So...
1. A gay couple walks into a baker to order a wedding cake, the law provides the baker can use religion as a means to refuse service.
2. Two weeks later the baker and his wife walk into a antique shop owned by the gay couple and the gay couple refuses to serve the baker because of the bakers religions beliefs.
In event #1 the baker will be exempt from Public Accommodation laws because he acted on his religious beliefs, on the other hand the gay couple would be charged under the Public Accommodation law (if sexual orientation is covered by that State's law) and the complaint would proceed. They of course being in violation of both State and Federal law.
Seems to me it the religious that are asking for the special treatment, i.e. Public Accommodation laws which are laws of general applicability that regulate commerce.
>>>>
Nah, its just a way for the left to deflect all the negative news looking to create an issue out of nothing. This was put out by USA, using a Pro Gay Rights Law Professor. He just helped the LGBT crowd and Its Advocates to see the light.
To further quell the left's hysteria over this law, here is a pro-gay rights law professor, Daniel O. Conkle, writing for USA Today on why Indiana needs RFRA. I am a supporter of gay rights, including same-sex marriage. But as an informed legal scholar, I also support the proposed Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). How can this be?
The bill would establish a general legal standard, the "compelling interest" test, for evaluating laws and governmental practices that impose substantial burdens on the exercise of religion. This same test already governs federal law under the federal RFRA, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. And some 30 states have adopted the same standard, either under state-law RFRAs or as a matter of state constitutional law. Applying this test, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that a Muslim prisoner was free to practice his faith by wearing a half-inch beard that posed no risk to prison security. Likewise, in a 2012 decision, a court ruled that the Pennsylvania RFRA protected the outreach ministry of a group of Philadelphia churches, ruling that the city could not bar them from feeding homeless individuals in the city parks.
If the Indiana RFRA is adopted, this same general approach will govern religious freedom claims of all sorts, thus protecting religious believers of all faiths by granting them precisely the same consideration. But granting religious believers legal consideration does not mean that their religious objections will always be upheld.
In any event, most religious freedom claims have nothing to do with same-sex marriage or discrimination. The proposed Indiana RFRA would provide valuable guidance to Indiana courts, directing them to balance religious freedom against competing interests under the same legal standard that applies throughout most of the land. It is anything but a "license to discriminate," and it should not be mischaracterized or dismissed on that basis......snip~
Oh Dear: The Liberal Hysteria Over Indiana
Last edited by MMC; 03-30-15 at 09:27 AM.
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. ~W.C. Fields
The inconvenient thing is bill proponents in Indiana include some very vocal critics of homosexuals and SSM, and they were telling their supporters the goal was to provide them a tool to "protect" them from supporters of SSM. Now you're telling me we should assume they were lying. I don't think they were - they're smart people, well funded, well organized, and they have enough influence to be among those invited to the signing of the Indiana law, and in that central circle, close enough to reach out and touch Pence in the picture.
It's difficult to argue that it's not about discriminating against gays when the people who wrote it are some of th most vocal anti-gay bigots the state.
also when amendments to clarify that by issue were struck down by the lawmakers. If it's not about discriminating, why did they block anti-discrimination language from the bill?