Arizona Governor, as Expected, Vetoes Anti Gay SB 1062...
by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, using her Executive pen, vetoed SB 1062, the anti gay bill that would have given businesses the right to refuse services to LGBT couples on religious grounds. While this site agrees with the Governor's veto decisions many do not.
In an op-ed piece this morning Rich Lowry, writing in POLITICO, puts forth an opinion and his argument that the veto was both unnecessary and foolish. His reasoning is arguably based on sound logic.
Here then is Rick Lowry:
Mr Lowry makes several interesting points. Continue reading BELOW THE FOLD.
Via: Memeorandum
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, using her Executive pen, vetoed SB 1062, the anti gay bill that would have given businesses the right to refuse services to LGBT couples on religious grounds. While this site agrees with the Governor's veto decisions many do not.
In an op-ed piece this morning Rich Lowry, writing in POLITICO, puts forth an opinion and his argument that the veto was both unnecessary and foolish. His reasoning is arguably based on sound logic.
Here then is Rick Lowry:
In addition to the federal government, 18 states have such statutes and about a dozen other states interpret their state constitutions as extending the same protections, according to the letter. The statutes, the scholars write, “say that before government can burden a person’s religious exercise, the government has to show a compelling justification.”
The letter argues that, properly interpreted, the federal law that inspired the Arizona statute covers cases that don’t directly involve the government and covers businesses. So Arizona’s changes weren’t radical but in keeping with a federal law once championed by none other than Sen. Ted Kennedy.
A religious freedom statute doesn’t give anyone carte blanche to do whatever he wants in the name of religion. It simply allows him to make his case in court that a law or a lawsuit substantially burdens his religion and that there is no compelling governmental interest to justify the burden.
For critics of the Arizona bill, the substance was almost an afterthought. They recoiled at the very idea that someone might have moral objections to homosexuality or gay marriage.
The cases that have come up relevant to the Arizona debate involve small-business people declining to provide their services to gay couples at their marriage ceremonies. A New Mexico photographer won’t take pictures. A Washington state florist won’t arrange flowers. An Oregon bakery won’t bake a wedding cake.
It’s easy to see how offensive these decisions were to the gay couples involved. An entirely understandable response would be for the couple to say, “I’m sorry you’re so narrow-minded and I hope you evolve one day. In the meantime, I’ll take my business elsewhere.”
The market has a ready solution for these couples: There are other bakers, photographers and florists. The wedding business is not exactly bristling with hostility to gay people. If one baker won’t make a cake for gay weddings, the baker across town can hang a shingle welcoming all couples for all types of weddings.
This is how a pluralistic society would handle such disputes...
Mr Lowry makes several interesting points. Continue reading BELOW THE FOLD.
Via: Memeorandum
Sounds like Mr Lowry would be okay with going back to the Jim Crowe days.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
jmj...your "... back to the Jim Crowe days." characterization of Lowry's arguments are IMNHO nothing more than ad hominem slur. Something I thought progressive advocates of free speech and expresseion were decidedly against.
ReplyDeletePlease elaborate and explain your reasoning for your ad hominem remark.
Thanks...
I'd like to see it too. Since Jersey made a specific claim about Mr. Lowry, I figured it would be easy to check into. I searched for a bit for any evidence that Lowry favored the policies of Jim Crow, segregation, etc. and had no luck. As I also find such policies abhorrent, I'd be interested in this "smoking gun" Jersey apparently has that connects Mr. Lowri to Jim Crow.
DeleteDid Mr. Lowry take into account the possibility of gay couples living in areas where there aren't that many choices in florists, bakers, photographers? A lot of this country is rural, what about an area that has only one florist or baker or photographer that find gay weddings icky and an affront to their religious beliefs?
ReplyDeleteLowry, IMO, is justifying discrimination under the false guise of "religious freedom."
Has any florist turned away people who have been divorced? Or were involved in illicit adulterous affairs? For example, Newt Gingrich and his third wife, Callista, carried on in an sexia; affair while he was still married to his second wife. He then divorced her and married Callista. Do you think the folks involved in that very elaborate wedding (they were married in the Washington Cathedral by a Roman Catholic Bishop) recoiled in horror from having anything to do with catering, supplying flowers, or a third wedding cake to adulterers? The 10 commandments are specific in their condemnation of adulterers [but the 10 commandments say nothing about homosexuality.]
So my question to Mr. Lowry is how broadly would he apply this "religious freedom" protection? Would he allow devout Christians to turn away divorced couples? How about folks who habitually take the Lord's name in vain? That's a no-no in the 10 commandments! And many folks on the right have insisted that our Constitution and country is based on the 10 commandments. So anyone who has taken the Lord's name in vain would have to be considered an infidel and a blasphemer against the Christian God, and so folks could turn away people who take the Lord's name in vain.
See, the point is this: Arizona's law has nothing to do with religious sensibilities and everything to do with gay-hating. So long as Christian businesses are happy to work with adulterers, blasphemers, and people who bear false witness [liars], then this argument can be seen as just plain and simple bigotry against one group of minority Americans.
Rich Lowry. Argument: FAIL.
“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” (The Forteenth Amendment, United States Constitution).
ReplyDeleteFlorists, bakers, and photographers are not services necessary for survival; but food, shelter, and healthcare raise the stakes on survivability … and one’s fundamental right to life and liberty.
If you cannot purchase essential goods and services because Bible thumpers will not sell them to you, then how can you survive in regions known as the Bible Belt when every business in town will turn you away. Thus, you will never be free to live in the Bible Belt, or anyplace where Jim Crow style laws allow discrimination of any kind under any pretext. Without equal protection under law, how can there be “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness?”
And how can Mr. Lowry make “interest points” when everything he says represents a violation of the Equal Protection Clause … and an affront to human decency!
Examples cited are IMNHO extreme and largely fueled by emotionalism.
ReplyDeleteHaving said the above Brewer made the right decision (whatever ones belief as to her motivations) and this site supports the decision and believes regardless of sexual orientations all people should be treated equally.
In my view the only reason a business has a right to refuse service is if a customer is disrespectful or extremely rude to other customers or staff. Of if they show up at your home uninvited for dinner.
No, RN, those examples are not extreme nor fueled by emotionalism. So long as religious extremists keep proposing or passing discriminatory laws, REAL people will suffer the indignity of being cast as second-class citizens. We've already heard of "religious" pharmacists who've refused to fill contraception prescriptions in rural areas where the women seeking that medication would have to drive many miles to find a pharmacist who would do his/her job and not pass judgement on the reasons for that prescription. Contraception pills are not just for preventing unwanted pregnancies. They are used to regulate a woman's periods and for other reasons. The religionists who refuse to fill the prescriptions have no way of knowing what those pills are being used for, unless they cross-examine the woman who needs the medication. Sort of a Talibanish scenario, isn't it. If a person has reservations about providing services or prescriptions because of their religious beliefs, THEY should find other means of employment. The burden should not be on the people who seek those services and medications.
ReplyDeleteYou apparently have never lived in a rural area where the next pharmacy may be a 40 or 60 miles round trip. That is not emotionalism, that's a fact, and the religionists who use Jesus to impose their crazy ideas on nonreligionists should get out of the business of providing services to the many Americans who do not share their Biblical beliefs.
RN: "Examples cited are IMNHO extreme and largely fueled by emotionalism."
ReplyDeleteExamples of what? Those given by Rick Lowry? Or those given by commenters here? And if so, which comment or commenter specifically?
In this day and age businesses that refuse to do commerce with gay people would probably end up suffering greatly (from the loss in revenue and reputation) but I also agree with you, Les, that the law itself was moronic and unnecessary (especially in a state like Arizona that apparently doesn't even have anti-gay discrimination laws in the first place).
ReplyDeleteA lot of good points all around, aside from bashing some people using the religious slur "bible thumper": an unintellectual term of religious bigotry "largely fueled by emotionalism" that is not very much different from calling Muslims "rag heads".
ReplyDelete"You will never receive a dog biscuit or a pat on the head if you stop and bark at every visitor who knocks at the door" (Octopus).
DeletePerfect way for the person who used a bigoted term which was "largely fueled by emotionalism" to change the subject entirely. Or at least attempt to. I hope this doesn't degrade like it did elsewhere, when someone made careless and indefensible points and resorted to barnyard sounds when this was pointed out.
DeleteSit. Stay. And stop chasing parked cars.
DeleteThat's right, anything but deal with your bigotry and loose grasp of the facts.
DeleteDog Barks,
DeleteThe litter box is not a cookie jar.
From a left-wing Ann Coulter to a fortune cookie. How far you fall...or perhaps not so far at all. And all the while you dig up dead horses from that last decade which you still get...or beat...wrong, as it were.
DeleteOne of Mr. Dervish's most irritating, and I might add irrational traits, is his inability to open his jaws and let an issue go after having said his piece.
ReplyDeleteIrritating indeed.
RN,
DeleteActually, I am not irritated. I am having fun. Pushing his buttons is so easy. And so predicable!
Five years ago, he decided to delete (18 comments) after a temper tantrum – for no apparent reason.
Six years ago, he disrupted a discussion at Shaw’s place simply because he could not understand (or refused to understand) a simple accounting concept.
The old dog gnaws furiously on old bones like a demon possessed. Yeah, yeah, I know. Don’t torment the pooch!
Nor am I irritated. Just watching the guy turn into a fortune cookie. As for that accounting concept, I refused to accept fraudulently cooked books, is all. And I did delete comments...after a tantrum that was not mine. Continue, cookie.... the horses you are beating are so dead they are mummified.
ReplyDeleteThis thread has wondered far afield from the post subject, there seems to be a bit of gnawing on the unrelated issue(s), and perhaps a slight degree of tone deafness at play.
ReplyDeleteA return to the post subject matter will de most appreciated.
Thank you... The management.