By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor
“This bill is not about allowing discrimination. This bill is about preventing discrimination against people who are clearly living out their faith.”
-Arizona State Sen. Steve Yarbrough (R), on SB 1062.
Assaults on the civil rights of homosexuals and the acceptance of gay marriage have been the focus of a number of state legislatures. The most recent lunacy is a bill in Arizona that now awaits action by Gov. Brewer. The bill amends sections of the Arizona Revised Statutes by incorporating provisions that effectively insulate many forms of grossly discriminatory conduct from legal consequence if done under the cloak of religion. This is accomplished in three steps. First, the bill defines “exercise of religion” to include “the ability to act or refusal to act in a manner substantially motivated by a religious belief, whether or not the exercise is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.” Second, the bill expands the definition of “person” to include “any individual, association, partnership, corporation, church, religious assembly or institution, estate, trust, foundation or other legal entity.” I refer to this as the “Hobby Lobby” amendment. Finally, the bill prohibits, with a strict scrutiny exception, any “state action” that substantially burdens the free exercise of religion even if that state action is a law of general application.
I anticipate that the governor will veto this atrocity, not as a matter of constitutional principle, but out of concern that enactment of the law would further harm Arizona’s reputation and economic interests. But it is nonetheless disturbing that legislators would willingly employ a fundamental freedom as a weapon against a disfavored group of citizens.The legislation has been pushed by the usual suspects. Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, has written a piece entitled “The Top Ten Harms of Same-Sex Marriage,” in which he claims, inter alia, that recognition of marital rights for gays threatens the religious liberty of “individual believers trying to live their lives in accordance with their faith not only at church, but at home, in their neighborhoods, and in the workplace.” That, of course, is merely another way of saying that Mr. Sprigg’s religious beliefs must prevail over yours in the event of a conflict, even to the point of requiring that you live somewhere other than where you may wish to live and work somewhere other than where you may wish to work. Mr. Sprigg, who was formerly the pastor of the Clifton Park Center Baptist Church in Clifton Park, New York, believes that tolerance is a synonym for endorsement.
Or consider the words of the Rev. H.M. Goodwin, who lamented the damage to “the unity of the family as a social organism,” striking “at the root of that which should be the first and foremost end of government to protect, the sacred unity of the Family.” Or perhaps don’t consider the words of Rev. Goodwin, because he wrote them in 1884 and the object of his outrage was actually the growing movement in support of women’s suffrage. In that same article, Rev. Goodwin complained of increasing secularism, an example of which was the removal of the Bible from public school classrooms at the instance of “Catholics and infidels.”
The history of this country is littered with appeals to God in defense of oppression. In 1822, Richard Furman, a church pastor in Charleston, South Carolina, wrote a letter to Gov. John Lyde Wilson claiming that slavery “is justifiable by the doctrine and example contained in Holy writ; and is, therefore, consistent with Christian uprightness, both in sentiment and conduct.” That argument became discredited through time and the Civil War, of course, but its legacy was a system of laws that persisted for decades until intervention by the courts, an intervention that the late religious leader W.A. Criswell decried as “a denial of all that we believe in” fomented by proponents of racial integration which he labeled “a bunch of infidels, dying from the neck up.”
The point is that every advance in the rights of man has had to overcome preachers of hatred and theologians of exclusion. Every attempt to admit to the fullness of civic, political and social life a group previously rejected out of ignorance and fear has been resisted by those asserting sole possession of divine truth. And years later, after the battles have been won and the opponents are long since dead, their words are finally recognized for what they are, the intolerant rants of false prophets.
In April of 1965, Lester Maddox stood at the entrance to his Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta, axe handle in hand, to block three black Georgia Tech students from entering. Mr. Maddox closed his restaurant later that summer rather than comply with court-ordered desegregation, but carried his views all the way to the Georgia governor’s mansion several years later.
In retrospect, Mr. Maddox made a tactical error. Instead of the same old tired arguments about property rights and federalism, he should have cited the Free Exercise Clause. He should have argued that his sincerely held religious beliefs prohibited his serving a ham sandwich to the children of Ham. Or perhaps he should have moved his restaurant to Arizona, where politicians have determined that religious balkanization is a healthy trend and that religious extremism in the defense of bigotry is no vice.
Sources: Goodwin, H.M., “Women’s Suffrage,” The New Englander,” No. CLXXIX (March, 1884); Freeman, Curtis, ” ‘ Never Had I Been So Blind’: W.A. Criswell’s ‘Change’ on Racial Segregation,” Journal of Southern Religion, Vol. X (2007); Sprigg, Peter, “The Top Ten Harms of Same-Sex Marriage,” Family Research Council (2011).
samantha,
My mind is open. That’s why I don’t have any problem with gays and lesbians being allowed to legally marry in this country. I think they should have equal rights.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/03/01/5611350/when-it-comes-to-bigotry-arizona.html?rh=1 When it comes to bigotry Arizona resembles Uganda.
I’m in total agreement with the excerpt, Elaine. You would already know that if you would simply open your mind to the common ground we already have.
There is growing research, davidm, that some forms of mechanical contraception prevent the exchange of hormones / factors that nature has designed to bond males and females for the benefit of offspring. Search for NGF (nerve growth factor) along with a key word such as contraception or parental bonding. The results are fascinating, but not for the politically correct who will immediately synthesize the requisite cortisol for denial. Some ancients had far more wisdom than they are given credit for today.
Catholic Magazine ‘America’ Denounces Uganda’s Harsh Anti-Gay Laws: Jesuit Editors Speak Out
Posted: 02/25/2014
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/25/catholic-magazine-america_n_4855428.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Excerpt:
Religious leaders around the world are uniting in protest of Uganda’s harsh new anti-gay laws, with South African former Archbishop Desmond Tutu likening them to the situations in Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa.
The editors of America magazine, a leading Catholic publication run by the Jesuit order, have added their voices to those condemning the criminalization of homosexuality in an open letter titled, “When the Law Is a Crime.”
America Editor at Large The Rev. James Martin, S.J., told The Huffington Post in an email, “As Christians we are concerned with affronts to human dignity, which is at the absolute heart of our Christian beliefs. And as Catholics we look to the Catechism which enjoins Catholics to treat gays and lesbians with ‘respect, sensitivity and compassion’ and to avoid ‘every sign of unjust discrimination.’”
RTC, there are quite a few anti abortion types who do think birth control is nearly as bad as abortion. I really don’t know get that, it’s bizarre.
Annie wrote: “…there are quite a few anti abortion types who do think birth control is nearly as bad as abortion. I really don’t know get that, it’s bizarre.”
Actually, there is a distinction between pro-life and anti-abortionists. Anti-abortionists are relatively few in number. They are the ones who believe killing abortionists is morally right. They are the ones who put superglue in the locks of abortion clinics and the ones who orchestrate bombing them. They don’t usually say much about contraception at all. Their emphasis is on self-defense laws and about the rightness of defending the defenseless.
The pro-life people who are against contraception number in the millions. Historically, virtually all of Christianity was against contraception. Many church fathers wrote against it, and even the major Protestant reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin wrote against it in the strongest of terms. Today the most vocal against contraception in the U.S. is probably the Catholic church. Many protestants, on the other hand, typically have changed in the 20th century to accommodate contraception. The exceptions generally being Lutherans and the Amish who still consider contraception to be a sin.
The reasoning is not at all bizarre. You should try to read the arguments sometime. I warn you, though, that if you do consider the arguments against contraception, and you find any agreement with them, you might start looking at homosexuality in a completely different way.
Samantha, we aren’t in a contest here as to who can be most entertaining. The truth of the matter is that pro life people would leave the millions of babies and their mothers high and dry if it meant a pennies worth of increased taxes to support them. You haven’t even begun to think seriously about the ramifications of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of unwanted children being born to poor, unwed mothers who would be eligable for AFDC, that pretty clear. Your rhetoric comes straight out of some right wing think tank, passed down to Rush Limbaugh for dissemination.
Annie wrote: “Your rhetoric comes straight out of some right wing think tank, passed down to Rush Limbaugh for dissemination.”
Seriously? You think that a “right wing think tank” disseminates info to Rush Limbaugh for him to disseminate? LOL. Unbelievable.
Of course, it is impossible that any independent thinker could possibly come to believe in the message of optimism and self reliance that Rush Limbaugh preaches. There must be some Wizard of Oz behind the curtain pulling all the strings and causing people to think that way. And Samantha couldn’t possibly think the way she does unless she mistakenly put her radio on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program and shazam! … she enters that trance like state where she is programmed to say the exact same things. No wonder you guys refuse to listen to Rush and Fox News or frequent any Republican or conservative news sites… your unrealistic philosophy provides the seeds of censorship. If only you could break away from that mentality and have some respect for every individual to be a rational creature in their own right, someone from whom you might just learn something if you cast away your fear of knowledge and consider every piece of information that comes your way.
RTC,
You forgot, via Bron’s comment, Hispanics. Get it together, man!
Bron: Dude. Seriously? Your comment about fertility, blacks, and women?
I mean, that is…. I expected better from you, that’s all I can say. You’re better than that.
Sam: The emphasis of your comment was gibberish and you seem confused in general. I picked the most coherent segment of your comment, where you claim that people are just lining up to adopt all these kids that are placed up for adoption and responded to it. Want to try it again, or do you want remain looking foolish. Oh, never mind; I think I know the answer to that.
BTW, I asked you about your views on contraception because you hadn’t expressed them and I was curious. In the past, DavidM has expressed his opposition to them because it liberates women to enjoy a healthy active sex life, and that bothers him. I wanted to know if it bothered you, too.
You seem to address the question, but not very clearly. Perhaps, if you decide to take another whack at it, you could try making sense.
RTC wrote: “DavidM has expressed his opposition to them because it liberates women to enjoy a healthy active sex life, and that bothers him.”
Samantha, RTC does not properly represent my position. It is true that my wife and I do not use contraception, but it is not for the reasons that RTC attributes to me. Furthermore, I have made it clear that I do not believe the law should outlaw contraception.
In contrast to RTC, I have appreciated your contribution here. I hope you continue despite the insults and negativity hurled at you.
Actually, there’s a growing body of research on fertility, beginning about 20 years ago, how the environment, culture, and food modulate hormones, such as LH pulse amplitude and frequency, with consequences of low desire or no desire all the way to persistent sexual arousal. What I have found most interesting, apart from effects on fertility, is how hormone disruptors mediate social and sexual behavior (wave theory science), suggesting that there may be no such thing as free will, but that we are all mere slaves to hormones and, by extension, the environment, no less or more than animals are. The most profound eye-opener, for me, was the chart that contrasted LH pulse and frequency by ethnicity, age, lifestyle and sexual orientation. A Google search for “LH” (luteinizing hormone) with keywords of your choice will yield thousands of results.
It is not a coincidence that hormone disruption really took off with a vengeance with the introduction of GMO and other frankenfoods about 20 years ago. Big Pharma’s response is SSRIs, Adderal, Viagra, low desire medication for women, etc. Do not demand healthier food or a chemical free environment, just take Big Pharma’s medicine, roll over for all the evil doers who are as much Democrat as Republican, as much liberal as conservative, as much female as male. Those who are bent on destroying our health is the bigger picture that no one is paying attention to, too distracted by PC and partisan crap.
Bron,
“The problem is uptight middle class white women. That keep up with Jone’s BS probably takes a lot of negative energy. Or maybe their husbands are to tired or too nagged to think much about sex.”
*****
Oh, good grief! What a sexist comment!
samantha:
Fertility is not a problem for blacks and hispanics so I doubt it is farming. The problem is uptight middle class white women. That keep up with Jone’s BS probably takes a lot of negative energy. Or maybe their husbands are to tired or too nagged to think much about sex.
RTC, the emphasis of my comment was on preventing pregnancy, so I’m confused why you ask me about contraception, much less leap to foster care. But since you brought it up, wouldn’t prevention reduce the need for not just foster care but abortion also? You have this left-right bucket that you want to put people into. You just can’t do that with everyone. I’m not willing to sacrifice principal just so I can be a team player or a thought-codependent.
I don’t account for those who called Jesus Rabbi because I don’t give a shit.
You’r the one who claimed he was descended from Abraham, not me.
As far as his lineage to King David, there’s no proof outside of the bible, which is a pack of lies and superstitions.
You claim to be well studied; do your homework. Crossan; Jesus; PBS.
In the meantime, I love the cold, I love the snow, and here in the Midwest we’re in bonus time, as afr as I’m concerned. So with that, I’m going cross-country skiing for the rest of the day. Someday, I’ll have to tell you how a case of frostbite reminded me of you.
Sam: One need not be creative when telling the truth, and pointing out the hypocrisy of abortion foes bears repeating.
The undeniable fact is that there are millions of unwanted childen in foster care awaiting adoption. How many have you taken in?
The irony is that there are thousands of gay and lesbian couples willing to adopt one or more children, and yet many in your camp would deny them of that pleasure.
If you think that unwanted pregnancies became a problem after Roe v. Wade, or increased, or did not exist before that decision, you need to start taking your meds or have them adjusted. Roe v. Wade did not make one single young young man any hornier than he already was, or any young woman for that matter. Then again, you probably don’t know how importunate a young man can be when he feels the need.
And speaking of safety devices (sidestepping your gobbledeegook about seatbelts), where do you stand on contraception? The biggest hypocrisy is outlawing abortion and banning contraception. Talk about enslavement.
Murder is a legally defined crime. Abortion is a medical procedure. The perspectives of millions is nothing more than opinion.
Roe v. Wade was a bad decision; we agree on that. But not because of it’s holding on privacy rights, but because of it’s egregious lack of clarity when a fetus is capable of viability outside of the womb.
Every abortion would be contested by all the nutjobs who picket abortion clinics, and those who seek to interpose their will on women.
Believe it or not, the states are functioning as independent laboratories of democracy. Granted they’re not all dealing with abortion issues the way you would like, because they’re not all as delusional, but there are some repressive state legislatures willing to take a run at getting around Roe, like North Dakota.
Moreover, there will always be women who can’t travel for one reason or another. It’s inherently unfair to require somebody to travel out of state for a medical procedure.
State sovereignty is code for getting around laws and regulations that various interst groups oppose, like clean air and water, or in your case, a woman’s right to privacy or a homosexual’s right to equal treatment. Unfettered state sovereignty went out the window with slavery.
Abortions aren’t free, BTW. Not outside of DaveyDisneyland, anyways.
David: Your right, you didn’t say I offended Abraham. You said I offended millions of Jews and Arabs. I stand corrected.
Father Crossan considered the genealogies of Luke and Matthew to be bunk – pure bunk. Commenting on PBS documentary abou the life of Jesus, he said they were attempting to elevate the status of Jesus and lend him more legitimacy by connecting him to Abraham. Pure propaganda, not a word of truth. Only a fool would base his life on the literal meaning of the bible. Those who do usually die from a snakebite or telling unsupportable lies in chatrooms on the web.
RTC wrote: “… he said they were attempting to elevate the status of Jesus and lend him more legitimacy by connecting him to Abraham.”
Do you have a link or reference for this comment? This seems rather bizarre to me. I understand the debunking of the genealogies. I’ve read many criticisms of them. But I do not understand this comment of it being an attempt to connect him with Abraham. The real issue of genealogical connection was not to Abraham, but to the line of David and Solomon. Messiah had to come from King David’s line.
If Jesus is not connected to Abraham, then what race is he? If he is not a Jew, and if he is not Arab, what are you saying he was? How do you account for those who called him Rabbi if he was not descended from the line of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
The right defends a new Jim Crow: 50 years since the Civil Rights Act, wingnuts still don’t get it
Conservatives’ defense of Arizona’s anti-gay bill shows just how little they’ve grown since the 1960s
Elias Isquith
3/1/14
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/01/the_right_defends_a_new_jim_crow_50_years_since_the_civil_rights_act_wingnuts_still_dont_get_it/
Excerpt:
As the opposition to SB 1062 increased in fervency and numbers, the usually loquacious Paul was, unlike his fellow Senate Republican John McCain (who opposed the bill), deafeningly mute. Anyone familiar with Paul’s history knows why: Because the obvious presidential aspirant wanted to avoid reminding people of the unfortunate 2010 interview with Rachel Maddow in which he stated that, even today, he would not support the government-run dismantling of Jim Crow. “I don’t want to be associated with those people,” Paul said, referring to white supremacists who’d bar blacks from their restaurants, “but I also don’t want to limit their speech in any way…” Paul’s orthodox libertarianism told him that the freedom to discriminate was too valuable, too sacred, to let the federal government stand in its way. Like Sen. Barry Goldwater did in 1964, when he voted against the Civil Rights Act, Paul argued that the Constitution had no room for anti-discrimination.
Roughly four years later, Glenn Beck made a similar argument, this time in defense of SB 1062. After doing his best impression of Hamlet, grappling aloud with his competing interest to not be a bigot while on the other hand maintaining allegiance to his understanding of liberty, Beck cut to the chase, telling his coworkers that he could only support Arizona’s bill, because “freedom is ugly.” Like Paul, Beck was sure to make clear that he held no sympathy for anyone who would ban LGBTQ people from their premises. But also like Paul, Beck had no choice but to conclude that the freedom to ostracize and discriminate was, in part, what the American experiment was all about. “I don’t like that world,” Beck said, “but that’s freedom! That’s freedom! Freedom is ugly. It’s ugly.”
High-profile though they may be, Beck and Paul are hardly the only conservatives who still cling to a vision of freedom that many Americans wrongly thought was swept into Reagan’s “ash-heap of history” decades before. Tucker Carlson — who, if Paul is to be Goldwater, we must describe as today’s version of the braying, segregationist Dixiecrats — was adamant in his defense of SB 1062, saying on Fox News that opponents of the bill were advocating for “fascism” and had gone “too far” in their quest to prevent state-sanctioned bigotry. “Everybody in America is terrified to tell the truth,” Carlson warned, “which is, this is insane, this is not tolerance, this is fascism.” Tellingly, when his sparring partner, Fox’s house liberal, Alan Colmes, asked Carlson whether he would have supported the Civil Rights Act, the editor of the Daily Caller could only respond by saying, “Don’t bring [that] into this,” with a sneer.
Even conservatives who are more intellectually inclined than Beck, Paul and Carlson put forward a defense of SB 1062 that could easily and quickly be adopted to oppose the federal government’s dismantling of Jim Crow. Ilya Shapiro of Cato, libertarianism’s premiere think tank and ostensible guardian of liberty for all, wrote, “I have no problem with SB 1062.” Repeating an argument that was offered by Goldwater, Paul, Beck and Carlson, Shapiro maintained that those who would be discriminated against, were SB 1062 to pass, should simply trust that the free market would punish bigots and, eventually, guarantee their liberty. “[P]rivate individuals should be able to make their own decisions on whom to do business with and how – on religious or any other grounds,” Shapiro wrote. “Those who disagree can take their custom elsewhere and encourage others to do the same.”
The fact that this very same logic recently undergirded a century of Jim Crow seemed to escape Shapiro. Either that or he, like W. James Antle III of the American Conservative, was content to dismiss comparisons to Jim Crow on the grounds that Arizona is not the Jim Crow South and 2014 is not the mid-’60s. “People often argue for or against the civil-rights laws of the 1960s on the basis of abstract principles,” Antle wrote, “but they were in fact a reaction to a very specific set of circumstances.” (This is an argument that, more than anything else, raises the question as to whether this is the first time Antle’s come into contact with an analogy.) Perhaps Shapiro, like Antle, was content to support the bill not because it wouldn’t give the government’s imprimatur to homophobia, but because such an outcome is, in their minds, “not very likely.” After all, what’s a little discrimination in the grand scheme of things?
“As Annie pointed out, where are abortion foes when the child needs food, clothing , and shelter?”
Another worn out line from the abortion scrip, totally lacking in originality and creativity. When will one of you ever say something new?
Anyway, I’ll respond. They’re waiting in line, as potential adoptive parents. Some are infertile, but for the majority fertility has declined dramatically, do in part because corporate farming prefers yield and contamination at the expense of quality and potency, among other factors in the declining environment, setting the stage for a fertility industry that is only affordable to the elite. Short of adoption, a big share of infertile, middle class families have no chance at having a child.
Secondly, why are there so many unwanted pregnancies? This was not the case before Roe v Wade. Was consequence a factor in human behavior, on the part of both male and female, including parents? By some estimates it’s believed we would have a million highway fatalities annually if not for safety devices such as air bags. Similarly, why can’t or won’t people prevent pregnancy? Unlike highway fatalities, every unwanted pregnancy is potentially preventable. Abortion shouldn’t be an airbag, dismissing the value of life for the unborn. But I suppose there are plenty among us who drive carelessly just because they have an airbag, too selfish to ever think that they might kill, for example, a child in a crosswalk.