Even the state's major corporate business interests, who customarily enjoy having their boots delicately licked by the likes of a fawning Ron Grooms, view this reincarnation of the Nuremberg Laws to be a very bad idea.
Ignoring Resistance by Corporations, Indiana Set to Pass Religious Discrimination Bill (Human Rights Campaign)
However, such is the importance of assuaging the primal fear of white (and mostly Protestant) Indiana right-wingers that Grooms -- who voted just as enthusiastically for this abomination as he voted against marriage equality, at least gaining points for dull-witted consistency in discriminatory intent -- joins with the fraternity of the Pencenuts in rendering Indiana a laughing stock.
An open letter to the Indiana House of Representatives (NUVO)
Ironic, isn't it? Surely the majority of "Christians" backing such legislation belong to churches that enjoy tax exempt status. But they still avail themselves of the nation's infrastructure, don't they?
So do businesses large and small, most of which are subject to taxation (of course, evasion occurs), and while there'll always be differing opinions as to the what a fair rate of taxation truly is, it remains that most of us remain tethered to this grid of infrastructure for daily use: Streets, roads, sidewalks, electricity, sewers, water ... in short, the collective gathering of resources necessary and beneficial to all, subsidized in ways both great and small by and for us all.
I'm a business owner, and my business depends on this collective infrastructure to operate. Unless my business is prepared to opt out from the collective infrastructure, it cannot opt out of the collective social contract that builds and maintains it -- and how does one opt out from the collective infrastructure? As long as a publicly maintained path leads to one's door, it is scarcely possible.
The gist of American history in my reading is to reserve matters of individual conscience, like religious expression, to the individual: Believe as you please and be as you are, so long as it does not hurt others. For a business to argue that it must be free to discriminate on the basis of "religion" (and whatever that is cannot be agreed upon by Christians themselves) mocks this notion of civilization's advancement.
It's absolutely chilling that so many Hoosiers seem to think these rights exist in a vacuum, unconnected with anything at all apart from their own self-identified sectarian preferences, and that there is no ultimate benefit to giving a little (rigid cultural exclusivity) to gain a lot (expanded enrichment in terms of personal finance and spirituality) of multiculturalism.
I also understand that so much of it is fear. The fear isn't rational, but unfortunately, religion rushes in where the human mind fears to tread. That's a scenario for education, not legislation. I'm told that Rep. Ed Clere (R-72) opposes this example of odious lawmaking. That's good.
Will Steve "Seriously, I'm a Democrat, Every Now and Then" Stemler sit this vote out, too?
Conservatives Admit The Truth On Indiana ‘Religious Liberty’ Bill (Think Progress)
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