These "religious freedom" bills aren't just anti-GLBTQ or anti-choice, they're also anti-religious

[ck4829]

Notice the clause of them protecting "sincerely held religious beliefs".

It's to prop up and even subsidize conservative and power-seeking religious practices against unorthodox, mystical, spiritual, deviant, new, eclectic, etc. religious practices.

Notice how these bills defend homophobia or opposition to female autonomy, but watch how fast these bills won't apply to the Church of Body Modification or to someone who uses religion and spirituality as a tool against power.

The person who is kicking the money changers out of the temple will be seen as a troublemaker who is not genuine according to the people who will get to decide if something is a "sincerely held religious belief".

Bet on it.

[TlalocW]

1. The first time a non-Christian uses them at the expense of a Christian

You can expect whining like you've never heard before... except for the last time it happened.

These barely pass Constitutional muster (and shouldn't in my opinion) because they're couched in terms of RELIGIOUS rights. Even the most rabid Evangelical nutjob knows that they can't specifically mention Christianity - though they want to... and they would probably go so far as to make the bills apply to their particular sect if they could.

I remember news stories about churches who somehow got permission to send material home with kids at public schools having fits when other religions and atheists demanded that they be allowed to do it too. Shit regularly hits the fan when non-Christians open up state legislation sessions with a prayer. I've brought Evangelical relatives to the point of having a fit by telling them if prayer were brought back to school like they want, if their kids' teacher were Muslim, they could all be bowing down to Mecca, and they couldn't do anything about it. There was that whole thing with the Satanists trying to bring Baphomet to the lawn of the Oklahoma State House to share time with the Ten Commandments monument they had placed there, which the OK Supreme Court solved by having the 10Cs removed. And of course, any time a Christmas display goes up on public property, Christians go apeshit when that privilege has to be given to others.

When I lived in Tulsa, there was a guy who had been fighting to be allowed to build a display (at his own expense) at the Tulsa Zoo that showed the Biblical story of creation (he was upset about one that showed evolution). He argued that a Native American quote on the fountain and the inclusion of the Indian god, Ganesha, who has the head of an elephant, in a display of elephant iconography near the elephant area gave him the right to do so. After years of haranguing, eventually there was a city council either sympathetic to his demands or tired of his bullshit, and they initially gave him permission... until the calls started coming - bother serious and not - about including their religion's mythos. I called them a few times asking what I needed to do to build a display there as Tulsa's only Caucasian practicing Mayan, saying I had a great idea for showing how my gods sprinkled their blood on corn to create mankind. The council reversed their decision in a week.

TlalocW

[keithbvadu2]

2. government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?no-ist= ;

Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. "Who does not see," he wrote, "that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.

[keithbvadu2]

3. Funny how these religious folks want the gov't to teach religion in the schools rather than leave it

Funny how these religious folks want the gov't to teach religion in the schools rather than leave it up to the parents to make the choice.

[Takket]

4. These same people will burn the country to the ground

The first tine a Muslim refuses to perform a service for a non-Muslim woman not wearing a head covering.