Where should there be "The right to refuse service"?

What does that mean in this case?Are you going to start up a bakery business so that you can tell gay people you won't bake them a wedding cake?

Yeah that's proof...Heaven's Gate - Wikipedia(religious_group)

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Heaven's Gate was an American UFO religious Millenarian group based in San Diego, California, founded in the early 1970s and led by Marshall Applewhite (1931—1997) and Bonnie Nettles (1927—1985).[1] On March 26, 1997, police discovered the bodies of 39 members of the group who had committed mass suicide[2] in order to reach what they believed was an alien space craft following the Comet Hale—Bopp...

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Ah, so it's inside your head!Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

I'm pretty sure I've demonstrated that ignorance loves company. Bigots never seem to have any problem finding like minded bretheren.

That's exactly what people mean when they refer to a 'special class' or a 'protected class' for discrimination purposes.Currently, gay people are not recognized as such a class under the 14th Amendment. Under federal law, their status is much like that of women who are not recognized as a fully protected class either under the 14th amendment either.In any event, I think most people are making too much of a big deal about what you think. You aren't in much of a position to discriminate against anyone. Further, given the goofy stuff you say about history (e.g. don't recall people resisting desegregation, don't recall the Puritan's policy of persecuting Quakers, think King James was blameless), it is hard to see why anybody cares about your opinion anyway.I say, just let Faith hate whoever she wants. Nobody will even notice. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

300,000,000 dronestar??Is that every man, woman, and child except you? Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

95% is way over the top.

Now that you ask, I am finding that I don't care all that much. For starters, I would not accept any percentage that included people under the age of 13, which would be about 20% of the people. And if all I could say was that the majority of people endorsed something, I would not be claiming much more than the majority of the people I could not eliminate. I suspected as much.

Ringo, let me suggest that your position is largely incomprehensible.You say that someone hitting on my wife is a trivial matter and results from my thinking I own my wife. But then you suggest that if it happened in my presence it would be okay to accidentally cut off the man's ear.Why should it even matter whether the act happened in my presence of if instead my wife told me about it? Why once this non-event happens the second time can I physically assault the customer on the sly?Okay, so both CS and I spot you the difference of opinion on whether the act was trivial.Then despite CS agreeing to disagree on whether the particular incident was trivial, you pose a completely different scenario in which the person in question is not a proprietor and ask if the person is going to do his job for some other non-involved party.An employee not doing is job does not address the rude co-worker, so of what relevance is your question? That would be equivalent to the barber refusing to cut some new customers hair. If instead, the rude person was the employee's boss, then perhaps the act would change the way that person viewed his employer. Might be a reason to change jobs, or it might not.

So what was the point of even mentioning cutting a customer? Apparently there was no point since I really should not do that and would not do that. In fact, except as a method of getting back it makes no sense. Ringo. It was you who indicated that it "it would be effective" to cut the man's ear off if he did it hit on my wife in my presence". I am responding to your statement and not to my own scenario in which my wife is not there. How was that unclear?If in fact, you did not actually recommend the action. Here is what you said: No, as a matter of fact I cannot do that. Why would you suggest that I can when you know that it would be wrong. You seem to think that a customer has to break the law to get kicked out of a business. And of course that's nonsense. As an example, no law says that a person cannot come into my business and use profanity in my shop or walk barefoot into my shop. Only my personal rules say those things. And I can kick people out who break those rules.If you don't think hitting on my wife is a something for which I should take offense, fair enough. But the idea that a patron has to do something actionable to get barred is simply wrong. I would be kicking the person out for rude behavior. I really don't care whether he is a racist or not as long as that does not result in him insulting other customers. But apparently being a racist does cause this particular "patron" to act up. Well, being a racist is not an excuse for being rude. I'm not sure why you think slinging racial and ethnic slurs around is not cause to be kicked out. What do you think would happen if you sued the proprietor for taking such an action? You can kick someone out for stealing from you, or even attempting to do so. Retail stores here routinely bar people they catch shoplifting. Sorry but you are way out in left field on this example and in my opinion on essentially all of the examples. What you are describing isn't discrimination nor is it arbitrary fiefdom like behavior. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Excellent question. Particularly so given the responses from the governor about how the law does nothing of the sort and how he is surprised about the backlash.I think the key is that the Indiana state government is going to avoid stepping in and applying a fix in a claim of discrimination if two criteria are met:1. The putative defendant is claiming or demonstrating a religious belief that causes/requires him to discriminate.2. The government has no compelling interest in preventing the discrimination.Given that Indiana offers absolutely no protection against discrimination based on sexual orientation, and that the Republicans who dominate Indiana's legislature are adamant that such protections will never be offered, I would suggest that 'no compelling interest' in this context is red state speak for 'screw you gay folks'.Note that the 14th amendment prevents Indiana from claiming that there is no compelling interest in protecting people from discrimination by race, ethnic origin, creed, etc. For some businesses. Depending on the good or service, some will find it easier to make a case than others. I think it would be difficult to use the law to avoid selling a gay man a hamburger, but much easier to avoid renting a house or an apartment to the same man.Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

The Indiana's law does not simply mirror federal law. It contains additional provisions that do not exist in federal law. First, Indiana law provides an explicit coverage for private business accused of discrimination. Second the Indiana law provides for a cause of action against a private person claiming discrimination even when there is no government involvement whatsoever. Federal law does nothing of the sort.The law is clearly designed to target and eliminate things like photography studios being sued for discriminating against gay people. In fact the bill's sponsors have been quite clear about that.It looks like all of the Republican presidential hopefuls are bending over backwards to support Indiana's law. Good for them. Currently there is a lot of deceptive talk claiming that Indiana's law is not about discrimination and that it's just like federal law. Clearly both things are wrong, and I don't believe it will be too long before that becomes clear to everyone.

Perhaps I quibble here over the meaning of the word "overt"...The law would prevent the creation of such an ordinance, but it is incorrect to suggest that it does not overtly allow discrimination. The law clearly provides a private defense in a civil suit for discrimination regardless of the level of state involvement. I don't think a statute is required to establish gays as having the same civil rights everybody else has. A clear ruling from the Supreme Court on the matter could accomplish the same thing and existing law would be applied. If the city/state chooses to do so then yes. But what kind of right exists when the government has the discretion to ignore that right. What kind of right is subject to mere political expedience, particularly for an unpopular group. Isn't that exactly the same thing as saying that no right exists at all?That's really my characterization of the current problem. Every law abiding citizen has the right to be treated as a human being. I see that right as inherent in the constitution and applicable to the states via the 14th amendment. However the state of Indiana, like many states including the one I currently reside in, simply refuses to give a crap (read as recognize an interest) about the daily lives of a substantial number of their residents. And in the case of Indiana and North Carolina, such refusals are very popular.I understand that not everybody buys into my theory of human rights, but I find the tolerance of mistreatment of groups of people at the mere whim of others to be an unconscionable failing of a state. How is that NOT a compelling interest? It is because the state chooses not to be interested. It's like pre-1950 civil rights when there was a 14th amendment guarantee of equality for black folks that the government ignored under a legal fiction that any fool ought to be able to see as ridiculous.

"You lie state of Indiana", says anyone who can read the statute. The private cause of action NoNukes referred to is explicitly called out by the statute.

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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.

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The defense arises in a private suit between individuals without regard to government involvement. There is no need for the city/state government to pass an ordinance before the defense "God requires I discriminate" is available. While your rights are not absolute, what we consider to be rights are not subject to mere government discretion. Such a thing is less even than mere privilege. Government can contravene your constitutional rights under a proper showing, yes, but not simply because such contravening is convenient.

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A draft circulated early Wednesday said that the new "religious freedom" law does not authorize a provider including businesses or individuals to refuse to offer or provide its services, facilities, goods or public accommodation to any member of the public based on sexual orientation or gender identity, in addition to race, color, religion, ancestry, age, national origin, disability, sex or military service.

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Assuming this new language survives, one might well ask what the point of the new law will be.

Don Adams: The old hide the law in the text trick. That's the third time I've fallen for that this month! Yeah. There is that. I would cite the Pentagon papers if I needed a counter example. But I see your point.RAZD is right about the amusing part. Indiana and Arkansas both backed off of the most odious parts of their shiny new statutes within a couple of days. I would argue that the process of enacting these laws makes it impossible for someone to successfully argue that their legislatures intended the law to defend discrimination.Meanwhile, a whole bunch of Arizona businesses outed themselves, many of them for no good reason. Who is going to order pizza for a wedding ceremony? A lot of prominent businesses lined up on the side of the civil rights with a few outing themselves as haters. And essentially every single Republican candidate for president lined up behind a law that even Arkansas and Indiana recognize as odious.Most people have little to no problem with RFRA as passed back in 1993. Congress and President Clinton actually looked favorably on allowing Native Americans the use of peyote in their religious ceremonies. The big difference this time around is the prospect of the Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage on a national basis. The result has been adding warts onto religious freedom acts to validate hateful, backwards positions similar to ones we've seen expressed here.