Why The Christian Right May Never Recover From Indiana

[DonViejo]

Maurice Bessinger built his fortune serving barbecue. At the half-dozen locations of his Piggie Park restaurants, customers could enjoy meats slathered in the yellow, mustard-based sauce unique to South Carolina. That is, of course, unless they were black, for Bessinger was also a proud racist. As late as the twenty-first century, Piggie Park distributed tracts to its customers claiming that the Bible is a pro-slavery document — one of them claimed that African slaves “blessed the Lord for allowing them to be enslaved and sent to America.” After Congress banned whites-only restaurants in 1964, Bessinger reportedly put up an uncensored version of a sign warning that “the law makes us serve n***ers, but any money we get from them goes to the Ku Klux Klan."

And Bessinger wasn’t just an unapologetic racist, he also believed that his right to discriminate flowed from the Lord Almighty himself. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which banned whites-only lunch counters, “contravenes the will of God,” according to a lawsuit Bessinger brought claiming he should be exempt from the law. The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling 8-0 in Newman v. Piggie Park Enterprises that Bessinger’s claim that a religious objection could authorize discrimination was “patently frivolous.”

Piggie Park was resolved in 1968, but Bessinger’s legal claim that religion should provide a license to discriminate rears its head over and over again in modern American history. It reared its head just over a week ago in Indiana, when religious conservatives briefly pushed through legislation that could have enabled them to ignore local ordinances protecting against anti-LGBT discrimination.

Yet, while the argument that religious objections can authorize discrimination is not new and has not typically fared well in court, the tactic anti-gay groups deployed in Indiana — enacting a law expanding the scope of “religious freedom” for the very purpose of protecting discrimination — is of much more recent vintage. As marriage equality appears more and more inevitable, and as the nation as a whole grows increasingly sympathetic toward LGBT rights, opponents of these rights hope to build a firewall against America’s broader culture. And this firewall rests on a foundation very similar to the arguments Maurice Bessinger once presented to the Supreme Court.

Indiana, however, was one of their earliest attempts to implement this strategy, and the fact that it was ultimately rejected by one of the most conservative governors in the nation does not bode well for the religious right’s firewall.

more
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/04/06/3643048/indianas-gay-rights-fight-grow-generational-defeat-christian-right/?

[yeoman6987]

1. Would be nice

But I doubt it. They have recovered from worse. Voters have very short memories too.

[ladyVet]

2. I agree.

The world would be better if these extremists were gone -- of all religions, Muslim, Jew, Christian, whatever. But sadly, it is here to stay, as far as I can tell.

[yeoman6987]

3. Within a 100 years religion will be less "important"

But most of us will be six feet under.

[d_legendary1]

14. That's what the Roman Emperors thought too

And instead the Catholic Church and every other religious institution survived. We'll be dead and gone but those institutions will continue until people stop believing in such things.

[Orsino]

27. Indiana is just a symptom of their general emboldening.

Citizens United has brought what they think are huge victories for what they imagine to be "their" side.

That there was a backlash doesn't seem to have stopped other states from trying the same thing. Much.

[Warpy]

4. While there is a certain amount of a psychological blow

to smug people who thought they were right about everything, finding out that a majority of their fellow citizens in the country think they're bigoted assholes is only a temporary setback.

After all, Christianity demands two things: converts and martyrs. If they can't manage the first in an overwhelmingly Christian occupied country, they'll certainly settle for the latter, even if it's imaginary.

[Beartracks]

21. Plus, many of them believe the more people they piss off...

... and offend, the more right they must be!



================

[Blanks]

28. Well, yeah...

They aren't going to be persecuted unless they've gone too far and pissed a bunch of folk off.

It's my understanding that the pilgrims escaped to America not because they were being persecuted, but they were persecuting others and they lost political control - it was their turn to be persecuted.

Of course it's possible that wherever I heard that from had 'thing' for pilgrims and just wanted to dog on them, but the explanation seems plausible to me.

[Fred Sanders]

5. The Indiana courts did not protect Pavel Puri from jail for the Christian "sin" of having a miscarriage.

What happens when the Christofascists take over the courts, which are the Citizens's firewall against assaults on secularism?

[appalachiablue]

8. The Indiana case of Ms. Puri is deplorable. Stacking the courts with extremist prosecutors, judges

& others is concerning & already taking place. What is the DOJ doing about this, and the attacks on blacks & Hispanics, the excessive fines put on citizens, restriction of voting rights and more I want to know.

[Springslips]

15. Conservatives are bad a math.

A pizza place making more money versus Apple and its 340 billion market share. Seriously?!?

[Jack Rabbit]

6. If it hadn't been a right-to-discrimnate law like Indiana's, it would have been something else

The watershed came and went with almost surprising silence. The public that had been a little skittish about gay marriage just quietly accepted it. I was living in San Francisco in the early '70s when the people of the City decided that gay neighbors didn't threaten them, and accepted them. There was no single moment to which anyone could point and say that is when San Francisco became the city most hospitable to gay Americans.

As a teenager in the sixties, I told my share of jokes about homosexuals. In 1975, as a young man living in San Francisco, I cast a vote for Harvey Milk, who impressed me at a candidate's meeting, for supervisor.

That moment has come an gone for most of the rest of the country, but the hardcore bigots didn't notice and thought they could still put up meaningful resistance. They can't. It isn't alright any more to oppose gay marriage for any reason, even a deeply held religious one. We've accepted gay people and now we're annoyed at the homophobes. We put up them because we all know one and could even be related to one. However, we know that most of those who can't adjust will soon die off, so we'll tolerate them, too.

[JustAnotherGen]

26. Well said/written

[abelenkpe]

7. Really? Pretty sure they view this as a victory

Look at all the money the pizza joint collected. My republican relatives think that money proves that the majority side with them.

Seriously hope the tide is turning though and that this article is correct.

[DonViejo]

9. Didn't read the article, huh?

[abelenkpe]

22. Actually I did

But if you felt I didn't understand it why the backhanded insult rather than attempting to enlighten?

[zeemike]

19. Yes they see it as a victory.

Because the goal politically was a poke in the eye of the left...and it worked.
Politically they wanted the left to react and over react if possible to make the right's claim that the left are fascist control freaks seem real...Which will rally the right wing at election time.
The next step is to get the left to piss off the middle where they don't vote or vote out of spite.

Meanwhile the TPP will be rammed through congress and they will have won...and the games continue...as long as we play it with them.

[Blanks]

29. It's a distraction...

There are all kinds of things that the state assemblies could be working on, instead they pass something like this and about half the people will take up for them and about half will be appalled.

They know their demographics and this is an issue that will set one group against another. Their puppeteers just don't want them working on anything that isn't divisive so they can expand their own (the puppeteers) power and influence.

[zeemike]

30. That is how I see it too.

It is to set one group against the other...and it worked...works every time.
They know the left will be emotionally outraged and react predictably and so will the right, planting their feet and crowd funding an example of bigotry to piss us off.
We will be so busy we won't notice that the TPP is passed in congress and signed by the president.

This is not the first time they have played this game with us and it won't be the last as long as it works.

[Blanks]

31. As near as I can tell they play it all the time.

[Myrina]

10. ".... rejected by one of the most conservative governors ..."

Uh, no. Pence signed it. He defended it. More than once. He said it wouldn't be altered. It was only pressure from multi-million dollar businesses that caused the IN GOP to re-write it, and then, only slightly.

[abelenkpe]

23. Exactly

It was only modified due to fear of losing money not because Pence didn't support it.

[Dont call me Shirley]

11. Are these folks who refuse to evolve thick-skulled or are they calcified-brained?

[n2doc]

12. They are still considering the same laws in other states

This is just a minor setback, at most, for them. They will leave loopholes in their 'fixes' and keep working until they achieve their goals. There can be no rest when fighting these fanatics.

[Dems to Win]

13. Please help raise the outcry about Purvi Patel as loud as the RFRA pushback

On Twitter Purvi is getting a lot of support from people in India, which is great, but we need a lot more Americans to raise the roof over this. Gov. Pence needs to have his feelings hurt over the nasty things people say about Indiana re: Purvi just as much as over the anti-gay RFRA.

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/03/experts-say-case-purvi-patel-sets-cruel-precedent-reproductive-rights

Though she has steadfastly claimed the loss of her pregnancy was a miscarriage, the 20-year prison sentence given to Purvi Patel by an Indiana court this week for the crime of 'feticide' is being slammed by legal experts and reproductive rights advocates who say the ruling is not only misguided and "cruel" given the facts of the case, but sets an "alarming" precedent for the rights of women both in Indiana and around the country.

Patel on Monday became the first woman in U.S. history to be sentenced to prison for losing her own fetus. She was found guilty of one charge of feticide and one charge of neglect of a dependent, after prosecutors claimed she delivered her fetus alive, rather than stillborn, as Patel told doctors.

"While no woman should face criminal charges for having an abortion or experiencing a pregnancy loss, the cruel length of this sentence confirms that feticide and other measures promoted by anti-abortion organizations are intended to punish not protect women," said Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, in a statement on Monday.

[F4lconF16]

24. +1

The attack on women is just as bad around this country, and has been going on for just as long. This isn't to say we should be less pissed about the RFRA--but that we need to be even more pissed about the constant abuse of half of our population.

[irisblue]

16. well that is good

but the far right working under then cover of Christians are like cockroach's.... they do show up. Truth stomps out, But really, those creatures hide well

[blkmusclmachine]

17. Roe v. Wade didn't stop the Christo-fascists. This little kerfuffle in Indianastan means NOTHING to

the God botherers.

[randr]

18. I say keep them on the ropes

and kick them when they are down.
Not a day should go by without a Democrat talking about right wing hatred of American values.

[eShirl]

25. THIS.

Thank you.

[heaven05]

20. yep

american racist culture exemplified at it's best by this character....... It's never going to stop.

[Gloria]

32. If we had a party that stood up and called out the difference between the CRAP CHRISTIANS

and the ones who aren't insane, we might begin to recover.
But, all we get is pandering to these shits.

Remember the 70's???Church Lady, Flip Wilson, the term "Jesus Freaks"??
Do you ever hear ANY jabs at religious nuts now? Can we please hear someone start using the Jesus Freak term again??

The GOP are masters of twisting language...our side NEVER seems to catch on!!! Embed the phrase and work it!
Same thing with "partial birth abortion"...NO SUCH THING...the term is full of RW ickiness...yet, we never just say...
what is going on....it's called..SURGERY!

I think Democrats are really jerks on this.....