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he pathetic thing about Indiana Governor Mike Pence and his water carriers at the Weekly Standard and historically pro-segregationist rag National Review is that none of them will ever have the stones of someone like George Wallace and stand for the modern segregation of LGBT people and pledge never to get out-queered again. The optics are too bad and too unambiguous for their political ambitions to survive.But you only sign a law like Indiana’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act – which radically expands private businesses’ ability to discriminate against against LGBT citizens by preserving bigoted business ownersfrom private litigation – to preemptively pardon people who want to the ability to circumscribe or reject the civil rights of their fellow citizens. That’s it.Indiana governor will legislate to clarify 'anti-gay' religious lawRead moreThe real political mistake was the strength of the RFRA in the first place: rather than a mealy-mouthed statutory reminder of the constitutional right to religion without government interference to placate a loud minority, it boldly delineates the mechanisms of unaccountable discrimination on a citizen-by-citizen basis and dangerously reminds the rest of us of the control that Christian bigots have had over American society from day one until the present.So if you’re going to be a bigot, why be a coward about it? You’d have to ask Mike Pence. Despite over 80 guests at the signing, Pence’s office refused to disclose a list of the attendees and provided an uncaptioned picture instead. Then, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Pence refused to answer a simple yes/no question over whether the law permitted discrimination against LGBT citizens.Pence wasn’t alone in his efforts to distort his intent. Various outlets, from the Weekly Standard to the Washington Post, mischaracterized the new law as an anodyne 20th addition to the 19 other “religious freedom” laws going back to 1993. But the original (unnecessary) federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act sought to preserve religious groups from government intrusions on their faith. The original example given to justify its passage was to protect Native Americans’ rights to unemployment compensation after a failed drug test from taking peyote in a traditional religious ceremony. But Indiana’s new law goes far beyond official ceremony and citizens’ rights to government benefits.As Garrett Epps noted in the Atlantic, unlike the federal and most state RFRAs, this law “allows any for-profit business to assert a right to ‘the free exercise of religion’”, and to apply it to private interactions. The law states: A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or
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Topic: Mike Pence is too cowardly to defend his anti-gay law. He should be that ashamed (Read 640 times)
