After all, it's the only rational response to theocratic fascism.

Credit our Rep. Ed Clere for voting no. Surprisingly, so did Steve Stemler, who finally spotted something Democratic in his party affiliation, but it's small consolation, and as K noted on Fb:

"Ed still votes to give tax dollars to religious schools through vouchers."

In 2008, Barack Obama won the state of Indiana. Since that moment, our state's white, Republican, theocratic fascists have maneuvered remorselessly to turn back the clock to antebellum times. More often than not, they've succeeded. But history is cyclical, and death rattles often are preceded by seemingly powerful, last-gasp emissions of bile and intemperance. Then, the hollow structure collapses in on itself.

Today's vote fuels my contempt for them even more, and it just makes me want to fight back harder. Of all the commentaries I read on this topic, John Krull said it best.

Unholy arguments and religious freedom (NUVO)

 ... We need to understand exactly how steep the slope is we’re standing on with this bill. The premise behind it is that our laws will be subordinate to an individual’s conscience. We only have to follow the laws with which we agree. The burden shifts to the state to prove it has a reason for asking us to follow the law.

Once we start rolling down that hill, who knows where we’ll stop. If following the law becomes a matter of personal choice based on one’s religious beliefs, then the idea of law itself is compromised.

Maddeningly true. But I'll live to see the bastards choke on it ... and I will laugh, long and loud.

Theocratic Fascism Restoration Act: "Ignoring Resistance by Corporations, Indiana Set to Pass Religious Discrimination Bill."

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)