Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Apples And Oranges

Monday, March 30, 2015

Apples And Oranges

That is what the press is doing when they say that nineteen other states have religious freedom laws. Yes nineteen states do have religious freedom laws but they are very different from Indiana’s law. There is a good article analyzing the laws on the website IN Advance,

The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act – An Analysis of Its Controversy

Does IRFRA resemble its federal counterpart?
The short answer here is no.
[…]
What is clear is that Indiana has not copied the federal legislation or those passed by other states, but has instead added more expansive language as seen below. The IRFRA adds several clauses which rightly give pause to the endless possibilities of using religion and religious freedom as a sword and a shield.
He goes on to write,
What makes this law new and different is its application to disputes between private citizens. That is not to say that such laws could not be used in private matters (in fact, Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas all have similar prvisions [sic]). Indiana’s version of the law, though, goes the extra mile to ensure the matter could remain between private individuals. It is the only one I have seen where the State can explicitly intervene at its discretion.

This is the biggie; this is what makes it so different from all the other states and the federal law. Listen to what he says in the ABC video…

World News Videos | US News Videos

An ABC News article points out that,

A federal version of the religious freedom law was enacted in 1993 but dozens of states have passed their own versions since then, including one passed unanimously in Illinois when President Barack Obama was a state senator. Illinois added specific protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation several years after passing its version of the law.

I also fault the news organizations for not challenging the fact about the other state laws and the federal being the same as Indiana’s law. The press blindly parrots the statements of the governor’s office when they say the laws are the same.

# # #

News Flash...

Connecticut To Become First State To Boycott Indiana Over LGBT Discrimination Law
Huffington Post
By Jennifer Bendery
Posted: 03/30/2015

WASHINGTON -- Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy (D) will sign an executive order on Monday barring state-funded travel to Indiana because of the state's new law that could allow businesses to turn away gay and lesbian customers for religious reasons
[…]
Malloy's move would make Connecticut the first state to boycott Indiana over its Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Gov. Mike Pence (R) quietly signed into law last week. The law allows businesses in the state to cite religious beliefs as a legal defense. Opponents fear it offers legal protection for businesses to refuse service to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

GO Connecticut!!!!

No comments:

Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Monday, March 30, 2015

Apples And Oranges

No comments:

Post a Comment