No matter what Governor Pence and his like think about dressing up that new law in Indiana, I really cannot disagree with Stephen King when he says that the State Religious Freedom Restoration Acts are dog turds. He notes that ‘you can frost a dog turd but it is still a dog turd.”
Originally the Act was propounded at the Federal level to correct the mistake of having a couple of Native Americans dismissed from their employment having tested positive for drug use the result of their using an hallucinogen (peyote) in a religious ritual. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was meant to protect the likes of teetotaling Methodists from being fired for requesting other assignments because they do not want to unload cases of intoxicants onto the loading dock of their employer. Well, OK, so there are very few Methodists who today even know what ‘taking the pledge’ meant.
Shall we look again and allow a Realtor to refuse to show an apartment to an inter-racial couple on the grounds that the Realtor believes miscegenation an abomination before God? That dog turd won’t hunt any more now than it did in Jim Crow days.
Or lets go back to that handful of Methodists. Because I’m totally opposed, for reasons of faith, to the consumption of alcohol, have I the protection of the law as a florist, in telling you that I’ll sell you no flowers for your wedding because you are having an open bar at the reception? That one won’t hunt either.
Can I, a Christian restaurant owner be allowed to deny service to you, a turbaned Sikh, because my faith tells me you are going to hell for your unbelief? Of course not.
OK, the law cannot force your bakery to stock tiny plastic statues of male or female couples holding hands, but neither can the law allow you to run homosexuals out of your business because as a class they offend you. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was not designed to allow bigots to exercise their bigotry behind the veil of religion.
I’ve never tried icing animal feces, and it has been said of me ‘that he doesn’t know shit,’ but I think Mr. King has this one correct.
Sanchismos 