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Religion Title: Indiana religion law is Jim Crow of our time The arguments for Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act arguments are strikingly similar to the arguments for racial discrimination some 50 years ago. Then, the nation debated whether it was right and just for someone to be barred from service at a lunch counter because of the color of his or her skin. Astonishingly, here we are again, having to combat arguments that it should be legal to bar someone from the same lunch counter based on the gender of the person they love. Let’s tell it like it is: The so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act is the Jim Crow legislation of our time. Today, African-Americans are protected from discrimination of this kind – and that’s exactly how it should be in the Land of the Free. Alas, LGBT people enjoy no such protection under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but at least always had trusted their home state legislatures and governors not to turn on them. I take this personally because, as of Thursday, my family and I are not protected from discrimination when we visit family and friends in the state of my birth. This is real and wrong and grieves me deeply. The passage of this discriminatory legislation brings back painful memories in Cincinnati of a charter amendment, commonly known as Article XII, that prohibited City Council from passing any ordinance that would have granted LGBT people equal protection under the law. It was a sorry moment in our city’s history – one in which an entire class of people was singled out for non-protection. The city’s image was damaged throughout the country, and the economic impact was significant, with conventions being canceled and prestigious companies choosing not to do business in our city. I was a resident of Cincinnati at the time, and the passage of the charter amendment created a cloud over the city that ultimately contributed to my decision to leave. I wasn’t alone. Many people I knew moved to cities that they viewed as more welcoming: Chicago, Atlanta, San Diego. I moved to New York. Fortunately, the citizens of Cincinnati rediscovered their essential instinct for justice and repealed Article XII, and I moved back as soon as I could. Cincinnati now is seen as one of those welcoming cities – one dramatically different from what it was. Did we fall into the dream that the rest of American had taken that journey with us? If so, we’ve had a rude awakening. Now I have to question where in Indiana my family can go without discrimination. Can we visit the Indianapolis Children’s Museum? Will a hotel turn us away? Would we be allowed to buy a cupcake at a bakery? If you can, put yourself in our shoes for a moment you can see how unsettling and infuriating this situation is. Maybe the good people of Indiana will come back to their senses as the good people of Cincinnati did some years ago. While they’re pondering what they’ve done, we Cincinnatians should contact the convention organizers who have announced they will pull their meetings out of Indiana and let them know that they are heartily welcome in the Queen City. We should work with the business leaders who have decided not to expand in Indiana and let them know that they are very welcome to locate in our Ohio and Kentucky counties. And we certainly should let all the talented Hoosiers who happen to be LGBT know that they are welcome to live, work, love and play here. Indiana may have lost its sense of justice and good sense for a while but the rest of us understand the human and business cases for diversity and inclusion. Let’s cash in on the progress we’ve made in Cincinnati and elevate our status as a city that welcomes diversity of all kinds and declines to discriminate against any of our citizens. Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 124. "Then, the nation debated whether it was right and just for someone to be barred from service at a lunch counter because of the color of his or her skin. Astonishingly, here we are again, having to combat arguments that it should be legal to bar someone from the same lunch counter based on the gender of the person they love." I agree. Let's not screw around. Let's settle this once and for all. The nation should debate whether the owner of a private business has the constitutionally protected right to bar anyone from service for any reason. Refusing someone service at a lunch counter has nothing to do with interstate commerce.
#59. To: misterwhite, Willie Green (#6) The nation should debate whether the owner of a private business has the constitutionally protected right to bar anyone from service for any reason.
http://law.justia.com/codes/us/2012/title-42/chapter-21/subchapter-ii/section-2000a/
PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS - 42 U.S.C. § 2000a (2012)
#64. To: nolu chan (#59) I'm aware of the law. "Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case holding that the U.S. Congress could use the power granted to it by the Constitution's Commerce Clause to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964." I'm saying I don't agree with the ruling because I don't think it interferes with interstate commerce. If I want kosher food, can I demand that all businesses serve it? Or does the free market respond by opening kosher businesses? It's ridiculous to think that any minority cannot find a place to serve him what he wants ... and that it would interfere with interstate commerce.
#68. To: misterwhite (#64)
"Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case holding that the U.S. Congress could use the power granted to it by the Constitution's Commerce Clause to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964." You use the term interferes with interstate commerce. The law uses the term affects interstate commerce. There is very long standing precedent that someting that affects interstate commerce, directly or indirectly, triggers commerce clause jurisdiction. The Court's definition of affects is ridiculously broad. Activity that "exerts a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and this irrespective of whether such effect is what might at some earlier time have been defined as 'direct' or 'indirect,'" triggers the interstate commerce clause jurisdiction. Any national debate would need to focus on a constitutional amendment to force a reversal of that. A law contrary to the Constitution, as interpreted by SCOTUS, would be held unconstitutional. Then you would practically need a constitutional convention to get that done because Congress just ain't ever gonna go there, at least not in the foreseeable future. A national discussion of discrimination law could address the problem and legislation could act upon it. Legislation cannot act to change SCOTUS interpretations of the constitution, including those regarding the breadth of jurisdiction, but it can act on prior legislation. I agree with your point about kosher food, and would include halal food in the same context. Also, I would look at forcing a baker to create a special cake for the SAE fraternity at Oklahoma University, complete with verses from the fraternity chant or cakes decorated with a pornographic theme. I do not even see why the discrimination law needs to change. I do not see it as discrimination when a business declines to create a product it does not currently offer for public sale. There is nothing in the law which should be interpreted to require a business to do something contrary to their religious beliefs or which they find morally repugnant. They need only sell the cakes and decorations they offer for sale. I agree with your main point; I disagree with your selection of target. The interstate commerce argument is aimed at federal jurisdiction rather than the regulating law. Precedent expanding jurisdiction under the interstate commerce clause predates Heart of Atlanta. The opening salvo of Heart of Atlanta regarding jurisdiction harkens back to precedent from 1824.
7. The Power of Congress Over Interstate Travel. Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) expanded jurisdiction under the commerce clause further. http://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1949/1942/1942_59/
Wickard v. Filburn
#71. To: nolu chan (#68) (Edited) "The law uses the term affects interstate commerce." Fine. We'll go with that. "There is very long standing precedent that something that affects interstate commerce, directly or indirectly, triggers commerce clause jurisdiction." The long-standing precedent has been, "has a substantial effect on the interstate commerce that Congress is currently regulating." That was true for Wickard, The Shreveport Rate Cases, Raich, and a whole slew of others. What was Congress currently regulating in the Heart of Atlanta case?
#96. To: misterwhite (#71)
What was Congress currently regulating in the Heart of Atlanta case? They were regulating racial discrimination. Regarding my point about the commerce clause and jurisdiction, it does not matter what Congress was regulating in the Heart of Atlanta case. They were not disturbing the long standing precedent regarding jurisdiction under the commerce clause. They held that what was being regulated has a substantial effect of the economy and therefore fell within the jurisdiction of the Federal government to regulate it. The matter of jurisdiction is separate from the merits of the regulatory act. The expansive interpretation makes the jurisdiction applicable to almost anything that has a substantial effect, direct or indirect, on the economy. Justice Scalia has written that, with Filburn, the Court “expanded the Commerce Clause beyond all reason.” I agree with Scalia, but it remains that the clause is still expanded beyond all reason. Legislation cannot reverse that ruling. http://www.powershow.com/view/236c2-ODIwZ/The_Commerce_Clause_powerpoint_ppt_presentation Powerpoint, slide 14
The New Deal Regime
#101. To: nolu chan (#96) "Justice Scalia has written that, with Filburn, the Court “expanded the Commerce Clause beyond all reason.” With Filburn, Congress was already regulating the nationwide production and interstate commerce of wheat through the Agricultural Adjustment Act in order to drive up the price. In return, Congress was promising to pay above-market price for the wheat that was produced. Enter Roscoe Filburn who wanted it both ways. He grew twice his allotment, sold half at the higher price, and consumed the remainder. That wasn't the deal, and had every wheat farmer done this, the Agricultural Adjustment Act would have failed. The Civil Rights Act wasn't passed to encourage interstate commerce. To say that interstate commerce is affected because blacks cannot stay at a particular motel is ridiculous. Might as well say that interstate commerce is affected because blacks cannot afford to stay at a particular motel and they should be offered a lower rate. If Congress wants to pass the Civil Rights Act and say the federal government will not discriminate, that's fine. If a state wants to pass similar legislation and say the state government will not discriminate, that's fine. But for thje federal government in Washington, D.C. to pass a law saying that private businesses nationwide may not discriminate, they've gone too far. This phony-baloney court decision was as contrived as the "penumbra of an emanation" in Roe v Wade.
#109. To: misterwhite (#101) The Civil Rights Act wasn't passed to encourage interstate commerce. To say that interstate commerce is affected because blacks cannot stay at a particular motel is ridiculous. Might as well say that interstate commerce is affected because blacks cannot afford to stay at a particular motel and they should be offered a lower rate. Nope. The Civil Rights Act was passed to try to force Americans to treat black Americans as equals. Racists were determined not to. Pass acts that are limited to government, and you don't uproot the problem. Tie it to COMMERCE, though, and you can regulate ALL economic affairs, and you can force racists out of business, into poverty, and into outright starvation if they won't treat blacks as equal in the marketplace. THAT is why the Commerce Clause was invoked by the Court - because once you go to commerce, you are talking about people's ability to make a living. The point was: if you're going to be a racist and refuse to serve blacks, you're not going to be in business at all, anywhere in America. Leaving it to the states was not workable, because the usual suspects, the Old Confederacy, were never going to force equal treatment in the marketplace. The only way to do it was federal power, backed by the threat of federal guns. That did it. The hard attitudes remained, but they could no longer be EXPRESSED in business. In dark little corners, ugly little bars still had "no blacks" rules, and those rules stood until somebody noticed and decided to disembark there with federal powers behind him. Then the bar owner either submitted, publicly in front of the cameras - OR he refused, and was put out of business. Remember how blacks used to have to get off the sidewalk for whites under segregation? This was an important symbolism as to who was boss and who was subservient. And THAT is the purpose of the public prosecutions, of never letting it stand ANYWHERE. To humiliate the racists by making them do, in public, specifically what they took a stand they would never do. The PURPOSE is to make them get off the sidewalk - to enforce their defeat and inferiority. Attaching it to the Commerce Clause was DESIGNED to force immediate desegregation on pain of instant economic death to whoever resisted, and then to single out and destroy businesses and individuals who DID resist. It worked too. Blacks can rent hotel rooms and eat in restaurants anywhere in America now, and nobody says a word. Most don't care, but there are still a few who DO care, who think "I have the RIGHT to say no to you if I want to because it's MY business." To which the answer is: NO YOU DON'T. And you NEVER WILL AGAIN. There was nothing accidental about this, and nothing hidden about it either. The segregationists were always In-Your-Face, and the desegregationists are, likewise, In-Your-Face in response. It becomes a question of firepower, and the egalitarians have the biggest guns, so we won. That's the truth. It never was an abstract argument with unexpected side effects. The PURPOSE always was to manipulate the laws to give the racists nowhere to hide, to strip away their ability to retreat into private business, and to force them, in public, to do what they said they would never do. To force the public defeat and humiliation, and make them back down on TV in front of everybody - in short, to humiliate THEM and beat THEM down and make THEM step off the sidewalk in full, intentional retaliation to what they did to the Blacks, and HOW They did it - the PUBLIC aspect of the destruction of the racists has been the answer to the public lynchings of the past. It is as I said yesterday: Victor's Justice. Some people PRETEND that it was all mechanical and blind and stupid. Neither side was blind. The white segregationists knew EXACTLY what they were doing and how they were trying to manipulate the legal system. And the white desegregationists also knew EXACTLY what they were doing, and chose legal thermonuclear weapons and very, VERY public and symbolic acts, in order to not just ease in desegregation, but to publicly kick the segregationists in the groin, and publicly humiliate and destroy them in order to intimidate them into not resisting. It worked. It still works. And it's not going to change as long as we live.
#115. To: Vicomte13 (#109) Nope. The Civil Rights Act was passed to try to force Americans to treat black Americans as equals. We are not equal. We should not be "forced" to treat anyone "equal". People only deserve to be treated FAIRLY based on their atributes.
#118. To: GrandIsland (#115) We are not equal. We should not be "forced" to treat anyone "equal". People only deserve to be treated FAIRLY based on their atributes. We are created equal, and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. I don't believe that our nation was founded on a lie.
#122. To: Vicomte13 (#118) We are created equal If we arm wrestled... a guarantee you we aren't equal. If we were to fight, hand to hand combat... we won't be equal. We aren't equal... and if you believe our country was founded on that concept, then you are sadly mistaken. We are all individuals... and we are different. Treating us "equally" is why our society has problems today.
#124. To: GrandIsland (#122) Treating us "equally" is why our society has problems today. So the central claim for the right to kill soldiers in the quest for American independence was a lie, and the Declaration of Independence is a piece of toilet paper that means nothing. Got it.
Replies to Comment # 124. Get back to me when you want to discuss the same topic. Not only are people not equal... but neither is your topic compared to mine. lol
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