Indiana legalizes religious discrimination. Glad I live in Oregon.

Indiana has passed a Freedom to Discriminate bill. That's the name Matthew Tully, an Indianapolis Star columnist, prefers over the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Here's some excerpts from his "Statehouse Republicans embarrass Indiana. Again."

Let's call it what it is. It's discrimination wrapped up in a legislative bow. It's divisiveness painted as something holy. It's tired and cynical politics weakly masked as a principled stand.

Sure, it is cleverly labeled with a market-tested name (the Religious Freedom bill), but please don't be fooled: This is nothing more than a government endorsement of discrimination. Yes, in this land of liberty, our state's government is prepared to push into law a measure allowing one group of people to tell others that they are not equal and not welcome at their businesses.

...Once again, Statehouse Republicans have found a way to divide our state. They've done so with a bill that will allow business owners to judge the morality of their potential customers and to decide whether those customers are worthy of spending their money in their shop, bakery, or whatever.

My goodness, can Indiana Republicans just get past an anger over gays and lesbians that borders on the obsessive? Apparently, they cannot. And, so, after losing their war over same-sex marriage last year, Statehouse Republicans have joined a national conservative effort to create a crisis that doesn't exist. Along the way, they are making clear that yesterday — or, to be more accurate, the last century — still controls today's Grand Old Party. 

Some relatives on my wife's side live in Indiana. Being good-hearted people, naturally they're aghast at what bigoted Republicans in their state have wrought. 

I enjoyed this Facebook post from one of them:

Since our wonderful Indiana state legislature has decided that it is ok to ignore laws if you disagree with them based on religion, I'd like to announce my religious beliefs. My religion forbids me from following posted speed limits signs, as they are an abomination. I am required to drive at whatever speed I feel in my heart is appropriate. 

I'll announce other laws that my religious beliefs exempt me from as I come across them. Thanks.

Naturally I had to leave a comment on the post.

Excellent idea. I recommend making the unlimited use of alcohol and psychoactive drugs part of your religion also. Makes more sense than hating gays does, or whatever other religious craziness Indiana now allows.

I've had similar thoughts about the absurdity of letting people ignore laws in the name of their religion. In "No, Ben Sasse, religious beliefs don't allow someone to ignore laws," I said:

Should people get a free pass to break whatever laws they want under the banner of religion? What prevents someone from forming the Church of Drunk Driving whose holy sacrament is tossing down a six-pack and then jumping in a car?

As already noted, "Religion" is just a name for a collection of unsubstantiated, nonfactual personal beliefs that are held by enough people to give them some sort of social acceptance.

If you hear an outside voice in your head telling you to do something, you'll be considered crazy. Unless you say that the voice is God --then you'll be revered as a religious devotee. 

I don't see why religious beliefs should be treated any differently under the law as any other subjective individual belief. If we start allowing people to ignore laws they don't believe in, there will be no end to the law-breaking.

For me, the only positive aspect about Indiana granting businesses a license to discriminate is that it makes me feel good that I live in Oregon, where we're considerably more enlightened. 

Today I came across an encouraging article, "This is the most godless city in America." Which is... Portland. Yay, Oregon!

If you don’t believe in God, you might want to move to the Pacific Northwest.

Portland, Ore., is No. 1 on the list of metropolitan areas with the most religiously unaffiliated residents (42%), according to the nonpartisan and nonprofit Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Atlas, a survey of 50,000 people. Seattle and San Francisco were tied at second place (with 33%) on the list, and Denver (32%) and Phoenix (26%) were third and fourth.

Indianapolis, predictably, was 19% religiously unaffiliated. And probably it is more open-minded than rural parts of Indiana. Some of our relatives live near Bloomington, though, which is a pretty cool university town.

Comments

[x]

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/indiana-defines-stupidity-as-religion

[Laura]

It crossed my mind this morning as I drove to work, that I ought to register to vote as a republican so I can vote against Ted Crews in the primary.

[Spence Tepper]

I always remember that Max Robspierre, championing the cause of freedom of thought from religious tyranny, the French Revolution's Champion of Atheism, made Dr. Guillotine famous, killing thirty thousand innocent French citizens.

Religion, per se, is not the problem. It is prejudice of any kind. It is the presumption that I understand you perfectly, and judge you inferior.

That sort of bigotry has plagued humankind for a very long time. Sometimes it was wrapped in religion (usually as a covering for pure political power mongering), at other times it was wrapped in Politics straight up, and at other times, such as in Hitler's Germany, (Hitler who dispised religion) which killed 50 million people, far more than all the Holy Wars of all time rolled together.

The only protection against bigotry is knowledge, but everyone claims to have it, and few do. Few honor the demands of knowledge, and the limitations of knowledge. If I can know something about a human being, likely, it is only about me, and only adequate for my personal use. But if I really love the Truth, I accept these limitations as the price tag.

That last stipulation throws folks with a lust for power, with a need to dominate others, off track. They can't accept it.

And they adopt either religion or atheism or any particular popular belief, even false claims of "Scientific"...they coopt it, bend it, re-write it for their own ends. That actually has little to do with religion, science, philosophy, or real Atheism.

Real Atheism: The rejection of superstition, not the popular presumptions that God and Spirituality don't exist. That is the difference between Atheism the philosophy, and Atheism, the religion with its own bigotry.

[x]

Meanwhile, in Indiana...

http://i.imgur.com/5457qOn.jpg

[x]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/whoops-indianas-anti-gay-religious-freedom-act-opens-the-door-for-the-first-church-of-cannabis/#.VRilUGzjKdI.reddit

[x]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/30/indiana-republicans-revisit-language-religious-freedom-law

[x]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/31/mike-pence-still-isn-t-telling-the-truth-why-indiana-s-anti-gay-religious-freedom-law-is-different-than-the-other-ones.html

[Appreciative Reader]

Can we really have laws that are “better” than we ourselves are? Can we do that while still being “democratic”?

Democracy is great and all (at least it is heaps better than the monarchy and aristocracy of old, and the dictatorships of the near past) : but surely this is one direct shortcoming / fall-out of having a democratic set-up, one that we simply cannot side-step? That we end up having laws and systems that reflect both what is “good” in us and what is “bad” in us?

If the vast majority of some particular political unit believes that it is good and “virtuous” and right to hold on to and to enforce some particular weird belief, then is there really any democratic way of ensuring that this majority does not impose their will on the minority that does not share their delusion? If, for instance, 95% of the populace believes that the slightest gesture that expresses even the slightest doubt on the wisdom and infallibility of some revered cultural hero (peace be unto that cultural hero) ought to be punished by such doubters and heretics having their hands and perhaps their heads cut off, then is there any democratic way of ensuring that they do not pass (and enforce) laws that makes blasphemy punishable by amputation and/or decapitation?

And who chooses, then, what is “good” and what is “bad”? Is it good or bad to observe religious “feast-days”, not just in private, in solitude or in the exclusive company of other believers, but by announcing those days to be public holidays for everyone? (Religion and culture are so very intertwined : where does the one end and the other begin? And is heavy-handedness on cultural matters really all that different from heavy-handedness on religious matters, at least for those poor souls who do not share in that particular aspect of the generally prevalent culture or religion?) Is it good or bad to keep separate kosher and/or halahl restaurants and grocery stores? Is it good or bad to allow a man to marry another man? Is it good or bad for a man to keep four wives (when all five are willing)? Is it good or bad to allow a woman to willingly marry an animal or even a tree? Is it good or bad to keep slaves? To fight wars and kill “uncivilized” people in far-off lands for oil? To smoke pot? To consume alcohol? To consume “hard” drugs? To voluntarily die when terminally ill instead of being kept alive via tubes and drugs? To voluntarily die when perfectly healthy by gradually ceasing to eat and drink? What is “good” and “bad”, and when (if ever) are we “allowed” to impose our ideas of “good” or “bad” on others?

“Self-governance” is basically power : and if the people at large happen to possess the intellect of pre-adolescents, then is there really any legitimate way of preventing these people from doing harm to themselves and to others, unless we descend to dictatorial means (which will open the floodgates to a whole other set of “evils” and weirdness)?

All of this does not necessarily directly apply specifically to the Indiana law your post talks about here : but just thinking aloud here. And asking questions : since it is so much easier to ask questions than to offer answers!

[x]

Self-governance” is basically power : and if the people at large happen to possess the intellect of pre-adolescents, then is there really any legitimate way of preventing these people from doing harm to themselves and to others

If the majority of those who vote and take an active interest in self-governance are "pre-adoloescents", the adults have abandoned all hope of self-governance and hope only that the pre-adolescents might learn from their mistakes before they destroy everything.

[Appreciative Reader]

Self-governance” is basically power : and if the people at large happen to possess the intellect of pre-adolescents, then is there really any legitimate way of preventing these people from doing harm to themselves and to others

If the majority of those who vote and take an active interest in self-governance are "pre-adoloescents", the adults have abandoned all hope of self-governance and hope only that the pre-adolescents might learn from their mistakes before they destroy everything.

You make a valid point, x. You speak here, basically, of the "vocal minority". That applies both ways. Sometimes what passes for the majority is merely an especially vocal and active minority ; and "we", the actual majority, can counter this by voting in greater numbers and by speaking up. Conversely, if "we" happen to be in the minority, and "they" are the actual majority, even then we can still try to punch above our weight by ensuring we never waste our vote and, again, by speaking up and being seen. Either way, that's sound tactics.

But tactics apart, I was wondering about the principle of the thing. If -- to deliberately take an impersonal (and therefore inoffensive) example that's likely to be removed from the personal sphere of influence as well as the immediate interest of most readers of this blog -- If, I was saying, the vast majority of a country like Egypt turns out to have fundamental Islamic leanings, then is there any democratic and legitimate way to stop (or, even, any democratic and legitimate reason to want to stop) that country from going the Sharia way?

P.S. -- On re-reading my comment in your quote, my use of that term "pre-adolescent" immediately jumps out as unnecessarily offensive and arrogant. All who think differently than I are fools, it seems to be (foolishly!) saying. I can't go back and edit my past comments here, so I'll make do with expressing regret for that stupid phraseology I used up there.