Friday, May 22, 2015
(GOP) Virginia is for Haters
‘No Gays Allowed’ Law Set To Pass In Virginia
The state of Virginia is set to pass a law which would allow anti-LGBT business owners to bar gay people, purely on the basis of their sexuality.
The Virginia Bill states that anyone seeking or holding a business license from the state of Virginia in the state can refuse service or entry to gay people, on the grounds it “would violate the religious or moral convictions of such person with respect to same-sex “marriage” or homosexual behavior.”
This would make it lawful for LGBT people to be barred from hotels, restaurants, schools, hospitals, and any other premise where a good or service is exchanged by someone who dislikes their sexual orientation:
Want to buy a bed? Prove you’re not sharing it with a member of the same sex.
Want to buy diapers but show up with your same-sex partner? No diapers for you, and don’t darken the door of this store again.
We aren’t going to enroll your kid in our school district because she has two moms. All these scenarios would be entirely legal under the new law.
The toxic bill has been spearheaded by Virginia’s virulently anti-gay lawmaker Bob Marshall. You might remember him for his fruitless effort to exclude gay people from the state’s National Guard, or his 2012 attempt to block the appointment of a judge on the grounds that the nominee was gay, saying that “sodomy is not a civil right.”
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16 comments:
While respect for religious beliefs must be part of our society, if those religious beliefs run counter to the equal application of secular law, the law wins out.
Now, if that's a problem, then the religious person must make some hard choices. Live within those laws, fight them and accept the consequences, or choose to live somewhere else.
Our country has changed immeasurably over the years since we began this great experiment of melting pot democracy. No one gets everything they want when you choose to live and be part of a multiethnic, pluralistic society ruled by law, as opposed to a religious based society.
Or in our case, a specific interpretation of Christianity based society.
We must keep in mind that not all Christians (or other religious people) believe in discriminating against the LGBT community. Many Christian churches welcome our gay brothers and sisters as equals. It is only a minority of radical religionists who feel they can enact unConstitutional laws to make gay Americans second-class citizens.
This law will be challenged, as it should be. But what it reveals to the 60% of Americans who have no problem with marriage equality is that there is a small minority that insists on imposing its anti-American, anti-Constitutional ideas on the rest of us.
American religious right is as anal as the Taliban Islamists on this issue. The only good news is so far it hasn't stoned anyone to death or beheaded anyone. Yet.
You cannot convince me this politics is rooted in any Christian values. People who back such laws do so to hurt people, no more and no less.
Recently, a story in my community turned me into an investigative blogger. A local cleric purchased two paid advertisements in a local newspaper that characterizes atheists and secularists in derisive terms – playing the Hitler and Stalin cards. Subject cleric is the author a book titled, “Atheist Personality Disorder.” The same cleric was removed from a parish years earlier for openly attacking Episcopalians in a public letter.
A quote from subject clergyman: “I was assigned as a parochial vicar at St. Juliana’s Church in West Palm Beach when the Episcopalian Bishops voted to consecrate an openly homosexual bishop and approve the blessing of gay marriages. I wrote an editorial arguing that this was contrary to 2000 years of Christianity … I have clearly been “blacklisted” and “ostracized” by a strong homosexual subculture and/or pro-homosexual priests.”
Story lines converge: Subject clergyman sees himself as persecuted by atheists and secularists yet fails to acknowledge the reason for his dismissal: He crossed a sectarian boundary. In attacking the Episcopalian Church, he is re-litigating settled history, i.e. the Protestant Reformation. Yet, subject clergyman attributes his dismissal to a “homosexual-atheist-secularist" conspiracy.
Secular laws serve a compelling moral purpose. They proscribe against abuses in the name of religion -- crimes against humanity, ritual sacrifice, reprisal murders, and the sexual predation of children. We are free to BELIEVE as we choose but not necessarily free to ACT as we choose. The wall of separation between Church and State has kept sectarian wars from American shores while protecting religious freedom for all.
Clerics, like the above, who demand “religious freedom” are not advocating freedom at all. They are advocating a return to a pre-Reformation world order whereupon the teachings and taboos of one denomination prevail over all others.
In defaming and demonizing a secular worldview, this cleric’s purpose is to poison the well of public discourse and silence dissent.
Very well said (O)CT(O)PUS.
Clerics, like the above, who demand “religious freedom” are not advocating freedom at all. They are advocating a return to a pre-Reformation world order whereupon the teachings and taboos of one denomination prevail over all others.
A minority of one denomination seeks to prevail over all others. State and federal legislators in the GOP have proposed designating Christianity as our national religion.
These are the same people who chronically complain that Mr. Obama is shredding the Constitution.
Yup, depends on who is doing the shredding that matters to the rightwing evangelicals GOP. Shredding in the name of a mystical religion is A-OKAY with these people cause it is as their God would have it.
Imagined shredding by a bi-racial president of course is evil. It's the mystical devil at work.
It blows my mind that people are still advocating for legal discrimination in this day and age. We can't afford to go backwards like this.
This proposed unconstitutional law will never pass. The governor will veto it.
I thought Virginia was an enlightened state, but apparently it has a large group of idiots in its legislature.
"As the official ballot counting continued, the only question appeared to be how large the "yes" margin of victory from Friday's vote would be. Analysts said the "yes" support was likely to exceed 60 percent nationally when official results are announced later Saturday."
A real triumph for the LGBT community. 60% of the American people approve of gay marriage. But the bigots in the anti-gay states led by anti-gay governors and legislators keep pretending their Bible-based bigotry is what the American people want. It isn't. They're wrong on this and so many other subjects. Evolution. Climate change. Minimum wage. It's like they live in another century.
Virginia's new law is the work of frightened people trying to cling to the past.
Ireland's new law represents the future.
They can't believe this will get past the courts so I have to wonder what the strategy is.
Or maybe they do believe they can hold back the tide.
The non religion based argument in favor of allowing discrimination against gay people (which I read on two different libertarian blogs) is that the state should not be able to dictate to people what they do with their private property, their labor or with who they associate. These libertarians make the same argument in regards to racial discrimination (Randal Paul previously saying he would have opposed the provision within the civil rights legislation saying private business owners have to serve black people).
I was a little taken aback by this support for discriminating coming from a group that argues in favor of gay marriage (although this blogger also said he preferred the term "gay marriage" over "marriage equality").
Soon laws against incest and marriage to animals will be the outrage de jour. The only reason this gay agenda gets so little push back from straights is because they have sons and daughters that are gay. However, and make no mistake about it, no one is happy their child is gay, nor should they be. This gay agenda is just an attempt to make perversions acceptable. Thank God I live in a state that is willing to defend the values and principles that helped shape this country and will enact laws to preserve it.
Anonymous wrote: Soon laws against incest and marriage to animals will be the outrage de jour.
No. There are laws against incest for very good reasons. I suggest you educate yourself on them. Animals cannot give "consent" to being married. So that's another stupid statement on your part.
Anon wrote: The only reason this gay agenda gets so little push back from straights is because they have sons and daughters that are gay. However, and make no mistake about it, no one is happy their child is gay, nor should they be.
What we ARE happy about is that people who think like you are being left in the dust bin of history. Your blatant hatred against gays is disgusting. Normal people accept their sons and daughters as they are. You just can't deal with that reality.
Anon wrote: This gay agenda is just an attempt to make perversions acceptable.
Homosexuality is NOT a perversion. It is a minority form of sexuality. Just because some "holy" book is against it, that doesn't make it a perversion. The perversion is in you, not homosexuals. The perversion in you is hatred.
Anon wrote: Thank God I live in a state that is willing to defend the values and principles that helped shape this country and will enact laws to preserve it.
Please stay there. Your perverted kind who looks to make other people's lives miserable is not wanted in the more enlightened parts of this country.
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