Last night, Mike Pence signed the updated “Religious Freedom” bill into law in Indiana. Here’s the text of the salient change:
SECTION 1.IC34-13-9-0.7IS ADDED TO THE INDIANA CODE AS A NEW SECTION TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2015]: Sec. 0.7.
This chapter does not:
(1) authorize a provider to refuse to offer or provide services, facilities, use of public accommodations, goods, employment, or housing to any member or members of the general public on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or United States military service;
(2) establish a defense to a civil action or criminal prosecution for refusal by a provider to offer or provide services, facilities, use of public accommodations, goods, employment, or housing to any member or members of the general public on the basis of race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or United States military service; or
(3) negate any rights available under the Constitution of the State of Indiana.
Later, there is an explanation that this applies basically to anyone who is not a religious official, nor a “church or religious society”. It’s similar in intent to the changes in Arkansas.
So what does this mean in real life? It means there’s going to be a giant fight after implementation because haters are haters and they’re going to sue. In addition, it does not add LGBT people to those covered by Indiana’s anti-discrimination laws.
But so far, the idiot pizza parlor that said they wouldn’t cater gay weddings have shut down, at least temporarily. (And seriously….pizza at a wedding? Really?) Glenn Beck raised $140,000 for them, but basically, they’re done.
It was more than a decade ago when the first American gay couple was married in Massachusetts. Now, marriage is legal in 38 states and the District of Colombia. That battle for rights is basically won, just the clean up skirmishes to go. Now on to ENDA, and the rights of the BT in LGBT. For the haters on the right, it’s all over but the crying.
We must stay vigilant, however. Abortion rights were won in the 70’s but we didn’t stay on point, and now that battle is raging again.
I leave you today with a moronic quote. It’s hard to imagine that this came from a Democrat, but as always, someone has to graduate last in the class. Our idiot of the day is Steve Beshear.
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) argued in a brief filed to the Supreme Court last week that his state’s ban on gay marriage is not discriminatory because it does not allow gay or straight people to marry people of the same sex.
“Kentucky’s marriage laws treat homosexuals and heterosexuals the same and are facially neutral. Men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are free to marry persons of the opposite sex under Kentucky law, and men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, cannot marry persons of the same sex under Kentucky law,” Beshear’s lawyer, Leigh Gross Latherow, wrote in the brief. Source.
I would note that the brief is filed in Governor’s Breshear’s capacity as a defendant in the case with Kentucky’s statute being challenged. There is a lot of debate among lawyers who represent executive branch officials about the scope of their duty to defend a law that might be unconstitutional. The majority position is that, unless there is a binding precedent clearly on point, that a governor or state attorney general has a duty to defend a statute even if they disagree with it.
The brief is actually written by a private attorney hired by Kentucky.
The argument that both gay men and straight men are treated the same because neither can marry another man is one of the dumber points in the brief (and runs roughshod over the reasoning of several Supreme Court decisions), but it is wrong to attribute a lawyer’s argument in the brief to the politician who is a nominal party in the case.