Comments on Advance Indiana™: Tully Keeps RFRA Lie Alive

Tully won't tell readers about the canal killi...

2015-05-12T17:33:08.020-05:00

Tully won't tell readers about the canal killings or gondola murders of 2011; hardly a comfort to RIRA opponents. And he's not going to report on the LGBT vendor who refused to sell cotton candy to Colts fans at the Texas State Fair. Then again, we might as well have fun making this stuff up as they do...

So the Association of Fairs and Expositions was so...

2015-05-12T14:09:50.672-05:00

So the Association of Fairs and Expositions was so bothered by Indiana's RFRA so they chose San Antonio over Indianapolis. Do they not know Texas has an RFRA? I think the claim is so BS.

Anon 12:59, "everybody" thinks RFRA woul...

2015-05-12T14:05:56.447-05:00

Anon 12:59, "everybody" thinks RFRA would have an evil, discriminatory impact? What about all those law professors who said the law didn't affect anti-discrimination laws one bit.. Surely if they're wrong, and you're right, you can point to ONE case where RFRA allowed someone to deny service in violation of an anti-discrimination law. Of course you can't provide that case because it's never happened. Anywhere.

Hoops claims an unnamed executive with an unnamed ...

2015-05-12T13:32:53.489-05:00

Hoops claims an unnamed executive with an unnamed national association decided against Indianapolis because of RFRA. I'm calling him out on it because I know when we're being played by these criminal minds. Texas has been far more discriminatory and intolerant towards its gay population than Indiana. If the argument carried any weight, they would have never gone to Texas. The same can be said for Florida and Arizona, particularly Arizona, which has passed a lot of anti-immigrant legislation. Nobody mentions boycotts in those sunbelt states because they know when push comes to shove that the milder weather wins the day over what they may or may not think of the culture of the local people. I will not argue it anymore. Indiana's law isn't any different than the majority of other states. That's a fact. Lie all you want but I deal with facts here, and practically speaking, Indiana's law was no different than more than half of the other states in the country. Some people made a lot of money playing the lie. I don't get paid to lie here so take your propaganda and shove it where the sun doesn't shine. Real Christians weren't mad about the law's passage. I've heard the people talk. They aren't Christians, not by a long shot. They're people who belong to social clubs where they want to see and be seen.

Hoops said quite plainly that we had lost a conven...

2015-05-12T12:59:51.895-05:00

Hoops said quite plainly that we had lost a convention due to RFRA. I think Indiana has been completely tainted by the Act. Corporate America has spoken. Our Indiana Universities all decried the intent. I don’t know why you continue to advance the argument that RFRA was this meaningless, toothless, benign thing when everybody else extrapolates its evil intent. Why is everything a conspiracy? The answer is right in front of your face. Opponents of marriage equality stopped arguing some time ago that same-sex marriage was sinful or too immoral to tolerate. The arguments now range from states’ rights justifications to claims about optimal child rearing to the need to preserve marriage for heterosexuals. With similar attempts at subtlety, the religious liberty justifications for RFRAs are not presented publicly as affording a license to discriminate. They are swathed instead in arguments about recalibrating the freedoms of believers. Strip away all the justifications and excluding gays and lesbians seems to be precisely the impetus for the passage of these newer laws. And because nobody wants to say so, the pretexts collide. Ask Christians why they’re so mad about losing the original RFRA and they say they shouldn’t have to serve gays. Duh.
Opposition to marriage equality and the passage of Indiana’s capacious new RFRA are inextricably connected. Indiana enacted its law after the federal courts ruled that same-sex marriage was now legal in the Hoosier state. … RFRA was seen as a way to give residents and businesses that objected to same-sex marriage a way around having to cater to same-sex couples. And yet nobody—or at least nobody who doesn’t make pizzas—seems to want to fess up about the real reason for the sudden burning need for these new, turbocharged RFRAs, much less admit that they are aimed at the same group as the marriage bans. Indiana has been seriously tainted by this RFRA experience, and we will continue to lose business, including conventions, because of our new reputation as a State of Christian hate mongers.