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Apple's Tim Cook Calls Out "Religious Freedom" Laws As Discriminatory
An anonymous reader writes It will come as no surprise that Apple's CEO Tim Cook doesn't agree with so-called religious freedom laws. Cook says, "[they] rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear," and has penned an op-ed piece for The Washington Post which reads in part: "A wave of legislation, introduced in more than two dozen states, would allow people to discriminate against their neighbors. Some, such as the bill enacted in Indiana last week that drew a national outcry and one passed in Arkansas, say individuals can cite their personal religious beliefs to refuse service to a customer or resist a state nondiscrimination law. Others are more transparent in their effort to discriminate. Legislation being considered in Texas would strip the salaries and pensions of clerks who issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples — even if the Supreme Court strikes down Texas' marriage ban later this year. In total, there are nearly 100 bills designed to enshrine discrimination in state law. These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear. They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality."
"Religious freedom" in all its guises empowers and gives "freedom" to religious assholes and oppressors to take away the freedom of others.
Religion is a Trojan Horse for other backwards notions, like giving superstitious and ignorant people the right to silence speech they deem "offensive". The most fucked-up countries are the ones where somebody can use take arbitrary "offence", and use that office to attack somebody. E.g. the offence of "insulting a Muslim" in most Islamic countries.
Anybody propagating the idea that it should be illegal to "give offence" should be stabbed in the head, imnsho.
Bestiality is illegal. Homosexuality is not.
If you and your religion wish to be able to discriminate against someone on the basis of your religion, then you and your religion should correspondingly lose the legal protection of being discriminated against.
If you are such a whiny idiot that you think it should be OK to say "we don't serve your kind here", then you should have no legal or moral basis to claim that someone shouldn't be able to do the same to you.
This is giving religion an extra special place in law ... protected from being discriminated against, while getting a special exemption to discriminate against someone else.
So either shut up, and accept that you have no other ways you're legally allowed to discriminate against someone ... or accept that it should also be someone else's right to refuse you because of your religion.
There is no in between, and any claims your religion is so precious as to require you receive rights nobody else has is complete crap.
Sorry, but the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and ISIL want to have a society based on religious exceptionalism.
Which makes people who want to have religion be a special thing in law are full of shit, self entitled people, and are actually the enemies of a free and open society.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Probably strongly and vocally oppose this bill.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
I wonder if a cinema owner should be forced to sell tickets to black men.
Oh wait, I don't wonder that at all, because I'm not a bigoted idiot.
You are ignoring that homosexuality is between consenting adults (the type that is legal anyway - homosexual rape isn't legal for example). Whereas bestiality and pedophilia are not. Which is a pretty significant difference making your "only difference" claim absurd.
How many Eddie Murphy movies should the owner be forced by law to screen?
Torture is also illegal
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
As I live in Arkansas I actually got around to reading the bill (HB 1228) this morning. Everything people are complaining about is complete FUD. It's really quite mundane... and LOTS of other states already have similar laws on the books. It _basically_ instructs the courts to take into consideration sincerely-held religious convictions in discrimination cases except where there is an impracticality in enforcing the laws without the state encroaching on them.
This does NOT mean that teh gheys will be denied service at restaurants.
It DOES mean that I may be spared legal consequences if I decline to build a gay porn website for somebody and am sued for discrimination.
You mean like the 19 other states that already have similar laws? http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Or maybe you're referring to the lead theocratic, Bill Clinton, who signed a federal RFRA law back in 1993?
Ya know; it's time this particular rubric is laid to rest.
The Indiana RFRA (IRIFRA) is NOT, as Gov. Pence would have you believe, simply a Copypasta of the Federal RFRA; and as usual, the Devil's in the Details. Here's a couple of differences:
1. The Federal RFRA Restricts its application to suits involving the Government or its employees and agents. The IRFRA specifically states that the Government does NOT have to be a Party to the Action; and furthermore, that the Government may INTERVENE in any action on the RFRA issues.
2. The Federal RFRA does NOT preclude lawsuits regarding RFRA issues; the IRFRA specifically states that the RFRA can be used as an "Affirmative Defense" in lawsuits. An "Affirmative Defense" is just one step from immunitization. For example, a Statute of Limitations is an Affirmative Defense. It does NOT hinge on the Merits of the case; but rather what amounts to a Jurisdictional issue.
Those two things alone make the IRFRA nothing like the Federal RFRA.
And as proof of the fact that this is nothing more, and nothing less, than an end-run against the LGBT community, you need look no farther than the picture of Gov. Pence at the PRIVATE (that is, by INVITATION-ONLY) signing of the IRFRA Bill into Law. The people who are standing CLOSEST to Pence (again, no accident) for the Photo-Op, just HAPPEN to be the same 3 or 4 people who have been the MOST vocal opponents to Gay Marriage in the State. By the way, the Press (let alone the Public) wasn't invited.
BTW, I live in Indiana, where a LOT more information regarding this has been presented than leaks out into the National/International news.
One brave and short-lived business. That's the problem with these laws; essentially they allow the majority to persecute the minority, under the cover of "religious freedoms". It strikes me as being no different than the same disingenuous arguments used to justify Segregation.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This highlights why a supposedly neutral law is de facto discriminatory.
If a business excludes gays, or atheists, or muslims, they lose some business and maybe get a bit of outrage if it gets enough attention, but chances are the effect on their bottom line will be minimal.
If a business excludes Christians, they go out of business.
So while in theory it is religion neutral, in practice, some types of exclusion can be practiced with minimal negative consequences while others are simply not an option for reasons outside the actual words of the law.
Go look how many times this claim has been made, how many times it has been refuted (including a good refutation in the VERY STORY you post here), and then tell me that the pro-RFRA folks are being intellectual honest.
Never mind, by even parroting this claim you have proven you have not trouble with lying at all.
No. The Pro-RFRA people, including Gov. Pence, are the ones who are being dishonest.
The IRFRA differs from the Federal RFRA on several key points. This is where the "there" is.
The Indiana Law is NOT "The same as what Obama Signed". Not even close. For one thing, the Federal RFRA had Bipartisan support. The Indiana RFRA was voted STRICTLY on Party Lines (guess which Party?). But the pro-RFRA crowd never mentions THAT, do they? they just keep talking about a Law that isn't THIS law.
Just like Mike Pence going on This Week yesterday and lying his ASS off REPEATEDLY by stating that this was ONLY restricting actions by the GOVERNMENT. That is only true if you count COURT ORDERS as an "Action by the Government". If you read the analysis of the Federal RFRA and Indiana RFRA linked above, you'll see that I am correct.
How to Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened in Just 10 Quick Questions.
Just pick "A" or "B" for each question.
My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.
2. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.
3. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others to not use birth control.
4. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to pray privately.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.
5. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.
6. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.
B) Others are allowed to have access books, movies and websites that I do not like.
7. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.
B) My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.
8. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.
B) My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.
9. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.
B) A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.
10. My religious liberty is at risk because:
A) I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.
B) Public school science classes are teaching science.
If you answered "A" to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law.
If you answered "B" to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others.
Edith Keeler Must Die
This is all just a distraction and pandering to a political base.
No it is not. It is an attempt to enshrine bigoted ideology into law against a group of people who have done them no harm. Just because it is pandering does not mean it will not do real harm.
No business that likes money and wants to continue making money will be discriminating against anyone.
BULLSHIT. Plenty of racist homophobes actually support this nonsense. This is legislation that specifically targets minority groups that by definition do not have the population to fight back directly. "Ohh, 1% of our customer base is angry with us, whatever will we do..."
Big corporations surely don't care who or what you sleep with in bed at night if you want to give them money.
Do you seriously think that the owners of Chick-Fil-A or Hobby Lobby wouldn't force their religion on others if given the chance? Companies are guided by people and people have biases. It's not even remotely difficult to find examples of companies discriminating against entire classes of people including women, blacks, hispanics, asians etc even when doing so is explicitly against the law. Ask women how that equal pay thing is going these day.
And if a small business decides to put their own religious beliefs in front of making money, then so be it if they go under.
If it were a fair world I would agree with you but reality frequently doesn't work that way.
Civil rights laws that try and force a private business to serve all customers should be considered unconstitutional.
I don't think its right to deny someone based on race,color,creed, sexual orientation etc, but as strongly as I feel that is wrong, so do I feel about forcing someone to act against their will or conviction.
Our economy is large enough that minority groups who face discrimination probably can find another employer or another shop who will treat them fairly.
When people are proponents of laws like these I just hope they simply haven't thought about their opinion thoroughly enough. But here is someone who fully knows the ramifications of this opinion and is actually proud of it. I don't meet people like this often, and it is very chilling.
I simply couldn't imagine someone walking into a store with a "Whites Only" sign on the door and hear him say "Good for them for sticking up for their convictions." But it is clear that DarkOx is such a person. I guess I just have to take solace in the hope that most people don't think like him/her. I'm an upper middle class white male living in a wealthy liberal area, so it is quite likely I am in a bubble where I simply don't see how dark parts of this country still are.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
I would say go ahead. Refuse to service whoever you want for whatever reason you want, it's your right and should remain your right whether you run a business or not.
Jesus fucking Christ. What backwoods school did you go to that didn't teach American History? The rules you're protesting have been the law of the land for 51 years now and somehow we've persevered. Your opinion is wrong. We took a vote and decided, almost half a century ago. You lost.
Yes, I'm angry. I'm having a hard time believing the among of ignorant bigotry I've seen pouring into Slashdot very recently. Where the hell did you guys come from? Were you here all along, and just recently felt brave enough to come out of your hateful little closet?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?