact that you believe and I believe that the Constitution says one thing does not outweigh the fact that the Supreme Court and the government believe it says something entirely different.

    The phrase is a simple one: a compelling government interest. The Supreme Court has let stand, many times, laws and regulations and programs that sure look like they directly contradict the plain words of the Constitution because they are meant to achieve a compelling government interest.

    The realistic Dana (f6a568)

  180. 181. In the end, we have very few of Jesus’ actual words; surely he said more than was recorded!

    We do. It’s just that we get them through the Apostles in the rest of the New Testament. Even Paul, who was the only Apostle who wasn’t actually with Jesus while he was alive was preaching the same Gospel as the other Apostles. In 1 Corinthians, Paul writes that the Gospel he has given them is what he was given. And he made his first visit to Jerusalem after his road to Damascus experience in 39 A.D., which is when he would have received it. Considering Jesus was crucified between 31 to 33 AD that’s pretty darn contemporary for ancient historical sources.

    The law included an absolute prohibition on homosexual activity, and thus was covered by Jesus’ statement.

    The Catholic Dana (f6a568) — 3/31/2015 @ 3:23 am

    That’s just what you think.

    Only kidding. It does, but the liberal churches are so desperate to redefine the texts to allow them to become progressive and hip that they’ve gone to ridiculous lengths to come up with new meanings for the original Greek and Hebrew words. They can only do so by ripping each verse out of context and playing word games. But if you read the scripture as a whole it falls apart. For instance, you can if you take Paul’s words out of context say he was only condemning the patrons of boy prostitutes in Romans. But what they don’t realize is that Paul was actually taking his words from the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Torah. Which was written by Rabbis for Jews who due to the diaspora could no longer read or speak Hebrew.

    Where we run into a different problem, for the revisionists. They had come up with a new way to read the Hebrew words for “men who lie with men as with women.” They insist insist it means “men who lie with men on women’s beds,” so just as Paul supposedly was only condemning the patrons of underage boy prostitutes, the Rabbis were OK with homosexuality as long as they didn’t have sex on a woman’s bed. The revisionists sometimes claim they really meant the beds of pagan temple prostitutes.

    But it’s when you point out the Septuagint the whole farce falls apart. Were supposed to believe the Rabbis who didn’t want men having sex with each other on women’s beds somehow decided they didn’t want men having sex with boy prostitutes.

    It’s just a comical mess. These people coming up with clever new ways to play scrabble with an individual verse in Greek or Hebrew never consult with each other. So they end up destroying each others story. If you read Leviticus 18 in isolation you can get away with it. If you read Romans 1 in isolation you can get away with it. But if you read the whole Bible in which Leviticus is in the same book as Genesis and Romans is in the same book as Matthew, and it contains all those other books, and its one consistent whole, it just blows up in your face.

    I mention it not to keep harping on what the Bible says about homosexuality, but to make a larger point. Right now that’s the issue of the day, and the Bible does have something to say about it. But the liberal revisionists don’t want to believe what they’re reading, so they pretend it doesn’t say it. And they pretend it says something else. All they do is render the scripture meaningless patchwork of insensible nonsense even in their own eyes. There are clear prohibitions against many things, but if the prohibitions against homosexuality in the New and Old Testaments aren’t clear then nothing is clear. And then nothing is a sin, because if you can play those word games with that then you can play word games with anything in the Bible. And if nothing is a sin, then Christ couldn’t have possibly died to redeem them, could he?

    That’s why, as I mentioned my favorite Hitchens quote @133. But here’s the point; note what the interviewer said.

    I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example).

    Of course not! What could there have been to atone for? The Bible just isn’t clear enough in their eyes to call anything sin. No need therefore for a redeemer. And no need, therefore, for a Gospel. And really no need for a Church.

    @145 I linked to the story of an Episcopalian priest who became a Muslim and insisted she could be both! And why not? Her church had already decided it didn’t believe in anything anymore. You just can’t be sure of what the Bible says anyway, right? So why not. If you spent 20 or 30 years in a denomination rewriting everything but piecemeal what used to be a coherent whole is now indecipherable, why not two religions. Or three. They’re not really important anyway.

    @150 I noted the coup de grace was that the Episcopalian church didn’t actually remove her when they found out she had become a Muslim. They gave her time to think about it and recant. When she didn’t then and only then did her Bishop defrock her. The Bishop was hilarious. She couldn’t even then give a stinging indictment of a nominally Christian priest who saw no conflict between Christianity and Islam. She first pronounced the confused Muslim priest a woman of “absolute integrity” and then said she defrocked the priest because she “believed” it was a conflict.

    She only believed it. She didn’t know it. In a couple of years she’ll only suspect there might be a conflict. In five years, being a Muslim won’t be an absolute bar to being an Episcopal priest, and they’ll rewrite their church code to accommodate it.

    Because they don’t have a Christ anymore, so why not be inclusive?

    Steve57 (b69525)

  181. kishnevi-
    Sorry to not be clear. I understood the point you were making and simply said Paul’s reasoning in Romans was not as problematic in regard to being society-specific as opposed to generally applicable.

    I’m not one to believe women need to wear something on their head or to be quiet in church, but I also note that Paul’s reasoning refers to the creation and fall, not the norms of the day; so I’m not entirely sure how to figure it all out.

    As to what modern scholars think, for one it depends on which modern scholars you talk about. If you start out with the assumption that it can’t really be true, then you look for evidence to justify what you believe, and you find some.
    Of course, one can argue that those who believe do the same thing but in the opposite direction.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  182. One response to the liberal drift in many denominations is not simply individuals voting with their feet, but entire congregations separating themselves. Or with some Anglicans, changing their accountability from being with a liberal bishop to a bishop who still holds to the historic apostolic Christian faith, even if he is on another continent.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  183. 185. As to what modern scholars think, for one it depends on which modern scholars you talk about. If you start out with the assumption that it can’t really be true, then you look for evidence to justify what you believe, and you find some.
    Of course, one can argue that those who believe do the same thing but in the opposite direction.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84) — 3/31/2015 @ 5:10 am

    That’s true, but what matters is if the scholar can explain how his or her interpretation of a verse or a passage fits in with the surrounding text, and then scripture as a whole.

    If the scholar simply doesn’t want to believe something is true, and simply comes up with a way to interpret a verse or passage that justifies the foreordained conclusion that can work. But only in isolation. When the scholars who are attempting that try to fit their revisions in with the rest of the text it’s like trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.

    That’s one way to see if you’re just reading into the text what you want to see, as opposed to letting it speak for itself.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  184. Doc @186, that just happened with the PCUSA.

    http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2015/03/black-churches-divorce-presbyterians.html?spref=tw

    On Friday, though, it broke fellowship with the largely white Presbyterian Church USA, following the Presbyterians voting to accept gay marriage.

    PCUSA’s manipulation represents a universal sin against the entire church and its members. With this action, PCUSA can no longer base its teachings on 2,000 years of Christian scripture and tradition, and call itself a Christian entity in the body of Christ. It has forsaken its right by this single wrong act.

    Apostle Paul warns us about this when he declared in Galatians 1:8 that there are those who will preach another Gospel:

    “For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him…For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”

    No church has the right to change the Word of God. By voting to redefine marriage PCUSA automatically forfeits Christ’s saving grace. There is always redemption in the body of Christ through confession of faith and adhering to Holy Scripture. In this case, PCUSA deliberately voted to change the Word of God and the interpretation of holy marriage between one man and one woman. This is why we must break fellowship with them and urge the entire Christendom to do so as well.

    Which is of course the real issue. It just happens to be the issue of gay marriage at the moment that’s highlighting it. We can’t change scripture. God can, of course, but we can’t.

    Unfortunately so many liberal denominations have that secularists think the rest of us are being stubborn just for the h3ll of it. This Pope gave the MSM such high hopes that he’d change all those silly Old White Man homophobic anti-woman “policies” and bring the RCC into the 21st century. After all, so many other liberal denominations have scrubbed their texts of all that silly Jesus stuff.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  185. “Men who lie with men as with women …” seems to be talking about bi-sexual men, not gay men.

    htom (4ca1fa)

  186. Mr 57 wrote:

    It’s just a comical mess. These people coming up with clever new ways to play scrabble with an individual verse in Greek or Hebrew never consult with each other. So they end up destroying each others story. If you read Leviticus 18 in isolation you can get away with it. If you read Romans 1 in isolation you can get away with it. But if you read the whole Bible in which Leviticus is in the same book as Genesis and Romans is in the same book as Matthew, and it contains all those other books, and its one consistent whole, it just blows up in your face.

    The bigger problem is that they have, in effect, lawyered themselves up, thinking that they can parse the words and find loopholes; they are thinking like 21st century Westerners when reading texts thousands of years old.

    The truth is simple: the people living at the time the texts were written didn’t have any problem understanding them, and they understood that there was a universal condemnation of homosexual activity. The people parsing the texts today are doing so with a preconceived goal in mind; they are lying not just to us, but lying to themselves as well.

    The very Catholic Dana (f6a568)

  187. Those ancient Israelis were a pretty open minded crowd, htom.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  188. The physician with patients waiting for him back in Philadelphia wrote:

    One response to the liberal drift in many denominations is not simply individuals voting with their feet, but entire congregations separating themselves. Or with some Anglicans, changing their accountability from being with a liberal bishop to a bishop who still holds to the historic apostolic Christian faith, even if he is on another continent.

    There have been a few Anglican parishes that simply converted to Catholicism en masse. Not enough of them, to be sure, but some.

    In the end, the Anglican Church is led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a political appointment of Her Majesty the Queen, as recommended by Parliament.

    The extremely Catholic Dana (f6a568)

  189. Christ’s Grace is infinite and every living person has a chance at redemption, even at the very moment of dying, regardless down what path Satan led him in life. So I don’t pay much attention to sectarianism. Heresy is probably the smallest of sins.

    The extremely extreme nk (dbc370)

  190. It escapes them, Dana. It escapes them, for instance, that if they try to reinterpret a verse from Leviticus 18 or 20 (the Holiness Code) there’s a whole body of Talmudic law that was built up around it. Maimonides is one of the greatest Jewish legal scholars of all time. He wrote the Mishna Torah in the late 1100s A.D.

    These guys didn’t speak Hebrew well enough to pick up on the real meaning of the text?

    More importantly, I think, is that since they’re thinking like 21st century Westerners reading the Bible like Bill Clinton (“There’s just got to be a loophole about the meaning of ‘is’ in there somewhere”) they can’t defend the rest of the text.

    I think that should the SCOTUS decide there’s a right to SSM (likely) there’s going to be an avalanche of collapse in a lot of these liberal denominations in a host of areas. Not the most liberal denominations because they already caved on everything anyway.

    The Episcopalians and the Presbyterian Church USA will probably struggle briefly and then after prayer and meditation develop special blessings for swingers’ parties, which they’ll be happy to let you rent out the bingo hall for if you put down a cleaning deposit.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  191. our pastor, has shown there is a remarkable continuity between the old and the new testaments,
    much of what was said in Romans say, was echoed from the prophets,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  192. Christ’s Grace is infinite and every living person has a chance at redemption, even at the very moment of dying, regardless down what path Satan led him in life.
    The extremely extreme nk (dbc370) — 3/31/2015 @ 6:26 am

    I agree completely, nk.
    But at the same time Jesus was quite upset with the idea of teachers leading His children astray with false teaching, something about millstones and ponds.

    A big problem is when people are told there is no redemption necessary. Whatever one chooses to do is OK.
    At the time of Jesus He could say, “Your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more”. It did not cause a problem because people thought, “Who are you to say something is a sin?”, but, “Who are you to forgive sins, only God can do that?!”
    Today people want to say there is no sin, so there is no need for redemption. That is a very bad and harmful error to make.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  193. O/T but speaking of absurdity, we need to eliminate funding for the State Dept. to spare the US further embarrassment.

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/cda4e341054649f2bf027ebf37b93fa3/differences-persist-deadline-day-iran-nuke-talks

    ..And after intense negotiations, obstacles remained on uranium enrichment, where stockpiles of enriched uranium should be stored, limits on Iran’s nuclear research and development and the timing and scope of sanctions relief among other issues…

    In other words, after “intense” negotiations the parties remain where they were in 2003 on everything.

    But, having gotten the US to cave on everything else, the Iranians have successfully come up with another red line for the the US to cave on.

    Iran militia chief: Destroying Israel is ‘nonnegotiable’

    Basij commander Mohammad Reza Naqdi also threatens Saudis, saying their fate will be like that of Saddam Hussein

    Read more: Iran militia chief: Destroying Israel is ‘nonnegotiable’ | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-militia-chief-destroying-israel-nonnegotiable/#ixzz3VyEj60fx
    Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook

    John Kerry told the AP that the US is “seriously considering” the proposal. “Inshallah” he told the Iranian negotiating team.

    Also, Obama must be limited to travel within the US only, also to spare the US any further international embarrassment. Actually, he must be required to travel outside of Washington for the remainder of his presidency, flying form golf course to golf course like a gypsy.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  194. people did not have the arrogance, to second guess God’s commandments, back then, when they did they would be turned into a pillar of salt,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  195. Mr 57 wrote:

    The Episcopalians and the Presbyterian Church USA will probably struggle briefly and then after prayer and meditation develop special blessings for swingers’ parties, which they’ll be happy to let you rent out the bingo hall for if you put down a cleaning deposit.

    The number of Presbyterian and Episcopal parishioners has been declining dramatically anyway, so I suppose that it doesn’t make much difference.

    The devoutly Catholic Dana (f6a568)

  196. ==Mr. feets, you do realize that Illinois has a law like it, right? And Obama voted for it.

    Indiana’s religious freedom law drew an attack Sunday from the White House even though Indiana Republicans say President Obama voted in favor of similar legislation as an Illinois state senator in 1998.

    How does it feel living in bigot central? Steve57 (b69525) — 3/30/2015 @ 10:45 pm==

    As I explained on another thread which perhaps Steve and others missed, “…there is a considerable difference in the IL and IN law: Illinois has a Religious Freedom Restoration law 775 ILCS 35. It also has the Illinois Human Rights Act that specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity–which tends to cover what the squawkers are mainly squawking about with Indiana.” So regardless of how one feels about any of the laws, making casual claims and comparisons is questionable and dangerous if one is striving for accuracy.
    ****

    == I’m not fine with the law. If you check the comments made on Sunday there was a post to blogger explaining his opposition to the law as passed. The law is simply not well written, especially in regards to how it contradicts other laws already on the books. This law also seems to go a bit further than other State and the Fed RFRA laws. I read somewhere that the intent of the law was to protect some practices and beliefs of Amish and American Indians. Maybe they should split the RFRA up , deal with the general idea in one and the Amish/AmericanIndians in the other. seeRpea (c1462d) — 3/30/2015 @ 11:02 pm==

    For anyone interested, here is the link posted by Kishnevi (also on another thread) to which SeeRpea refers above:

    ==seeRpea, here is a writeup on why this RFRA is different from all other RFRA kishnevi (91d5c6) — 3/29/2015 @ 9:18 pms==

    https://inadvancesheet.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/the-indiana-religious-freedom-restoration-act-an-analysis-of-its-controversy/

    elissa (45e520)

  197. it’s not about the particulars of the law, I’m willing to bet that previous bills, don’t protect against this weaponized lawfare, but it doesn’t matter as with Prop 187, 209, SB 1070

    narciso (ee1f88)

  198. “Men who lie with men as with women …” seems to be talking about bi-sexual men, not gay men.

    Since more and more Americans are becoming secularists — increasingly praying at the altar of holy liberalism — and therefore find their eyes glazing over when Christ and the Bible are being cited and discussed, the case of the famous ancient Greek philosopher Plato (who, yes, lived before Christ—and I don’t believed carried around a Bible) deserves to be cited.

    In his younger years he sounded exactly like a modern-day liberal and dismissed those who were against homosexuality as (to paraphrase) non-worldly country bumpkins. His attitude could have been lifted straight from a college classroom in 2015. But for whatever reason, towards the later half of his life he not only wasn’t so equanimous about homosexuality, he started to strongly, even harshly, condemn it. That may be due in part to how widespread pederasty was in ancient Greek life, so even the originally libertine Plato apparently finally awokened and realized just how many lives had been and were being damaged by unbridled behavior.

    Phrase of the day: As much as things change, some things never change. Or what goes around, comes around. Or you reap what you sow.

    Mark (80d334)

  199. The Amish don’t want to build furniture for gay weddings?

    The extremely extreme nk (dbc370)

  200. the times then, were not so different than the times now:

    http://www.padfield.com/acrobat/history/corinth.pdf

    narciso (ee1f88)

  201. narsiso@201, I think particulars do matter–no matter what side the spin may be emanating from.

    nk@203–well done! 🙂

    elissa (45e520)

  202. it does to those subject to it, but as with Stand Your Ground, it becomes a pretext for their original agenda,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  203. re #200: thanks elissa
    re #198: you are joking, correct narciso? Either that or you have no idea what is in the Bible. 2nd and 4th book is full of challenges to G0d , most of Judges and Kings and what do you think the majority of Prophets is concerned with?

    re #191: The ancient Israelis *were* very open minded and so is the Jewish Bible. What has not been mentioned is the homosexual acts are considered one of the basic immoralities for humans, not just Jews. Which is why it is such a sticking point for those who claim that the Jewish Bible’s rules for Jews has been usurped. And it is one the aspects of humanity that is explicitly cursed. There is a subtle point though – the homosexual is not cursed, the actions are. A person is not blamed for being homosexual but is blamed for acting on the impulse.

    btw: never use the Septuagint as a valid translation source. #1 it was not its intent by the translators , #2 it is in Ancient Egyptian Greek so any nuances are lost.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  204. I was being metaphorical, the broader culture has developed an unwarranted skepticism, and it’s turned out dandy,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  205. I have seen elsewhere back and forth on whether the Indiana law is different than others or not, and whether or not the issue is not so much the law per se or the context of other laws in the state.

    Some want to paint the law as saying any Joe (or Jane) that runs a pizzeria can refuse to sell a piece of pizza because one has a gay pride T-shirt on,
    others say, no, all it means is that a business owner doesn’t have to take a role in something that is against his/her religious beliefs.

    I don’t know enough law to know when a lawyer is snowing me or not, and I can’t read people’s hearts and minds to know whether they really believe the law will lead to someone not being allowed to buy a piece of pizza or they are using that as a tactic to get their way.

    It looks like the argument that gay rights are like civil rights for blacks has largely been accepted in the public debate, no matter how much that has been held up for question in the past.

    If a person makes the cake and includes a letter (with copies for all in attendance) why they believe a SSM is not a good idea for all involved is that seen as defensible or will that get civil or criminal litigation?

    I suppose if a person makes the cake and refuses to accept payment there is some way the legal warfare people can try to twist that as well.

    I guess a person can make a cake, take the money, and give it away without anyone other than themselves and God knowing.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  206. 200. ……there is a considerable difference in the IL and IN law: Illinois has a Religious Freedom Restoration law 775 ILCS 35. It also has the Illinois Human Rights Act that specifically prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity–which tends to cover what the squawkers are mainly squawking about with Indiana.” So regardless of how one feels about any of the laws, making casual claims and comparisons is questionable and dangerous if one is striving for accuracy.

    elissa (45e520) — 3/31/2015 @ 7:25 am

    I wasn’t making any casual claims. I was being entirely accurate. No RFRA can permit discrimination.

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/30/your-questions-on-indianas-religious-freedom-bill-answered/

    …According to what you might hear in the news, this is an anti-gay law that is “almost universally loathed,” and which a White House official suggested would “legitimize discrimination.”

    Indiana’s RFRA has none of these characteristics.


    So RFRAs Don’t License Discrimination?

    No. RFRA is a shield, not a sword. It can be used to defend oneself against lawsuits or administrative action. It can’t be used affirmatively to try and deprive others of the protections of law.

    Now, Illinois may have other laws besides their RFRA that Indiana doesn’t have. But that’s a separate subject.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  207. …Illinois has a Religious Freedom Restoration law 775 ILCS 35. It also has the Illinois Human Rights Act…

    Those are two separate laws. The RFRA laws are similar. The other law may work in concert so that together things work differently in Illinois than in Indiana. But then I don’t know what other laws Indiana has. Do you?

    Steve57 (b69525)

  208. You know what I would like to see?

    I would like to see a gay couple try to push this kind of thing at some kind of Muslim owned wedding or halal catering service.

    Since the majority of Islam (speaking of inconvenient truths) is, um, gently put, not accepting of SSM…

    My guess is that progressive heads would explode like in that movie “Scanners.”

    This is the problem with reasoning from the heart. It takes people to unusual places. Orwell wrote about that long ago, and codified it in “Animal Farm.”

    “All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.”

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  209. That was a serious question, by the way. I don’t know what other laws Indiana has that might be similar to Illinois law.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  210. it seems they write all their laws broadly:

    http://www.wageproject.org/files/in.php

    narciso (ee1f88)

  211. except for candles i mean

    happyfeet (831175)

  212. Ooops. My article answered my own question.

    http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/30/your-questions-on-indianas-religious-freedom-bill-answered/

    Why Is Everyone So Mad about Indiana’s RFRA, Then?

    The fear is that it could be used to deny service to gay people in places of public accommodation like businesses and restaurants. But, as discussed above, no RFRA has ever been used that way before. Also, Indiana does not have a public accommodation law that protects against anti-gay discrimination, meaning there’s no state law in Indiana preventing anti-gay discrimination in businesses even before the state RFRA was enacted. Notably, despite the lack of such a law, nobody can point to any Indiana businesses that were discriminating against gays.

    That’s what makes this an informed attribute. Gay marriage is on many people’s minds lately, for obvious reasons. In truth, though, Indiana is merely catching-up to states that have had RFRAs for decades—like Illinois, for example, which got its RFRA with the help of a young state senator named Barack Obama. Unfortunately, Indiana is now caught in the cultural cross-fire.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  213. ==That was a serious question, by the way. I don’t know what other laws Indiana has that might be similar to Illinois law.==

    Steve57, many of us choose not to opine on things of which we are not familiar or expert. This is why, for example, I do not generally comment on cars, guns, knives, military protocol, and on politics of other important states like Texas, California, and Florida etc., because I recognize there are actual experts here who know much more first hand than I do on those particular topics. You made a flat statement about IL law being “like” Indiana and snarked about Illinoisans living in “bigot central”. My goal is to correct the record about the law/interconnecting laws that apply in Illinois with respect to this-period. You are of course free to draw your own conclusions about other states and compare or expound on them or on any topic you fancy. But you should have have no expectation that you will get a pass when you are not accurate, or when you attempt to move the goalpost, or to use spin to justify your comment.

    elissa (45e520)

  214. Cause don’t you know
    It’s all about the gays
    The gays
    Not religion

    It’s not about homeschooling
    It’s all about the gays
    The gays
    Not the Amish

    It’s not about prison ministry
    It’s all about the gays
    The gays
    Not prisoners

    It’s not about shechita
    It’s all about the gays
    The gays
    Not kosher

    And I can go on.

    The nk who knows drama queens (dbc370)

  215. the preemptory gambit is to pressure a judge to impose an injunction, because crimethink,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  216. My experience, BTW, granted that it’s narrowed by my field, is that the biggest impact of RFRAs has been on the religious freedoms of prisoners.

    nk (dbc370)

  217. Yes, nk. But since about 75% of the comments on this thread go there, I’d say that people here do think it’s about teh gays. Don’t you?

    elissa (45e520)

  218. I know, elissa, but “Oh, shut up and get back in the closet” would not have made a post at all let alone a comment thread. 😉

    nk (dbc370)

  219. With 223 comments. 😉 😉

    nk (dbc370)

  220. I’m still wondering why we’re twisting and turning ourselves, our laws and our country into some demented pretzel about 3-5% of the population. Gays in America are some of the luckiest in the world. We don’t execute them, it’s crime to harass or bother them and if they would stop jamming their private business into everyone’s face nobody would give a rats ass what they do. But for some reason every other month we’re treated to another offended gay crying about another heinous perceived offense for which we all must do penance, make new laws and hear more lectures about the poor misunderstood and maligned gays. Enough already.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  221. 217. …You made a flat statement about IL law being “like” Indiana and snarked about Illinoisans living in “bigot central”

    …But you should have have no expectation that you will get a pass when you are not accurate, or when you attempt to move the goalpost, or to use spin to justify your comment.

    elissa (45e520) — 3/31/2015 @ 8:45 am

    1) The Illinois law and the Indiana law are “like” each other as all the RFRA laws all do roughly the same thing.

    2) My snark wasn’t directed at Illinois. It was directed at happyfeets who seems to think that Indiana must be full of dumb bigoted hicks for having such a law when, whoops! IL has such a law.

    3) I have no such expectation getting a pass. If you can show me where the RFRA in Illinois is unlike Indiana’s please, feel free. But it is clearly similar; in 2011 an Illinois Circuit Court threw out Blago’s attempt to put Christian pharmacists out of business by unfairly burdening them precisely because it violated your states RFRA.

    http://www.becketfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Morr-Fitz-Final-Ruling.pdf

    As I mentioned @103 your former governor was done in because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Apparently he didn’t hear about this RFRA that Illinois has, otherwise he wouldn’t have shouted at the top of his lungs that he wanted to do exactly what the law was intended to prevent. The court paid special attention to that. Whoopsie! I hear that habit of not knowing when to shut up gets him in trouble a lot. How’s he doing these days?

    In any case, where am I being inaccurate?

    Steve57 (b69525)

  222. An observation:

    What I don’t like about the public discussion on this topic, and I guess like most topics, is the same thing I do not like about the American judicial system. I suppose it is a reinforcing feedback cycle between American society in general and lawyers in particular.

    What I am talking about is the adversarial nature of debate trying to get to a winner,
    as opposed to a united attempt to get to a best understanding of whatever objective truth there is available on a topic, even if, and perhaps especially so, parties are approaching a problem from different perspectives.

    As I saw last night on either Greta or Megyn and is discussed here, there is the issue of whether the Indiana law is like other laws or not, and there is the issue as to whether the ramifications of the law in Indiana is different from the ramifications of similar laws elsewhere. They are two discrete questions, and one can be knowledgeable and correct about one without being knowledgeable about the other. IMO, as long as one is clear about what they claim to know, lack of knowledge in other matters is not a drawback, but an opportunity for further understanding.

    For example, those who are critical of the law could ratchet their rhetoric down a few notches and calmly discuss their concerns, instead of screaming about the law being so terrible. And those who are eager to say the law is no different than laws elsewhere could be quick to acknowledge that the effect of the law if implemented in Indiana today might be different than the law elsewhere.

    But I think it seems pretty clear what is really going on in the public debate. Some want to marginalize any disagreement with the PC notion that homosexual behavior is no different from heterosexual behavior, and those who disagree should be forced into their own closets, as it were. The idea that some family bakery should be allowed to do as they please in regards to a wedding cake is anathema to such people.

    Meanwhile, others see the direction and trajectory of the last 20 years and fear basic rights are being lost, that what was once touted as “letting people free to be”, has turned into “you all must agree”. If it is done with one form of behavior, it can be done with any form of behavior.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  223. My earlier comment about the pharmacy case was actually @101.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  224. elissa (45e520) — 3/31/2015 @ 8:54 am

    But isn’t it about “the gays”, elissa? If it wasn’t for the gays, would anyone have been bothered by this?
    No one is bothered by “religious freedom”, so the discussion is not about that, the discussion is driven by claims of discrimination from those who want to tell Mrs. Jones who she has to bake a wedding cake for.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  225. Which leads to the obvious question: are we pleased enough with the results, with the integration of society that we, in hindsight, approve of the public accommodations and civil rights laws? Did the end justify the means?

    Pleased enough? Yes. At least that it isn’t what it was. I am just old enough to remember segregation, which I experienced in Pasadena, California circa 1960.

    I’d wish it were better. It was better in the past (the 90’s, say), until the Democrats decided that blacks were thinking too independently and so they ramped up their US vs THEM rhetoric. The current administration has set the movement back a generation.

    I am proud that America was willing to elect a black as president. I am aghast that it had to be the woefully inadequate and manifestly terrible Barack Obama.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  226. But if the cake maker himself refuses because the purchaser is gay, or too short, or wears stupid looking shirts, or whatever? Cake purchaser is SOL.

    You’ve been at the Libertarian books again, I see.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  227. Doc @228, really it’s about if somebody gets to tell people what can and can not be in scripture, and then ultimately if Christ can still be God.

    It isn’t about gays. Or rather, it isn’t about homosexual activity, as the Church doesn’t turn away anyone. But it can’t condone sin. Yet.

    And that “yet” is that it’s ultimately about.

    Right now if you want to come to God, you have to come to God on His terms. That’s what the battle is over. The terms. Do people get to dictate that those terms aren’t “inclusive” enough? If people get to dictate the terms, as in “This is how I am, and this Church must accept me this way” then people are now god and Christ no longer is.

    A lot of liberal denominations have already gone that way. Which is why that Episcopal priest didn’t see a conflict between being a Muslim and and remaining a priest. Both Islam and Episcopalianism have Christ mentioned in their texts, but Christ is not God in Either of them.

    They didn’t need SSM to do that, they did it to themselves.

    It’s not far fetched. Obamacare exposed the fact that the government has taken on the power to say what is and what isn’t a religious organization. According to their definition only organizations that serve their own members are religious. Which is why the Little Sisters of the Poor had to buy contraceptives and abortifacients for its Nuns. They serve God by visiting and caring for the elderly in their own homes no matter who or what they are.

    Which is a pretty shocking change. It used to be the RCC that decided what a Catholic religious order was. Not any more. It’s the Ayatollah Obama, the the Little Sisters of the Poor didn’t make the cut.

    If he can decide that, he can decide the rest. And don’t think he won’t.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  228. Is your place of employment all white?

    Our neighborhoods have tended to remain mostly segregated, because those are the living patterns that people have chosen, but if you go into a restaurant, it’s reasonably probable that there will be patrons of another race therein. Most of us work or have worked in jobs with a racially integrated staff. Most of us went to integrated schools. No one is surprised on a bus or subway or airplane when some of the other passengers are of a different race — and aren’t all required to sit in the back — but that is a clear change from not that long ago.

    We have what is essentially forced integration at the points at which the law can reach; in the places the law cannot reach, not so much.

    Are you saying you would not associate with blacks if the law did not force you to? Do you think most businessmen allow blacks in their businesses in the U.S. because they are forced to? Do airplanes sell tickets to blacks because they’re forced to?

    If your answer to these questions is “no,” then to say “[w]e have what is essentially forced integration” is just false.

    Now, the South at the end of legalized segregation was a different case. As noted by many above, there were laws that said business cannot serve members of a particular group. That was an oppression of the free association of the businessmen, and such laws deserved to be struck down.

    You can debate the extent to which using the coercion of the state to, say, force children to be bused across town to integrate schools has led to a happier state of racial affairs — and how things might be different in the South if Jim Crow laws had simply been struck down, rather than that action being accompanied by more aggressive laws that forced association where people did not choose it of their own accord. Perhaps the more aggressive laws helped racial harmony and perhaps they hurt it; I don’t think it’s possible to know at this point. (Just saying the change in laws was helpful and/or necessary does not answer the question, because striking down Jim Crow laws was a big part of the enforcement — and striking down those laws was clearly the right thing to do from the perspective of morality and principles of freedom.)

    But to say that in the country as a whole we have forced integration does not sound right to me. I don’t interact with black people because the law forces me to, but because the color of a person’s skin does not matter. Because they are people, regardless of race. It’s what I teach my children and it’s the moral law we should live by.

    Patterico (15be32)

  229. BTW, it bears repeating that the fact that the civil rights laws needed to be imposed as they were because

    1) There was a clear textual requirement to do so in the Constitution (14th Amendment), and
    2) the level of social and official injustice was extreme, to the extent that rights that most Americans came to expect did not exist for blacks, including the rights to life, liberty and property.

    Neither of those situations pertains to gays, nor really to any other group with the possible exception of American Indians Native Americans.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  230. For God’s sake, don’t leave home without it! http://t.co/D8XKDlVtVS

    Colonel Haiku (a7e08c)

  231. Indiana. It is their state and their representatives voted (mostly along strict party lines) to enact something that they believe their constituents want. I wish we could all be good with that. That’s how representative government works. I think state senators and representatives should vote the way they think their constituents want them to. I think they and their staffs should read the bill language carefully before they vote to be sure it’s exactly what they support, and that it won’t be able to be misinterpreted or have unintended consequences in a courtroom or elsewhere.

    Yes, the media and the gaystapo are unloading on Indiana. It’s an obvious coordinated oppo attack on a red state and it is drawing in many vocal outsiders from different directions. Please understand that in my posts this morning I am just explaining why “the mafia” is coming after Indiana and not Illinois. The laws currently in effect are not the same. The states are not the same. It is a false equivalency to pretend they are. There is way too much spin –and umbrage–all around if you ask me.

    elissa (45e520)

  232. It’s interesting that the WaPo huffed and puffed about the Indiana-Illinois RFRA comparison and only managed to make it to ONE Pinocchio, despite trying really hard.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2015/03/31/is-the-controversial-indiana-law-the-same-as-a-law-backed-by-obama/

    There are two differences, apparently: The Indiana law has adopted language allowing companies to have religious rights, as per Hobby Lobby, and added the possibility of defending against private action with a RFRA defense, as per the 2nd, 8th and 9th Circuits.

    These differences led the WaPo to assert that this wasn’t the same law that Obama supported, quite. Although, given the court decisions, it is the IDENTICAL law that Illinois now has.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  233. Patterico (15be32) — 3/31/2015 @ 10:05 am

    A point of mine, which you are NOT referring to in your comment, is that while I agree with you that nearly all, if not all, of my interaction with people who are not white is not my free choice, including living and working in areas where English speaking white are a minority,
    there exists the perception among many (both blacks and white libs) that the only reason all of us racist white folks got along with blacks is because we were forced to and the law told us to,
    and furthermore,
    if Obama and Holder did not still have the power by law to make white people not act racist,
    they/we would still be acting as racist as we/they “really are down in our/their hearts”.

    It would have taken longer, perhaps, had there not been forced integration and counting private businesses as public accommodations, but I think 50 years later things might be better off for everyone, including for the black community.

    MD in Philly (not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  234. The answer to state-sponsored anti-religious bigotry and discrimination is more state-sponsored anti-religious bigotry and discrimination, not less!!!!!!11ty!!!!!

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  235. Our honored host wrote:

    We have what is essentially forced integration at the points at which the law can reach; in the places the law cannot reach, not so much.

    Are you saying you would not associate with blacks if the law did not force you to? Do you think most businessmen allow blacks in their businesses in the U.S. because they are forced to? Do airplanes sell tickets to blacks because they’re forced to?

    If your answer to these questions is “no,” then to say “[w]e have what is essentially forced integration” is just false.

    The answer is that I cannot know: I grew up in a culture in which blacks and whites were segregated, as much by custom as by law, and if it had stayed that way, who can say what impact that would have had on my views right now.

    Now, the South at the end of legalized segregation was a different case. As noted by many above, there were laws that said business cannot serve members of a particular group. That was an oppression of the free association of the businessmen, and such laws deserved to be struck down.

    Would businessmen have changed their behavior if the Jim Crow laws had been struck down, but nothing else was done? That’s another cannot know answer, but my guess is that no, they wouldn’t have changed, because the customer base for white owned businesses was white, and it would have been risky for businessmen to change if they thought there was a chance that welcoming black customers would have cost them white ones. As the next generation, the ones who went to integrated schools, grew into adulthood and became businessmen themselves, change would have been more probable.

    But to say that in the country as a whole we have forced integration does not sound right to me. I don’t interact with black people because the law forces me to, but because the color of a person’s skin does not matter. Because they are people, regardless of race. It’s what I teach my children and it’s the moral law we should live by.

    And the part you cannot know is whether you would feel the way you do had the government not pushed integration in the fashion that it did; it got us used to integrated workplaces and the like.

    Remember what our workplaces were like in the 1950s: black doctors and lawyers and policemen and judges were rarities, and where they did exist, it was to serve the black community. Businesses could choose simply to not hire blacks, for whatever reasons they had, and many chose to do it just that way. In the South it was de jure, but the same situation existed in the North, simply by custom rather than enforced by law.

    We can still see it today: the seemingly one place that the government cannot compel integration is housing patterns, and, how ’bout that, housing patterns in this country show a lot more segregation than the workplace; the public schools are becoming more and more segregated because housing patterns are so segregated.

    West Virginia is the most integrated state across the board. The share of black students in majority-white schools is incredibly high — 92.6 percent. No black students attend schools where the minority population is above 90 percent and exposure of black students to white students is the highest in the nation. Iowa and Kentucky battle it out for the number two spot among the three measures. Kansas, Minnesota and Nebraska also rank among the most integrated states for blacks.

    Naturally, The Washington Post missed the obvious point: the states which show the most integrated public schools are states which have relatively low black populations and are less heavily urbanized. The most segregated schools are in the northeast, which has a much higher population density, a factor which enables residential segregation, and creates predominantly black schools. This is the blue state region, where all them liberals live . . . but apparently they still live apart from the Negroes.

    I saw that when I lived in New Castle County, Delaware between 2000 and 2002. Good, blue-state Delaware was the most segregated place I had ever seen. Wilmington was very heavily minority (non-Hispanic whites and Asians made up about 9% of the city’s population), but just six miles outside the city limits, in Hockessin, where I lived, if you saw a black person, you knew that he was working, because he sure didn’t live there. (Hockessin did have a substantial Asian population, and I lived next door to a Korean church.) The school districts were integrated by the simple fact that there wasn’t even one public high school in the city; all of the high school students were bused out to the suburban districts.

    In the meantime, New Castle County had a very large private and parochial school population.

    I’m running on and on, so I’ll quit now.

    The very verbose Dana (f6a568)

  236. From Kevin’s link @237:

    In particular, some advocates of gay rights fear that the language in the Indiana law was crafted because of a New Mexico case in which a Christian photographer was fined after refusing to photograph a same-sex wedding. …When Pence signed the law, the right-leaning group Advance America gave “three examples” of how the law would change Indiana:

    “Christian bakers, florists and photographers should not be punished for refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage!”

    “A Christian business should not be punished for refusing to allow a man to use the women’s restroom!”

    “A church should not be punished because they refuse to let the church be used for a homosexual wedding!”

    Quelle horreur! The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act may actually protect religious freedom.

    Flashback, 31 March 48 A.D.

    In particular, some allies of of the Imperial family fear that the language in the Senatorial law was crafted because of a Gallic case in which a Christian stonemason was lashed after refusing to tile a temple dedicated to the worship of Tiberius Caesar Augustus. …When the Senate signed the law, the Imperial family nuncio gave “three examples” of how the law would impede Emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus to compel Christians to worship him as a god…

    Steve57 (b69525)

  237. Presently, Indiana bans discrimination on the basis of religion. That a seller of photography supplies disagrees with a purpoted customer’s Catholic faith does not justify refusing to sell photography supplies. It would clearly be religious discrimination,. I find it unlikely that an RFRA defense would be successful.

    But what about a photographer who refuses to photograph a Catholic baptism due to theological differences, but has been shown to be willing to photograph a Catholic’s birthday party or graduation party or other secular events? One could argue that it really is not discrimination, because the photographer is simply refusing to film a religious ceremony.

    However some states like New Mexico have rejected this distinction.

    We agree that when a law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, that
    law similarly protects conduct that is inextricably tied to sexual orientation.

    Elane Photography v. Willock, N.M. sup. Ct. (2013)

    It is easy to rephrase this passage in Elane Photgraphy

    We agree that when a law prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, that
    law similarly protects conduct that is inextricably tied to religion

    Thus, it is clear that under New Mexico law, a photographer who disagrees with the Catholic faith may nevertheless be required to directly support a Catholic baptism or other Catholic rite.

    One issue regarding protecting conduct-based statuses is whether or not people should effectively be required to participate in the conduct associated with the status. Elane Photography means that in New Mexico, this is true, whether the conduct in question is a same-sex commitment ceremony or a baptism. This is one of the reasons there is support for the RFRA. Nobody is arguing for the right to deny paramedic services, or filet mignon tacoes, or airline tickets on the basis of religion or sexual orientation. But both religion and sexual orientation are associated with conduct, conduct that people may disagree with. an RFRA challenge will allow courts to make a distinction between refusing to provide goods and services because a particular person engaged in protected conduct in the past, and refusing to provide goods and services that directly support the conduct in question.

    * In New Mexico, a gay person who refuses to film a Catholic baptism on the basis of disagreement with the Catholic teaching on homosexuality would be violating the state’s religious discrimination law under Elane Photography. In Indiana though,a gay person sued for religious discrimination for this reason may likely win. thus, Indiana’s RFRA actually increases protections for gays.

    Michael Ejercito (d9a893)

  238. 243. * In New Mexico, a gay person who refuses to film a Catholic baptism on the basis of disagreement with the Catholic teaching on homosexuality would be violating the state’s religious discrimination law under Elane Photography. In Indiana though,a gay person sued for religious discrimination for this reason may likely win. thus, Indiana’s RFRA actually increases protections for gays.

    Michael Ejercito (d9a893) — 3/31/2015 @ 4:32 pm

    For the life of me I can’t understand why anybody would want someone who is opposed to the Catholic teaching on homosexuality (actually, it’s the Scriptural teachings on the subject, which many denominations no longer to adhere to although they still have crosses on their buildings) to photograph a Catholic ceremony.

    Although I have a suspicious mind. I can see respecting this person’s wishes, then the photographer turning around and suing me for discrimination claiming I didn’t hire the photographer because I’m a “homophobe.”

    From here on out if I’m involved in any sort of reception either as a contractor or as a purchaser every negotiation is going to be on video.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  239. In Indiana though,a gay person sued for religious discrimination for this reason may likely win. thus, Indiana’s RFRA actually increases protections for gays.

    That’s an interesting angle, although it’s likely 100% hypothetical and rather unrealistic, and therefore not going to happen, unless the defendant were a gay conservative and the plaintiff were a liberal heterosexual. IOW, the more realistic scenario is one where a self-righteous leftist gets all huffy and indignant because his or her favorite photographer (in this case, a homosexual rightwinger) has refused to do a job of taking pictures at a swingers party or a dinner to honor Al Sharpton.

    When the word “gay” or “GLBT” crops up, many people immediately think of sexuality, while I immediately think of liberalism gone berserk or two-faced leftism.

    (And, yea, there are some in the GLBT crowd — or black community, or Jewish community — who are of the right, perhaps even the non-squishy right. But a microscope is required to detect them.)

    Mark (9198e7)

  240. so are all these people , university types (UConn???) and gov’t entities also going to boycott Texas and Florida?

    Is Apple going to pull out of Saudi Arabia and Russia?

    I realize this is an echo chamber, but the absurdity still needs pointing out.
    it is also hypocritical – not okay for Indiana to boycott based on beliefs but fine for me to boycott Indiana based on my belief they are wrong.

    seeRpea (c1462d)

  241. Mr 57 wrote:

    For the life of me I can’t understand why anybody would want someone who is opposed to the Catholic teaching on homosexuality (actually, it’s the Scriptural teachings on the subject, which many denominations no longer to adhere to although they still have crosses on their buildings) to photograph a Catholic ceremony.

    Well, that’s just it: no one would, and a Catholic who requested such a service, and was told by the photographer that he would not do so, and for what reason, would simply find another photographer.

    But for the homosexual activists, this isn’t about tolerance of other people’s beliefs, but of using the power of the state to force those who disagree to comply. People must not just tolerate homosexuality, people must actively accept homosexuality as being just as good, just as wholesome, just as normal, as heterosexuality.

    If the homosexual activists had accepted tolerance, had just found other bakers and photographers and what not, the Indiana bill would never have even been considered.

    The very direct Dana (f6a568)

  242. even if Team R succeeds in winning their people a license for bigotry and prejudice

    the free market is still the final arbiter

    I don’t think they understand this

    happyfeet (831175)

  243. feets-
    This is probably a waste of time, but I will say it once.
    I don’t think you understand that there is a God in heaven who doesn’t care what you think,
    and people who believe in Him who think there are things more important than who wins an election.
    (Now, he actually does care about you, and what you think in terms of whether you believe things that are harmful to you or not, but it influences Him not a bit).

    Bigot in Philly (a sockpuppet not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  244. “Indiana hates me. Lord I can’t go back there.”

    – Ron Swanson

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  245. Team R’s priorities are just so out of whack with america Mr. Dr. I can’t even belieber it sometimes

    they just keep picking the silliest fights

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  246. Team R has little to do with it happyfeet, it’s the Christian with whom who have an argument. Unless there are no Christian democrats. But the dems have done an excellent job of making a religious freedom argument political, haven’t they? Notice that Christians and “team r” are groups who tolerate and respect homosexuals and both receive nothing in return but people like yourself calling them prejudiced and bigoted or being sued. Yet a religion who despises homosexuals, moslems, gets a free pass. They murder people just for being gay yet if a Christian baker (republican or democrat) does not want to bake a cake on religious grounds he becomes a pariah and the object of scorn and derision. And people like yourself, happyfeet, are all too eager to join the name calling bandwagon with the old prejudice and bigot comments. You’ve fallen for the bu55shit lie the democraps are telling: it has nothing to do with R’s save they seem to be the only party stepping up to unveil the great lie being foisted on the people. Neither republicns nor Christians “hate” homosexuals. However, no one has the right to force Christians to participate in what they believe to be a sin. If you can’t understand that then you need some help.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  247. he (God) has stated quite clearly, those who denied his existence, he has given them up, to their unnatural desires, Romans 1, and they will be judged, despite John 3:16, this is not a license to sin and disobedience,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  248. BTW, Team R’s priorities are:
    1. National security
    2. Reduced spending
    3. Stopping the flow of illegal immigrants.
    4. Protecting the unborn.
    5. Repealing the monster called Obamacare
    6. Jobs
    7. Tax reform
    8. Encouraging the growth of small business
    9. Reducing the size of government
    10. Reducing the influence of government unions.
    11. Energy production and independence.
    12. Reestablishing or relationship with or allies.

    And many, many more which I submit are totally in phase with America. The Great Lie about RFRA is perpetrated upon the weak minded by the democrat propaganda industry to the peril of the Republic.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  249. 253. (Repeated w/o a curse, sorry).Team R has little to do with it happyfeet, it’s the Christian with whom who have an argument. Unless there are no Christian democrats. But the dems have done an excellent job of making a religious freedom argument political, haven’t they? Notice that Christians and “team r” are groups who tolerate and respect homosexuals and both receive nothing in return but people like yourself calling them prejudiced and bigoted or being sued. Yet a religion who despises homosexuals, moslems, gets a free pass. They murder people just for being gay yet if a Christian baker (republican or democrat) does not want to bake a cake on religious grounds he becomes a pariah and the object of scorn and derision. And people like yourself, happyfeet, are all too eager to join the name calling bandwagon with the old prejudice and bigot comments. You’ve fallen for the bullstuff lie the democraps are telling: it has nothing to do with R’s save they seem to be the only party stepping up to unveil the great lie being foisted on the people. Neither republicns nor Christians “hate” homosexuals. However, no one has the right to force Christians to participate in what they believe to be a sin. If you can’t understand that then you need some help.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  250. feets
    people are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts as Moynihan famously said.

    If you mean it seems that a lot of team R’s priorities are maintaining the status quo, just R style and with R’s in charge I agree with you,
    but if you think it is the R’s that like to stir up controversy about things like religious rights,
    I think you are factually wrong.

    As said before by others, if people were content to use a baker or florist that was eager to be involved, instead of apparently going out of their way to find someone to pick a fight with, none of this would have happened. It sure hadn’t in the first 200 years of the country when their was more discrimination against gays, not just people wishing to be left alone to do their own thing, as it were.

    And these priorities are not out of whack with America. The majority of Americans do not want a baker or florist forced to be involved providing services for a wedding if they don’t want. The majority of Americans do not want youth of one biological gender allowed to use the bathroom and dressing room of the other gender against the wishes of the other youth and parents, and the majority of Americans do not favor the unanesthetized killing of unborn children of viable age.
    But the issues are never described that way, are they?
    Too much of the media, the elite, and the public at large are willing, even eager, to lie to get what they want instead of being honest and truthful,
    “and they love to have it so”

    Bigot in Philly (a sockpuppet not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  251. the majority of christians have no trouble – NO trouble – doing business with gay people it’s just a handful of hateful bigoty freaks end of story

    but no I do not belieber they should be forced to do anything by the government

    i DO belieber that everyone should know though that they are disgusting bigots so they can buy tasty love cakes made with Christian and/or agnostic and/or possibly not particularly religion-inspired love from nice people instead of patronizing ignorant bigot people

    c’mon people now smile on your brother everybody get together and try and love one another

    it doesn’t have to be a right now thing though

    but at the same time Team R shouldn’t dawdle

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  252. “As said before by others, if people were content to use a baker or florist that was eager to be involved, instead of apparently going out of their way to find someone to pick a fight with, none of this would have happened. It sure hadn’t in the first 200 years of the country when their was more discrimination against gays, not just people wishing to be left alone to do their own thing, as it were.”

    Bingo! Bad faith, no pun intended.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  253. I used to have a sign in my office that said: Never Be Reasonable When Dealing With Unreasonable People

    We are dealing with people who made a major campaign issue out of “binders of women”.

    “Shut up and get back in the closet!” is the only thing we should tell them, I think.

    nk (dbc370)

  254. the majority of christians have no trouble – NO trouble – doing business with gay people it’s just a handful of hateful bigoty freaks end of story

    You are framing the issue wrong, and unfairly.

    The issue isn’t whether a baker will do business with gay people, the issue is whether a baker will provide a cake for a gay wedding. There’s a difference between the two, and you are either deliberately ignoring that difference or else it is too subtle for you to understand.

    Chuck Bartowski (11fb31)

  255. or we could say hello would you like to buy a tasty cake

    this trend in particular is beautiful and fun and I think together as a people we should explore it

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  256. To put a finer point on it, the baker is saying, “Hey, if you want cupcakes or a birthday cake or doughnuts or breads, come on in. I’ll happily serve you. I might even throw in a few doughnut holes into the bag if I’m in a good mood. And if you want to get married, go right ahead. But please don’t force me to be a part of that.”

    I don’t find anything wrong or even hateful in the baker’s position.

    Chuck Bartowski (11fb31)

  257. i do not see a distinction there Mr. B to me it makes no difference a wedding cake is a wedding cake

    people who problematize wedding cakes are big stupidheads in my book

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  258. 259.the majority of christians have no trouble – NO trouble – doing business with gay people it’s just a handful of hateful bigoty freaks end of story

    But that’s just it happyfeet, it’s not the end of the story. You still insist on casting aspersions and calling Christians who believe aiding and abetting a person to sin is wrong, immoral and against the Word of God names like “ignorant bigot people” and “hateful bigotry freaks”. Name one who stated they “hate” anybody. They are neither ignorant nor bigoted, they are following what they believe to be the basis of their faith. Be happy they are not moslems with swords, stones or ropes. You would not be having this discussion. And gays wouldn’t be alive to sue, complain or call Christians names.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  259. And BTW, I’m getting tired of being called names by Christianophobes. If you don’t like Christianity don’t practice it but don’t call us names because we put the Word of God above that of Barney Frank.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  260. And does our hypothetical baker also refuse to participate in weddings where the parties are male and female, but at least one of them is a divorced person whose ex-spouse is still alive? The guy from Nazareth may have felt it unnecessary to comment on Greek vices, but he did speak up about that.

    But Mr Feets remember that it is the leftists who are problematizing wedding cakes.

    kishnevi (9c4b9c)

  261. it doesn’t set right with me, this idea that it’s ok to tell gay people to take their business elsewhere

    that is not what nice people do

    but no it shouldn’t be illegal

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  262. even if Team R succeeds in winning their people a license for bigotry and prejudice

    Happyfeet, you’ve often used the word “gay” negatively, and you’ve had no trouble slamming people in multi-partner relationships, otherwise known as polygamists, dismissing them as “trailer trash,” or something like that. Why?

    Moreover, if you’re attracted to other males, or would be — or have been — attracted to other males, would you be (or are you) hesitant to acknowledge that fact in this forum? If so, why?

    You’re a philosophical/ideological Sybil, and perhaps in other ways too.

    Mark (9198e7)

  263. i do not see a distinction there Mr. B to me it makes no difference a wedding cake is a wedding cake

    Okay, so you are too stupid to see the difference between serving a pastry to a customer and participating in a wedding. Since that’s where you want to argue from, there’s no need to persist.

    Chuck Bartowski (11fb31)

  264. Well, that’s just it: no one would, and a Catholic who requested such a service, and was told by the photographer that he would not do so, and for what reason, would simply find another photographer.

    But for the homosexual activists, this isn’t about tolerance of other people’s beliefs, but of using the power of the state to force those who disagree to comply. People must not just tolerate homosexuality, people must actively accept homosexuality as being just as good, just as wholesome, just as normal, as heterosexuality.

    If the homosexual activists had accepted tolerance, had just found other bakers and photographers and what not, the Indiana bill would never have even been considered.

    You got that right.

    Michael Ejercito (d9a893)

  265. You still insist on casting aspersions and calling Christians who believe aiding and abetting a person to sin is wrong,

    There’s a theory that people who are excessively, extremely, fanatically opposed to homosexuality and go overboard in excoriating gays (eg, jeering them in public, expressing hostility towards such people that’s peculiar in its own right) perhaps are homosexual themselves. By the same token, people who are excessively or extremely bothered by opposition to homosexuality and gays may be a variation of that same dynamic, meaning they’re gay or have such tendencies themselves.

    Mark (9198e7)

  266. I can’t keep up with who’s been going down
    It makes my stomach just keep churning ’round
    Out on the streets in streams
    In their designer jeans
    I just can’t stand the screams
    And the strangled cries
    Of _______ in love

    nk (dbc370)

  267. nk #260: and remember that Romney had MORE women working in his campaign than Fearless Leader.

    It’s not about fact, or consequence (look at Harry Reid admitting he lied about Romney). It’s all about narrative.

    Which we are seeing here and now.

    Again, I would MUCH more impressed if the Left made a big insulting case about how gays are treated by Muslims (maybe Apple should be concerned about selling iPhones in Saudi Arabia before being snotty about Indiana). But strangely, all that doesn’t fit narrative.

    I see a lot of people spraining their shoulders patting themselves on the back for being so evolved and cool and accepting…when they, um, need to look at their own actions first and foremost before insulting others.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  268. I don’t think that treatment is covered by Obamacare, if it wasn’t for doublestandards they would have none at all,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  269. 270.
    Actually there is no difference in the principle involved. It is only that wedding cakes are more public and overt. But the pastry eaten as a snack calorically contributes to whatever sinful acts the snacker commits. Including fornication, adultery, gossiping, drunkenness, theft, arrogance and lack if generosity, forcing the poor to pay a debt they can not afford to pay. And a number of other things the Bible says are seriously wrong (including aiding and abetting sin and not rebuking sin). A baker who would do it right ought to have a interview before selling anything to a customer, and regularly reviewing preapproved customers to make sure they haven’t fallen into sinful behavior. Like confessing to a priest but with something tasty to eat at the end.
    Anything less and the hypothetical baker is simply choosing which parts of Scripture are important to him/her, as opposed to how important they are to God.

    kishnevi (91d5c6)

  270. I have two posts in moderation, perhaps because they didn’t like my new name

    What Chuck and others said-

    I do not have it in front of me, but the front page AP story in the local small town paper right up front said that the whole problem is that some people are afraid that baker cannot be made to make that cake in Indiana
    and that would be the most immoral and unAmerican thing ever

    Stomp on that little baker, stomp on him…
    who brought up this “freedom of conscience” nonsense anyway?
    the only freedom of conscience you get is what their conscience allows you

    remember, “they” just wanted to be left alone

    because shut up

    so, kishnevi, do you think the baker should be made to do it?
    Do you think Daniel was stupid for praying with his window open, or stupid for not obeying the king and worshiping only him?

    big stupidhead hateful bigoty freak in Philly (a sockpuppet not in Philly at the moment)

    Bigot in Philly (a sockpuppet not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  271. They had things such as you describe, kishnevi. They were called private clubs, organizations and charities. But in the lefts version of “tolerance” they were found Constitutionally wanting just because they did pre-screen and eliminate those they chose to. You see, kishnevi, in the tolerant world of leftists resistance is futile. Everyone must not only conform, tolerate and accept but now we’ve come to the point where everyone must “celebrate”.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  272. BTW kishnevi, when you state : “Actually there is no difference in the principle involved” you are wrong. The difference between selling a gay a pastry and articipating in his wedding by baking him a cake is the difference between “tolerating” and “celebrating” his gayness.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  273. it’s more in the spirit than the letter, but ‘you will be assimilated’

    narciso (ee1f88)

  274. Philly who is not in Philly at the moment…the answer to your question is yes. Simply put, when you open your doors to the public, you open them to everyone and waive any right ti pick and choose among them, as long as they are acting lawfully and without impeding other customers.

    An aspect not relevant to these wedding cake cases but relevant to other cases like Hobby Lobby is that often the claim of freedom of religion is really a claim that the person making the claim should be able to force others to live by his/her religious beliefs even when they are not members of his/her religion. Rather like Moslems, but without killing people.

    kishnevi (9c4b9c)

  275. 279. Hoagie, there is no difference between tolerating and celebrating….

    kishnevi (9c4b9c)

  276. Wrong again kishnevi. Nowhere did Hobby Lobby declare, insinuate or promote the idea they should be able to “force others to live by his/her religious beliefs” under any circumstances. Quite the contrary, it was the gay lobby who wanted to force Hobby Lobby and Chick-Fil-A to conform to their desires. It was the gay lobby who wanted to deprive these two organizations of their rights by trying to force them to provide goods or services in direct conflict to their religious precepts. No one was forcing gays to work at Hobby Lobby nor eat at Chick-Fil-A. And no one was stopping them either.

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  277. 281. kishnevi (9c4b9c) — 4/1/2015 @ 8:25 am

    Simply put, when you open your doors to the public, you open them to everyone and waive any right to pick and choose among them, as long as they are acting lawfully and without impeding other customers.

    Do you really believe that not acting “lawfully” should be the only criteria that somebody should be allowed to refuse to sell somebody something??

    Don’t you think gun stores should be allowed to refuse to sell guns to people who may lawfully buy them, just because they don’t trust them fully?

    Congress prevented gun stores from being sued for selling too many guns that wound up being used illegally, but it didn’t force all gun stores to sell to all comers.

    Sammy Finkelman (033fec)

  278. ok, you need to explain that.

    narciso (ee1f88)

  279. It there were no difference between tolerating and celebrating there wouldn’t be two different words nor two different definitions, now would there?

    Hoagie (58a3ec)

  280. you don’t see the irony in your link, re the Cristeros,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  281. Hoagie, so Hobby Lobby picking and choosing what prescriptions it included among its insurance coverage, a selection made purely on religious grounds, is not forcing employees to adhere to its religious beliefs no matter what their own may be? In fact, it is, just like starting the day with mandatory prayers would be.

    The difference between tolerating and celebrating is merely one of degree. And when Scripture addresses the matter, as it does in numerous places, it condemns tolerating sin. Celebrating sin is merely a more extreme degree.

    kishnevi (9c4b9c)

  282. Narciso, the Cristeros is exactly why that saint is suitable to this thread, and why I picked him among various alternates such as Hugh of Grenoble and Cellach.

    kishnevi (91d5c6)

  283. Sammy, trust them fully means..what??? Not trust them to act lawfully with the gun falls under the exception I outlined.

    kishnevi (adea75)

  284. 291. well, that’s suspicion of possible future illegal use. I suppose you could add that, and also fear that someone might harm themselves with it because they don’t know how to use it, and not cover the weddings, but you have added something.

    What about someone who doesn’t want to sell a Jewish book because he suspects somebody wants to destroy it – which is legal to do?

    Sammy Finkelman (033fec)

  285. chik fil a has it where you can get grilled chicken sammiches instead of the regular kind and I keep saying I’m gonna do that but I never do

    no I never do

    that doesn’t mean I’m bigoted against the grilled chicken

    it just means i like the regular kind more better

    what would be cool is if you could get the grilled chicken on a breakfast biscuit but that would probably make it take longer

    and I’d probably still get the regular anyways

    cause of it tastes so good is why

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  286. This entire topic has yielded a perfect storm of legal ignorance and emo hysteria.

    JD (05993e)

  287. kishnevi wrote:

    Hoagie, so Hobby Lobby picking and choosing what prescriptions it included among its insurance coverage, a selection made purely on religious grounds, is not forcing employees to adhere to its religious beliefs no matter what their own may be? In fact, it is, just like starting the day with mandatory prayers would be.

    Ridiculous: it doesn’t mean that Hobby Lobby employees cannot have those prescriptions, but only that Hobby Lobby will not provide an insurance plan which covers them.

    The practical Dana (f6a568)

  288. Mark wrote:

    There’s a theory liberal meme designed to insult people who are excessively, extremely, fanatically opposed to homosexuality and go overboard in excoriating gays (eg, jeering them in public, expressing hostility towards such people that’s peculiar in its own right) perhaps are homosexual themselves.

    FTFY

    The always helpful Dana (f6a568)

  289. kishnevi wrote:

    And does our hypothetical baker also refuse to participate in weddings where the parties are male and female, but at least one of them is a divorced person whose ex-spouse is still alive? The guy from Nazareth may have felt it unnecessary to comment on Greek vices, but he did speak up about that.

    Said hypothetical baker would be less likely to know that one, or both, of the parties to the wedding was divorced, but if he did know, and did not want to participate, he’d say so, and decline. And the result of that would be that the marrying couple would find themselves another baker, instead of suing.

    The Catholic Dana (f6a568)

  290. Mr Bartowski wrote:

    The issue isn’t whether a baker will do business with gay people, the issue is whether a baker will provide a cake for a gay wedding. There’s a difference between the two, and you are either deliberately ignoring that difference or else it is too subtle for you to understand.

    Said hypothetical baker would have to know that the wedding cake he was being asked to provide was for a same-sex “wedding,” while just selling cupcakes to someone who walked into the shop doesn’t mean that he knows the customer is homosexual. Even if he does know — Army recruiters used to say that you don’t always have to ask to be able to tell — selling the cupcake is participating in feeding someone, which isn’t an objectionable act to anyone.

    The very Catholic Dana (f6a568)

  291. re Andy Garcia’s For the Glory, for the explanation,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  292. “Hoagie, so Hobby Lobby picking and choosing what prescriptions it included among its insurance coverage, a selection made purely on religious grounds, is not forcing employees to adhere to its religious beliefs no matter what their own may be? In fact, it is, just like starting the day with mandatory prayers would be.”

    kishnevi – I think you are missing an element above. Hobby Lobby does not coerce people into accepting jobs with their company and they are very up front with who they are and under which principles they operate. If you go to the “About” page of the company website you will find:

    We believe that it is by God’s grace and provision that Hobby Lobby has endured. God has been faithful in the past, and we trust Him for our future. We are committed to:

    Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company in a manner consistent with Biblical principles.

    Offering our customers exceptional selection and value.

    Serving our employees and their families by establishing a work environment and company policies that build character, strengthen individuals, and nurture families.

    Providing a return on the family’s investment, sharing the Lord’s blessings with our employees, and investing in our community.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  293. An aspect not relevant to these wedding cake cases but relevant to other cases like Hobby Lobby is that often the claim of freedom of religion is really a claim that the person making the claim should be able to force others to live by his/her religious beliefs even when they are not members of his/her religion.

    That’s just patently false. Hobby Lobby wasn’t forcing anyone to live by their religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby was, in essence, saying “You can do this if you want to, we’re not going to pay for it.”

    If you understand what liberty really means, you’d be all for Hobby Lobby.

    Chuck Bartowski (11fb31)

  294. “That’s just patently false. Hobby Lobby wasn’t forcing anyone to live by their religious beliefs. Hobby Lobby was, in essence, saying “You can do this if you want to, we’re not going to pay for it.””

    Chuck – Exactly. Hobby Lobby was in fact resisting the imposition of the religious beliefs or lack thereof on the way they operated their business. The coercion was flowing from the opposite direction the propagandists would have you believe.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  295. “Christian bakers, florists and photographers should not be punished for refusing to participate in a homosexual marriage!”

    Participate! It’s their right to refuse to participate in a heretical act, as they see it. Wee seem to be long past “not selling” here.

    “A Christian business should not be punished for refusing to allow a man to use the women’s restroom!”

    I would hope so. Let’s put it to a vote!

    And when some woman is raped in said bathroom by said man? I’m sure that the HRC will be johnny-on-the-spot with a defense fund for the business.

    “A church should not be punished because they refuse to let the church be used for a homosexual wedding!”

    If they are forced to do that, there is no religious freedom left. At all. WTF. You might as well say that if the Washington Post refuses to run pictures of aborted babies in ads, they should be punished for discriminating against the religious.

    Kevin M (25bbee)

  296. kishnevi-

    you did not answer about Daniel.

    A church is a public accommodation. Does a church need to allow a ss marriage?
    If no, is it because you say that an explicitly religious institution has the right to religious freedom that an individual does not?

    kishnevi, you are entitled to your opinion that if one has any interaction with the public then they must embrace whatever compromise in their convictions they are asked to do.
    But that is an opinion, and I do not think it is a principle that can be reasoned out. One person’s freedom stops where it interferes with another person’s. I can claim the freedom to get a free cheeseburger, but McDonald’s does not have to grant me my freedom at it’s own expense.

    If you are claiming that in jurisdictions where there is clear anti-discrimination law including sexual orientation that the society and the law of the land has already decided that all sexual expression is equal and homosexuality is as legitimate as hetero, no matter what a person thinks, because you may privately think all that you want, but you dare not let that opinion influence your behavior in any way,
    then
    I thank you by proving my point of years ago, that if society enshrined into law the idea that all sex is equal, then those who believed that heterosexuality and homosexuality are not the same would not be allowed to have that opinion in any public sphere.

    And they said it was just because they wanted to do what they wanted to do.

    Bigot in Philly (a sockpuppet not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  297. Pure Alinsky, demonize and marginalize.

    Bigot in Philly (a sockpuppet not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  298. Mr M wrote:

    “A church should not be punished because they refuse to let the church be used for a homosexual wedding!”

    If they are forced to do that, there is no religious freedom left. At all. WTF. You might as well say that if the Washington Post refuses to run pictures of aborted babies in ads, they should be punished for discriminating against the religious.

    This is the point that really concerns me. At some point, a homosexual couple claiming to be Catholic are gong to go to their parish priest and ask for a nuptial Mass. The priest, obedient to the tenets of the faith, will decline, doubtlessly as politely as he can. Said couple will then sue. And if you think that’s an impossible lawsuit, just imagine what the result would be if we replace the word “homosexual” with “inter-racial.”

    The concerned Catholic Dana (f6a568)

  299. 259. the majority of christians have no trouble – NO trouble – doing business with gay people it’s just a handful of hateful bigoty freaks end of story

    happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/1/2015 @ 6:49 am

    Mr. feets illustrates the problem. After you’ve explained several dozen times to the Gaystapo that the issue isn’t doing business; that no Christrian is refusing to do business, it’s participating in a marriage ceremony, then if they keep saying you want to kick gays out of your restaurant they are just lying.

    So Pence and the Gov. of Arkansas should just say you can’t make people who are going to lie about you happy. So don’t try.

    Feets and all the rest are going to keep making things up because it suits their politics. They are all Harry Reid, and end of the day they’ll laugh and say, “See, it worked.”

    So we shouldn’t be distracted. Which is what the progressive fascists are trying to do. They’re in charge, and everything is trying to fall apart. So since Harry Reid is spilling the beans in his farewell tour, use it.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  300. Gotta call em like I see em, feets. No businesses in Indiana are refusing to do business with teh gays now in Indiana. And they could, because they don’t have any laws saying discriminating against gays is illegal.

    And there’s a reason why Indiana doesn’t have any laws against discriminating against teh gays, boys and girls and they third kind where you are both.

    Because NOBODY IS DOING IT! And if nobody is doing something like discriminating against gays, you don’t need a law that says, “Stop being mean to teh gays.”

    So that’s not the problem. And people who say it is are making it up. Also known as lying.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  301. “So that’s not the problem. And people who say it is are making it up. Also known as lying.”

    Steve57 – Mr. Feets calls it being an insouciant staunch conservative, but it’s really just lying about the issues.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  302. 306. This is the point that really concerns me. At some point, a homosexual couple claiming to be Catholic are gong to go to their parish priest and ask for a nuptial Mass. The priest, obedient to the tenets of the faith, will decline, doubtlessly as politely as he can. Said couple will then sue. And if you think that’s an impossible lawsuit, just imagine what the result would be if we replace the word “homosexual” with “inter-racial.”
    The concerned Catholic Dana (f6a568) — 4/1/2015 @ 11:07 am

    And then the progressive fascists, true to the tenets of their faith, will scream at the top of their lungs until flecks of foam fly out of their mouths that the Catholic Church is discriminating against gays.

    This is how Fox reported a test case:

    http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/students-want-anti-gay-priest-removed-from-university.html

    “It’s discrimination against Catholics,” said Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society. “Secular colleges are fast becoming a very unsafe place for Catholics who hold true to their faith. This is a very, very sad situation.”

    Two gay students at George Washington told the GW Hatchet student newspaper that they want Father Greg Shaffer removed from campus over his anti-gay and anti-abortion views.

    Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen said they want the university’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion to investigate the priest and they are calling for the student government association to defund the Newman Center.

    They were particularly offended by a blog post the priest wrote calling gay relationships “unnatural and immoral,” the newspaper reported.

    “To have my faith leader view me that way, just because of one piece of the way that God made me , and to think that one part is responsible for the destruction of my human dignity, it just didn’t, I can’t even begin to describe the mental conflict that it creates,” Legacy told the newspaper.

    Of course the Father isn’t their faith leader, if they refuse to accept his instruction in what is in fact the faith. Lots of people don’t want to hear that becoming a Christian requires them to repent of all sorts of sin, and they don’t use the “this is how God made me” dodge.

    Only teh gays do that. Only gays go to church and say, “No, you change your Bible to suit me, or I’ll accuse you of victimizing me.”

    Which is what they’ll do when it comes to marriage. And I’m talking about only a very small portion of the “gay community” but they’ll be backed by all sorts of other God-hating progressive fascists. Using their typical operation.

    They’ll wage a vicious assault against the RCC, then claim to be the victim of the RCC.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  303. Dana, you are correct in your concern,
    but once they say that an individual has no right to religious freedom in how they live their “everyday life”,
    the battle is already over.

    Either one’s faith means something or it doesn’t, and if it does, then one can’t keep it to one or two hours in a week.

    Unless, of course, one’s faith goes along with what they say it should mean, like showing Jesus’ compassion for the poor by giving all of your money to the govt to make things better.

    Bigot in Philly (a sockpuppet not in Philly at the moment) (deca84)

  304. oh my goodness I can’t keep up

    first of all everything will be ok

    second of all i really wish Team R would find more better issues to obsess about

    i’m a make some tea for to enjoy while we move towards a consensus on this challenging topic

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  305. Mr. Feets – I have never been in a bakery in which a customer was asked his/her sexual orientation before being served. Have you?

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  306. “second of all i really wish Team R would find more better issues to obsess about”

    Mr. Feets – Yeah, I don’t think you’ve got the identity of the people obsessing correct. I can help u out ifn u want.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  307. never in my whole life have I ever been in such a bakery Mr. daley

    Indiana bakeries are special too cause of there’s some of em – not all of em, but no small few where you can find yourself some tasty kolaches god bless america

    happyfeet (a037ad)

  308. Two gay students at George Washington told the GW Hatchet student newspaper that they want Father Greg Shaffer removed from campus over his anti-gay and anti-abortion views.

    Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen said they want the university’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion to investigate the priest and they are calling for the student government association to defund the Newman Center.

    On point of principle, religious organizations should not accept funding from secular colleges unless the school has a written policy stating that they will not interfere in any operations of the organization. In turn, religious students should perform any community service through the auspices of the religious organization, not through the university. And alumni with religious leanings should strongly consider prioritizing their donations to the campus religious organization rather than to the university.

    ——

    This is the point that really concerns me. At some point, a homosexual couple claiming to be Catholic are gong to go to their parish priest and ask for a nuptial Mass. The priest, obedient to the tenets of the faith, will decline, doubtlessly as politely as he can. Said couple will then sue.

    I’ve said this before on other threads: I think the more likely scenario is that there will be a big push to revoke the tax-exempt status for any church which does not accept women clergy or bless gay marriages. Ironically, the left’s extreme deference to Islamic sensibilities is probably the only thing that is keeping this obnoxious idea at bay for the time being.

    JVW (a1146f)

  309. If anybody is expecting any sort of honesty from the progressive fascists, think about how they report the news from Israel.

    The Palestinians can fire hundreds of rockets into Israel, they can bomb a Jerusalem bus, they can attack a school bus with a rocket propelled grenade, or they can kill a few soldiers patrolling the border so they can kidnap one and demand thousands of terrorists be released, and what’s the headline?

    “Will Israel Break The Ceasefire?”

    The Muslims, like the progressive fascists, are always the victims. Particularly when somebody responds to their aggression by defending themselves. If you read the Quran and the Ahadith it’s amazing how the Muslims always portray themselves as defending themselves against unjust aggression because Allah assures them that “fitna” is worse than killing.

    What is fitna? Discord, dissent, unbelief; a Pakistani Christian is committing fitna when he, if a Muslim asks why he’s a Christian, answers the question. Because that’s an expression of unbelief, possibly (usually) an insult to Islam and the prophet, and of course he must die.

    Because Muslims are the perpetual victims. And that Christian, even though he’s discriminated against in every way and is virtually a slave with no rights, is victimizing the entire Muslim community by saying publicly that Christ is the Son of God, He died on the Cross to redeem men’s sin, and was resurrected on the third day in fulfillment of the scriptures. And that can not be allowed.

    Hence the sharia blasphemy laws. Which the progressive fascists want to impose. Or else the Christians are victimizing them.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  310. 316. …Ironically, the left’s extreme deference to Islamic sensibilities is probably the only thing that is keeping this obnoxious idea at bay for the time being.

    JVW (a1146f) — 4/1/2015 @ 11:57 am

    Ironically, there is nothing ironic about the progressive fascists’ extreme deference to Islam. Their world view and their strategy and tactics are almost identical.

    One believes in an afterlife. That’s it.

    And if you think that only one believes in a supreme being, please. Wake up.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  311. Steve57, the irony is that the deference to Islamism is the only thing that keeps the left from bringing the hammer down on religions that aren’t all-aboard with female clergy and gay weddings. Of course, Islamists* here in America don’t participate in civic life to the same degree as other religions (where are the Islamic universities or hospitals, for instance?), so they aren’t as overtly affected by the secularists’ newfound obsessions.

    * In case anyone is wondering, I use the term “Islamist” here to mean those to believe in and actively work towards the de facto supremacy of Islam, as opposed to a live-and-let-live Muslim.

    JVW (a1146f)

  312. Mr 57 wrote:

    Only teh gays do that. Only gays go to church and say, “No, you change your Bible to suit me, or I’ll accuse you of victimizing me.”

    Regrettably, it’s not just the homosexuals who do this. See: divorced Catholics.

    The very concerned Catholic Dana (f6a568)

  313. JVW, I’m sure there’s a way around your concern. In Britain one of the main complaints (among actual Britons) is that Muslims are above the law. There’s always a way under Orwellian terms such as “community cohesion” (nothing is more divisive than “community cohesion”) to hand out exemptions.

    As far as the distinction between Islamist and Muslim, often it’s true. But on the other hand, often there is no such distinction.

    http://quran.com/2/106

    Surat Al-Baqarah 2:106

    We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?

    Abrogate (verb): repeal or do away with (a law, right, or formal agreement)

    Muslims will often tell you there is not doctrine of abrogation. They are either practicing Taqiyah (one of the forms of deception permitted and often required in Islam), or they are victims of it. Most fall into the latter category. Most don’t know what their religion requires, and in fact unless (in a Western country) they can be relied upon to fall into the first category they are discouraged to find out.

    The rationale behind the doctrine of abrogation is that Islam can and should only be revealed in stages both to Muslims and non-Muslims. As regards the Muslims, it depends upon their ability to absorb the lesson. We find that in the Quran. In the early stages Islam (Mecca) the Quran didn’t require people to abstain from alcohol or else the none of the wine-drinking Meccan pagans would have converted. They only had to show up at Mosque sober enough to pray.

    http://quran.com/4/43

    Surat An-Nisā’ 4:43

    O you who have believed, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying or in a state of janabah, except those passing through [a place of prayer], until you have washed [your whole body]. And if you are ill or on a journey or one of you comes from the place of relieving himself or you have contacted women and find no water, then seek clean earth and wipe over your faces and your hands [with it]. Indeed, Allah is ever Pardoning and Forgiving.

    It was only later that the Quran forbade alcohol (and gambling in the same verse) altogether.

    http://quran.com/2/219

    Surat Al-Baqarah 2:219

    They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, “In them is great sin and [yet, some] benefit for people. But their sin is greater than their benefit.” And they ask you what they should spend. Say, “The excess [beyond needs].” Thus Allah makes clear to you the verses [of revelation] that you might give thought.

    The Quran itself provides the key to its own interpretation; later verses abrogate earlier verses. This is reinforced by other authoritative texts such as the Ahadith, the Tafsir, and classics such as “Reliance of the Traveler; Milestones Along the Road” (the Al Azhar University-approved is available at Amazon).

    Yet even though its in the Quran, most Muslims don’t know it exists. So they will in all honesty tell you that, just like the the doctrine of Taqiyah, the there is no such thing as abrogation in Islam. And the ones who know better will lie to your face and say the same thing.

    When Hasan al Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, issued his 50 point manifesto (either in 1927 or 1936) he looked around at Egypt which had been corrupted by colonialism he asked himself how best to proceed. And the answer was the same way Muhammad did with the early Meccan ummah. Bring it along slowly. At first place restrictions on something. Then more. Finally ban it. Westernized Muslims had to be conditioned “to respect public morality, and the issuance of directives fortified by the aegis of the law on this subject; the imposition of severe penalties for moral offences.”

    When it comes to revealing the true nature of Islam to non-Muslims it’s a question of power. Jihad, like the religious education of Muslims, proceeds in stages. If Muslims don’t have any power then Islam is all about live-and-let-live (you shall have your religion and I shall have mine). Of course they’ll claim to be victims of the larger society to gain sympathetic allies since that is a way to increase their political power. When Muslims have enough power then they demand concessions (blasphemy laws, separate accommodations, etc) and fight “defensively.” And by defensively I don’t mean just against physical threats. Think Southpark and the Muhammad cartoons.

    When they have sufficient strength then they demand to rule and subjagate all non-believers (Christians and Jews; note Yazidis must convert or die) as second class citizens.

    Live-and-let-live Muslims will be corrected at a later stage until they are “Islamists,” if they live through the experience. If we’d only open our ears people even Obama trusts are shouting at the top of their lungs exactly what I’m saying.

    I’m speaking of the Iranian Mullahs. One of the legacies of the Ayatollah Khomeini is that there is no moderate Islam. Only Islam.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  314. Dana @320, I didn’t realize they had a political movement.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  315. Can you point me to this political movement? Is it allied with the fornicators, the drunkards, and the swindlers? Is the NCAA and Apple supporting them?

    Steve57 (b69525)

  316. Kidding, Dana.

    It’s just I don’t know of any divorced Catholics who are demanding that the Church abandon it’s position on divorce. It’s just that even though they accept what they did is a sin and they regret it there’s no way for them to ever reconcile and be in communion with the RCC again.

    There’s a difference in nature between that and demanding that a particular sin be wiped from the scriptures so it can be celebrated.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  317. As far as I know I don’t know of any Catholics demanding that the Church bless the ongoing sin of adultery. I just wanted to make that clear.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  318. Congratulations Mr. Feets. The death threats did the trick.

    http://weaselzippers.us/219271-liberal-media-falsely-claiming-in-pizzeria-will-deny-service-to-lgbt-people/

    This is what they said:

    “the O’Connor family said that if a gay couple or a couple belonging to another religion came in to the restaurant to eat, they would never deny them service.”

    Naturally the happyfeet media said they were hateful bigots who said the opposite.

    the majority of christians have no trouble – NO trouble – doing business with gay people it’s just a handful of hateful bigoty freaks end of story

    Naturally the LHMFM lied and said these people were bigots who needed to be “named and shamed” because they won’t even let gays into their restaurant, such hate mongers are they (from the link).

    Backlash is swift and furious after Indiana pizza restaurant owner brags about ‘no gays’ policy

    Indiana Pizzeria Owner’s Say They’d Deny LGBT People Service – And Yelp Commenters Weren’t Having It

    Indiana Pizzeria Says It Will Deny Service To LGBT People

    Why? Because when asked they said they wouldn’t cater a gay wedding, though.

    Now because of the death threats from the forces of peace and tolerance they may never reopen.

    http://hotair.com/archives/2015/04/01/crisis-in-indiana-random-small-town-pizzeria-says-it-wont-cater-gay-weddings/

    Aren’t you feeling the inclusion and tolerance? I’m feeling the inclusion and tolerance.

    You must be proud, happyfeet. Your tactic worked.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  319. Oops. From the link to HotAir:

    Just got off the phone with #MemoriesPizza; they’re considering never opening again. Receiving a lot of death threats.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  320. oh poor monkeys

    happyfeet (831175)

  321. See, I knew you’d be happy.

    Steve57 (b69525)

  322. Yeah, I’m with happyfeet on this one. Indiana is a “shall issue” concealed carry, stand your ground state. The response to death threats is “Bring it on, pervs”.

    nk (dbc370)

  323. i’m happy they have their little jesus law for so they’re protected from the consequences of their behaviour

    this coulda been bad, back before the law

    happyfeet (831175)

  324. People are getting very tired – happyfeet – of being hounded and shouted down for holding religious beliefs. Especially when the issue in play in no way, shape, or form resembles how it’s being characterized by the hypocritical hyenas of the intolerant Left.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  325. Colonel, I can promise you that most of the noise in the media on this comes from folks who have never, um, bothered to read or look into anything themselves.

    Cultural sheep, trying to be all cool and hip and with it. It’s much more about how they feel about themselves, taking such positions, than the facts—or God help us, the outcomes down the road.

    But still bleating sheep.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  326. I have a new post on the pizza place story.

    Patterico (15be32)

  327. well maybe Team R’s next brilliant idea will be a gamechanger for these poor beleaguered lil pickleheads Mr. Colonel

    they just have to keep doing the strategical thinkings

    happyfeet (831175)

  328. Yep, Simon, the “media”… seekers of “the truth”… carriers of the disea… er, flame…

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  329. There’s a difference in nature between that and demanding that a particular sin be wiped from the scriptures so it can be celebrated.

    Have anyone noticed that it is only the buggerist fundamentalists who do this?

    I mean, do you see people demanding that Islam change its teachings to condone drinking alcohol?

    Michael Ejercito (d9a893)


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