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In a classic case of "unintended consequences", the recently signed Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) in Indiana may have opened the door for the establishment of the First Church of Cannabis in the Hoosier State.
While Governor Mike Pence (R) was holding a signing ceremony for the bill allowing businesses and individuals to deny services to gays on religious grounds or values, paperwork for the First Church of Cannabis Inc. was being filed with the Secretary of State's office, reports RTV6.
Church founder Bill Levin announced on his Facebook page that the church's registration has been approved, writing, "Status: Approved by Secretary of State of Indiana - "Congratulations your registration has been approved!" Now we begin to accomplish our goals of Love, Understanding, and Good Health."
Levin is currently seeking $4.20 donations towards his non-profit church.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @05:44PM
That affirmative defenses only really work on a sympathetic jury.
This law will help keep some innocent pot smokers from going to jail, and the law's supporters will claim that's a good thing, but it will provide a false sense of safety to others who are hurting no one.
Meanwhile, it'll protect some bigots who really are hurting people. One of the most important principles to a democracy, maybe even superseding freedom of religion, is equal protection under law. If a law isn't equitable in how it treats different groups of people, then it becomes a tool for ex post facto judgement and undermines the meaning of voting for or against it.
I value others' rights to believe. I don't value their right to act against others on those beliefs.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tathra on Monday April 06 2015, @05:57PM
so in other words, you're saying this law will have so many precedents narrowing it down that it will only apply to christianity, and then hopefully get voided for being unconstitutional (violating the 14th).
the law says "religion > * (so long as its not used to discriminate)". that means all religions, whether you agree with them or not. these idiots crying about "creeping sharia" just passed a law that allows it to do more than just creep. you've also got a legal way to run around naked and not comply with drug tests [rawstory.com] and pretty much anything else you can imagine so long as you can find a religious excuse.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Monday April 06 2015, @06:22PM
We all know that enforcement will be based on whether your attitude is offensive to good people.
Good people are defined by their attachment to the Christian values.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @06:27PM
Of course, is that's how it's always been, but codifying that de facto rule into a legally meaningful one is nottheless problematic.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Monday April 06 2015, @06:45PM
and those enforcements will either get thrown out or narrow down the law such that it violates the 14th amendment. either it applies to all 313+ religions held by the people of this country or none at all, the constitution is clear that there is no in-between.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:20PM
either it applies to all 313+ religions held by the people of this country or none at all
Nope. Either it applies to *everyone* or none at all. I'm not part of a religion and won't be part of one. Religious people shouldn't get special rights.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tathra on Monday April 06 2015, @07:53PM
"atheism" counts as a "religion" for the purpose of this argument. take your pedantry elsewhere.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday April 06 2015, @08:05PM
No, it doesn't.
"I refuse to do this because I don't think it's right" does not carry the same weight as "I refuse to do it because it goes against the bible that the president used when he got sworn in"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @08:39PM
> "I refuse to do this because I don't think it's right" does not carry the same weight as "I refuse to do it because it goes against the bible
In whose mind?
In objective reality they are the same thing. Ultimately unprovable beliefs are the basis of all our own personal definitions of "right." Some people pick a religious tradition, some pick a superficially rational philosophy, others pick half-truths that satisfy their biases. But in the end it all comes down to something or another that can't be proven.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday April 06 2015, @08:48PM
lets look at the definition: [reference.com]
for #1, the "superhuman agency" considered is that there isn't one
for 2, 3, and 6, the shared, fundamental belief to which one is devoted is that there is no god. its still a belief system.
there's also arguments made by others about how atheism is a religion. [strangenotions.com]
but regardless, i already stated flat-out that for the purposes of this argument i am considering it a religion. saying "Nuh uh!" doesn't change that. for the purposes of my argument (constitutionality), atheism is considered as a religion. unless you'd really like to argue that the right to believe in no god is not guaranteed by the 1st amendment and that 'religious laws' like this aren't guaranteed by the 14th amendment to also apply to atheism...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 06 2015, @09:44PM
> there's also arguments made by others about how atheism is a religion[link].
Interesting, but flawed logically: he says that the answer to "are you religion_n" is often "no I am atheist", and uses it to imply that atheism is like religion.
To see why it's wrong, rephrase it:
- are you in the blue boat, the red boat, or the yellow boat?
- No, I'm swimming
Swimming is not a boat type. It is an individual behavior. (Your definition #6 is wrong in the regard: it's not a definition, but an common extension of the term. Religions always require multiple people.)
He uses the same flawed logic to say that Atheism is a double-negative.
Religions specify a construct for the divine and/or afterlife. People believe in the specific construct (otherwise, they wouldn't fight about it).
Atheism does not provide a NULL construct. You don't "religiously believe" in nothingness after death anymore than you "religiously believe" in the void of an empty container.
> unless you'd really like to argue that the right to believe in no god is not guaranteed by the 1st amendment
Read it:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech..."
Atheism is constitutionally protected as free speech, not as a non-interference of .gov into religion.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday April 06 2015, @09:57PM
Yesterday I ran across a little controversy Neil DeGrasse Tyson set into motion:
"He has as much interest in meeting with other people to discuss their absence of belief in God as in meeting with non-golfers to talk about their absence of a passion for watching golf." http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/12/08/369356881/what-if-atheists-were-defined-by-their-actions [npr.org]
The article is somewhat interesting -- I skimmed it a little because it seems to get bogged down and repetitive in certain areas. Anyway, the upshot is that some labels are more useful at categorizing people than others, i.e., "pentacostal" is going to let you make presumptions that have a much better chance of being correct than "atheist" is. But aside from all that, as a non-golfing atheist, I love that non-golfer metaphor. It's really true -- the reason you don't see all the atheists in the world gathering for services or whatever it would be called, is because atheism is a category that crosses over many differing groups of people who don't really hang out together in the first place. Like all the non-golfers of the world -- it just isn't enough to form an association who share that one single non-interest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:07AM
Post theological
http://thehumanist.com/magazine/january-february-2008/features/the-post-theological-umbrella [thehumanist.com]
Opening paragraphs:
An American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) from 2001 indicates that over 13 percent of the population identifies as secular/nonreligious, but only 1 percent identify as atheist, agnostic, or humanist.
The University of Minnesota results no doubt help to explain the results of the ARIS survey. That is, the fact that atheists are so vilified explains why only less than 1 percent of the population will identify as atheist, even though over 13 percent will identify as secular/nonreligious.
For humanist activists trying to advance their worldview in a culture that discourages open nontheism, there have traditionally been two ways of dealing with this issue. Some do so by trying to hide the nontheistic nature of humanism, avoiding discussion of nontheism with the hope that maybe nobody will notice it. This approach rarely works, however, because most discussions of humanism with nonhumanists inevitably result in the question: So are humanists atheists?
Another way to address the issue is to attempt to improve the public’s perception of the atheist identity. This is a worthy goal, and surely it should be encouraged. Given time, the image of atheism in America might improve, as people slowly realize that atheists are more likely to be found in research labs than in prisons or drug hideouts. But this approach, even if it works, will take time, and one must consider whether other strategies might be possible.
This question of atheism, and specifically how the public’s poor image of atheists makes the advancement of humanism difficult, became a topic of discussion with a friend at a recent conference. Her response pointed to a third way to address the issue: “When people ask me about atheism,” she said, “I just tell them I consider myself post-theological.”
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 07 2015, @08:10AM
That is actually a useful metric. Some people DO practice Atheism as a religion. They do get together and talk about not-believing. Or more accurately, they can't resist long conversations about why not not believing is harmful and stupid. If anyone says anything that even hints that there might be the possibility that they may harbor the vague notion that anyone in the room might believe in anything not immediately visible, it's off to the races!
Others just don't believe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @10:20AM
A lot of atheists are very religious about it. Including blind believe in texts instead of critically analysing them. It's just that their "holy" texts are not written by Moses, the Evangelists or Mohammed, but e.g. by Dawkins.
Truly non-religious people are known as agnostics.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday April 07 2015, @03:30AM
Seriously? 313 different religions? I couldn't name more than a dozen or so, and I probably got several of those from playing Civ.
Not that I'm doubting you or anything, it just amazes me sometimes what crap people claim to believe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:19PM
A different religion doesn't necessarily mean a completely different believe system. How many variants of Christianity are there? I'd not be surprised if they'd already make up half of the religions in that count.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tathra on Tuesday April 07 2015, @01:20PM
i got the number from here. [procon.org] most of them are under "Other Unclassified" (124), "New Age"(127), and "Christianity" (35), and then another 25 different ones on top of those groups (and atheism is covered by Humanism).
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 08 2015, @03:08AM
That's an awesome read, there are a lot of Christian sects, but the big surprise for me was that here are more Druids in the US than Zoroastrians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @06:01PM
Prosecutors have been directed by Eric Holder to avoid prosecuting petty marijuana crimes. I want to see stats on prosecutors that have ignored this advice.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:04PM
In addition, Obama has recently been convinced that it is unfair that there are a bunch of folks serving prison terms that exceed current sentencing guidelines.
Obama Commutes Sentences for 22 Drug War Prisoners [propublica.org]
(a tiny fraction of those who applied for clemency.)
Most of that was "with intent to distribute" stuff.
-- gewg_
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday April 06 2015, @07:04PM
"I value others' rights to believe. I don't value their right to act against others on those beliefs."
What you are actually saying is that you value others' rights to believe, as long as they don't insist on practicing it.
All that the federal law and the various state laws do, is to say that the government has a very small limitation placed on its ability to regulate how people act. More specifically, the aspect that seems to bother people the effect on "public accommodation". That's where private businesses are required to treat all members of the public equally - regardless of just about anything.
Interestingly, the people opposed to the Indiana bill have called for businesses to reject Indiana customers. A more direct case of hypocrisy would be really hard to find.
The thing is, a privately owned business is just that: private. The government's right to regulate who I sell my goods and services to is very questionable indeed. Why should a business not be able to choose its clients? In fact, many businesses do so - unless you're a simple retail shop, you can always find a way to drive off customers you don't really want to have. Someone you don't trust to pay their bills on time? Double your offer. Claim to be booked out.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 06 2015, @07:12PM
They can, just so long as the deciding factor isn't something outside of everyone's control. Nobody chooses to be black, or female, or homosexual, or disabled, or...
Society has decided that everyone should have equal opportunities, which means people aren't allowed to deprive others of opportunities because of characteristics they were born with and can do nothing about.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:48AM
They can, just so long as the deciding factor isn't something outside of everyone's control. Nobody chooses to be black, or female, or homosexual, or disabled, or...
Or stupid. However man people simply lack the mental faculties to do certain things because the stars didn't align in their favor. I hate to break it to you, but pretty much any high skill task requires some level of natural aptitude to perform effectively.
Society has decided that everyone should have equal opportunities, which means people aren't allowed to deprive others of opportunities because of characteristics they were born with and can do nothing about.
That's not what equal opportunity means. The hint is in the word "opportunity", it means you are allowed to compete against others regardless of superficial characteristics, but if any of your traits objectively impact your ability to perform, then those who do it better will and should be favored over you. It's not discrimination if women can't participate in a number of physical sports against men. It's not discrimination when men aren't accepted for female roles in movies. It's not discrimination when people without functional legs can't work as firefighters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:54PM
Being born with a higher amount of melanin is still used as an excuse to remove people's opportunity to compete. These people claim that they think niggers are objectively not human and less capable than humans, physically and mentally. This is the kind of thing I was talking about, not that people who are physically incapable of doing something should be considered on even grounds with people who are physically capable. Its not discrimination when a person in a wheelchair isn't hired for a job that specifically requires walking, climbing ladders, and heavy lifting to high places, but it is discrimination if they won't hire the person in a wheelchair for any job they can do simply because of the wheelchair.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday April 07 2015, @07:08AM
You mean like maybe Jack-in -the-box stoner commercials:
http://www.ryot.org/is-jack-in-the-box-targeting-stoners-with-their-munchies-meal-campaign/405513 [ryot.org]
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @07:18PM
Because groups people have routinely abused such powers for no other purpose than to inhibit people from pursuing happy and free lives.
And fuck you for implying that's no big deal. It's no different from giving exceptions for murder or theft laws for belief reasons, except that the assholes who aren't harmed by it can smugly post on the internet.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Monday April 06 2015, @07:31PM
"It's no different from giving exceptions for murder or theft laws"
A photographer refusing to take pictures of a wedding ceremony is now equivalent to shooting the happy couple?
Listen, we have all sorts of rights that conflict with all sorts of other people's rights. I have the right to freedom of expression, but maybe not while standing in your living room. You have the right to practice your religion, buy maybe not if it involves killing infidels.
Have groups abused their rights? Sure they have. If you have been following this issue, you will have seen the YouTube video of the guy who deliberately seeks out a bakery run by devout Muslims, and claims he wants to order a cake for his gay wedding. He isn't really getting married; heck, he may not even be gay. It's all about getting in someone's face. That is his right, sure, but it's abusive all the same.
You cannot legislate good behavior.
Frankly, I don't even terribly care about the specifics of this bill. However, I am all for any legislation that rolls back the regulatory state.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday April 06 2015, @07:45PM
You cannot legislate good behavior.
Literally the definition of laws. Standards and practices of good behavior all people are expected to adhere to as part of living in society.
Libertarians.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:49AM
I disagree. Laws don't enforce good behaviour, they codify already existing standards of society.
That's not a trivial difference - see copyright enforcement, the laws don't match the standards and thus the laws are ineffective.
On the flip side, that doesn't mean we have to enable behaviour that goes against the standards of society. And that's what's going on with the Indiana law - society has moved to the point where enough people think discriminating against gays is unacceptable. Hence the massive outcry with respect to the passage of this law. Similar laws in other states were passed when society had a different opinion - its always more effort to fight the status quo, so those laws are getting a 'pass' for now. They will be repealed eventually. But a brand new law faces extra scrutiny because it is new so that's why all the attention has been focused here.
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Monday April 06 2015, @08:05PM
You cannot legislate good behavior.
Really? Because that is most laws were all about.
You can't legislate personal preferences, love, hate, greed, beliefs, feelings or impulses. But most certainly can legislate behavior.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday April 06 2015, @07:26PM
Businesses are quasi public places. Seriously, just try operating a profitable business without a public to serve. About the only one I can think of is money laundry, and even then, a paying public is sort of essential at being able to do a good job at hiding ill-gotten gains in legitimate revenue.
Secondly, businesses use services (fire, police, dog catchers), utilities (water, sewer), and roads that are paid for by the public as a whole. To turn around and say to that public which pays for that infrastructure: "I'm going to pick and choose who among you monetary contributors I will serve", is for that business to become a freeloader, a bum. The public has a right to expect that those who use public infrastructure for personal profit will serve the general public as a whole. I say this as a business owner myself.
Now, you can refuse to do business with someone because they are rude, don't pay their bills, or any number of valid reasons. Saying "Whites Only" or "Straights Only" though -- that's based on nothing but prejudice and has no valid business basis. Now, if you are a private person who is not running a business open to the public -- you can be as bigoted as you want because unlike a business, you aren't making a personal profit on the publicly provided infrastructure.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:45AM
Just to nitpick, saying, e.g., "Whites only" may be because you believe that your other customers will go somewhere else if non-white customers start showing up. This may even be a true belief.
And my response is, "Too bad". To exclude people because their presence offends other people is both unethical and immoral. That in a major class of businesses it is also illegal is not something I regret. And if this means that a certain class of business is unable to operate profitably, then we should just do without that class of business. Too often "business exclusivity" has been used as an enabler for unjustifiable discrimination, even when it's not directly an operation of unjustifiable discrimination (as it is in public accommodations).
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Tuesday April 07 2015, @03:09AM
Secondly, businesses use services (fire, police, dog catchers), utilities (water, sewer), and roads that are paid for by the public as a whole. To turn around and say to that public which pays for that infrastructure: "I'm going to pick and choose who among you monetary contributors I will serve", is for that business to become a freeloader, a bum.
I utilize and am protected by those public services on a regular basis. Does that mean I shouldn't be able to determine who I let in my house or who I associate with based on any criteria I want? Sure if I don't want to be friends with a black guy because he's black (or gay, or a woman), I'm an asshole, but I have the right to be an asshole
I understand why people balk at these sorts of laws, and why "anti discrimination" laws are passed, but I'd argue that they're a rather severe restriction on free speech.
I do make a few exceptions, for very basic things like privately-owned utilities and real estate because they represent natural monopolies.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday April 07 2015, @03:33PM
Here is the distinction:
Are you making a personal profit utilizing a publicly provided service?
Yes (aka Business): serve the public as a whole.
No (aka Private Home): be a bigot as much as you want.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:58PM
I go to pubs with "no stag parties" signs on the doors. That's their right. I like the policy, they get my money. Stag parties don't like the policy, they don't get their money. That's how it should be. Fancy clubs with a "no trainers" policy don't get my custom similarly, because they don't want it - their right. That's what the free market is supposed to be about. There are always choices - express your support or your disgust with your wallet. The best thing about that, and in fact the reason I came to hold that view, is that it is the natural default, it is the absence of any law.
Of course, none of this applies to public services. The state shouldn't have opinions, preferences, biases, or prejudices on such matters. Citizenship is boolean.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @03:06PM
So you think "separate but equal" shops should compete against each other on the market, and then if one of them collapses, the people they refuse to serve should just suck it up and deal with it, because they had their chance and the market decided they shouldn't be served. Awesome.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 06 2015, @07:17PM
That affirmative defenses only really work on a sympathetic jury.
AFAICR the religious possession and use exemption of banned substances only really worked Once: with peyote, because nobody wanted to attack a "sacred tribal custom" of a fairly small tribe of indigenous people. (Maybe there was another case involving snakes, IDN) But it wasn't a clear case, because reservations are "sort of" beyond the jurisdiction of John Law for most matters, etc.
Medical Marijuana use is a closer analog, but even that is only protection from state authorities, and only for small amounts. Given that you adhere to the restrictions, no sheriff or local cop is going to bust you for allowed amounts of marijuana if you have a medical card. If you stay within the limits of quantity and location, no defense is ever actually necessary, because the local police have learned those cases get tossed by their own District Attorney before they come to trial.
The whole issue has devolved into a sham, with 4 (or is it 6?) states approving recreational use, and most of the rest approving Medical use, and opposition vanishing like a puff of smoke. (sorry, couldn't resist the imagery).
As people fail to notice the total destruction of society in Washington, Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, etc, this whole issue becomes moot. My prediction is over the next 5 state election cycles 20 more states will allow recreational use, and before ten election cycles have come to pass, the federal government will de-list marijuana all together.
So while this "Religion" issue is mildly interesting, I doubt it offers any protection even in it's own state.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.