Let's clear a few things up about the Indiana Religious Freedom Law

[TemplarKormac]

This is Bill Clinton on November 16, 1993, signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, introduced by none other than Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer:

Now, to clear a few things up, I'm going to quote text from both laws for you the reader to compare:

From Indiana Code Section 1 IC34-13-9 :

Sec. 8. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. (b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."


Sec. 9. A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding. If the relevant governmental entity is not a party to the proceeding, the governmental entity has an unconditional right to intervene in order to respond to the person's invocation of this chapter.

From the Federal law 42 U.S.C. 2000bb-1 (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993):

(a)In general

Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section.

(b) Exception
Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—

(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

(c) Judicial relief

A person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government. Standing to assert a claim or defense under this section shall be governed by the general rules of standing under article III of the Constitution.

Indiana's governor says his law mirrors the Federal Law. It does. Nearly word for word. So, why the selective outrage? Why isn't anyone upset at the Federal Law? Please I implore you the reader to enlighten me!

 

[Ravi]

Why don't you read the other law. You just might be smart enough to figure out what is different.

 

[Moonglow]

Why support this law, when a segment of our population want Islam outlawed.??

 

[ScreamingEagle]

cause Dimwits think drugs are more religious than cakes.....?

 

[TemplarKormac]

Furthermore, in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), the SCOTUS ruled the RFRA of 1993 did not apply to the States, therefore leading many states to craft their own religious freedom laws, 20 of them, to be precise (including Indiana):

Indiana was well under its rights under, Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U.S. ___ (2015), and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, 573 U.S. ___ (2014) to pass such a law. Therefore under established legal precedent, the law is legal.

 

[Moonglow]

cause Dimwits think drugs are more religious than cakes.....?

It's merely the vehicle....

 

[The Rabbi]

It is a naked attempt to motivate the Dem base. Nothing more than that.

 

[rdean]

Republicans are so dishonest. Why don't they just come out and say they hate gays and want them dead? Be who you are. People will respect you a lot more if you publicly follow your convictions.

gop wants gays dead - Google Search

 

[Moonglow]

It is a naked attempt to motivate the Dem base. Nothing more than that.

Will there be souvenir photos?

 

[Moonglow]

Republicans are so dishonest. Why don't they just come out and say they hate gays and want them dead? Be who you are. People will respect you a lot more if you publicly follow your convictions.

gop wants gays dead - Google Search

Religious people are so used to hiding behind veils of obscurity...

 

[ScreamingEagle]

Why support this law, when a segment of our population want Islam outlawed.??

Islam...or more precisely many parts of Sharia Law....are in conflict with our Constitution...

 

[daws101]

this law is a desperate attempt to appease the fringe right..

 

[mudwhistle]

The left got the impression that a certain Republican from Indiana might run for president,.... so this is a preemptive strike against him pulled out of thin-air.

 

[mudwhistle]

this law is a desperate attempt to appease the fringe right..

Excuse me, but the law was signed over 20 years ago.

WTF!!!!

 

[SassyIrishLass]

The left got the impression that a certain Republican from Indiana might run for president,.... so this is a preemptive strike against him pulled out of thin-air.

Arkansas is ready to sign an identical law, I notice the homosexuals and leftists are not bawling about that

 

[RKMBrown]

This is Bill Clinton on November 16, 1993, signing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, introduced by none other than Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer:

Now, to clear a few things up, I'm going to quote text from both laws for you the reader to compare:

From Indiana Code Section 1 IC34-13-9 :

Sec. 8. (a) Except as provided in subsection (b), a governmental entity may not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. (b) A governmental entity may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion only if the governmental entity demonstrates that application of the burden to the person: (1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest."


Sec. 9. A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding. If the relevant governmental entity is not a party to the proceeding, the governmental entity has an unconditional right to intervene in order to respond to the person's invocation of this chapter.

From the Federal law 42 U.S.C. 2000bb-1 (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993):

(a)In general

Government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b) of this section.

(b) Exception
Government may substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—

(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

(c) Judicial relief

A person whose religious exercise has been burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government. Standing to assert a claim or defense under this section shall be governed by the general rules of standing under article III of the Constitution.

Indiana's governor says his law mirrors the Federal Law. It does. Nearly word for word. So, why the selective outrage? Why isn't anyone upset at the Federal Law? Please I implore you the reader to enlighten me!

Ayup.. Essentially what we have here is clear evidence that democrats can't read.

 

[TemplarKormac]

I offer further supporting evidence:

Are the claims made against the new Indiana law accurate? Not really. This law, like other RFRAs, merely requires that state laws meet a demanding, but hardly insurmountable, test before infringing upon the religious practice or conscience of religious believers. If the law imposes a substantial burden on religious belief, the law must yield unless the law serves a compelling state interest and is the least burdensome way to advance that interest. Here’s more background on how these sorts of laws work.

RFRA laws are common, as shown by this map. Whether or not such laws are good policy, they are about accommodating religious belief, not authorizing discrimination.

Courts have routinely upheld the application of nondiscrimination laws against RFRA-based challenges on the grounds that preventing discrimination is a compelling state interest. Of course it’s possible that a court in the future would reach a different conclusion, but there’s no reason to think such a result is likely, and there is nothing about the Indiana law that makes it a particular threat in this regard. That is, such a court decision is just as possible in one of the other dozen-plus states that has had its own RFRA on the books for years or in one of the many other states that have equivalent protections for religious belief under their state constitutions.

The Indiana RFRA is not identical to every other RFRA, but the textual differences are not particularly material. Here, for instance, is a useful comparison of the Indiana law and the federal RFRA, as applied in the courts.

What will the Indiana religious freedom law really do - The Washington Post

The story of RFRA begins in 1990. Alfred Smith ingested peyote — a powerful hallucinogen — in the course of his Native American religious ceremonies. Smith was terminated by his employer due to the Peyote ritual. Smith challenged the subsequent denial of unemployment benefits — based on the drug use — as a violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. In a controversial decision by Justice Antonin Scalia in Employment Division v. Smith, the Supreme Court held that the Free Exercise Clause could not be raised as a defense against a law of general applicability. This opinion generated an immediate backlash: How could a person be punished for exercising his sincerely held religious beliefs? In 1993, then-Representative Charles Schumer of New York introduced the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in the House of Representatives. Its counterpart bill in the Senate was co-sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy. The bill enjoyed such wide-ranging bipartisan support that it passed the House on a voice vote, passed the Senate by a vote of 97 to 3, and was promptly signed into law by President Clinton. (Imagine such a significant law passing today with this kind of vote!)

National Review

Douglas Laycock, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School, writes in an email:

The issue with respect to Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs) is whether people should be allowed to practice their religion, even when their acts would otherwise be illegal, if they are not doing any real harm. The American tradition of religious liberty has exempted religious practices since the seventeenth century. Quakers in colonial times didn't have to swear oaths, or serve in the militia.

Sometimes this is entirely uncontroversial. It is illegal to give alcohol to minors, but no one thinks that law should be applied to communion wine, or seder wine at the Jewish Passover.

For a time, the federal Free Exercise Clause (part of the First Amendment) required religious exemptions unless the government had a compelling interest in enforcing its regulation. Then in 1990, the Supreme Court changed that rule, and basically said that the free exercise of religion is protected only against discrimination.

Congress responded with the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993, creating a statutory right to practice your religion, free of government regulation except where necessary to serve a compelling government interest. That law passed unanimously in the House, and 97-3 in the Senate; Bill Clinton praised it and signed it.

But in 1997, the Supreme Court said that the federal RFRA could not constitutionally be applied to the states. If states wanted to protect religious practice subject to the compelling interest test, they would have to do it themselves. This is the background to why states began enacting their own RFRAs.

There are now twenty states with RFRAs, and eleven more that have interpreted their state constitution to provide the same level of protection. These 31 states include all the big states except California: Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois. You had probably never heard anything about any of these laws, except for Hobby Lobby, because they haven't done anything controversial.

There are hardly any cases about discrimination, and nobody has ever won a religious exemption from a discrimination law under a RFRA standard. (Churches are exempt when sued by their ministers, but that is a separate constitutional rule. Some discrimination laws have specific exemptions for churches or religious organizations. That is very different from trying to persuade a court that anti-discrimination laws do not serve compelling government interests.)

So what kinds of cases are RFRAs really about? They are about churches feeding the homeless; sometimes the city or the neighbors object. They are about Muslim women wearing scarfs or veils. They are about Amish buggies. They are about Sabbath observers. They are about church bells. They are about all the unexpected ways in which a great diversity of religious practices come into conflict with a great diversity of laws and regulations. And usually, the government wins. These laws have been under enforced, not over enforced.

And of course there is Hobby Lobby, decided on the explicit premise that the effect on female employees would be “precisely zero.” The government had in place a system for delivering free contraception without making the employer pay for it. Hobby Lobby is one of the very few high profile cases, and one of the minority of wins for religious objectors. But it did not say that religious exemptions under RFRA can require employees to do without.

State RFRAs are quite unlikely to affect discrimination claims. I hope they do affect discrimination claims in certain very narrow contexts: very small businesses providing wedding services or marital counseling services. But I am not optimistic. So far, the religious claimants have lost all of those cases, including the wedding photographer under the New Mexico RFRA, and the florist in Washington under a RFRA-like interpretation of the state constitution.

Discrimination cases in other contexts simply don’t come up. The florist in Washington had served her gay customer for years, knowing that the flowers were for his same-sex partner; she had had gay employees. She didn’t object to any of that; she objected to serving the wedding, because she understands weddings and marriages to be inherently religious. She sees civil marriage as resting on the foundation of religious marriage.

Of course there are real bigots out there, and some of them discriminate against gays and lesbians. They are doing that in states without RFRAs as well as in states with RFRAs. They mostly aren't asserting religious justifications; they aren't producing cases. And if they do start to produce cases, all experience is that they're going to lose.

UVA Law Prof Who Supports Gay Marriage Explains Why He Supports Indiana s Religious Freedom Law The Weekly Standard

 

[The Rabbi]

Republicans are so dishonest. Why don't they just come out and say they hate gays and want them dead? Be who you are. People will respect you a lot more if you publicly follow your convictions.

gop wants gays dead - Google Search

Religious people are so used to hiding behind veils of obscurity...

You want fries with that?

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Why support this law, when a segment of our population want Islam outlawed.??

Islam...or more precisely many parts of Sharia Law....are in conflict with our Constitution...

Yep. So why is are there Americans wanting laws passed based on their particular brand of religion?

Why are certain RWs against it when Muslims do it but all in favor of it when its American fundies?

 

[Moonglow]

Republicans are so dishonest. Why don't they just come out and say they hate gays and want them dead? Be who you are. People will respect you a lot more if you publicly follow your convictions.

gop wants gays dead - Google Search

Religious people are so used to hiding behind veils of obscurity...

You want fries with that?

Who wouldn't??