This scares me - all the states that allow "religious freedom.."

[question everything]

Let's hope that discrimination against certain groups does not fall into this category.

[frazzled]

1. And almost all of these involve women's reproductive rights.

The "certain group" that is discriminated against involves 50% of the adult population.

[RKP5637]

4. I guess I'm just naive, but I don't see why so many women in America choose to be

abused by these states by the way they vote. Are they that subservient?

[frazzled]

6. Men vote, too

Look, let's be clear: it is NOT up to women alone to fight these laws. All of us should (and hopefully do) work against institutional forms of racism and homophobia, not just racial minorities and gay people. We'd never succeed in fighting such laws if we left it up to these groups alone.

Similarly, it's up to everybody--not just women in their reproductive years--to oppose laws that discriminate against women.

[RKP5637]

7. Yep! One difficulty I see is often these are treated as separate issues, but they are

not. It's all about repression of many groups. And often I think there is a lot of commonality in the suppressors across many groups, that often it's the same people. If one loves to suppress people in one area, I bet they like to do the same in other areas too. We should ALL be fighting those working hard to suppress people!

[el_bryanto]

2. Washington and Maine do - Utah and Georgia don't

I'm curious what exactly this means.

Bryant

[RKP5637]

3. Many of these issues need to be addressed by SCOTUS, which often seems to have

gave difficulties with fairness and equality for all.

[B2G]

5. It was signed into law by Clinton and

passed Congress with only 3 dissenting votes.

And:

"The Religious Freedom Restoration Act applies to all religions, but is most pertinent to Native American religions that are burdened by increasing expansion of government projects onto sacred land. In Native American religion the land they worship on is very important. Often the particular ceremonies can only take place in certain locations because these locations have special significance.[5] This, along with peyote use are the main parts of Native American religions that are often left unprotected."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Freedom_Restoration_Act

[rug]

8. Every state guarantees religious freedom under the Constitution.

That's as it should be.

Don't let the assholes reframe the argument.

[B2G]

10. The Native Americans would disagree with that

How much of their land have they lost to Fedco over the years? Wasn't a critical component of their religious ceremonies banned...peyote?

The RFRA has righted that.

[rug]

11. The treaties are not the only law the federal government has ignored.

[Bluenorthwest]

12. It would be helpful if you explained the difference between the RFRA and Arizona

type 'religious freedom to discriminate laws'.

[Bluenorthwest]

9. Information from Chuck Colson's ARFP should be taken for what it is.

That map and statement should be grain of salt time unless one is a Chuck Colson Christian.