{"id":51772,"date":"2015-07-17T13:54:41","date_gmt":"2015-07-17T19:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/17\/perhaps-it-should-be-called-the-scarlet-letter-law-instead.html"},"modified":"2015-07-25T12:01:50","modified_gmt":"2015-07-25T18:01:50","slug":"perhaps-it-should-be-called-the-scarlet-letter-law-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/17\/perhaps-it-should-be-called-the-scarlet-letter-law-instead.html","title":{"rendered":"Perhaps it should be called the "Scarlet Letter" Law instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the wake of the Obergefell<\/i> ruling, conservatives in Congress have whipped up a lovely little bill called the "First Amendment Defense Act" (https:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/bills\/114\/hr2802<\/a>). Under the banner of religious liberty, it basically provides a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for any "person" — including non-profit and for-profit companies — who breaks any labor law or regulation if they are acting based on a belief in "traditional marriage". More specifically.<\/p>\n

'Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Federal Government shall not take any discriminatory action against a person, wholly or partially on the basis that such person believes or acts in accordance with a religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or that sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage.'<\/i><\/p>\n

Want to fire that guy in Accounting because he had the nerve to (legally) marry another guy last weekend? Have at it. Want to dump that gal on the assembly line because she's (legally) pregnant but doesn't have a ring on her finger? No problem. Just be morally outraged, thump your Bible a few times, and you're covered under FADA.<\/p>\n

An even better irony is that the bill is being touted as promoting "tolerance" (see http:\/\/dailysignal.com\/2015\/07\/16\/want-religious-freedom-then-lets-pass-the-first-amendment-defense-act\/<\/a> as an example). Its preamble even notes, "Laws that protect the free exercise of religious beliefs and moral convictions about marriage will encourage private citizens and institutions to demonstrate tolerance for those beliefs and convictions and therefore contribute to a more respectful, diverse, and peaceful society."<\/i><\/p>\n

I.e., if you let us discriminate based on our religious beliefs, then everyone will have to tolerate us. Even if we<\/i> don't have to tolerate people who do naughty things in our eyes.<\/p>\n

It seems unlikely this bill will actually pass (or even get out of committee), but it's engendering a ton of press in the right-wing circuit, as well as calls for donations to ostensibly lobby for its passage, all under the martyrdom banner of "religious freedom." Does anyone else see the irony of a "religious freedom" law that doesn't protect religious freedom in general, but two specific religious dogma in particular? What about my religious belief in transubstantiation? Shouldn't I be able to fire one of those dirty Baptists who denies the presence of the Lord in the consecrated bread and wine without fearing government retaliation? Why not? Why is my particular religious belief less worthy of protection from the evils of the Obamanation than these? Why won't you tolerate my beliefs?!<\/i><\/p>\n

So it goes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nBill That Lets Bosses Fire Single Women For Getting Pregnant Gains Steam<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of the Obergefell ruling, conservatives in Congress have whipped up a lovely little bill called the "First Amendment Defense Act" (https:\/\/www.govtrack.us\/congress\/bills\/114\/hr2802). Under the banner of religious liberty, it basically provides a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for any "person" — including non-profit and for-profit companies — who breaks any labor law … Continue reading “Perhaps it should be called the "Scarlet Letter" Law instead”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,35,109,25,378,348],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-big-business","category-church-state","category-gay-stuff","category-intolerance-persecution","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":46006,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/10\/21\/when-is-a-church-really-a-church.html","url_meta":{"origin":51772,"position":0},"title":"When is a church really a church?","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 21-Oct-14 6:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The courts have traditionally (well, at least over the last century) reluctant to judge the validity of personal religious belief. But the law has been pretty good about defining actual churches, for taxation purposes if nothing else. It appears the \"Hitching Post\" is not a church in the legal sense\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132691,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/29\/but-some-religious-beliefs-are-more-equal-than-others.html","url_meta":{"origin":51772,"position":1},"title":"But some religious beliefs are more equal than others","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 29-Jan-17 5:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"You can't claim that your law is just about \"protecting religious freedom\" and \"protecting religious beliefs\" when you explicitly state in it[1] what beliefs are worthy of protection:.The sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions protected by this act are the belief or conviction that:(a) Marriage is or should be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43302,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/30\/corporations-are-religious-people-friend.html","url_meta":{"origin":51772,"position":2},"title":"Corporations are religious people, friend","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 30-Jun-14 4:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, that's... pretty irksome. Can we now ask that \"closely-held family corporations\" clearly identify themselves on all want ads and web pages, with a warning that \"The Supreme Court has ruled that we can do pretty much whatever we want in employment law as long as we claim it's based\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130428,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/14\/a-religious-freedom-ruling-that-is-perfectly-right-but-utterly-wrong.html","url_meta":{"origin":51772,"position":3},"title":"A religious freedom ruling that is perfectly right but utterly wrong","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 14-Apr-16 7:20pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Pastafarianism was established as a satire of religion to show how people wanting to teach Intelligent Design were really kind of near-sighted dolts. As the judge in this case gives, as background:'FSMism is a riposte to intelligent design that began with a letter to the Kansas State Board of Education\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":119122,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/04\/religious-liberty-means-never-having-to-say-the-law-applies-to-you-11.html","url_meta":{"origin":51772,"position":4},"title":"Religious liberty means never having to say the law applies to you","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-Aug-15 8:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"A Missouri Republican legislator objects to having to pay for birth control coverage for his three daughters -- two of whom are adults -- and is suing for a personal belief exemption from the ACA, along the lines of Hobby Lobby.Of course, the basis for the Hobby Lobby decision was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30367,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/09\/26\/you-are-a-blasphemer.html","url_meta":{"origin":51772,"position":5},"title":"You are a blasphemer","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 26-Sep-12 9:40pm","format":false,"excerpt":"This article is absolutely spot-on. \u00a0Every one of\u00a0holds beliefs that, in other circumstances, places, times, would have us locked up at best, tortured \/ executed \/ martyred at worst. \u00a0While the American experiment in freedom of religion has not been perfect by any means, I agree fully with the author\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51930,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51772\/revisions\/51930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}