By: Kidman J. Williams
Human cruelty and special needs has come to an all time high in (you might think I’m going to say Florida) Michigan. Close enough right? The Michigan House passed a “license to hate” bill, just one day after stalling a proposal to add gay rights protection to Michigan’s anti-discrimination law because of a dispute over including transgender state residents. This new “hate license” could give the right to refuse service to anyone of the LGBT community IF it conflicts with their religious beliefs.
The Low Down
This very broadly written piece of shit…legislation known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act , could very well allow an EMT to refuse emergency treatment to an LGBT person, a pharmacist to refuse to refill medications, not to mention restaurants being able to say no; all because God says that gays should be put to death. It should be noted that God did also state that you should “love thy brother” and He is the only who can pass judgment. Religious fools always seem to forget the rules that don’t serve their twisted causes ; things like greed and gluttony seem to escape their recollections too. It should be known that Arizona actually tried to pass legislation that was very similar to this one. However, this didn’t go very far there when the very right-wing governor Jan Brewer vetoed it because it went too far.
According to Logo TV, the act is SO broad that it will let a Catholic high school refuse to hire a Muslim Janitor (which I’m sure infringes on employment rights) and could allow a DMV clerk to deny a new driver’s license to someone who is divorced. The Michigan Speaker Jase Bolger (R) fast tracked this bill, which managed to pass on partisan lines, 59 – 50. It will head to the Michigan Senate to the Republican Governor Rick Snyder. There are no words on whether or not he will sign the bill into law.
Bolger was quoted as saying,
“I support individual liberty and I support religious freedom. I have been horrified as some have claimed that a person’s faith should only be practiced while hiding in their home or in their church.”
When did religion promote letting people die? I don’t recall any passage in the New Testament, Old Testament, or any other religious book saying that you should just let a person die because you choose to.
Tim Hickson, Vice President for Public Policy and Advocacy for the Michigan Catholic Conference said in a statement,
“Religious liberty is neither right nor left, liberal or conservative. The free exercise of religion without threat of government interference is paramount and deserves swift consideration from the State Senate.”
It is hard to imagine for me that in this day and age people could be this cruel to one specific type of person. I had to feel around for what I could only imagine would be the truth in this war of words and conflicting ideals. After all, the Religious Right media says that they just simply want religious freedom like this country intended. They want to be free to practice their beliefs anywhere that they would like.
The Loosey Left says that this is simply a bunch of rotten apples that want to snuff out the witches and starve them to death and banish them to the purgatory that is called Detroit. I knew that I needed to find the actual documentation that is causing such a difference in opinion.
The Documentation Never Lies; does it?
It really didn’t take me very long to find the legislation online. It is always there, most people just don’t want to take the time to read all of that dirty talk that politicians and lawyers spew. That is really the talk that shouldn’t be spoken at a dinner table.
Michigan Religious Freedom Restoration Act
They come right out and state that they want to be able to freely exercise their religion; that sounded fine to me; so far I was on board with this. They even went as far as to talk about the state and US Constitution being on board with this idea. I felt pretty good about my decision early on the first page of the document.
As I hit the meat of this devilish talk the legislation started spouting about court cases to give examples instead of being big boys and girls and using their words. It was like a five year old pointing in a general direction instead of just saying he/she wants some juice.
This first example was the case of Employment Division v Smith (1990). This was really the case of corporation flexing its anti-drug policies versus religion. I felt like we were cooking with fire on this one. These two men were terminated for doing Peyote.
There is quite a vague language being used with what can only be described as law school sleight of hand. The language being used in this legislation is one of the most limitless wordings that I’ve seen in a legislative document. Most of them have 10,000 different avenues that take you to the same place then they place a list of ways that the said legislation can’t be used. This doesn’t really have all of that. The one piece of this doc that has grabbed me is,
“Exercise of religion” means the practice or observance of
religion, including an act or refusal to act, that is substantially
motivated by a sincerely held religious belief, whether or not
compelled by or central to a system of religious belief.”
This could be one of the things that the left-wing might be latching on to. It grabbed my attention a bit. It talks about an act or refusal to act. My question would be; act on what? There is no further explanation of the set verb. I have no idea what this act is!
The document then goes into examples using court cases to make a case. The first situation brought up in the legislative document is Employment Division v Smith (1990). This case saw Smith and Black fired by a private drug rehabilitation organization because of their peyote use for sacramental purposes at their Native American Church.
So, what does this mean to the law being proposed? Are they saying that peyote use is OK if your “good book” says so? I might have to come up with Church of the Great Taint! It is no more fraudulent than Scientology.
The point that people are making is that the language is a vague description of what the law might be saying and by nature (and the example that authorities have been setting for years) we as people don’t trust very easily; especially when it comes to these carnivorous puttocks.
If the Catholics are serious about expressing their religion publicly and that is all; just write that! Don’t confuse and run a labyrinth of crazed language that can be misread. Just say what you mean and mean what you fucking say! If their intentions are in fact to refuse services (like healthcare, serving food, public transportation, emergency medical intention, etc) than maybe they need to read their Holy Books again, instead of just listening to another man with an agenda interpret it.