{"id":183047,"date":"2015-03-30T20:45:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T01:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/03\/30\/indiana-is-in-for-a-lot-of-well-deserved-hurt\/"},"modified":"2015-03-30T20:45:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T01:45:00","slug":"indiana-is-in-for-a-lot-of-well-deserved-hurt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/03\/30\/indiana-is-in-for-a-lot-of-well-deserved-hurt\/","title":{"rendered":"Indiana is in for a Lot of Well Deserved Hurt"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
These stickers are popping up in the windows of stores throughout Indiana<\/a>.<\/i><\/div>\n

First, notwithstanding claims that the Indiana law is just the same as the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act and other state’s laws that require a compelling state interest to interfere with religious observance, the Indiana law is far more extreme<\/a>:<\/p>\n

No one, I think, would ever have denied that Maurice Bessinger was a man of faith. <\/span><\/p>\n

And he wasn\u2019t particularly a \u201cstill, small voice\u201d man either; he wanted everybody in earshot to know that slavery had been God\u2019s will, that desegregation was Satan\u2019s work, and the federal government was the Antichrist. God wanted only whites to eat at Bessinger\u2019s six Piggie Park barbecue joints; so His servant Maurice took that fight all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1968 decided<\/a> that his religious freedom argument was \u201cpatently frivolous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a good background against which to measure the uproar about the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act<\/a>, which was signed into law by Governor Mike Pence last week. I don\u2019t question the religious sincerity of anyone involved in drafting and passing this law. But sincere and faithful people, when they feel the imprimatur of both the law and the Lord, can do very ugly things.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a factual dispute about the new Indiana law. It is called a \u201cReligious Freedom Restoration Act,\u201d like the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed in 1993.*<\/a> Thus a number of its defenders have claimed it is really the same law. Here, for example, is the Weekly Standard<\/i><\/a>\u2019s John McCormack: \u201cIs there any difference between Indiana’s law and the federal law? Nothing significant.\u201d I am not sure what McCormack was thinking; but even my old employer, The Washington Post, <\/i>seems to believe that if a law has a similar title as another law, they must be identical. <\/i>\u201cIndiana is actually soon to be just one of 20 states with a version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA,\u201d the Post<\/i>\u2019s Hunter Schwarz <\/i>wrote<\/a>, linking to this map<\/a> created by the National Conference of State Legislatures. <\/span><\/p>\n

The problem with this statement is that, well, it\u2019s false. That becomes clear when you read and compare those tedious state statutes. If you do that, you will find that the Indiana statute has two features the federal RFRA\u2014and most state RFRAs\u2014do not. First, the Indiana law explicitly allows any for-profit business to assert a right to \u201cthe free exercise of religion.\u201d The federal RFRA doesn\u2019t contain such language, and neither does any of the state RFRAs except South Carolina\u2019s; in fact, Louisiana and Pennsylvania, explicitly exclude<\/i> for-profit businesses from the protection of their RFRAs. <\/span><\/p>\n

The new Indiana statute also contains this odd language: \u201cA 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<\/i>.\u201d (My italics.) Neither the federal RFRA, nor 18 of the 19 state statutes cited by the Post, <\/i>says anything like this; only the Texas RFRA, passed in 1999, contains similar language.<\/span><\/p>\n

 \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s review the evidence: by the Weekly Standard<\/i>\u2019s <\/i>definition, there\u2019s \u201cnothing significant\u201d about this law that differs from the federal one, and other state ones\u2014except that it has been carefully written to make clear that 1) businesses can use it against 2) civil-rights suits brought by individuals. <\/span><\/p>\n

Of all the state \u201creligious freedom\u201d laws I have read, this new statute hints most strongly that it is there to be used as a means of excluding gays and same-sex couples from accessing employment, housing, and public accommodations on the same terms as other people. True, there is no actual language that says, All businesses wishing to discriminate in employment, housing, and public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation, please check this \u201creligious objection\u201d box.<\/i> But, as Henry David Thoreau once wrote, \u201cSome circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

So\u2014is the fuss over the Indiana law overblown? <\/span><\/p>\n

No.<\/span><\/p>\n

The statute shows every sign of having been carefully designed to put new obstacles in the path of equality; and it has been publicly sold with deceptive claims that it is \u201cnothing new.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Being required to serve those we dislike is a painful price to pay for the privilege of running a business; but the pain exclusion inflicts on its victims, and on society, are far worse than the discomfort the faithful may suffer at having to open their businesses to all. <\/span><\/p>\n

As the story of Maurice Bessinger shows us, even dressed in liturgical garments, hateful discrimination is still a pig. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The response has been outrage and boycotts:<\/p>\n