Wow.
Take a look at these Drudge headlines:
AZ WARNED: YOU’LL LOSE SUPER BOWL…
Pressure mounts over bill opposed by gays…
UPDATE: ‘Religious Freedom Restoration Act’…
I’ve read the law in question, and it says nothing about gays, lesbians, or homosexuality. I think it’s a ridiculous law, but I don’t understand what is anti-gay about it — any more than it is anti-anything else that might offend someone’s notion of What God Says.
Sure, it would allow people to invoke their “religious beliefs” to fight government actions of which they disapprove, and it might very well cause chaos.
But why is it being spun as anti-gay? It might just as easily be invoked against government infringement of religious beliefs by a wife-beating Muslim who claimed the Koran sanctioned the practice. Or by a spouse claiming he or she had a right to oppose divorce for religious reasons. Or any number of things. Like the prohibition on money lending. Or eating pork. Laws sanction, allow, permit, and otherwise regulate all sorts of things that are condemned in the various holy books. And so what?
There is a fine line between government and freedom. Religious freedom means the right to practice one’s religion free from state interference (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”). But does “free exercise” convey a right to worship freely, or does it convey a right to do anything an individual might think God wants him to do?
It’s worth thinking about, because some people think that the free exercise of their religion translates into the right to kill people they think their “god” wants them to kill, whether it involves Aztec ritual sacrifice, or suicide bombings…
Comments
10 responses to “A stupid law, but is why is it being framed as “anti-gay”?”
What a mischievous, tongue-in-cheek argument. You will burn in hell for this Eric.
You left out Rastas.
Let me enlighten your ignorance phoenix and tucson have laws protecting gays from discrimination. 1062 would make these laws void only gays are not protected from discrimination other groups ARE! sex race religion ect. are protected only gays are not! If a gay under this 1062 says I don’t want to serve a christian he can be sued as christians are protected under other laws but if christian says because your gay I don’t have to serve you would be legal. Hunger strikers were arrested in phoenix last night to prevent maryters.
This is just the Republicans doing what they do best, doing battleground preparation for the next election in 2500 BCE.
But why is it being spun as anti-gay?
Haven’t you read 1984?
It’s just the typical 2-minutes-hate for lefties with AZ standing in for Emmanuel Goldstein.
Watching our fine media betters spend most of their time attacking The Other, like the hateful, racist Tea Party that’s only interested in ensmallening gov’t and Libertarians who want to take over so they can leave us alone, ticks me off.
They’re working hard at creating that “climate of hate” they always blame on the evil conservatives.
@Veeshir
The law is being spun as anti-gay because that was the political impetus behind the law, to make it legal for Christians (primarily) to deny services to homosexuals for religious reasons.
This is another example of an unforced error by Republican lawmakers. The country, by and large, is socially liberal and growing more so all the time. I understand you don’t like hearing this, but social conservatives are swimming upstream against a rising tide of social liberalism. The problem facing social conservatives isn’t the media (although it is certainly socially liberal), rather it’s facing the cold, hard facts that the social conservatives have either lost or are losing the debate on the issues that are dear to them.
After 35+ years of browbeating the American public to enact their agenda, social conservatives are no closer to enacting their policies than they were in 1979.
Let’s take inventory:
1. There’s been virtually no change in the public’s acceptance of abortion rights over the last several decades. Conservatives have tried to use the judiciary to overturn Roe v. Wade to no avail. And even if RvW is overturned, it wouldn’t outlaw abortion but rather it would return the issue to the purview of the states. And many states already have quite liberal abortion laws. Conservatives won’t try to amend the constitution to overturn RvW because they know they will fail.
2. After some initial wins concerning gay marriage, recent polling shows the public is starting to accept the notion. This issue is quickly trending negatively for the social conservatives.
3. The public’s attitude towards the drug war is shifting as well. The wind is blowing away from the social conservatives on this issue as more people have come to see the damage done to people and society due to the drug war as more problematic than drug usage itself.
4. The efforts of religious conservatives to corrupt the teaching of biology in public schools by including ancient tribal creation myths in science classes make conservatives a laughing stock among the educated in this country.
I’ve posted this before in the comments and here it is again. You can only advance the agenda as far as political moderates will let you. Both parties need moderate voters to win national elections as well as many statewide elections. Republicans need to campaign on issues that political moderates and conservatives agree on. And at this point in time, those issues don’t include the social conservative agenda, which many in the more socially liberal middle see as intolerant. To continue to push the social conservative agenda may play well in certain states and districts, but it looks to me to be political suicide for the Republican Party in the long run.
Have you ever asked yourself why social conservatism doesn’t dominate in a country that is 80% Christian? Could it be that a sizable number of Christians believe that a person’s religious beliefs shouldn’t be enshrined in law as that defeats the purpose of choosing the narrower path freely? This is precisely the message that I think social conservatives have been ignoring for decades now, much to the detriment of the Republican Party.
The Republican brand is damaged and it’s the social conservative agenda that, IMO, is the culprit. After nearly 4 decades of trying to take the electorate in a direction it doesn’t want to go, it’s created too much baggage for Republican candidates who run for office in socially liberal states and nationwide. Republican candidates might as well put a “Kick Me” sign on their backs by continuing to tout the social conservative issues.
I don’t post these things just because I disagree with the social conservative agenda. I post these things because I think the Left needs to be defeated due to the problems an ever expanding government creates for the citizenry at large. The Republicans need to pivot from the social issues onto other things in order to form a long term winning coalition necessary to fix what is wrong with our government.
That’s my buck-o-five anyway.
Cheers.
I support arizona’s hunger strikers for freedom liberty and justice who have been arrested for hunger striking on a public side walk that the city says doesn’t belong to the public but to them!
Randy, I don’t disagree, but being in the Valley of the Sun, I’ve been watching the reaction.
It’s 2 minutes hate all the way.
he Republicans need to pivot from the social issues onto other things in order to form a long term winning coalition necessary to fix what is wrong with our government.
I absolutely agree with that, however… Whenever the GOP does get power they immediately pivot to social conservatism.
Remember Bush and Harriet Miers?
Sure she was absolutely unqualified, but the GOP apparently thought that since she would vote correctly on abortion we would all applaud.
So tell me, if I own a restaurant in AZ and any of the following customers appear, must I serve them:
1) Four gentlemen dressed in brown shirts with red, black, and white armbands depicting some cross-like pattern
2) Four gentlemen dressed in white sheets.
3) Any of the above dressed normally, but carrying on conversations in which they espouse hatred for gays, blacks, Jews, women, or Presbyterians.
If I have a bakery and someone wants a birthday cake containing obscenities, diagrams of sexual organs, or a depiction of the prophet Mohammed (PBUH) must I produce such a cake?
@WTP:
If I have a bakery and someone wants a birthday cake containing obscenities, diagrams of sexual organs, or a depiction of the prophet Mohammed (PBUH) must I produce such a cake?
Actually this wouldn’t be a problem in Vegas.