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Arkansas Defies Widespread Outrage by Passing ‘Religious Freedom’ Act
Seen by its many critics as a monumental setback to LGBT equality, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was ratified by the Arkansas Legislature Tuesday. Those opposed to the bill assert that it will permit business owners to discriminate against gay, lesbian and transgender people on religious grounds.
The bill, known as HB1228 or RFRA, will go into effect this week regardless of whether Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson signs it.
As Human Rights Campaign legal director Sarah Warbelow told The Huffington Post, Tuesday’s decision mirrors the recent legislation in Indiana. “The Arkansas and Indiana bills are virtually identical in terms of language and intent,” Warbelow said. “They place LGBT people, people of color, religious minorities, women and many more people at risk of discrimination.”
In both cases, the act has provoked widespread outrage, as The New York Times reports:
Business resistance in both states continued to grow, with Gap and Levi Strauss joining Walmart, Apple, Yelp and other major corporations in expressing disapproval. On Monday, the chief executive of Acxiom, a marketing technology company based in Little Rock that employs nearly 1,600 statewide, urged the Arkansas governor to veto a bill that was “a deliberate vehicle for enabling discrimination.”
In urging Mr. Hutchinson to veto the legislation, the chief executive of Walmart, Doug McMillon, said that the bill “threatens to undermine the spirit of inclusion present throughout the state of Arkansas and does not reflect the values we proudly uphold.”
Angie’s List cited the Indiana law in canceling plans to expand its facilities in Indianapolis. Celebrities have ridiculed the law, entertainers have canceled tour dates in the state because of it, a gaming convention is considering going elsewhere, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York on Tuesday became the latest governor to impose a ban on state-funded travel to Indiana, joining his counterparts in Connecticut and Washington.”
So-called “religious freedom,” warns the bills’ vast opposition, comes at the cost of massive exclusion.
“The Indiana law,” states The Times, “has some differences from the federal law, and most of the state laws, that critics say are significant, including a provision explicitly stating that it applies to the exercise of religious beliefs by businesses as well as individuals and religious groups. The idea that a for-profit business has religious rights, and can cite them in contesting government action, was not widely considered until recently. But last year the Supreme Court upheld that principle in the case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores.
Another difference between Indiana’s law and most similar ones is that it says businesses can use religious freedom as a defense against lawsuits brought by individuals, not just those filed by the government.”
—Posted by Roisin Davis
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Source: http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/arkansas_defies_widespread_outrage_by_passing_religious_freedom_act_2015/
Ignore the one-god believers, as well as THEIR LAWS!
For they are nothing but your Earthly Prison Guards and their desperation is showing in the franticness of their written LUNATIC derision.
judeo-christo-CRIMINALS are described as Caucasian Mayo colored, inbred males, that are Old, decrepit, SLAVE DRIVERS who LOVE WAR!
Why do you vote for the self described Mayo colored christo-CRIMINALS?
They keep you enslaved.
Go visit them at their homes in the middle of the night.
DO NOT KNOCK.
Go in and explain to them in front of their female salves and off spring, the error of their ways.
You know where they live.
The sooner you act, the quicker you are free of them.
FOR GOO!
Hunt down the Huckelbee, and ROAST THE MAYO COLORED PIG!
Their vile, lying christo-CREED is dying, and they will be punished severely for losing christo-Hypnotize control over you by their one-god MONSTER, who is not god, that they mindlessly serve as Slaves.
Can you feel their deep fear and desperation?
For, god is NOT light.
god is NOT love.
Do NOT respond to anything you might perceive that wants to lead you to the light at the moment of your body’s death this time.
Just turn around and LEAVE.
That is all you will have to do.
YOUR WILL IS god!
YOUR WILL BE DONE!
Not “god”, but YOUR WILL BE DONE!
All you have to do is exercise your own individual will.
LEAVE!
You do NOT have to stay here AT ALL.
Go any way, any direction, except to the Light.
And, YOU WILL BE FREE of this HELL HOLE designed to ENTRAP YOU HERE!