What Do You Think Of The Religious Freedom Restoration Act Bill?

The Georgia RFRA, SB 129, passed in the Georgia State Senate on March 5th. Tomorrow, it goes before the Georgia House Of Representatives for vote.

I have friends and acquaintances on both sides of the fence on this one.

What's your opinion?

Does it bring religious freedom to business owners, or is it a license to discriminate?

http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/Display/20152016/SB/129


http://thegavoice.com/mckoons-religious-freedom-bill-passes-senate/

 

Discrimination... Unless you're christian, then it's okay.

 

I've a friend who has written a piece about how it would be beneficial to Wiccans.

http://www.panegyria.com/news/the-aquarian-tabernacle-church-outlines-wiccas-new-rights-under-the-georgia-religious-freedom-restoration-act

 

To be honest I didn't read the bill.


Typically, as of late anyways, any politics involving "freedom of religion" is only protecting one religion, everybody else can go get screwed or move. (one of our great "freedoms" in this country. The freedom to "move" or in some other manor "just go away".) It also tends to involve itself in non religious topics such as abortion, gay rights, etc...

[/rant]

As I said I didn't read it, I figured it was another one of those.

 

That's exactly what the bill is, Ty.

 

It's written in such an abstract way. I'm not enough of a legal scholar to predict what the real world consequences might be.

:rofl: If it passes and Wiccans really do get all those rights, the people who voted for the bill are going to be so pissed! :rofl:

 

Here's another write up about Rev. Dusty Dionne of The Aquarian Tabernacle Church's work.

The whole thing has LGBT advocates seething, for understandable reasons. Religious rights have been cited more than once in the past few months as reasonable justification for denial of services to LGBT individuals, and the RFRA is expected to give the anti-LGBT crowd legal standing in doing so. But given the wide support the bill has in the Georgia legislature, what can be done?

Just ask the Aquarian Tabernacle Wiccan Church.

In a statement that should go down in the Annals of the History of Bluff-Calling, the Aquarian Tabernacle Church thanked the Georgia policymakers for their "forward-thinking... dedication to religious freedom." They then outlined their practices that would be protected under the RFRA, citing which lines of the legislation covered each of them. These practices included:

• Polyamory. "Marriage is a religious institution," the statement reads. "A uniting of souls before the almighty... Many Wiccans live in multi-partner households, and until now have been unable to realize their religious right to marry the partners they are in love with. Many of these partnerships have children from multiple partners all living under the same roof. SB 129 has now opened the way for those children to all be under family insurance/health plans, as outlined in lines [22-23]. And if lines [34-35] hold true to their intent, then the least restrictive means of enforcing this change, is a simple revision to existing policy."

• Ingestion of psychotropic plants. "With the passing of GRFRA," says the statement, "the ATC will be informing all Wiccans within the state of GA that there are no longer restrictions on which plants they may grow, own, harvest, ingest, distribute, or refine into compounds that the practitioner finds need to use within their religious practice, so long as no other laws besides substance abuse are broken... As Government's definition also includes lines [82-83] “authorities; [...] or other person acting under color of law” it should be a matter of course to inform all officials to begin their refrain from detaining the practitioners for, and impeding the lawful use of said plants and animal parts. This includes, but is no way limited to this non-comprehensive list, all plants currently residing upon any list of banned substances, plus any and all animal parts that may be found on the property or in the possession of anyone practicing the faith of Wicca within Georgia State limits."

• Drug screening by employers, and other restrictions based on "bodily sanctity." "[The RFRA] means that all Wiccans are to be free to choose to be exempt, at the individual’s discretion regarding the sanctity of their essence, with no repercussions from Government bodies [77-83] upon an employer adhering to these inalienable religious rights, from urinalysis, blood tests, hair follicle tests, breathalyzers, tattooing, rfid chipping, or anything else that adds to or removes parts of our essence."

To which I have only one thing to say: BA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *falls off chair*


Man. This should be good. How many times do the clowns in elected office have to be shown that "freedom of religion" doesn't mean "freedom for the majority religion to do whatever it damn well pleases, and to hell with everyone else?" Perhaps this will finally get it through their thick skulls that religious freedom (1) doesn't trump anti-discrimination laws, and (2) works best when the government just keeps its grimy paws off of religion entirely. People should be free to practice whatever religion they want, in whatever way they want,unless such practice contravenes existing federal or state laws. And that includes laws against discrimination.

How hard is that?

I certainly hope that the Aquarian Tabernacle Church pushes this as far as they can. They seem to have done their homework, and although I can't say I buy their worldview, I applaud what they're doing, here. And I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to seeing the legislators in Georgia backpedaling like mad to undo what they've done once they realize its implications.
http://skeptophilia.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-devil-went-down-to-georgia.html

 

All they need do is claim Wicca a non-religion and tie that up in courts for the next 20 years.... meanwhile they have the religious freedom to screw everybody as they see fit.

 

It would be nasty seeing as how the church has a Umbrella 501c3 and legal status to create affiliate churches.

 

Go Georgia?

 

Federal courts will surely get involved in this, if it passes. It may be ruled unconstitutional.

 

i thought there was seperation of "church and state".

religious freedom act sounds like a loaded phrase to me.

 

Supposedly, which would make it not unnecessary.

 

The House session ends April 2nd.

 

abuse of language..

 

Oh since GA is right up there as a major nasty pit I'm sure they'll work out a way do no one has any rights at all and allegedly can be forced to serve or trade with undesirables.
Get rid of all our rights while enforcing oppression and furthering the police state agenda - there's the cabal in it. Watch the libtards oppose what people have struggled for many years because of the stupidest of self serving reasons demonstrating why people wish they would largely go somewhere else. They're obnoxious and awful.

 

yep, ... sounds like the opposite of "seperation of church and state" to me.

sounds pretty backwards ..

 

No, not really. "Separation of church and state" isn't a piece of legislation or law, but instead an idea put forward by Thomas Jefferson pertaining to the government establishing a religion, or preventing the free exercise of religion. Essentially, the government can't establish a religion or prevent you from practicing your own.

It's dicey. Forcing a church to perform gay marriages would indeed interfere with that church practicing it's religion if that religion doesn't believe in gay marriage. Selling a gay couple cupcakes on the other hand is a different story. I could also see a photographer or baker refusing to service a gay wedding on the grounds it violates their religious practice of not recognizing gay marriage, instead being forced to participate.

It's a tough subject. Both sides have rights.