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Indiana’s RFRA law and the left’s change of heart on religious freedom
On Thursday, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed a state level version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This should have been an uninteresting happening. Religious freedom… not the Orwellian progressive construction of Freedom of Worship preferred by Obama… was a formative principle of the American nation. But to here the left and the homosexual privilege groups howl you would have thought someone was using a hot poker for a sex toy.
Thought leaders on the left like Miley Cyrus and Ashton Kuchner weighed in with insightful commentary. Some corporations that make a sideline out of advocating for homosexuality threatened a boycott of an entire state… because, you know, Indiana has a wall around it and no one living there can get out. Hillary Clinton took out valuable time from her afternoon nap to observe:
Sad this new Indiana law can happen in America today. We shouldn’t discriminate against ppl bc of who they love #LGBT http://t.co/mDhpS18oEH
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 27, 2015
(keep this particular tweet in mind as you read)
The Indiana law mirrors the federal RFRA but differs in one significant way. It allows individuals to use the Indiana RFRA as a defense in private litigation. This is to prevent an Indiana court from doing what the New Mexico Supreme Court did in the Elaine Photography case when it ruled New Mexico’s RFRA only applied in cases where the government interfered with religious freedom.
[T]he law provides a defense against a private discrimination suit. For example, Jill and Jane Doe sue a photographer for failing to photograph their wedding under a local non-discrimination ordinance. The photographer than raises the state RFRA as a defense. Even though the government is not a party, RFRA can be raised as a defense in the judicial proceeding. The court would have to determine whether the application of the non-discrimination ordinance substantially burdens the photographers exercise of religion.
Thirty-one states now have laws similar to Indiana’s. In some instances these have been passed by state legislatures, in others they have been instituted by court decisions.
What the Indiana law does is summed up very well in the statement by President Bill Clinton when he signed the federal RFRA into law:
So today I ask you to also think of that. We are a people of faith. We have been so secure in that faith that we have enshrined in our Constitution protection for people who profess no faith. And good for us for doing so. That is what the first amendment is all about. But let us never believe that the freedom of religion imposes on any of us some responsibility to run from our convictions. Let us instead respect one another’s faiths, fight to the death to preserve the right of every American to practice whatever convictions he or she has, but bring our values back to the table of American discourse to heal our troubled land.
The people protesting the Indiana law have given away their game. They oppose the Indiana law because private citizens can use it to defend themselves from harassment and intimidation by homosexual activists and their catchfarts. It upsets their agenda of suing Christians and Christian organizations into submission and reveals their claim to want “equality” to be the lie we’ve always known it is.
The post Indiana’s RFRA law and the left’s change of heart on religious freedom appeared first on RedState.
Source: http://www.redstate.com/2015/03/28/indianas-rfra-law-lefts-change-heart-religious-freedom/
