p13, v9.14 — Left / Right & Legals

Left / Right & Legals

Mountain Views News Saturday, April 4, 2015

MVNews this week: Page 13

LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

Mountain Views-News Saturday, April 4, 2015

HOWARD Hays As I See It

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GREG Welborn

“Indiana Governor Insists New Law Has Nothing To Do With
Thing It Explicitly Intended To Do”

- headline from The Onion – March 30, 2015

Back in 2004 Karl Rove promised “absolutely” President Bush
would push a constitutional ban on gay marriage in his second
term – to prevent “activist judges” from “redefining” marriage.

The “swift-boating” of Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry
(D-MA) wasn’t holding up, and the decorated Vietnam vet called
out Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney: “I’m not going to listen
to them talk to me about patriotism”, those who “went out of their
way to avoid their chance to serve when they had a chance.” The
mess in Iraq wasn’t helping, and that photo-op of the president
with the “Mission Accomplished” backdrop only made things
worse.

The campaign needed help, and Rove saw opportunity in the
recent judge’s ruling in Kerry’s own state of Massachusetts favoring
gay marriage. Both Rove and RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman
realized a surefire way to draw their base to the polls would be getting gay marriage measures
on the ballot in battleground states – never mind that gay marriage had never really been an
issue in those states.

The measures passed and voters who came all worked up over gay marriage helped bring
electoral votes to Bush.

Mehlman, who came out as gay in 2010, later apologized: “At a personal level, I wish I had
spoken out against the effort. As I’ve been involved in the fight for marriage equality, one of the
things I’ve learned is how many people were harmed by the campaigns in which I was involved.”

That campaign was eleven years ago. Gay marriage is now legal in 36 states and the District
of Columbia. A WSJ/NBC Poll found nearly 60% of Americans support gay marriage – double
the 30% support it had when Karl Rove engineered Bush’s reelection. It has 75% support among
18-34 year-olds, with Republican strategists worried about the loss of an entire generation
of younger voters. Former RNC Chair Mehlman now says supporting gay marriage “is a net
positive for winning elections.”

Were they paying attention in Indiana? With the economies of Republican-led states
lagging in the recovery, Republican legislators in Indiana (and Georgia and Arkansas) tossed a
diversionary bone to their base with a “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (RFRA). Reaction
was swift, powerful and nation-wide, with Gov. Mike Pence (R) appearing clueless as to what
hit him and why.

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce condemned the legislation, as did the mayor of
Indianapolis. The Indianapolis Star slammed it in a front page editorial. The U.S. Conference
of Mayors is rethinking holding their 2016 convention in the state. NASCAR and the NCAA,
the NBA Pacers and NFL Colts voiced their opposition. New York State, Connecticut, San
Francisco, Seattle, Denver and Portland imposed travel bans. The heads of Indiana, Butler and
DePaw Universities issued a joint statement of condemnation.

Yelp and Salesforce are cutting operations in the state, and Angie’s List cancelled a $40 million
expansion in Indianapolis, costing a thousand jobs. Eli Lilly, Levi Strauss, the Gap and Subaru
warned of the harm to the state’s business climate. Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson called it “pure
idiocy . . . The notion that you can tell businesses somehow that they are free to discriminate
against people based on who they are is madness.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook editorialized; “Apple is open. Open to everyone, regardless of where
they come from, what they look like, how they worship or who they love. Regardless of what the
law might allow in Indiana or Arkansas, we will never tolerate discrimination.”

Gov. Pence seemed baffled why anyone considered the legislation discriminatory, apparently
unaware of who stood with him at the signing ceremony. There was Micah Clark of the
American Family Association, who thought it crucial businesses be allowed to discriminate
against gay couples and adoption agencies able to refuse them children. He warned language
intended to “clarify” non-discrimination “could totally destroy this bill.”

There was Eric Miller of Advance America, who states “Christian businesses and individuals
deserve protection from those who support homosexual marriages”. He’s troubled by “Christian
businesses” being “punished” for refusing to allow customers to use the restroom they feel
comfortable with. Curt Smith was there from the Indiana Family Institute, who equates
homosexuality with bestiality and refers to the details of the Matthew Shepard murder as “gay
activist propaganda”.

Gov. Pence tried arguing the bill’s no different from the 1993 federal RFRA signed by
President Clinton. But while the federal law deals with a person’s religion, this new Indiana law
defines a “person” as “a limited liability company, a corporation, a company, a firm, a society, a
joint-stock company,” (“It leaves open the question of what sort of religious views a joint stock
company would hold”, quipped White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest.)

The federal law and those in other states protect individuals from government actions. Under
the Indiana law, it can involve two private parties; an individual accusing a business of
discrimination, and the LLC, corporation, joint-stock company or whatever citing its “religious
beliefs” as a “defense”. Oher states with similar laws have prevailing anti-discrimination laws
on the books. Indiana doesn’t.

You’d think a political “strategy” based on exploitation of bigotry would have no place in
today’s America - but that view isn’t shared among current Republican presidential contenders.
Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) seem concerned not about discrimination, but the
sensibilities of vendors asked to provide for gay weddings. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Gov. Bobby
Jindal (R-LA) and Rick Perry claim it’s all about “religious freedom”.

For those jumping on this bandwagon, Apple’s Tim Cook has a message for them, too: “This
isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This is about how we treat each other as human
beings. Opposing discrimination takes courage. With the lives and dignity of so many people at
stake, it’s time for all of us to be courageous.”

INTOLERANCE AND INDIANA

Reports from the Mideast about “a deal” with Iran are grabbing all the
headlines, but arguably an equally important battle is being waged here on
the domestic front. This is a battle between those who claim to be tolerant
and those who are portrayed as monolithically and backwardly intolerant. I
reference the war of words being waged over the Indiana religious freedom
act. Those on the left would have us all believe that this law has been designed
and passed with the specific intent of allowing people to discriminate
against gays. The truth is quite the opposite, but more importantly, the
principal enshrined in this law is of the utmost importance to Americans of
all political, religious, and sexual orientations.

The Indiana law is simply a version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). The
purpose of this law was to both protect the rights of gays and the rights of those whose religious faith
forbids gay marriage. The act – both at the federal level and now at the state level in Indiana – requires
courts to administer a balancing test between the rights of gays and the rights of the faithful.

As we read the headlines and hear the vituperative accusations of discrimination in Indiana,
we need to bear in mind that federal RFRA law was signed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. That
law simply stated that for individuals or businesses to refuse to supply goods or services to a gay
they needed to show that their religious liberty would be “substantially burdened”, and in turn the
government needed to show that before they could compel someone –say a devout Christian baker –
to support a gay marriage the government’s requirement was the least restrictive means to achieving
a “compelling” government interest.

Stripping away the legal mumbo-jumbo, here’s what the federal law stated. If gays want to do their
thing, then the rest of us don’t have any right to interfere with it. But at the same time, if someone feels
their religion prevents them from participating in, or supporting, a gay event, then that individual
has the right to not participate. I can’t imagine a fairer and more balanced law. Let the free market
determine how products and services are delivered.

If a gay couple wants to have a cake, they have the freedom to find a baker who wants the business.
At the same time, if a baker doesn’t want the business, he or she is free to pass on the opportunity.
The federal RFPA was the ultimate live-and-let-live law. It was the epitome of all that is great with this
country’s commitment to individual freedom.

The only reason Indiana, or 19 other states for that matter, felt the need to pass their own versions
of RFPA is because the Supreme Court in 1997 limited RFPA to federal actions only. In other words,
the original federal RFPA was deemed to apply only at the federal level. In response, 19 other states
– including such liberal bastions as Illinois and Connecticut – enacted their own versions of RFPA
in order to assure that both gays and the religiously devout would receive equal protection of their
beliefs.

As a conservative and a Christian, I write from the perspective of simultaneously believing that
gay marriage is wrong and that gays should be allowed to live out in the privacy of their homes
their sexuality and moral values as they perceive them. I do not believe I have the right to prohibit
gays from being gay, but I also do not believe that gays have the right to compel me to support their
decisions and lifestyle. Again, this is the epitome of live-and-let-live principal.

Our founders created a system based on allowing the maximum level of freedom consistent with
a properly functioning national government. My freedoms are enshrined up to the point where they
impinge on someone else’s. As one of our former Supreme Court Justices once wrote, the freedom to
swing my arm stops at your face.

The uproar over Indiana’s law is clearly politically motivated. But it is equally clear that there is no
miscarriage of justice or morality at play. This should have been a slam dunk with no press coverage –
equivalent to a city council deciding to repair a pot hole on Elm Street. But it was built into a national
media story by those forces which are intent on eliminating our country’s commitment to religious
freedom. This is no trivial matter. Keep in mind that after our constitution was ratified, the very first
amendment was to articulate and establish the freedom of speech and religion. And how appropriate
that was.

If we, as individuals, do not possess the freedom to speak our minds, or the freedom to practice
our faith, then there are few real freedoms we would possess. If you can prohibit a person’s opinions
from being articulated or prohibit their faith in God from being exercised, that individual has no real
freedom remaining.

So, for those who are committed to destroying the Judeo-Christian ethic and/or preventing it from
any expression in the public square, attacking the right to object to and abstain from participating in
a gay marriage has become the rallying point. But the rest of us should think long and hard before
accepting the premise that the federal or state government has the right to restrict our freedoms of
speech and religion. Would we want churches to be prohibited from feeding the homeless because
they don’t meet regulations written for restaurants? We would want the local Baptist church to be
forced to hire an atheist? Would we want a Muslim baker to be forced to bake a cake for a Jewish
wedding?

There are a thousand legitimate questions like this which must be considered before we blithely
suspend the first amendment, and in so doing, a common sense understanding of where one person’s
freedoms intersect with another’s.

Honest liberals used to understand that there was a legitimate balancing test. The intolerant left,
claims the mantel of tolerance, but in reality seeks to impose their belief system with no concern for
the rights of all citizens or for any tolerance of those who disagree with their vision.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a freelance writer and has spoken to several civic and
religious organizations on cultural and moral issues. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife
and 3 children and is active in the community. He can be reached gregwelborn2@gma/5l.com

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