Gov. Dannel Malloy from Connecticut cuts to the chase:
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) on Tuesday described Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) as a “bigot” and said that politicians have a responsibility to speak out against Indiana’s divisive religious freedom law.
Pence is “not a stupid man, but he’s done stupid things,” Malloy said during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “And signing this law — and quite frankly promoting this law, knowing exactly what it was going to do — was an incredibly stupid thing for him to do.”
“When you see a bigot, you have to call them on it,” he said.
Later in the segment, Malloy said Pence made his intentions clear when he signed the bill into law flanked by “three homophobic men who have made it a part of their business to make gay people as miserable as possible.”
More of this. There’s no reason to play around with these homophobes in 2015. Call them what they are. I don’t give a shit what Clinton signed 3 decades ago, the 1st Amendment is all the protection from religious persecution that anyone needs. You need more, write an amendment to the Constitution.
I’m so old I remember when Muslim cab drivers refusing service because of alcohol was a big deal for Republicans.
Doug r
Governor jay Inslee of Washington state also banned all state sponsored travel to Indiana.
jl
I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that the Indiana law is not, in fact, that same as what Clinton signed in 1993, and statements that it is the same thing coming from Pence and his gang in Indiana is dishonest BS. I would be interested in hearing about it from any BJ lawyers who happen by.
But at any rate, the 1993 law seems to be able to co-exist with the federal anti-discrimination statute, and I think the Indianapolis Star is suggesting that two similar statutes could co-exist in Indiana, if the goofs who made the mess don’t have the guts to repeal the bad faith and bogus new ‘religious freedom’ law.
pseudonymous in nc
Pence is, in fact, a stupid man. And I suppose that phrasing is as close as another governor can get to saying it.
Villago Delenda Est
I disagree with Governor Malloy.
Mike Pence is a profoundly stupid man if he thinks any of this tap dancing he’s doing is going to fly.
Pogonip
Pupdate please?
Mike in NC
So by this weekend will Governor Pence have dropped completely out of sight, and rumored to be hiking the Appalachian Trail?
Tim C.
Got into Xander vs Harmony style fight with another commenter on this a few threads ago. These are the best articles I’ve seen explaining why it’s in fact very different than the 1993 law.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/what-makes-indianas-religious-freedom-law-different/388997/
And as always Fred Clark wins the Internet
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/03/29/artificial-lemons/
Belafon
@jl: The 93 law had nothing to do with discrimination. It made it harder for the government to challenge some things if they had a religious association.
Indiana’s law allows individuals and businesses to declare a religious reason for their actions when related to other people, and those other people cannot challenge it. So, instead of government-religion interaction, we have business-person and person-person interaction. The second one is alread covered by the first amendment, but the business-person one is new and wrong.
burnspbesq
@jl:
That is correct. The Indiana statute goes beyond the Federal RFRA in that it can be invoked as a defense to a change of unlawful discrimination in litigation where both parties are non-governmental actors. The Federal RFRA, as legislation implementing the First Amendment, can only be invoked against governmental actors (there’s that pesky “Congress shall make no law …” language again).
Cacti
This is teh awesome.
Even NASCAR is speaking out against Indiana’s new law.
When a red state government loses NASCAR, then you really know an issue is a total turkey.
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon: Right: the two key differences are that it explicitly includes for-profit businesses (which generally weren’t considered to be party to these things until Hobby Lobby), and it explicitly incorporates a defense against civil suits, not just criminal prosecution.
jl
@Belafon:
@Tim C.:
@burnspbesq:
Thanks. I had to figure this out reading between the lines and guessing from crummy almost worthless corporate news ‘analysis’ articles and looking up the article on the 93 law in Wikipedia. That was enough to know that the worthless BS ‘analysis; i heard from purported experts on the news radio and TV this morning was BS and worth less than fart jokes.
Gawd, I hate our worthless corporate media news racket. Gawd damn I hate it.
boatboy_srq
We definitely need more of this.
Anyone able to speak to the CT job market? McAuliffe may be leaps and bounds above Governor Ultrasound-Sponsored-by-Star-Scientific, but he’s nowhere near Malloy’s calibre.
Redshift
@jl: Yeah, a lot of damage was done by that idiotic WaPo article that took at face value the bigots’ claim that 19 other states had the same law and the only reason people were up in arms over this one was “timing.”
Finnigan
@jl: Early analysis here : https://inadvancesheet.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/the-indiana-religious-freedom-restoration-act-an-analysis-of-its-controversy/
WaterGirl
@Pogonip: Have you considered changing your nym to Pupdate Please (formerly known as Pogonip)? :-)
Villago Delenda Est
@jl: My nym: the solution to the problem you stated.
Punchy
@Belafon: You’re so not correct in your correctness. They’re the same thing because they say they’re the same thing! And since they repeat it enough, it has become true! You come in here with your opinion and facts and shit, and all you really need to know is that they’re same because shut up.
And you’re clearly biased against this law, pretty much making you a legal bigot.
WaterGirl
@Tim C.: I loved the Fred Clark link. What a great explanation, closing with this:
There is no part of this that is difficult to understand.
Edit: who is Fred Clark? I had never heard of him.
Hungry Joe
There’s stepping on your own dick, and then there’s stomping on it. While wearing cleats.
Indiana/Pence will cave because Big Hoosier Money will make them. Meantime, oh boy … those cleats are gonna leave a mark.
Cliff in NH
Here’s the take from a finance guy, was on bloomberg this morning as well.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/03/a-few-more-words-on-indianas-rfra-law/
explicitly calls out those comparing it to other laws…
WaterGirl
@Cacti: It’s all about the benjamins. Or, to put it another way, money > ideology. Money trumps everything.
But the NASCAR thing is still awesome!
Pogonip
@WaterGirl: He’d still ignore it. I need more voices added to mine, a general uprising.
Conservatives HATE pupdates, you know.
Tim C.
@WaterGirl:
Fred runs Slacktivist. He’s a liberal evangelist Christian, and has good insight into the way fundamentalists think, He’s also had a decade long running smackdown of the Left Behind novels and why they are terrible art and terrible theology.
kc
Damn, I had forgotten about that.
Isn’t the Indiana law basically an endorsement of . . . SHARIA LAW?
Sherparick
The only thing I disagree with Malloy is about Pence being stupid. Between his “epistemic closure” and his choosing “religion for idiots” fundamentalism, this man has spent 40 year making himself as “stupid” as possible. Literally, “Idiocracy” is not a satire, but a documentary with these clowns. This is what comes when you reduce your sources of knowledge to Faux News, Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levine, National Review, the Daily Caller, and Newsmax. What ever brains Pence once had dried up and blew away along time ago. And the tribal yokels of Indiana’s Republican Party, because of the fear “of the Black” and Indiana’s greedy business community for whom idiots like Pence are useful stooges, they together put him and the other wingnuts in charge of Indiana (and Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, etc.). Now live with the consequences fools.
P.S. I am going to need a lot of popcorn for the Republican Primaries as they really are going to be fun to watch.
Cacti
@WaterGirl:
Of course.
NASCAR teams depend on sponsorship from a variety of outside corporations, who aren’t particularly keen on anti-gay laws.
dmsilev
@Hungry Joe: The cave-in has already started. Pence gave a press conference earlier today in which he announced that he wants to “clarify” the law to specify that it doesn’t allow for discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Now, what he actually means by that, and wether the legislature goes along with it, we’ll see. But the backpedalling is well and truly underway.
Edit: Oh yes, and Pence blamed Obamacare for the controversy. I think he missed something here; clearly, an analysis of Hillary Clinton’s Benghazi emails will be necessary to fully understand the depths of the issue.
kc
@jl:
This Atlantic article sheds some light.
revrick
First, the original federal RFRA was passed in response to the Supreme Court decision that allowed Oregon to forbid a Native-American tribe from using peyote in its religious rites and it was only about governments burdening religious institutions and groups.
Second, Indiana’s law goes way beyond the scope doing something no other state has done by explicitly allowing a for-profit business to assert a right to free exercise of religion AND to allow this claim as a defense in private suits or administrative judgments, even when a government entity isn’t one of the parties involved. Only SC allows the first half of that equation (while PA and LA forbid it) and only TX has wording similar to the second part of it.
mai naem mobile
Why isn’t Malloy talked about for 2016? I’ve liked this guy since i saw him in action after Sandy Hook. I know hes supposed to not have high popularity in Connecticut because of taxes and the job situation. I’m assuming the job situation has been improving. I don’t remember Malloys backstory, I’ll have to look it up.
CONGRATULATIONS!
A Dem with a spine! Kudos, Governor.
I’d say “alert the media” but they’d just ignore it.
SenyorDave
@pseudonymous in nc:
Pence is “not a stupid man, but he’s done stupid things,” Malloy said
Pence is, in fact, a stupid man. And I suppose that phrasing is as close as another governor can get to saying it.
Anytime a person says someone “is not a stupid man” when criticizing someone, they are saying, in fact, he is a stupid man. And in this case he is correct.
WaterGirl
@Pogonip: If the puppies are destroying everything in sight, Cole might not be in the mood for a warm, fuzzy pupdate post. But it might be a good antidote for him to remember how cute they are.
Let’s just say that there were a couple of days there when my little Henry was very lucky that I have self-control. We are past that, thank goodness.
Elizabelle
So glad to see this one blowing up in the right faces. It’s deserved.
I love Milk Duds with my popcorn, too.
Belafon
@Cliff in NH: I like his statement before the comment section:
jl
@WaterGirl:
” If the puppies are destroying everything in sight, Cole might not be in the mood for a warm, fuzzy pupdate post. ”
The rabid hyena-jackal; hybrids of the BJ commentariate have an healthy appetite for pet mayhem.
I recall some Tunch/Rosie petdates that were quite popular.
Southern Beale
While we’re on the subject of idiot governors and idiotic state legislation, the state of Tennessee just passed a heinous guns-in-parks bill that would actually PROHIBIT local municipalities from banning guns in their parks. We’re asking everyone to call Gov. Haslam’s office and ask him to veto this bill You don’t have to live in Tennessee as they aren’t even asking for people’s names and cities at this point, they are getting so many calls they’re just keeping a tally of yeas and nays.
If you have 2 seconds, a real person will answer on the first or second ring:
Call the Governor at 615-741-2001, and ask him to veto Guns In Parks.
THANKS
scav
The Pence is “not a stupid man, but he’s done stupid things,” line also lays some nice pre-emptive blows on any feint toward the fluttering eyelash ingenue ploy of the “poor widdle me, I simply hadn’t a clue what those crafty, crafty people used simple little old me to advance” defense.
Belafon
@mai naem mobile: He is, on Daily Kos in particular. Until he annouces an exploratory committee, though, I don’t think we’ll hear much about him in the media.
kc
@Redshift:
I believed the WaPo article (my bad) & was too lazy to look up all the other state laws. So the Atlantic article was a big help.
WaterGirl
@jl: It’s true. Cole ranting about the pups would be good enough for me.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Cacti: I just look at this as being stunning proof that “money talks, bullshit walks”.
The Money vote is sick and tired of the bigots costing them money and Money has decided that it stops now.
This is going to be a very interesting election cycle for Republicans. Money obviously wants JEB! as the candidate and they’ll get him; that’s a done deal. What will be interesting is to see who’s sitting at the table, and who’s left outside holding their dicks, when the bloodbath is over with.
jl
@Villago Delenda Est: I heard several purported experts on something or other blathering on radio and TV about how times change, and what was OK for Clinton to sign was not OK now, and about the hard difficult choices and exquisite dilemmas we face, blah blah blah.
Not one damn bit of real info or accurate history from any of them. It was all BS.
I guess it was considered to impolite to call Pence and his gang what they really are: liars.
Thanks to commenters for links. I will be able to state things precisely to some wingnut relatives who are feeling all persecuted and outraged and ‘unfaired to’ and ‘double standarded’ now. They live in CA, so they got no hope at all for a mess like what Indiana made. But, they like to be losers in big messes, at least that is what I have gleaned fro their personal business decisions.
The Thin Black Duke
O.K., I have to ask: has Hillary said anything about what’s going on in Indiana? (and if she’s hasn’t, she’s an idiot)
jl
@kc: I think I was misled by the WaPo article too at first. ‘Idiotic’ and ‘WaPo article’, that pair is sadly becoming redundant.
Fred
Thou shalt not sell stuff to people thou disagreeth with.
Can Ah hear an Amen?
Can Ah Hear an Amen?
Come on, Sombody gimme an AMEN!
Belafon
@The Thin Black Duke: Yes. Since I can’t go to twitter, this DK diary includes her tweet on the issue (the title of the diary is meant to be misleading):
The Golux
Proud Nutmegger here, and glad (or perhaps glaad?) that Malloy took this action.
I guess he must have missed David Brooks’
turd-polishingcolumn.MattF
@scav: I don’t see Pence using that argument. He was, after all, the chairman of the Republcan Study Committee for two years while he was in Congress– so he has pretensions to– well, I don’t know– literacy, maybe. I suppose he could make an argument that he let anti-gay radicals take advantage of him– personally, I’d like to see him try that one.
Turgidson
I think I just felt the THUD from every single member of the vapid Beltway, professional Centrist, and right-wing media crashing onto their fainting couches at once.
Which means Malloy done good.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: She’s waiting to have possible comments poll tested first.
@Belafon: Okay, so she sort of took a stand, via twitter. But it’s a pretty nothing response.
Steve
If it can be raised as a defense when the government is an actor why it not apply to private parties?
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
I wish I had a video of my little pup growling and barking ferociously at a huge dog that was staring and tried to get too close to her boy. She did not like it at all. The big dog was not staring and wagging his tail or anything friendly. He really did give off a menacing vibe. Maybe I should send her to Indianna to deal with Pence. She does not like bullshit.
SiubhanDuinne
@Pogonip:
What do we want?
PUPDATES!!
When do we want ’em?
NAOW!!
:|| ad. inf.
scav
@MattF: The “I hadn’t a clue there’d be such a response, lawsy me, those people on the In.Ter.Net and in the Med.I.A are just so unexpected and alien.” had definite whiffs of the ingenue about it.
Pogonip
@jl: Mayhem! We want mayhem! Cute puppy mayhem!
I don’t remember poor Tunch as being particularly destructive. Wasn’t he old? Old cats usually don’t bother anything; it cuts into valuable sleeping time.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
Pogonip’s not the only one who wants to see pupdates on Ginger, Thurston and Lovey (and on Steve, and on Lily, and on Rosie).
Cliff in NH
@Belafon:
Yea I love that as well =)
plus, being on bloomberg wingnuts get to hear him slap down their bs conspiracy theories.
jl
@Pogonip: Tunch skeered Cole by staring at him buck nekkid whilst exiting the shower once. And then there were the nightly death-cage matches over bedtime snacks.
And, you don’t remember the infamous Tunch and Rosie gang that liked to conspire steal Cole’s stuff and disrupt his hapless attempts to get through the day?
Edit: I think Tunch reached early 60s in cat years. That ain’t too old.
The Thin Black Duke
@WaterGirl: Meh. I guess it’s better than nothing, I suppose. But damn, Hillary has lousy political instincts, y’know? To use a corny sports metaphor, this is standing in the batter’s box and the pitcher makes a mistake and tosses a slow wobbly duck the size of a basketball. Hell, this is a home run waiting to happen, Hillary! Go ahead and pound the shit outta it!
Cliff in NH
@Steve:
From the Ritholtz link I posted earlier :
kindness
Scarborough is such a schmuck in that piece. That is what he does. He ignores what is actually being said and paraphrases something someone else kinda said and acts like it is you that is being a jerk. Why wouldn’t a politician call Joe out on the air for that? Because he won’t be invited back on Morning Joe? In my book, that would be a twofer.
John Revolta
@SenyorDave: Ted Koppel was the master of this putdown maybe 30 years ago.
His “Now, Senator, you’re not a stupid man……………….” was always followed by a (barely) inaudible “so why are you so stupid?”.
maurinsky
Malloy is unpopular because he raised taxes, and now he’s cutting some good programs (after making some pretty bad calls with a consolidation of the CT State Uni system with the Community Colleges, lots of higher ed cutting – his errors there were putting the wrong people in charge). There are also people who hate the Bus Rapid Transit program, CTfastrak (but they will learn to love it when 84 is getting widened and they are switching the viaduct and the highway in Hartford).
He has made some good calls, though – lots of money in the budget for transportation, focused on improving rail travel. I love the CTfastrak idea, and I can’t wait till it’s on my side of the river. Lots of money for Brownfields remediation and redevelopment, all good for economic development and jobs.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
She’s far from the only one. I was trying to help her out in response to her
Roger Moore
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
If you look at what NASCAR is saying, they aren’t even going quite that far. The way I parse their statement, they’re saying they’re still happy to take your money, even if Indiana says they’re free to refuse it. “We don’t care what color you are as long as your money is green,” is better than nothing, but it’s not a strong statement of support for equality as an abstract issue.
jonas
@jl: That’s basically right. The federal legislation protected things like an Orthodox Jew being forced to shave or cut his locks due to a corporate policy on hair length or something. It protected people’s religious rights against corporate or government restrictions. The Indiana legislation does the opposite: it says that the government won’t go after businesses who discriminate against gay people and claim it’s because of their religious convictions.
I’m sure that the bill’s supporters are just thrilled that Pence is now going around claiming that it totally doesn’t do what its authors expressly intended it to do, which is let assholes calling themselves Christians stick it to the gays.
Also, Malloy is wrong. Pence is a very stupid person. Literally, in the sense that his IQ doesn’t really appear to be very high.
dave matson
This is the best Schadenfreude post of the day. http://www.redstate.com/2015/03/31/mike-pence-prepares-cave/
Same sex marriage is an “unmitigated evil”.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: Totally agree!
Totally unrelated, for the longest time I thought your name was The Thin Black Dude. I long ago recognized the error of my ways, but I find that I still think of you s the thin black dude. Hope you don’t mind.
jl
@jonas: This is vindictive and wrong of me, but Pence being in a lose-lose situation makes me happy. I will seek spiritual guidance on the proper charitable, even properly Christian, view towards his sad plight.
BottyGuy
There is no compelling reason to ever visit Indiana, when your state is very easy to boycott you should not do bigoted racist things.
The Thin Black Duke
@WaterGirl: Not at all, WG! No worries. Besides, there can only be one, and the dude abides.
Another Holocene Human
@Tim C.: Here’s the thing, the GLBT activists who sounded the alarm about this bill are lawyers and lobbyists who have been working on this shit for DECADES. Why some dipshits on the internet who are apparently mad that this is all over their facebook feed think they know better THAN PEOPLE WHOSE JOB IT IS TO KNOW INDIANA LAW is beyond me, except for Dunning-Kruger in action.
As became VERY clear in the last few days, sure, other states have RFRA style laws, as Washington State did, and a bigot florist JUST lost a fucking case because Wash St has an anti-discrimination law that includes GLBT protection. Indiana does not.
But what really kills me? #Tcot on twitter with their argle bargle about Clinton. Are we supposed to forget that Congress whipped up RFRA in response to a terrible ruling by Scalia that hurt those who practice certain Native American religions and that this current wave of DERP is due to another terrible decision in Hobby Lobby where Scalia, once again, privileged right wing Catholic shibboleths over the 1st amendment, other religions, compelling state interest, and the human rights of women? Hey wingnuts, my brain doesn’t have an auto-erase button like yours. But have a herp a derp day, mmkay
Elizabelle
What is this dissembling Washington Post (?) article of which you speak, which gives (fake) cover to the RFA?
So many bad Post articles, so little time.
(Some good ones too.)
schrodinger's cat
Religious freedom as defined by religious bigots: Their ability to discriminate against anyone who does not conform to their ideology without any blow back.
Another Holocene Human
And NPR can fucking go to hell with their “both sides do it” coverage of this issue. Lie lie lie lie. They did have someone from the ACLU on. Huh, funny, why would ACLU support the 1993 law but not the Indiana law. Maybe there’s a story there … nope! Two sides to this issue. Cue dominionist bigot to lie on air without contradiction. Both sides, lololol.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle:
Made me laugh! If only that would come up as the first result of a google search for washington post.
scav
Even tepid alignment by NASCAR is a fairly largish and deadish dollar-plastered horse head to wake up to with its lips next to yours.
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: The law Pence signed is written so poorly that someone could use it pretty much to deny service to anyone in public accommodation and claim it was for a non-federally protected class (essentially sexual and gender minorities–can you prove you’re not?) and be immune from a state lawsuit and a federal lawsuit would probably be a no go to unless you could make a gender discrimination claim. (Which is hard and probably wouldn’t work for sexual orientation even though it IS sex discrimination, I mean SSM is a sex discrimination issue but the fed circuits have looked at mostly under equal protection instead.)
It’s hard to overstate just how bad the 2015 RFRA state me-too bills are. Arkansas has one too, it is also awful. I’m surprised there hasn’t been more on this. It’s been a really ugly Walton-Duggars show, with them overturning protections in Fayetteville in a low turnout election and now they passed this bullshit statewide. But maybe the biggest AR story right now is rehoming children to pedophiles so religiously hating gays (or anybody) can’t get legs. Georgia lege actually killed their bill. Rays of hope there. 2016 federal election will be close and Dems could win some seats in the lege which would be great. (Dems will win back some seats in Florida lege too, probably not enough, though.)
Tommy
@BottyGuy: I recall it was like 2007. Obama in Austin, TX for a rally. A person said they are an island of blue in a sea of red. That is about how I feel here in Illinois. There is just crazy all around me. I am a proud midwestern dude. I always felt we were pretty sane. I am starting to question that thinking.
Punchy
@Southern Beale: It’s quite a bit easier than calling the gubbnah. After passage, just hire ~25 black college-aged kids to visit a suburban park on a sunny Saturday afternoon fully packing heat. Law repealed 30 minutes later.
Another Holocene Human
Here’s one example of one way the Indiana RFRA could open the door to “whites only”.
A business owner could deny service to African Americans based on their hairstyles, claiming that natural hair or dreads means they’re a drug user and it’s against their religion to serve drug users. As long as they don’t claim they think the target of this harassment is actually a Rastafarian, which would turn it into a federal CRA claim, it would be up to a white bread Indiana judge/jury to decide if the sincere belief is really a sincere belief or more nasty bullshit propelled by bias. Given that employment law in this country seems to favor employers who are freaked out by natural hair …
This shit goes downhill fast.
Tsukune
Cuomo the Lesser has added New York to the list of states that won’t visit Indiana.
Another Holocene Human
@Punchy: I’m so tired of this “let’s you and him fight”.
I’m thinking of what happened when a slightly smaller “armed gang of thugs” was waiting at a bus stop, oh, about the size of a high school basketball squad, and got attacked by police in Rochester, NY for … nothing.
If you really want to understand America without the myth, I suggest reading the Czech classic Good Soldier Svejk (or Schweig). Actually, just the first couple of chapters with the police officer will do. The way the Austrian authorities treat the Czechs, this is like life in Fortress America.
I think it’s a great thing for a white American to read because the remove keeps you from that wall of defensiveness you might experience reading Invisible Man or something like that.
I found the Austro-Hungarian police state VERY, very familiar.
Another Holocene Human
@Tsukune: lol, he waits a week after all these other governments have done it and been praised for it
Tommy
@Another Holocene Human: Agreed. My only hope is that business owners understand turning away a paying customer is bad for business. I work for myself. Many of my clients have political views I don’t hold. As long as they don’t force their views down my throat, and I don’t do it to them either, they are just a paying client. In what world does a business owner turn away a client willing to pay?
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human: RWNJs are the same everywhere. In India wherever the BJP government is in power, they are banning beef. 20 out of the 29 states so far have banned beef. So idiotic.
catclub
Barry Ritholtz has two good pieces on this. The second calls bullshit.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2015/03/a-few-more-words-on-indianas-rfra-law/
Another Holocene Human
Indianapolis–see today’s paper–has to be shitting their pants. The state built them this wonderful shiny airport and they NEED that convention business!!
IN is way behind on rail, no surprise. Just a reminder if you don’t want to drive through IN to get to Chicago there are plenty of trains, a daily Lake Shore Limited (MA, NY, OH), daily Capitol Limited (DC, PA, OH), and tri-weekly Cardinal (DC, VA, WV). Virginia just agreed to invest millions on the Buckingham Branch with the hopes the Card will go daily. And IN actually put up some money to run the Hoosier which could lead to a daily Card and a daily Hoosier at different times of day so you could actually take a train from CHI to Indy instead of just talking about it.
You know, if anyone were going to Indy.
Belafon
@Tommy: Ask all those people from the late 1800s through the 1960s. Turning down business has the tendency of marginalizing a group of people and then generally end up being poorer.
catclub
@schrodinger’s cat: Sacred Cow makes the best hamburger. easy for me to say.
Tommy
@Belafon: No you are right. Been done in the past and I fear in the future. Just trying to find any “silver lining” to this whole thing.
Pogonip
@Amir Khalid: Cole! There are worldwide pupdate requests! Give!
Steve
Refusing to bake a gay couple a cake=forcing a baker to bake a cake for a gay couple despite objection based upon religious beliefs
catclub
@Punchy:
I agree, but I suspect you and I are both white. Who will bell the cat comes to mind here. Those 25 black kids will be in a pretty dangerous place. One of the best ways to get shot is to carry around a gun – especially if you are black.
ThresherK
@Another Holocene Human: the Czech classic Good Soldier Svejk
After reading a passel of books about the region lately (WWI Fever…Catch It?), that book is on my list of soon-tos. It passes my geek test of being in basically every decent related book’s bibliography.
I can recommend The Month That Changed The World to anyone who wondered, “How the hell did this happen?” And Simon Winder’s Danubia to “But seriously, how the hell did that happen?”
schrodinger's cat
@catclub: Its a cheap source of protein for the poor and the religious minorities (Christian and Muslim). BTW there are some Hindu communities that have traditionally eaten beef (Kashmir and Kerala). The BJP is always forcing their version of Hinduism (more like saffron Fascism) on everyone else)
scav
@Another Holocene Human: That’s the nature of tipping points. On the upside, the “me too” phenomenon of doing it once proven to be at least relatively “safe” does rather keep up the pressure and in the news. Not a status which the supporting tribe wishes, as they do seem to be hoping it will all just die down as “one of those usual InTerNet crazes (there are no actual people on the internet, apparently) and thus no big deal”.
Japan’s not quite there yet, but seems to be a few cracks gathering: Tokyo’s Shibuya ward is first in Japan to recognise same-sex marriage. Sort of a marker buoy for those that remember, that, somehow.
Tommy
@schrodinger’s cat: Is that true. I thought goat was the most eaten meat not fish. You get wool. Milk. And if you want you can eat the animals.
Another Holocene Human
@catclub: Great summary.
@schrodinger’s cat: That’s so shitty. I have a friend who is an Indian Christian (from the 2% minority). She endured an abusive marriage to get a green card. (To be fair, she knew her father in law was not well mentally but thought her husband was different but … you know … he was insecure and got super controlling.) Because her family was middle class, they were able to leave India for English-speaking countries. She didn’t feel safe there. She literally hid in the house during one outbreak of religious violence.
The nationalistic Hindu supremacist cant makes me sick. Maybe at some point Islam was spread with the sword (so was Christianity) but you know when you look at cities where the ‘untouchable’ caste is almost all Muslim you start to realize that a lot of people converted voluntarily and why wouldn’t they?! They had a good reason to leave Hinduism for a religion that said all men are equal. (Yeah men, women aren’t equal in Abrahamic religion.) That’s a big fuckin’ deal. The Hindu tribalists do sound exactly like Dominionist fundagelical nuts. I heard a radio report about them aggressively proselytizing Christians in a rural region. Hey, there’s a lot of great stuff in the Hindu tradition but this fundamentalist stuff is bullshit.
catclub
@Another Holocene Human:
The key thing in all this is the lack of understanding of what ‘public accommodation’ means. I think it is intentional ingnorance, starting with Rand Paul saying he is against forcing a business to serve black customers in the 1964 CRA. Libertarians, gaah.
Elizabelle
Found the WaPost article: 19 states that have ‘religious freedom’ laws like Indiana’s that no one is boycotting. Blog by young reporter Hunter Schwarz.
Sounds like a roundup that went awry for not considering context.
Sympathy for young reporters: there is so much bullshit out there (some of it peddled in the WaPost op ed pages, regrettably, among myriad other sources), that critical thinking and understanding actual history is triply important.
And probably kind of hard for young people who didn’t grow up and see the history firsthand, or — and this applies to voters too — have no idea how much some stuff has slid backward. How hard it was to get some things changed, that many now take for granted.
Experienced editors would be real helpful here. Just saying.
Hungry Joe
More blowback: Wilco cancelled a concert in Indianapolis, saying they look forward to returning once Indiana repeals “this odious law.”
(Saw their side band Tweedy in San Diego last week. Outstanding, of course. Spencer, Jeff Tweedy’s 18-year-old son, is the drummer. He’s already good, and is going to be VERY good.)
Germy Shoemangler
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has banned all non-essential, state-funded travel to Indiana after that state adopted a religious freedom law that critics say opens the door to discrimination against gays and lesbians.
The Democratic governor announced the ban Tuesday, saying it shows the state stands by “our LBGT family members, friends and colleagues.”
Lawmakers had called for such a ban earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, NY GOP Chair Ed Cox calls the move a “political stunt.” He released the following statement:
“Now that Andrew Cuomo has banned travel to Indiana, he can cancel his upcoming trip to Cuba, where gay marriage is illegal, political dissidents are imprisoned and tortured, and the Castro regime is on the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Or he can admit that both moves are political stunts meant to bolster his national profile with no grounding in reality or substance.”
catclub
@Another Holocene Human: Slumdog millionaire kind of hinted at this. I wonder what the response was to that movie in India.
Woodrowfan
if I remember right Pence has a law degree, so when he says his law is the same as the 1993 law, he’s either [proving his dishonesty or his stupidity. (I think it’s both myself)
Belafon
@Steve: Here’s the deal, Steve. These people have a way to discriminate. When they are at home, they do not have to make a cake for any person, whether that person is gay, black, a woman, or poor. On the other hand, if they have chosen to run a business, with all it’s protections such as the government forcing all those that interact with it to obey any contracts, or being covered by us tax payers if they lose money, they have to follow a few rules in return. One of them being that they cannot discriminate against a particular group of people just because they want to, whether it’s for religious reasons (which I can find plenty of Christians who view this discrimination as not being very religious at all).
NonyNony
@The Thin Black Duke:
I disagree on this one. If she gets out there and starts hammering on it, then the discussion becomes about her and not about Indiana. Right now Pence would love it if Clinton or Obama would come in and take the pressure off of him by making it into a standard Democrat vs. Republican issue where he’d get his partisans to rally to his defense.
Staying out of it is smart politics for getting shit done this time. It might be slightly dumb PR for “Brand Hillary”, in that she could be promoting her “brand” at this point and hanging LBGT people out to dry while doing it, but it would be terrible for actually accomplishing a turnaround in the Indiana law. And her “brand” doesn’t need that promotion right now – EVERYONE outside of Democratic political watchers pretty much assumes that Clinton is a “far left liberal who will be the most liberaly liberal liberal ever to liberal in Washington DC” already – so that side of the brand is secure. For the folks who don’t already believe that, saying anything supportive doesn’t help her much because it will be viewed as crude political calculation instead of “something she actually believes in”, which doesn’t help her with the Democrats who are on the fence about her at all, because they’re on the fence about her because they doubt her commitment to liberal politics.
No benefit for folks trying to repeal the law, and no benefit for her presidential brand. That’s a lose-lose situation, and her political instincts in staying out of it are good.
Hungry Joe
@Another Holocene Human: Thanks for reminding me of the dognapper Schweik!
“Are you a complete idiot, Schweik?”
“Oh, yes sir. The army itself certified that I’m an idiot.”
I also remember that a tavern owner was sent to prison because a portrait of the Kaiser had a fly speck on it.
Woodrowfan
@Another Holocene Human: one of my best students is Pakistani Christian. Her family had to flee a few years ago to the US. She’s very bright, hard-working, and a great kid* . Definitely one of my best students. Religious fundies always drive out some of the best and brightest along with anyone else on the margins, regardless of which religion it is. Ironically she also gets some crap from her conservative congregation ( a mainline Protestant denomination, not evangelical). She wants a career but her church friends tell her “but how will you support your husband or raise your kids if you have a career?” I encourage her all I can. She wants to work for State and I think she’d be a hell of an ambassador someday.
* I’m closing in on 60, “kid” means she’s under 35. 8-)
jl
@Steve: On the off-chance this is not DougJ trolling:
I know the Bible pretty well, I don’t recall a passage forbidding people to bake cakes for gay people. I do recall St. Paul advising Christians to not to make a big deal over incidental contact with, and participation in, religious practices that they do not believe in.
And you know, it is a free country. Individual bigoted Christian sects have a right to be bigoted and can always provide private catering and floral services for their pure-as-the-driven-snow religious services.
But this is a secular country. You do business with the public, you do business with the public. No one is forced to provide services that they do not want to provide, like baking p * n * s cakes or butcher pork if they don’t want to.
This will lead to some unfortunate dilemmas, like a bakery that will make a organ cakes for bachelor and bachelorette parties but not for gays. I admit that. But no rights are absolute, and freedom of religious observance and belief should not be used as an excuse for arbitrary bigotry. And it is arbitrary, it is a perversion of Christianity, though I don’t know about other religions. So, these Xtianist can go do their cakes and flowers in private clubs.
NonyNony
@Steve:
Replace “gay couple” with “interracial couple” in that equation and tell me how it scans.
Scans like discrimination to me.
Another Holocene Human
@catclub: Or carry a wallet or a cell phone. Remember Michael Moore and the safety orange wallets? And that was two decades ago!
Tommy
@Belafon: You can do whatever racist shit you want in your house. A business not so much. I can’t speak to race in my business really, but I have only one client of a political nature. A park district in CA. Client was a raging liberal. African American. He lost an election and a far, far right guy took his position.
He called and thought I would be difficult. I was like no Tim I am not a dick. This is business. You need work done I will help you. I like to think he might have something of a better opinion of liberals at this point :).
Punchy
@catclub: I wasn’t really being serious. My point was one made here a million times: whites think these gun laws are great, until they’re forced to realize that all ethnicities get to partake….at which point, their racism kicks in and they suddenly dont want such laws…
catclub
@jl:
Public accommodation! Not that hard a concept..
Another Holocene Human
@NonyNony: Of course it’s discrimination. If you open your doors to the public, it’s all the public. Not a private club. Some sole proprietors have this ahistoric, romantic notion of their business as the ultimate self expression, so like the person that must have a red Mustang or they don’t feel like themselves, their transactions FOR MONEY must express the same bumper sticker identity.
You’re not baking a cake for a friend. You put frosting on sponge for cash. You registered for the government and you’re regulated by all kinds of laws.
It was eye opening to find out that England never allowed this sort of special snowflakism. They also never had a caste system (well, except for that unpleasantness in the middle ages involving Jews). To create apartheid, first you break the notion of the public house, the public accommodation. Then you police the comings and goings of the subject class and their relationship with the state. The way CRA worked was to be enforced by private actions in civil court so, no, it’s not lawyers out of control, unless you are a bigot dreaming of Jim Crow.
Botsplainer
The cans of worms are open, and a lot of the rhetoric comes down to the circumstances of wedding cakes, photographers and florists (although I think the actions of the small-town bottled gas supplier, the village grocer, the plumber, the gas station proprietor and the local septic tank servicer will probably loom larger for people perceived as gay – rightfully or wrongfully – out in the hinterlands).
As I think about the poor photographers, wedding cake bakers and florists, the following commercial activities apparently can result in a declination of services, especially given enough local pressure to run, you know, THEM out:
1. Mixed faith marriages.
2. Mixed ethnicity marriages.
3. Marriages where one of the parties is divorced (particularly if the service provider is a devout Catholic).
4. Marriages following cohabitation.
5. Marriages where a child has been born of the parties already.
6. Marriages of atheists/agnostics.
7. Marriages of people not of the same faith as the service provider.
I guess that guys like Newt Gingrich, John McCain and Ronald Reagan would have been out of luck on celebrating their subsequent marriages under this sort of regime….
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?”
-Matthew 7:16
Another Holocene Human
@Punchy: White supremacists are way ahead of you, mang.
White supremacists don’t worry about black people open carrying because they’re all “felons”, after all, the drug laws and other stupidity act to make a huge percentage of all African American adults felons and felon restoration has been taken away so they never get their civil rights back. Whites get diversions, prosecutorial discretion, and so on, even if they’re caught with hard drugs or shoot a family member.
Even Black people with all the permits can get hassled, arrested, or shot. More like, white supremacists including the cops aren’t afraid of armed radical urban groups any more (I don’t mean urban as in Black I mean urban as in city based, as opposed to your rural radicals) because if they even try to organize they’re all going to prison on weapons charges.
White supremacists may be stupid but they’re not THAT stupid. Check out Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow”. The landscape has changed.
Tree With Water
Writing about the execrable David Brooks latest column for the NY Times, Charles Pierce may as well have been addressing the entire republican party when he wrote:
“If Brooks wants to say that discrimination against LGBT citizens is not really discrimination worthy of the law’s attention, he should just say so, and stop wasting all our time putting Bull Connor in a $500 suit”.
Bravo.
Another Holocene Human
@Another Holocene Human: lol I do mean Black or of color but in that sentence I am talking about your specifically urban radicalism, city people talk differently from country people, approach politics differently
Tommy
@Another Holocene Human: I lived in DC for 10+ years. SE. NE. At a time I was the only white dude on my block. I now live in a rural area and there is a huge difference. I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but there is a huge difference.
Botsplainer
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/31/indiana-planned-parenthood_n_6977232.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
Another triumph of Conservatism.
scav
Forcing the higher castes of the devout to serve the untouchables! Unamerican! Worse, not praising them for their innate superiority for so doing? Oppression!
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: In the 1990s rural b&b’s and motels would routinely refuse service to “unrelated adults”.
B&B’s in particular would start up the special snowflake whine: we live here, this inn is a reflection of our personality, we don’t support fornication, yadda yadda.
While this line in the sand for evangelical Christians has been mostly abandoned, most states STILL do not protect unrelated adults in accommodations. They targeted same sex and opposite sex couples. In fact, there is still a law on the books in Florida against “living in sin” (dunno the exact legal term) and it still gets applied to powerless people and low level gov’t employees, while county sheriffs and elected officials flout it. It shouldn’t be the law at all, but said powerful people refuse to repeal it.
THIS SHIT IS REAL. And how many convention-goers double up with their friends in hotel rooms? I remember there were like 6 of us unrelated adults one time in Virginia … I slept on the floor which wasn’t bad at all (it was a really nice room). It was like a forced triple in there.
This crap isn’t theoretical. And these people want to god-bother on a hell of a lot more than just gay people’s private lives. Even in the millennials it turns out almost the SAME group of people hates gays and thinks casual sex is a big old sin.
Don’t give the Puritans power.
wasabi gasp
@Steve: I agree with this, especially so with wedding photography.
Regardless of the law, why be an obstinate dick about the situation? Show some pitiful mercy, then find another business that will happily serve your happy day.
hoodie
I think Malloy is making the point that this behavior is not the result of stupidity, but rather intentionally evil actions by people who should know better. It’s misleading to say wingnuts are stupid; a lot of them aren’t, they’re just assholes, particularly the ones who are professional politicians, pundits and preachers.
fuckwit
@Hungry Joe: This’d be the little kid seen practicing playing “Heavy Metal Drummer” in the documentary “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart”? I could see it already then.
Mike J
@wasabi gasp:
And find a different lunch counter to eat at? After all, if the drugstore doesn’t want the business of black people, why give money to bigots, right?
This road doesn’t get you to civil rights.
jl
@Botsplainer: I find it interesting that Pence OK’d an emergency needle exchabge program for that HIV outbreak, it mostly being due to needle sharing for illegal drug use.
Would it have been more a dilemma for Pence if the outbreak had been attributed to gay sex? Or any kind of sex at all?
Some commenters above are correct. All the talk is about wedding planners, photographers and bakers. But there will be deadly consequences if states open legal avenues for arbitrary discrimination against whoever a business owner finds icky.
We could be back to the days where a hospital could deny any and all services to people they find morally unworthy of care, even, if you got into a tug of war between a state statute giving the right to deny services to a person you claim to be religiously icky and, say, EMTALA and state medical regulations.
Iowa Old Lady
@Botsplainer: That’s just heart-breaking.
Arclite
Grew up in CT. Good on them.
Botsplainer
@Another Holocene Human:
The local bottled gas supplier, the village grocer, the local plumber, the local electrician, the local pharmacist, the local doc, the local mortician, the local gas station proprietor and the local septic tank servicer have a metric fuckton of trouble they can rain down on somebody who is, is perceived as or is cynically accused of being gay (just because he might be an asshole).
I think that gives way too much unaccountable power to unelected misanthropes in small communities. In a lot of places, there are no other options for those services, or so little competition as to render any shopping meaningless, as the cartel lockout rules will apply to the local gay.
fuckwit
@WaterGirl: No doubt returning, and throwing darts in lover’s eyes, per Bowie.
dogwood
@NonyNony:
I agree. Presently, in this country, the only active politicians who are “larger than life” are Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. If either one voluntarily weighed into this, they would shift the focus from where it belongs right now. They should avoid situations where they will be directly questioned for as long as possible, and just let the Republicans roll around in this shit. Within a week or so they will be asked to comment.
ThresherK
@Another Holocene Human: Some of us are related, but our drivers’ licenses don’t reflect as such. My wife is a Smith who kept her surname.
Maybe we lucked out. Most of our trips are here in Coastal Elitia .
Steve in the ATL
@Steve:
The same rules don’t always apply. Free speech, for instance. Private parties can limit it (like most companies do); governments cannot.
ShadeTail
Has anyone noted the pun in the article title? *Straight* talk?
TDSmith
One aspect of the Hobby Lobby decision that I haven’t seen mentioned is that the Supreme Court wrote it for a very narrow class of businesses. The Indiana law expands it to all businesses.
I’m not a lawyer so my understanding is only of the common sense form, but as I read the First Amendment the idea seems to be, “Protect people with minority opinions, including minority faiths, by outlawing government-sanctioned oppression by the majority.”
The Hobby Lobby decision danced around a bit but basically followed that line of thinking by expanding the concept of a religious organization only to include closely held businesses where the principals have strong religious convictions. This is a critical distinction because it gives a crisp answer to the question of who gets to decide the business’s spiritual convictions.
By expanding the concept of a person to be any company, and expanding “religious protection” to civil disputes, the Indiana law extends special government protection to the oppression of minority opinions and faiths by the majority. This is the exact opposite of the intent of the First Amendment.
I’m not surprised that a dolt like Pence could miss this glaring distinction, but it does amaze me that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the 2016 GOP contenders has come out defending the Indiana law on First Amendment grounds. They have staff. Presumably some of their consultants have legal minds and can see the problem this will cause for their candidate down the road. But no.
Amazing!!
EthylEster
@jl caveated:
the sad legacy of DougJ!
delk
…and the wayback machine reveals that Pence has been REALLY lying A LOT lately.
“Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual’s as a ‘discreet and insular minority’ entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities,”
mic drop
http://web.archive.org/web/20020206052612/http://www.mikepence.com/issues.html
EthylEster
@wasabi gasp:
yeah, sit in the back of the bus.
after all, the people in the the front and back get to the destination at the same time.
Jay C
@dogwood:
I think Gov. Pence mentioned Obama’s name in connection with his (Obama) having voted for some “RFRA” act in Illinois, back when PBO was a State Senator: I would LOVE for the President to step up and publicly school Pence over the considerable differences between the two pieces of legislation. Quite clearly, in his best Constitutional-scholar manner, and making it clear that discrimination – despite the GOP’s and the godbotherers’ whines – wasn’t on their agenda.
Woodrowfan
I’d worry that the baker would spit in the cake, or the photographer would foul up the photos, say “oops” and give me my money back.
wasabi gasp
@Mike J: Just because it’s your right, doesn’t mean you have to enforce it.
catclub
@wasabi gasp:
One would. On the other hand, why can’t the photographer figure out that they are curiously booked up for every proposed date? Instead, the photographer has to yell to the world that they won’t serve the gays. And complain of being the real victim when it does not quite work out.
Mandalay
In Pence’s article in the WSJ today he’s using Rand Paul’s free market defense of bigotry and hatred:
That shit just won’t fly any more. Pence has covered himself in gasoline and nailed himself to the floor. If a prominent Republican (Jeb?) has enough balls to light the match he’s gone, but I’m not holding my breath.
David Koch
but, Cole,
your hero Rand Paul is on record saying,
Mike J
@wasabi gasp:
It’s not going to be your right until you demand it.
Jebediah, RBG
@Tim C.:
Best way I have seen today to say “I argued with a tree stump and the tree stump doesn’t know it lost.”
I did find the info in that comment of yours informative, so thanks for making the effort.
wasabi gasp
@catclub: This assumes the proprietor has the right to not serve gays. I’m coming from the point of having no such right, rather request.
wasabi gasp
@catclub: Also, I’m not big on the lying idea. Let it be known. Let them bear their bigotry.
jonas
@Germy Shoemangler: And if the GOP gave as much of a shit about human rights abuses in this country as they do in Cuba, I’d agree he has a point. Until then, Mr. Cox can STFU.
Cliff in NH
@jl:
Fixt that, there are already deadly consequences cause nutbags hate planned parenthood so much they would rather kill their citizens than allow HIV testing from a place that happens to also do abortions – just not at the places they closed from hatred of abortions.
Liberty60
What makes this so satisfying is that normal people get why this is a losing issue, and are smart enough to distance themselves from it, even if they happen to not like gays.
But meanwhile, the entire 2016GOP clown car presidential hopefuls has jumped on this issue like nobodies bidness, and leaving a huge paper trail/ skid mark with which to identify themselves to potential swing voters.
Mandalay
@Liberty60:
That’s a good point. Having backed Pence all the way in his hate crusade, Bush, Rubio et al will now have to explain why they also support Pence backing down.
fuckwit
@Jay C: It’s bait. Obama’s smart enough not to take it. Pence owns this. It’s about him, no matter how much he keeps trying to bring Clinton or Obama or whomever into it.
jl
@Cliff in NH:
Thanks for correction.
@Liberty60:
I read that Jeb! (moderate Republican, TM, patent pending) is all in for Indiana…. er… Pence.. I mean, pandering to the base.
delk
In regards to bakers and florists and B&B’s.
Just put the BIG ASS SIGN up that says THIS BUSINESS DOES NOT DO BUSINESS WITH GAY PEOPLE
No subtle fish signs, this isn’t 1940’s gay life where I have to wear a discrete ‘green tie’ on Tuesday’s to signal my tribe.
Fuck your pitiful mercy.
Show me simple decency.
Tree With Water
“More of this”, indeed. Watching democrats get back into rhetorical fighting trim is a lot like toilet training a baby. It’s frustrating, but the payoff is priceless. And as Malloy just proved, it so-ooo easy.. just like shooting fat fish in a small barrel.
wasabi gasp
@delk: Not sure if you do, or don’t, want a bigot at your wedding.
Tree With Water
Off topic, but the Philadelphia Phillies have announced a decision that might potentially rank on the fiasco meter with Disco Night in (Cleveland?) all those years ago:
“Good news for Phillies fans who would like to increase their chances at catching vomit spray from some drunk goon at a ballgame this year: For the first time ever, the team will be selling wine and cocktails on the main concourse at Citizens Bank Park..”.
Cocktails meaning hard liquor, of course. The Phils are out of their minds..
schrodinger's cat
@Tommy:
Is what true? I have no idea about the relative rankings of different types of protein consumption in India. Most of my first hand knowledge of India is limited to Bombay (Mumbai) and its surroundings, and AFAIK there aren’t many goat herders there.
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve: Does Cole know that his cat is posting to the blog and making cats look really stupid when doing so?
rea
@Another Holocene Human: Or a storeowner could simply say racial mixing was against his religion and that therefore he wouldn’t sell to blacks. Claims like that were made numerous times back in the 60s and 70s . . .
Cliff in NH
@jl:
no problem, there are lots hospitals that forbid abortions because religion; doesn’t matter if you are Dying either. So I could have done that one as well..
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub: And this is PRECISELY what the issue is. They want to be assholes publically about sexual orientation. Loud and proud, and not suffer any consequence for their assholishness.
danielx
@pseudonymous in nc:
This.
Your intelligent pol would not have let himself be painted into a corner as Pence has done. There are any number of ways he could have gotten around having this bill go into law, with all of them coming down to “I understand and honor your feelings, but sorrowfully I must tell you that you can’t do this (pass RFRA) because in my opinion it would be bad for the state’s economy. If you pass this law as written I will, regretfully, veto it”.
Or words to that effect, which is pretty much what Mitch Daniels would have done except that he wouldn’t have been sincere about understanding and honoring wingnut feelings (about which Mitch Daniels could give an infinite numbers of fucks).
Pence could have gotten away with it, being a wingnut himself – it’s a couple of years until the next election and the wingnut/godbotherer base would have gotten distracted by one or more new bright shiny objects before 2016. In the event of a (potential) primary challenge, all Pence would have had to do is assign a couple of staffers to come up with a reasonably well-researched study (not that difficult) showing that boycotts and whatnot subsequent to passage of the bill would have cost the state’s economy x hundred million dollars and x many jobs, then ask his opponent to explain how he would address those who lost their jobs. This was not a hill Mike Pence needed to die for, politically speaking – RFRA is a wingnut temper tantrum thrown because wingnuts have been getting their asses handed to them right and left on gay marriage (and other social issues) for a while now. They are sorely aggrieved because they’re not used to having their sensitive fee-fees regarding other people’s behavior ignored, what with having harlots still able to obtain birth control and get abortions even if they do have to travel to other states, leap through flaming hoops and rub their stomachs while patting their heads to do so.
SiubhanDuinne
@Germy Shoemangler:
@jonas:
Mr. Cox sounds like more of a bigot than his late father-in-law, and that’s saying something.
fuckwit
@Tree With Water: Chicago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night
mclaren
John Cole quoting an amendment from the constitution of the united states?
Sounds like…me.
Better trot out the “ranting” and “raving” smears, trolls — and Mnemosyne, this means you.
delk
@wasabi gasp: My wedding consisted of my husband and myself.
Just the two of us. After waiting well over a decade for the opportunity, and the always delightful chance that our marriage will be taken away from us, we opted to go it alone and promptly.
That night about twenty years ago when I heard the squeal of car brakes and two guys jump out and beat the living shit out of me while screaming fucking faggot, sort of reinforced, whether I liked it or not, I live among some seriously bigoted people.
Trust me, I have no desire to give money to anybody that would not wish well of me.
Mike J
@Tree With Water: Safeco has sold cocktails for years.
jl
@danielx: And good time to repeat that Pence got on the radio machine a few days ago and admitted that there were no real problems or controversies or waves of lawsuits or right thinking Christian bakeries going out of business in Indiana (despite disparagement of Hoosiers here recently) that called for a new law. He just wanted to make things clear.
WTH was Pence thinking?
SiubhanDuinne
It’s too bad we can’t get a Presidential ticket with the Governor of Indiana and the Governor of New Jersey.
Slogan: Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves.
(Yes, I know I promised I wouldn’t make fun of Christie’s weight, and I am truly ashamed of myself and apologize to anyone who might have taken offense, but I couldn’t resist the bumper sticker.)
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human:
Which part of India is your friend from? In areas around Mumbai and the coast of Maharashtra and Goa they are a fairly significant and a mostly prosperous minority. Many elite schools in Bombay are run by Jesuits. Kerala is another state where Christian minority is significant. Arundhati Roy does an excellent job of portraying the Syrian Christian community in Kerala in her God of Small Things. The Orthodox Christian community in Kerala predates the advent colonial powers in India.
Really, all the untouchables are Muslim? Which city is that? The beef with Islam is more recent, the formation of Pakistan was especially bloody. Millions were displaced and died during the Partition.
The lower castes that converted to Christianity later are derisively referred to as “rice Christians” by the Orthodox Christians
Unfortunately, in India you can change your religions but you can’t shake off your caste.
RSS and its political wing the BJP can give any Christian fundie in this country a run for their money where bigotry is concerned.
Tim C.
@fuckwit:
I have to say that I admire your correct use of the word whomever.
Hal
Ah Arkansas. So brave to stand up for the maligned florists and cake bakers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/01/us/religious-freedom-restoration-act-arkansas-indiana.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
scav
And now we get the next to watch the next exciting episode: Is AR any smarter than IN? I pity those hoping this would all just die away and not expose existing fault lines between certain traditional political bedfellows.
Mike J
I know Rick Perry and the other dwarves have come out in favor of Indiana, but I’m interested in hearing what Perry has said about the boycotts. Mainly because Texas ran ads telling companies in California that if they didn’t like the laws there, they should move to Texas. Does he feel the same way about NASCAR and Indiana?
Cliff in NH
Oh for fucks sake. #BoycottArkansas
Arkansas Legislature Copies Indiana, Passes Controversial Religious Freedom Bill
Violet
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is the issue with Republicans in general. They want to be assholes about whatever the issue is but they do not want to deal with the consequences of being assholes. They want their free speech but not the consequences of that speech. Whine, whine, whine when it’s time for consequences.
scav
I have a sudden vision of The Benedict formerly known as The Pope suddenly gnashing his teeth, ululated and donning sackcloth that his didn’t hold onto the tiara and snazzy slippers for a bit longer. I somehow think he and red-hatted minions would so be all over this. (They have been rather silent, all in all,no?)
schrodinger's cat
@catclub: The protagonist of Slum Dog Millionaire was a Muslim and the events that you mentioned happened in the early 90s. Had its roots in the Babri-Masjid/Ramjanmabhoomi issue.
I don’t know how the movie was received in India. It didn’t work for me because it had too many factual inaccuracies (not the scene about the riots though, those riots were bloody, the city burned for days)
fuckwit
@Violet: The whine of the privileged, losing their privilege. They’ve never had consequences before, so IT IS JUST SO UNFAIR that now there are.
The whole right-wing white christian angry-victim program is just that. Michael Moore nailed it in “Stupid White Men” in 2001. The howling and stomping-feet is that of a baby (or teenager?) who has been coddled by power and privilege, has lost it, and now feels angry, aggrieved, terrified, indignant, lost, and wounded because of that.
Every time you hear Papa Bear howling on his show, that’s what it is. A great big scary baby.
zoot
take all of the crap, indecent personality traits a human can possess, add in none of the good, and THAT is today’s republican/conservative.
Patrick
@Cliff in NH:
Another state to boycott.
danielx
@jl:
I refer you back to @pseudonymous in nc:
danielx
@SiubhanDuinne:
Now that’s just cold. And excellent.
Cliff in NH
@Patrick:
Yea, I wanna see some of the Real welcome signs doctored like the ones on twitter The pics on that tag are already pretty good.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23boycottarkansas&mode=photos
scav
INtolerant
Apartheid Religiousity
Hal
From Think Progress:
Apparently the Washington Post and Fox News (of course) are trying to argue this law is the same as the other 19 laws passed by other states, but Indiana’s goes a step further and applies to disputes between individual people, not just a person or business, church etc and the Government. Any suggestion by Pence that this does not allow discrimination is complete nonsense.
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2015/03/30/3640374/big-lie-media-tells-indianas-new-religious-freedom-law/
Brachiator
@Cliff in NH:
Because, after all, corporations are people too, with deeply held religious convictions. Unbelievable.
Tree With Water
@hoodie: More to your good point, he’s saying it out loud (and being applauded for it). Elizabeth Warren does it, too, as do any and all of them worth their salt.
JPL
If someone has such strong religious convictions, what about those who divorce, or commit adultery? IMO, adultery is more a danger to all marriages.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike J: Yeah, but that’s in civilized Seattle, not in Philly, where the fans have an unfortunate reputation for being, um, uncivilized.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Indeed. Need to pay my Sunday only subscription, and dragging about giving Fred Hiatt and Co. the small chunk of change.
ThresherK
@SiubhanDuinne: Apparently they can’t even try to massage “Pence Wise, Pounds Foolish” into a sellable slogan.
I predict some useful idiot at a tabloid will determine that Chris Christie has found the “moderate common ground” on this and we will see the headline “Pence Foolish and Pounds Wise”.
Cliff in NH
@Brachiator:
yea, I’ll believe a piece of paper like IBM’s corporate paperwork has a religion when it shows up in church/mosque/synagogue and follows All the rules of that faith. And catches cold, has bones, has DNA, dies etc..
Botsplainer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Here in the People’s Democratic Socialist Republic of Louisville, you can always get a cocktail at a college game.
They even stock Woodford Reserve, no well shit.
boatboy_srq
@danielx: Ditto.
Capri
@dmsilev: He blamed Obamacare because the law was actually designed to be able to deny women their federally-mandated birth control a la Hobby Lobby. I think they were completely blind-sided by the claim that it discriminates against LGBT – their only intent was to discriminate against women.
Gex
@wasabi gasp: and hey if it’s the only one (not everyone lives in the city you know) then tough shit!
Or if the next one says no. And the next. And the next. Then tough shit. Even if no one will serve you the theoretical option of being served exists so your rights, now dead gay person, haven’t been impinged.
WaterGirl
@Cliff in NH: I love the woman holding the sign that says: You may have stripped me of my rights, but I still get more pus*y than you.
Cliff in NH
@WaterGirl:
I first saw this with a Very butch lady in a gif meme thing, looked like it was from some talk show, I’m trying to find the Vid the gif was made from as I assume it’s pretty interesting conversation.
Cliff in NH
Mike Steel was on hardball defending this POS, He Got Nothin.
Its pathetic, The gov holds up the defeated amendment that prevented discrimination, and he’s got nothin.
wasabi gasp
@Gex: You may have misunderstood. Choose any No you like.
“now dead gay person”?
wasabi gasp
@delk: Thanks for the clarification.
erehwon
@schrodinger’s cat:
You forget they don’t have the 2nd amendment though!
schrodinger's cat
@erehwon: Yes that’s right and AFAIK no Fox News either.
J R in WV
From the Atlantic article mentioned way above:
Hatred of others and trying to use Christianity as a reason for the hatred is so despicable to me. While there is commentary in the Bible that allows for some of that, it is commentary that was pasted into the founding documents hundreds of years after Christ moved on from this world, if you believe in that sort of thing.
I don’t, particularly, though I have had many friends who were very Christian, and used their faith to do good works for all the years of their lives. People who misuse Christ as a weaponized tool of hatred are just plain old evil. No getting around that.
I think the record shows that Christ was in favor of loving everyone, and that hatred had no part of his life and work.
waysel
@Steve: No one is being forced to operate a public business.