Friday, April 3, 2015

Religious Freedom

Watching Twitter, you'd think it was a hard concept to grasp.  It's not.  Recent news is discussing the mob attack on a small town Pizza shop - Memories Pizza in Indiana.   All this as a result of Indiana signing into law a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that is almost identical to the Federal version that got virtually unanimous support in congress and Bill Clinton signed into law.

How they Differ.

There seems to be some concern with religious rights as concerns Corporations - something what would have been shaken out in the courts.   But we don't use courts anymore except to exert force.

Photographer forced to work a Religious Ceremony 

Wedding Cake Maker forced to participate in Gay Religious Ceremony

Florist losing business for refusing to take part in Religious Ceremony

In every case the courts ruled that an business has no right to refuse services based on religion - we call that religious freedom. In every case it was the LGBT gang behind the suits.  It seems they wont be happy until all religious folks are put in their place.  Considering the findings of PEW Research's recent report - that's a lot of people.


In each of these cases the plaintiffs had other options - the suits were brought simply to FORCE individuals to take action against their Religious beliefs. In the case of at least the florist, they had been doing regular business with the person who sued them.  Obviously not discrimination based on sexual preferences. Now we have Memories Pizza - attacked for offering an opinion - not an action, but an OPINION. This is the new left - Total Conformity you are only entitled to their opinion - no matter how hypocritical, logically inconsistent and bigoted that opinion might be. Welcome to the Totalitarian State.

The religious freedom issue arose when these people were asked to take part in a Religious Ceremony that they felt went against their own religious beliefs. On the face of it - these courts are WRONG.  Yes I know - anti-discrimination - yippie! What we're talking about is FORCED association. Which is wrong, period. Too bad we lost that battle, and I'm not going to fight it - discrimination by race was never a good idea no matter that it happens in every race on every settled continent. Heck it happens between tribes and gangs of the same race. It's not going away anytime soon.  So making it illegal to discriminate by race was faster than letting the free market deal with it.   Can you imagine how long a business who put up a sign "no Blacks" would survive today (assuming it was actually legal and wasn't burned to the ground).  I wouldn't shop there - I imagine some would because "it's not my problem" but that's the free market in operation.  My bet: it would be out of business inside of 6 months.  That's today, - if it were 1970? Yeah not so much - so let's not go there.   What about discrimination by sexual preference - another stupid idea, but if your religion says "NO" then what are you going to do? Yes, the Muslim religion says "NO".   Some people seem to think the Bible says the same thing, I'm not convinced - then, I'm hardly and expert. I think the Church has the right to decide on the Marriage issue, and possibly on the "gay" thing as well - although that's a more tenuous position in my mind.

What does this mean?  It means the court has elected to use state enforced slavery to control dissidents .  Yes slavery, these individuals are being forced to work, against their will in complete disregard for the 1st amendment rights. Their freedom of association has been eliminated, their freedom of religion has been infringed. They face ruin or forced labor. And don't try to cover it up by saying they got paid.  Black slaves in the south got paid to - it just came by way of food.  And I don't buy the - but you can't sell them - argument either.  They are for all intents and purposes owned by the state.  Since private ownership is outlawed, the state has no choice but to keep them, but they can still force them to associate against their will - or face financial ruin. Yes the black slaves had it MUCH worse - no argument - but that doesn't make it okay.

Now, until this crap started - specifically the photographer getting sued - I was fine with gay marriage.   But now?  I'm not sure the gay community or the leftest media has shows enough maturity to even consider the idea of marriage. 

Then again, I think the government should just get the hell out of the marriage loop altogether - no licenses, no benefits, no tax breaks - nothing. At that point all you'd need to get married is sanction by your religious association - if that happens to be the two of you making vows - great, done. Maybe it's permission from the elders, perhaps it means counseling with a minister and a ceremony and a certificate - fine.  It then clearly becomes a Religious Freedom issue - and hence nobody's business. 

Literally no one stopped them from going to another shop for their services - they simply chose to use the media and the courts to beat these people into submission on principle and with out regard to their 1st amendment rights. So are the leftist consistent on this issue? Apparently not.  Louder with Crowder tested it out on Muslims - some were okay with it, a number sent him off to another bakery. Did the Media blow up over this - no, they took no notice of it at all. Feigned outrage, targeting one particular group.

The idiocy of these rulings makes my head spin.  Yes these are people doing business with the public, and discrimination in a public "place" of business is bad - and now, illegal; but we're not talking about that, we're talking about special occasion Religious Events.  If it's not a Religious event, then it's not a marriage.  Problem solved.