This thread, focusing on Indiana, is a companion read to our "Bush expresses support for ..." thread ~ the uproar over Mike Pence signing a law legalizing discrimination has quickly reached a fever pitch ~ and all of his arguments that this only "levels the playing field" are BS ~ ~ Sooz


The Rachel Maddow Show 3/27/15
Boycotts, scorn over Indiana legal discrimination law

Rachel Maddow reports on some stumbles by Republican 2016 contenders, but none more than Indiana governor Mike Pence, who signed a law legalizing discrimination against gay people, incurring the wrath of state businesses that now face likely boycotts.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/boycotts--scorn-over-legal-discrimination-law-419432515730

I'm with Charles Barkley on this ~ ~ Sooz

TPM LIVEWIRE
Charles Barkley Wants NCAA To Pull Final Four From Indiana Over Anti-Gay Bill
By Catherine Thompson Published March 28, 2015, 10:32 AM EDT

Former NBA star Charles Barkley on Friday called for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to yank its March Madness Final Four tournament out of Indiana over a new law that protects business owners from being required to serve same-sex couples because of religious objections.

"Discrimination in any form is unacceptable to me,” Barkley said in a statement released through his agent, as quoted by USA Today. “As long as anti-gay legislation exists in any state, I strongly believe big events such as the Final Four and Super Bowl should not be held in those states’ cities.”

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed the "religious freedom" bill into law Thursday.

The NCAA has said that it will go forward with plans to hold the Final Four in Indianapolis, although it is "especially concerned" about the possible effects of the law on its student-athletes and employees.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/charles-barkley-ncaa-indiana-anti-gay-law

19 states that have ‘religious freedom’ laws like Indiana’s that no one is boycotting

Here are those states, in dark teal:


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/03/27/19-states-that-have-religious-freedom-laws-like-indianas-that-no-one-is-boycotting/?tid=pm_pop

YIKES!!! ~ there is Illinois in dark teal! ~ ~ I need to find out how/when/why that was passed here ~

Sooz

Here's something for you, Sooz...


When Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a new state law that allows people and companies to claim a religious objection to doing business with same-sex couples, he pointed to Illinois and Kentucky, saying he was simply bringing the state in line with its neighbors.

But the Republican governor and possible presidential contender left out an important fact. While Illinois does have a law that gives special protections to religious objectors, it also bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Indiana, on the other hand, has no such ban.

That distinction is crucial, legal experts say, because anti-discrimination laws are considered stronger than religious exemptions.

more... http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-indiana-illinois-religious-objections-met-20150327-story.html

WHEW! ~ thanks, John ~ but I confess I'm still mostly "anti" allowing "religious objectors" to pick-and-choose when they hold a public license to sell to or serve the public ~

Sooz

I love this commentary!!! ~ ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine ~ Sooz

Why a Gay Man Like Me Is Going to Make It Hard for Indiana Shopkeepers to Exercise Their 'Religious Liberty'
Am I responsible for their damnation if I let 'em serve me without mentioning that I'm gay and they don't guess it?
By John Moyers / AlterNet / March 28, 2015

The following is not snark. It's an honest and practical inquiry: How will merchants in Indiana determine which customers can now be refused service under the state's new "religious liberty" law?

Take sexual identity. If every LGBT person out there were a flamboyant drag queen, it might be easier for a merchant to decide who to refuse. But some gay people, like me, are just average white guys -- I don't swish, lisp or call everyone "honey," and if there's a song on my lips, it's more likely Jerry Garcia than Judy Garland.

What's a God-fearing Indiana merchant to do if I walk in the door? Am I responsible for his damnation if I let him serve me without mentioning that I'm gay and he doesn't guess it? Must he ask all customers about potential offenses to his faith?

Complicating things is the fact that some straight men are a bit effete and some straight women are kind of butch. Just because God made them like that doesn't mean their dry cleaning should get turned away.

So, perhaps Indiana now needs a law requiring I.D. cards for all citizens -- yellow for the hets, pink for the homos -- to protect both the souls and the profits of faithful, freedom-loving Chamber of Commerce members. Or maybe gays should be required to tattoo their foreheads for quick identification. If so, the same should go for straight people who practice oral and anal sex, since what offends some religious beliefs is "sodomy" defined more broadly, not merely loving someone of the same gender.

What about Jews? Some conservative Christians believe God does not hear the prayers of a Jew. If He can discriminate that way, why can't a car salesman refuse to sell a Chevy? And what about adulterers? Indiana's new law is so broad, it clearly protects the freedom to deny service to adulterers if that offends sincerely held religious beliefs. If so, and there's going to be some sort of I.D. system adopted, it could incorporate a scarlet "A."

If the tattoo system isn't workable for some reason, or a more discrete I.D. card system isn't implemented, it begs the question: Now that the Indiana legal system permits merchants to discriminate between customers, what will the state do to protect those people wrongly denied service?

It can't be long before we see a case in the Indiana Supreme Court in which a heterosexual plaintiff claims his rights were infringed because a baker, believing the plaintiff a queen ordering a birthday cake for his boyfriend, denied the plaintiff service. How will the plaintiff prove his heterosexuality? And what claim will the defendant make as the basis for his determination that the plaintiff was gay: "When a Britney Spears song came on the radio, Plaintiff rolled his eyes and muttered, 'Leave… Britney... ALONE!'" Or if the discrimination wasn't based on being gay, imagine the baker saying, "Well, he LOOKS Jewish, and the Jews murdered Jesus, so… " How would the Indiana Supremes sort that one out?

When hate, bigotry and fear-based divisiveness drives public policy, this sort of ludicrousness is predictable. It might be funny if it weren't so offensive to the basic values of fairness, tolerance and genuine freedom for which this nation, at its best, is supposed to stand.

John Moyers lives in Vermont.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/why-gay-man-me-going-make-it-hard-indiana-shopkeepers-exercise-their-religious

My local news had a segment on this yesterday ~ Mike Pence says he didn't expect the enormous public backlash, including demonstrations in Indiana against himself and the state ~ and he's now scrambling to limit the damage ~ it's very tough to get that genie back in the lamp, especially while continuing to reject making gays a protected legal class ~ ~ Sooz

Swarens: Gov. Mike Pence to push for clarification of ‘religious freedom’ law
Tim Swarens / 8:12 p.m. EDT March 28, 2015

Gov. Mike Pence, scorched by a fast-spreading political firestorm, told The Star on Saturday that he will support the introduction of legislation to “clarify” that Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not promote discrimination against gays and lesbians.

“I support religious liberty, and I support this law,” Pence said in an exclusive interview. “But we are in discussions with legislative leaders this weekend to see if there’s a way to clarify the intent of the law.”

The governor, although not ready to provide details on what the new bill will say, said he expects the legislation to be introduced into the General Assembly this coming week.

Asked if that legislation might include making gay and lesbian Hoosiers a protected legal class, Pence said, “That’s not on my agenda.”

Amid the deepest crisis of his political career, Pence said repeatedly that the intense blowback against the new law is the result of a “misunderstanding driven by misinformation.”

He adamantly insisted that RFRA will not open the door to state-sanctioned discrimination against gays and lesbians. But he did acknowledge that Indiana’s image — and potentially its economic health — has been hurt badly by the controversy.

I spoke with Pence on the same day that thousands of people rallied at the Statehouse in opposition to the law. And the same day that Angie’s List CEO Bill Oesterle announced that his company will abandon a deal with the state and city to expand the company’s headquarters in Indianapolis because of RFRA’s passage.

Oesterle’s statement is a telling sign that the outrage over RFRA isn’t limited only to the political left. Oesterle directed Republican Mitch Daniels’ 2004 campaign for governor. And it’s a signal that the damage from the RFRA debacle could be extensive.

Behind the scenes, Pence and his team have been scrambling to mitigate that damage — both to the state and to the governor’s political career.

Pence said, for example, that he had a “cordial and productive” conversation with Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, who announced shortly after Pence signed the RFRA legislation on Thursday that the company will cancel all corporate-related travel to Indiana. That conversation, however, has not led to a reversal of the Salesforce decision.

I asked the governor if he had anticipated the strongly negative reaction set off by the bill’s passage. His response made it clear that he and his team didn’t see it coming.

“I just can’t account for the hostility that’s been directed at our state,” he said. “I’ve been taken aback by the mischaracterizations from outside the state of Indiana about what is in this bill.”

In defense of the legislation, he noted that 19 other states and the federal government have adopted RFRA laws similar to Indiana’s. And he pointed out that President Barack Obama voted for Illinois’ version of RFRA as a state senator.

The governor also criticized the news media’s coverage of the legislation. “Despite the irresponsible headlines that have appeared in the national media, this law is not about discrimination,” he said. “If it was, I would have vetoed it.”

Yet, those justifications, cited repeatedly by the governor’s supporters in recent days, have done little to quell the controversy.

Which is why the proposal to clarify the law’s intent with a new bill has gained traction among Pence’s advisers in the past couple of days.

Pence also plans to fight back in the state and national media. He’s scheduled, for instance, to defend the law Sunday morning on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos. “I’m not going to take it (the criticism) lying down,” he said.

As we wrapped up the conversation, I asked Pence: What answer do you have for the many gays and lesbians — and their friends and families — who’ve asked this past week if they are still welcome in Indiana?

“First, this law is not about discrimination. It’s about protecting religious liberty and giving people full access to the judicial system,” he said. “But, yes, Hoosier hospitality is about making all people feel welcome in our state. We did that with the Super Bowl and with many other events, and with bringing businesses here. We will continue to do that.”

Whether Pence can get that message across — whether he still has the credibility to get people to believe it — will help determine the extent of RFRA’s damage. First, and most important, for the state. But also for Mike Pence’s political future and legacy.

http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/columnists/tim-swarens/2015/03/28/swarens-gov-mike-pence-push-clarification-religious-freedom-law/70611906/

Former NBA star Charles Barkley on Friday called for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to yank its March Madness Final Four tournament out of Indiana over a new law that protects business owners from being required to serve same-sex couples because of religious objections.

Does the NCAA have the balls or will they weasel out?
I say they'll weasel.

I've already read that they will proceed as planned. Hard to move such a huge venue anyway.

BooMan [aka Martin Longman] nails this commentary ~ ~ there are a few "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

Losing the Culture War
by BooMan / Sun Mar 29th, 2015 at 02:15:55 AM EST

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence seems sincerely surprised that so many people think he’s a terrible person for signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law. At the same time, he appears to be kind of lost at sea because he thought acting like an intolerant anti-gay religious fundamentalist would be popular. This is probably partly because Governor Pence is a genuine jerk, but it’s also because he runs in almost exclusively right-wing circles and consumes almost exclusively right-wing media.

So, he’s kind of an asshole and he surrounds himself with assholes and he gets all his information and most of his feedback from assholes. It’s like he’s living in a giant colon.

And then suddenly he’s forced to look outside into the light and there’s a whole world outside this colon that doesn’t approve of his values or seem at all inclined to reward him for his intolerance.

So, now he’s scrambling to repair the damage he’s caused his state but he doesn’t know how to go about it because he’s in shock and cannot believe the situation he’s created for himself.


See, he understands that he has a problem, but it’s not on his agenda to make clear that the law he wants to clarify won’t do what everyone is concerned that it will do. If he doesn’t make it obvious that it’s not okay to discriminate against gays and lesbians, then the clarification won’t do anything, and if he still supports the law then repeal isn’t in the cards.

In any case, he’s still being defensive.


Basically no one who isn’t an anti-gay bigot agrees with Mike Pence’s interpretation of his law. He’s even hemorrhaging support from local churches.


It’s kind of amazing just how much of an ass-kicking Pence is taking, but it’s not like he wasn’t warned. He just didn’t listen.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2015/3/29/21555/4983

Exactly, roseanne ~ not only is the overall planning enormous and nightmare-ish [think teams/TV/fans and transportation/hotels, etc], there's no time since the Final Four begins [I think] this next week ~

Sooz

As long as money is more important than everything else not much will change and the bigots will continue with their tripe.

I don't doubt that, oskar ~ but, trust me ~ I helped plan "big" events ["big" is a subjective word ~ our "big" events were maybe 800 people] ~ just figuring out travel and hotels alone [not to mention meals, meetings, and activities] for a sizable crowd took months of planning ~ and I'm sure our 800 looks like nothing compared to the NCAA numbers ~ I'm also sure the NCAA was working on the specifics from the day Indianapolis was selected to host ~ with the Final Four scheduled so soon, it would be impossible to change venues this late for this year ~

Sooz

This should be required reading and puts Mike Pence's "surprise" and bluster into perspective ~ emphasis/bolding below is mine, and there are "live links" to more/corroborating information in the original ~ Sooz

The Big Lie The Media Tells About Indiana’s New ‘Religious Freedom’ Law
by Judd Legum Posted on March 30, 2015 at 8:04 am

On Friday, the Washington Post published an article titled “19 states that have ‘religious freedom’ laws like Indiana’s that no one is boycotting.” The article snarks about organizations like the NCAA that have protested Indiana’s law, noting “the NCAA didn’t say it was concerned over how athletes and employees would be affected by Kentucky’s RFRA when games were played there last week.” The piece concludes “Indiana might be treated as if it’s the only state with a bill like this, but it’s not.” The piece has been shared over 75,000 times on Facebook.

The Washington Post article largely mirrors the argument advanced by Indiana Governor Mike Pence. Appearing on ABC’s This Week, Pence claimed “Then state-Sen. Barack Obama voted for [the Religious Freedom Restoration Act]. The very same language.”

The same argument is parroted on Fox News and elsewhere.

It’s not true.

The Indiana law differs substantially from the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, signed by President Clinton in 1993, and all other state RFRAs.

There are several important differences in the Indiana bill but the most striking is Section 9. Under that section, a “person” (which under the law includes not only an individual but also any organization, partnership, LLC, corporation, company, firm, church, religious society, or other entity) whose “exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened” can use the law as “a claim or defense… regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding.”

Every other Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to disputes between a person or entity and a government. Indiana’s is the only law that explicitly applies to disputes between private citizens. This means it could be used as a cudgel by corporations to justify discrimination against individuals that might otherwise be protected under law. Indiana trial lawyer Matt Anderson, discussing this difference, writes that the Indiana law is “more broadly written than its federal and state predecessors” and opens up “the path of least resistance among its species to have a court adjudicate it in a manner that could ultimately be used to discriminate…”

This is not a trivial distinction. Arizona enacted an RFRA that applied to actions involving the government in 2012. When the state legislature tried to expand it to purely private disputes in 2014, nationwide protests erupted and Jan Brewer, Arizona’s Republican governor, vetoed the measure.

Thirty law professors who are experts in religious freedom wrote in February that the Indiana law does not “mirror the language of the federal RFRA” and “will… create confusion, conflict, and a wave of litigation that will threaten the clarity of religious liberty rights in Indiana while undermining the state’s ability to enforce other compelling interests. This confusion and conflict will increasingly take the form of private actors, such as employers, landlords, small business owners, or corporations, taking the law into their own hands and acting in ways that violate generally applicable laws on the grounds that they have a religious justification for doing so. Members of the public will then be asked to bear the cost of their employer’s, their landlord’s, their local shopkeeper’s, or a police officer’s private religious beliefs.”

Various federal courts have differing interpretations of the scope of the federal RFRA. The Indiana law explicitly resolves all those disputes in one direction — and then goes even further.

This is evident in Section 5 of the Indiana law which provides protections to religious practices “whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.” So entities can seek to justify discriminatory practices based on religious practices that are fringe to their belief system.

Beyond the differences between the Indiana law and other states, many of the other states that have a RFRA also have a law that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. Indiana does not have one.

This is not to say the federal RFRA — and the state laws that are actually modeled after it — don’t have problems. Indeed, “Nineteen members of Congress who voted for the passage of the law in 1993 have now withdrawn their support for the federal RFRA given that it has been interpreted by the courts in ways that were not intended by the Congress at the time of the law’s passage.” Much of this rethinking was prompted by the Hobby Lobby case, where the Supreme Court expanded its interpretation of the federal RFRA to certain corporations.

Claiming that the Indiana law is just like the laws in 19 other states, however, is simply not true. Other states are following Indiana’s lead and broadening the language of the law.

Why the change? Beyond the substance, the politics of the RFRA has become much different. When the federal law was signed in 1993, it was thought “to be about benign and relatively uncontroversial matters, such as allowing Muslim jail inmates to wear closely trimmed beards, or assuring that churches could feed homeless people in public parks.” Today, Indiana’s law is driven “by the politics of anti-gay backlash. Their most ardent supporters come from an increasingly angry, marginalized, and shrill subset of Christian conservative activists.”

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/03/30/3640374/big-lie-media-tells-indianas-new-religious-freedom-law/

You beat me to it, Sooz. I was going to post the above article considering I posted the one from the Washington Post it mentions.

This is a VERY BIG deal ... especially because Pence is known to hold a grudge ~ I hope other mayors find the same courage to speak up ~ Sooz

GOP Indianapolis mayor defies Pence, bans discrimination by Christian businesses receiving city funds
David Edwards / 30 Mar 2015 at 16:19 ET

Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard (R) on Monday responded to Indiana law legalizing discrimination against LGBT people by calling on the state to add sexual orientation to its civil rights law.

At a press conference on Monday, Ballard said that he would issue an executive order that required all businesses to follow the city’s human rights ordinance, the Indianapolis Star reported.

Ballard’s comments came after the NCAA President Mark Emmert said that he was “very concerned” about holding sporting events, including the Final Four, in Indianapolis if lawmakers did not address the potential for discrimination in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

“Our city thrives because we have welcomed and embraced diversity. And RFRA threatens what thousands have spent decades building,” Ballard said on Monday. “Discrimination is wrong. And I hope that message is being heard loud and clear at our Statehouse.”

“Indianapolis will not be defined by this. Indianapolis welcomes everybody,” he promised those attending the Final Four basketball tournament next weekend.

Watch the video below from WISH-TV, broadcast March 30, 2015. [Video accessible via end link]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/03/gop-indianapolis-mayor-defies-pence-bans-discrimination-by-christian-businesses-receiving-city-funds/

Just luck of timing on this one, John ~

Sooz

Could a fundy pharmacist get fired in Indiana for refusing to fill a birth control prescription? And then not giving the scrip back to the customer so that she could take it elsewhere?

My guess is "no", gramps ~ some time ago, we had a discussion on the "conscience law" and [if memory serves] it included pharmacists ~ again if memory serves, there is not any carve-out for having to return a rejected prescription to the customer or to giving the customer any information on where else to get it filled ~

Sooz

There is enormous blow-back over this law in Indiana and across the nation ~ a few state governors and several city mayors have put the kibosh on government-funded travel to Indiana ~ local residents are staging huge protests ~ celebrities are cancelling performances there, as are a number of annual conventions ~ companies are "boycotting" Indiana, refusing to complete expansion plans ~ this will not go away any time soon ~ and still, the state "leaders" just refuse to budge ~ ~ Sooz

Indiana GOP Leader Concedes ‘No Gays Allowed’ Signs Permitted Under State Law(VIDEO)
March 30, 2015 / Dan Simpson

Indiana Republicans are facing a furious nationwide backlash over their draconian new “religious freedom” law which essentially gives business owners the right to deny service to gays and lesbians. The push-back against the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act has resulted in a few Indiana Republicans doing their best to soften the blows, but often coming up short.

For example, Indiana Senate President Pro Tem David Long and House Speaker Brian Bosma held a presser recently with the intent of explaining how the new law doesn’t actually allow Indiana businesses and individuals to discriminate against homosexuals on religious grounds. However, one of those nosy reporters who was just doing his job and asking questions threw a monkey wrench into that plan. The reporter astutely reminded Long and Bosma that the state of Indiana does not actually have a law which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

The reporter said:


Bosma said that the statement was correct, with one caveat:


The reporter did not let up:


Bosma was then forced to admit that the reporter was correct.

Oops! THAT certainly didn’t follow the script.

As Raw Story reports: “According to the Human Rights Campaign, only the cities of Bloomington, Evansville, Indianapolis, and South Bend prohibit discrimination against LGBT people, along with Marion County and Monroe County.”

In other words, only 4 cities and 2 counties in Indiana do prohibit discrimination against homosexuals, but the rest of the state, much of it rural and conservative, can deny service to them. How they might be able to tell if someone is gay or not is another story for another day.

Thankfully, even Republicans are starting to see discrimination against the gay and lesbian community as being a really bad thing, both morally and politically. And in the coming years, we can expect more push-back against these nefarious “freedom of religion” laws.

But these two Indiana bozos apparently don’t get it. One said at the end of the below video that the criticism his state has been receiving is “terribly unfair.”

Watch the video below.


http://reverbpress.com/politics/indiana-gop-leader-concedes-no-gays-allowed-signs-permitted-state-law-video/

I weep for my home country. Those who proselytize, who want a theocracy (or at the very minimum an official declaration of the US as a Christian nation), who want to shut down anything that doesn't tow their narrow lines and who rail against Islam and Sharia law are the very ones who are bringing a very similar extremist version of what they fear most. IF they triumph over gays, their fires will burn hotter to proceed with their quest to put women back in their kitchens and nurseries as chattel for the men.

It defies logic.

A rant that only Rachel Maddow could make ~ ~ Sooz

Tuesday, Mar 31, 2015 12:50 PM UTC
Rachel Maddow rips Mike Pence to shreds for his evasive defense of Indiana’s discrimination law
MSNBC host highlights absurdity of GOP governor's floundering justification for "religious freedom" law. VIDEO
Luke Brinker

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow eviscerated Indiana Gov. Mike Pence on Monday night over his evasive defense of his state’s anti-gay “religious freedom” law, highlighting the Republican governor’s repeated refusal to address whether discrimination against gays and lesbians should be legal.

Already under fire from leading corporations and LGBT rights advocates for signing the measure — which effectively allows businesses and individuals to deny services to LGBT people on religious grounds — Pence did himself no favors with a floundering appearance Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” where host George Stephanopoulos tried no fewer than six times to get Pence to give a simple yes-or-no on whether anti-LGBT discrimination should be allowed in the Hoosier State.

“If you’re wondering why George Stephanopoulos had to keep asking that same question — what was that, six times? — it’s because obviously Mike Pence never answered it. Not like he only partly answered it or he give a very vague or internally contradictory answer. He just literally never even tried to answer it,” Maddow said, noting that Pence’s appearance was so disastrous that the GOP leaders of the Indiana legislature called their own press conference in an attempt to clarify matters.

Pence did opt for an internally contradictory defense of the law in the Wall Street Journal, where he published an op-ed Tuesday maintaining that the law does not sanction discrimination — even though it provides a compelling legal defense for those who refuse services to gays.

In the piece, Pence also wrote that if he “saw a restaurant owner refuse to serve a gay couple,” he would stop patronizing that restaurant. Given that Pence had used the same op-ed to assert that Indiana’s law wouldn’t even allow such discrimination in the first place, that promise drew Maddow’s mockery.

“So if you were worried that gay people might be refused service by a business in Indiana now, don’t worry! That could never happen, because the state of Indiana has decided to wield the grave threat of depriving individual businesses of Mike Pence’s personal patronage,” she snarked. “So clearly nobody will do it, even if it is now legal!”

Watch Maddow tear into Pence below, courtesy of MSNBC:


Salon

Excellent post, roseanne ~ but, for me, it goes well beyond "defies logic" and also defies any sense of human decency ~

Sooz