Attorney General issues new directive on religious freedoms
The bill, "Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act," was signed into law by Gov. Phil Bryant in 2016.
Written in light of bakers, florists and others who have run afoul of left-wing anti-discrimination laws, the Mississipp law protects three beliefs: that marriage is only between a man and a woman; sex should only take place in such a marriage; and a person's gender is determined at birth and cannot be altered.
Kim Davis jailedThe law has been on hold amid court challenges but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals recently refused to keep blocking it.
Supporters of same-sex marriage are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the law but Rob Chambers of AFA Action says the Supreme Court's controversial Obergefell decision allows for states to enact such laws in order to protect religious beliefs.
AFA Action is the political arm of Mississippi-based American Family Association, which backed the legislation.
Bryant
Chambers recalls oral arguments during Obergefell when Justice John Roberts asked what would happen if a legal right to same-sex marriage collides with long-held religious beliefs about marriage.
The question was answered by the Obama-appointed Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli Jr., who predicted to the court that states will work out a way to balance a new "civil right" but also accommodate religious beliefs.
gavel with Bible 2In fact, the controversial Obergefell decision was trumpeted by homosexual-rights activists who declared it the "law of the land," and they mocked objecting Christians as "martyrs" and predicted that "anti-gay Christians" would be "ostracized" by a progressive nation.
The homosexual activists also mocked and ridiculed Kim Davis (pictured above), a Kentucky county clerk who was jailed for refusing to follow a court order to sign marriage certificates for homosexuals.
Yet the ruling overturned state laws or constitutional amendments in more than 30 states, and two years later the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a landmark case over a Colorado baker who was fined for refusing to take an order for a homosexual couple's wedding cake.
"So basically what's happened in Mississippi," says Chambers, "is that Mississippi has taken the lead of the Supreme Court by enacting House Bill 1523, which protects citizens and organizations having traditional views on marriage and sexuality." https://www.onenewsnow.com/legal-courts/2017/10/04/court-clears-way-for-religious-objections-law-in-ms
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Lordy, Lordy...thankful I don't live in Mississippi. The inability of people (particularly Christians) to separate religious belief systems from the systems that govern a country is mind boggling. My ability to be Christian has absolutely nothing to do with the secular world. The Christian's foremost tenant is to love. Don't believe there are any disclaimers, I've no biblical instruction for whom to bake, fill a prescription, no genitalia proof or someones sexually dismisses me from loving and portraying a Christlike attitude to my fellow man.
I Always wonder why the hell would you want to force someone to do work for you that doesn't want to ?
Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me anyway.
Unhappy employees ...LOL No thanks
Forced employees.. No Way.
Happy employees, happy customers !!
HINT, Find another damn baker ! I saw a sign right down the street.
"Happy employees, happy customers !!"
As a prior business owner for many years, that is the one true secret to success. From the one who answers the business phone to the one who makes the delivery, employee happiness is key to customer satisfaction, as the will make extra effort to make sure that the customer is happy with what they do. (smile)
That is your opinion and you are welcome to it. But, it is not mine.
I wonder if that's why the bigoted baker's business has dropped off so much that he no longer has regular hours and is open only by appointment? Apparently very few people want to patronize a bakery run by a dumb bigot.
That's your choice I guess but I'd think that would be a horrible way to grow or run a company.
When you stop a business from serving others because of personal beliefs perhaps its time to find a different job that it's growth isn't limited by your personal feelings.
I owned and operated a small business years ago and we worked for anyone who could afford and wanted our services and we did great.
So if I come into your business, and you 'openly proselytizing for' your beliefs, are you prepared for me to just as openly express mine? Oh and how will you know what I am doing?? Will there be a questionnaire to fill out before service?
While we are 'providing' each other with the 'opportunity' the know all about our beliefs, WTF do you think the rest of your customers are doing? Perhaps they will avail themselves to a competitor down the street.
There are places that people go specifically to be verbally abused by server. Think 'The Billy goat' in Chicago. You should try for a balance between abusive and entertaining.
Oh and btw, your Yelp page will be hilarious to read...
They did exactly that, although your suggestion is exactly what racists like Lester Maddox told black folks to do ........"find another diner."
The gay couple also thoughtfully filed a claim with the Colorado's civil rights commission so that other couples don't face that kind of unlawful discrimination.
Please explain how the engaged folks or their parents were to know that the baker was a dumb bigot? He didn't post a sign saying "No gays, Jews, Negros or Irish". The first time they realized he was a bigot was when he illegally denied them service.
Note that the baker had several legal options - he simply could have posted a sign indicating that he was a member of a homophobic and misogynistic cult which was founded to promote slavery and white supremacy. That certainly would have discouraged the riff-raff from darkening his threshold.
And if for some reason he didn't want to be honest about his hate, he could simply have run his business as a private members-only club and denied membership to any of the groups which his cult teaches him to hate. That's how Rush Limbaugh's whites-only country club does it.
Jesus Christ!
Two people love each other and want to marry and live together, MORE POWER TO THEM! (as long as it isn't a guy trying to love and marry me)
Two other peoples sexual habits are none of my business. (I could care less, I'm only responsible for me and whomever I choose to mate with, none of you guys get any ideas I'm already taken by a female)
If I do or do not want to participate in any one else's nuptials that is my choice in if and how much. (no one can force me to and I don't have to give a reason) this is part of the problem here is the bakers knew the couple what they were and said no, then stupidly they decided that they had to justify that decision. If only they had maintained their right to say nothing.....(sometimes it is best to just say no then just plain shut up, no explanation needed)
They put themselves into the position they are in, I have no sympathy for them. That being said, the other side of this has no right to force acceptance of their world view onto anyone else either. What is it, bake us a cake or we will invoke the government and make your life a living hell on earth? What gives them the right to wield such power over others?
Yeah the bakers were stupid in opening their mouths, the gay couple were vindictive in the bakers refusal.
Two wrongs never make a right and the government cannot fix it, they can only make it worse.
Well put. It would seem that some have now attained a special status in our society. We aren't simply equal, as we should be. Some are simple special, protected in a bubble above the rest.
Why don't you explain what that "special status" is?
How is wanting to be legally married like a heterosexual couple, "special status"? Sounds to me like they just want the same rights, not extra rights.
I believe Aaron and Melissa Klein would be able to answer that better than I. They lost their bakery and had to pay a $135,000 fine.
Source: http://www.glennbeck.com/2015/04/30/couple-that-refused-to-bake-wedding-cake-for-gay-couple-talks-to-glenn/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link
Don't you think that punishment is a bit over the top? Somebody could refuse to do my straight wedding and I'd be told to go find someone else - no recourse for me.
What those penalties mean is that nobody is trusted to say "I have a religious objection". It means that all those who have religious objection are now condemned as bigots.
That is a special status, which sets one group above the rest
The hefty fine is because the bakers refused to rectify their illegal behavior and because they illegally retaliated against the couple in a rather vile way, including doxing them and jeopardizing an adoption which was in progress. If they hadn't done that but had instead cooperated with the civil rights commission there would have been no fine.
Also note that bigoted and gullible Christians across the US have so far donated over $600, 000 to the Kleins so they're making out like bandits.
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False. In the states in question it's "sexual orientation" which is the protected class. Sounds like you're unaware that "straight" is a sexual orientation.
What if it the people were refused because of skin color or interracial relationship? Should those people also just walk away and accept being refused service, also? How much discrimination should be legal by public businesses?
The part I find most amusing about all these bigoted baker, bigoted florist and bigoted photographer cases is that in each case the bigots are Southern Baptists.......and until very recently that cult condemned mixed-race marriage.
Also note that this issue of religious belief vs public accommodation laws was settled in 1968 in Newman v Piggie Park BBQ, where the Southern Baptist owner cited his racist cult as an excuse to deny service to blacks. The bigot lost that case, and SCOTUS was rather amused by the religious claims and called them “patently frivolous”:
I live in Baptist land. These folks have no clue how their religious sect is like a gnat compared to the financial and legislative power wielded by the Roman Catholic Church.
However, RCC is probably watching and waiting to see how far the Baptists can get in challenging the US government. And the Baptists are footing the legal bills. The RCC has been an international force in world politics for over a thousand years. There are currently at least 5 Roman Catholics serving on the US Supreme Court, and possibly a 6th. The RCC knows how to play the long game and has over 1 billion members worldwide. The RCC is the largest single religious group in the US by far.
Currently, there are five Catholics, three Jews, and one unknown on the bench. The Catholics are chief justice John Roberts, and justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Sonia Sotomayor. The Jewish justices are Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan. The latest to join the high court, Neil Gorsuch, is possibly a Protestant—specifically Episcopalian. But he hasn’t actually specified his faith.
Gorsuch was raised Catholic, attended a progressive Denver Episcopalian church, and has been described by friends and family as having “ a quiet faith .”
I have the same concern about having so many people of just one cult on the court, although it's clear that some are social justice Catholics while others are Opus Dei types.
As far as Gorsuch goes he appears to be far more of a religious extremist than Scalia and quite unqualified as well. At best he's proven himself to be illiterate regarding major SCOTUS precedents and unable to comprehend even recently decided cases.
What 'world view' would that be? Are they somehow delusional when they have the expectation of equal treatment?
The Constitution, state and federal. The STATE are the plaintiffs in both the Melissa and Masterpiece cases. THE STATE, not the couple.
So reporting a violation of the law is 'vindictive'. After the Civil Rights Act, African Americans should have just asked nicely if the restaurant owner intended to follow the law and if the owner refuse, they should have just walked to the next restaurant until they found one that volunteered to follow the law. Ya, that's the ticket.
Oh and BTW, the Mellissa defendants admitted in deposition that they conspired to discriminate.
Neither of the couples did ANYTHING wrong.
The government DID fix it when it came to Jim Crow didn't they?
What you are advocating is for religious exemptions to laws. It's ironic that y'all decry the 'slippery slope' concept ad nauseam yet refuse to acknowledge that it should be applied here. Y'all should tell all of the heterosexual couples, 'living in sin'. that these laws apply to them too [which they do].
Of course, under their breath, legislators will say, don't worry, no one will ever use this against heterosexuals. Which BTFW, makes the law intentionally unconstitutional
Reporting a business owner for violating the law is being "vindictive"? So bigoted business owners should just be allowed to continue breaking the law?
Oh, get your cake baked somewhere else! A cake is a cake is a cake!
No shirt....no service. Maybe, he doesn't have a shirt! No tie.....no service. Maybe, he doesn't have a tie.
On and on and on. Get a life!
Gee, it's clear that you have no comprehension at all when it comes to discrimination laws. But it's clear that you have no comprehension at all when it comes to many things.
I'm sure you would say that same thing to black people who are refused service somewhere, right?
right.
Religious freedom ends where someone else's civil rights begin. No? Ask Kim Davis how that worked out.
The real shame of that case is that after losing unanimously at every level of the court system all the way up to SCOTUS, Davis is getting off scot-free and isn't even being required to pay the legal costs of the couples she chose to harm. Like all true Christian extremists she's avoiding personal responsibility for her own illegal actions and dumping those costs on the state.
WTG, Davis!
why do you applaud and support someone who refused to do their job and just lived off their government paycheck ? that sounds a bit odd to me...
Great question.
What ever happened to the cry for 'personal responsibility'. It seems to get more and more selective every day...
it doesn't seem that it was a genuine cry - just a slogan to rally behind but not believed in nor supported nor seemingly practiced
So say a gay couple lives in a small town, they pay taxes, they have jobs, etc. Their taxes help pay for EMS, fire, police, sewer, water, etc.... They want to use a service in that town, but the business refuses to serve them because they are gay, but the business benefits from the gay couples tax dollars. Sorry, if their tax dollars DO help that business? They should have the legal right to use that business.
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Pro-tip: If you are going into business, excluding groups of people based on your religious beliefs is a REALLY poor way to have a successful business.
This misguided and unconstitutional Mississippi law inspired a movement throughout the confederate states and other red states, primarily because those states all lack adequate state-wide public accommodation laws.....which means disfavored minorities have no real recourse under state law anyway.
So ethical businesses have started a reverse "Jim Crow" movement and are displaying a sign indicating "We Don't Discriminate." It's really pissed-off anti-gay hate groups like the AFA and FRC because it labels bigoted businesses by default. Just as with their KKK brethren they can only survive in anonymity.
We do good, don't you think?
Which one do you think is good? The unconstitutional law or the 'We don't Discriminate' signs?
Will and Grace is back, and hilarious as ever. That must really frost the cherries of all the homophobes on this site. And the best part - the writing is highly political. Trump and his ilk are getting skewered a dozen times a show. I don’t recall any President* ever receiving such blatant disrespect on a sitcom. I love it.
First of all, I only recognize marriage as between a man and a woman. To me, anything else is an attempt to normalize a perversion.
I’ve read through this Mississippi law and it’s an interesting way of creating a protected class of people with firmly held religious beliefs. Ironically, what paves the way for an anti-discrimination law based on religious belief are anti-discrimination laws based on homosexual behavior . . . neither are immutable characteristics like race and gender. I think this law will be a challenge for the Supreme Court because it deliberately creats a collision between two constitutional rights (one is a clear first amendment right to the free exercise of religion and the other is a murky court created right to same-sex marriage).
Yes, we get it - you think gay sex is icky. Get over it already.
I’m as free to give my opinion as you are to give yours and my opinion isn’t changing.
There is ALREADY an 'anti-discrimination law based on religious beliefs' in Mississippi, it was passed in 2014.
No 'anti-discrimination laws based on homosexual behavior' exists.
Obviously, it’s not like this one.
They’re everywhere.
I think that's the law in question, HB 1523. It was blocked by the federal district court because it was so blatantly unconstitutional but the appeals court recently lifted the stay due to a presumed lack of standing since it hadn't gone into effect (a rather erroneous ruling).
Not even a little.
Why? Was it dying or something?
Such hyperbole and nonsense. Religious liberty was never at risk. Every one has been free to believe whatever nonsense or go to whatever religious institution they want. No one has ever been denied their religious rights!
This is just another thinly-veiled way for the federal government under rightwingers to establish religious discrimination over basic civil rights.* These bills and laws are always couched in orwellian language in the vain attempt to hide their true intent.
* and, yes, it is a violation of a civil right to be refused service by a publicly-licensed, publicly-run business on the basis of race, religion, sex and sexual preference in many states.
Or it’s just a straightforward way of ending anti-religious bigotry.
Federal law doesn’t include sexual preference so, unless it’s in state law, sexual preference isn’t protected. Homosexuality is not comparable to race because one is an immutable characteristic and the other is not. Comparing black people to a sexual perversion is liberal racism.
God is love. Therefore, He doesn't handpick only those who believe in Him, but even those who denounce and degrade Him like some on NT.
Religion has no place in a government setting and government has no place in a religious setting. If two people of the same sex fall in love and marry.....fine with me and I am sure in my mind that it is fine with God because of His love for everyone.
I am a free thinker and because our government says so it doesn't mean that I have to like it. On the other hand, the government doesn't have to like religious beliefs, but they should keep their hands off.
He loved the world so much that he once drowned it.
See what I mean? Did you get your kicks out of that? Hope so, otherwise, what a waste!
Did he or did he not drown the planet?
..
Lol.
Yes he did after giving every living person on the planet 120 years of warnings to avoid that fate.
So you’re saying that every single person not on Noah’s Ark deliberately acted against the known will of God, but Noah - the guy who shut the door on the ark and watched toddlers and babies drown - was the guy who was acting in accordance with the known will of God. That is one of the most evil (and accurate) things ever said about God.
God love you, Hal!
Oh, but do they ever want you too - they want it right in your face and everyone else's. Remember all the terrible things they did to Anita Bryant?
Ya, that's who they are
Nice shot!
I'd have to say not a man among them. It's a good thing for Higgins I wasn't there that day
A very charitable woman. Her personal life went down hill after that. I really paid attention back then, I could see how it was all going. Interesting times
Yep, a truly vile and nasty women who harmed a great many LGBT Americans in all 50 states. A pie in the face is the very least she deserved, but in the end her homophobia is what killed her career.
No surprise at all that Bryant is a Southern Baptist.
David Allan Coe can be just a little too crude for me at times....but this is not one of those times.
Homosexuals are people. Some Christians tend to overlook that fact.
Fortunately, I've had a lot of practice explaining the obvious to progressives when I was at Newsvine.
Ok, here it is - when somebody does something as obnoxious as Higgins did it requires an immediate response, as in a good beating. I'm not sure why no man got up and defended Ms Bryant, I'm sure you would defend your mother of sister or wife from that vile act, but you will see in the video Ms Bryant forgave him immediately - "turned the other cheek', to use a Christian phrase. That is what was charitable.
I'm going to go further now, because we do have a good relationship and I want to help. Beyond the outrageous act Higgins committed is the notion that there is somehow only one set of rights to be considered here. Gays have their rights & people of faith should have their rights.
One more point - you said "at a time when it was already pretty tough to be gay". I'm not sure if you lived through that time, but in those days there was more than religious beliefs involved - many people placed homosexuality in the same category as pedophilia.
As I said earlier, if I had been there, Higgins would have been the one in tears. When it comes to the crazy left, I can get even "crazier"
Cheap shot against a woman. I would have stepped outside and knocked his teeth out.
What do you mean "more than religious beliefs involved"? I've only seen people who hold anti-gay religious beliefs push that myth so they seem to be one and the same thing.
In fact Bryant was one of the vile and bigoted Southern Baptists who pushed that myth so far that she got Florida to ban gays from being teachers. Her bigotry cause a lot of people to lose their jobs. It was true justice that her hatred for gays ultimately caused her to lose all her commercial endorsements. That pie in her face was just icing on the cake. As I said she deserved far more than that given the harm she caused.
Homosexual advocates think it’s perfectly ok to hit her in the face with a pie because, in their minds, she deserves it. However, if you walked up to a homo advocate and hit him in the face with a pie during a press conference, they’d all burst into hysteria and make some foolish comparison like throwing pies at them is no different than lynching black people for being black.
Homosexual advocates think it’s perfectly ok to hit her in the face with a pie because, in their minds, she deserves it. However, if you walked up to a homo advocate and hit him in the face with a pie during a press conference, they’d all burst into hysteria and make some foolish comparison like throwing pies at them is no different than lynching black people for being black.
I'm not able to share extremist mindsets, but I do intend to be their worst enemy
My point was that she was a smiling pretty hate-monger trying to lead a social movement
Had I only had 30 minutes with her, she would have forgotten all about social activism
Did you know she then suffered ostracization by her fellow conservative Christians for getting a divorce?
Now that's one thing I don't care about. Who would? That's the equivalent of being ostracized by the girl scouts
and linking to American Renaissance magazine
I suppose that would really burn some people I guess. (would that be the extremist minds?)
I can't say more than that w/o getting a CoC up again, since NT is becoming Stormfront Lite
Well, rules aren't much good if they aren't enforced
I guess you aren't old enough to remember. In those days people had problems with all sorts of people, not just those that the progressives have recently put into a bubble
I have 2 comments to make to this post.
First: I am not sure if you are talking to anyone in particular here, but if you were, that is a violation.
Second: I have checked out American Renaissance and that publication is not welcomed here. NT does not allow publications of this sort.
Plus the fact that some are are Christians as well. But, the holier than thou Christians prefer to overlook that fact because they think it will taint their religion. Homosexuals and Transgenders are not all God-less, malignant demons as some like to depict them as being.
Fists will do.
I’m as free to give my opinion as you are to give yours and my opinion isn’t changing.
Maybe you should stop fantasizing about it so much? As a straight guy I don't spend a whole lot of time fretting about what gay folks do.
Maybe you should keep your “anything goes” view of sex in your bedroom instead of trying to give it to ma as a societal norm.
Very odd that you think society needs to dictate one's sex life.
Society has always dictated what’s acceptable and what isn’t. If you don’t want society in your sex life, then keep your sex life to yourself . . . which means don’t skip into a bakery holding hands with another man and demand that the baker create a cake to celebrate something he thinks is abominable.
Hmmm.....sounds like you don't much believe in freedom and liberty when it comes to what consenting adults do in the privacy of the bedroom. ISIS shares the same values as you, so it's just too bad the the US constitution disagrees with both of you.
How is a PDA expressive of one's sex life?
What he thinks is irrelevant. He cannot refuse service to anyone. Especially when he routinely provides that service to others. If he doesn't want to bake a cake, then perhaps he shouldn't be a baker. Or operate a members-only business where he can discriminate to his heart's content.
Do people often discuss their bedroom activities to you?
Adam + Eve + Diamond ( you don't think God did not see through their Lie? ) A serpent that talks, Right.
And they shell give in Marriage even till the times of the End.
And they Worship in Play
Then there are those in Washington DC right Now who Worship the Gold Bear & Bull , and the BS they try and cover-up their mess.
God is Love
Don't you think that Love can get a Virgin Pregnant?
It would be interesting to try to get by with pregnant by Holy Spirit in today's world where we can do DNA tests.
Isn't "rape by a deity" still a valid excuse for a teen pregnancy in the bible-belt?
Not that I know of. I have heard of being pregnant by toilet seat or swimming pool. LOL!
I had friends in their late 20s who used the withdrawal method in an attempt to prevent pregnancy when she had run out of birth control pills while the husband was between duty stations with the Marine Corps. Of course, she got pregnant. I could not believe that anyone that old could be that ignorant.
"Don't you think that Love can get a virgin pregnant?"
If expressed in the proper manner, certainly!