(Snopes: MRFRA could potentially exempt medical personnel from treating LGBT individuals)
Congratulations, Michigan! Your citizens are now one step closer to enshrining the sacred freedom to discriminate, just as long as they are really sure that an invisible man in the sky tells them it’s cool with Him. On Thursday, the Michigan House passed the “Michigan Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” which would supposedly protect people of faith by allowing them to refuse services on the basis of religious beliefs. Poor oppressed bakers will never have to bake a penis cake, and pharmacists can refuse to dispense legal medications if their holy books tell them that God wants people to make all the babbies they can. It’s not yet clear whether the bill will actually require that drug stores hire Christian Scientist pharmacists who will then demand to be paid to dispense nothing, but we’re sure there’ll be a test case soon enough.
I don’t believe in God, which means I also don’t believe in Hell. If I did, I’d be fervently hoping that there’s a special place in that Hell for those who believe that “religious freedom” actually means, “freedom to impose my views, fears, and standards on others.” If nothing else, the “Michigan Religious Freedom Restoration Act” demonstrates clearly that for Far-Right Religious Conservatives, it’s not about leading a Christ-like life. It’s about using faith as a club with which to bludgeon those whose beliefs and/or lifestyle choices you happen to disagree with or find abhorrent.
House Speaker Jase Bolger (not exactly a fan of lady parts), who was on board for limited protections for LGBT individuals, couldn’t stomach the idea of transgender protections being part of the deal…and so he killed the civil rights bill while engineering passage of the right to discriminate law. Class. Pure class.
Ain’t democracy grand?? ‘Course, Bolger is ALL about individual liberty and religious liberty, don’tchaknow?
“I support individual liberty and I support religious freedom,” Bolger said [Thursday]. “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.”
EXACTLY. A godly person should be allowed to practice their faith anywhere they choose, which means they shouldn’t have to bake a penis wedding cake for a gay couple if doing so makes them feel all yucky…in a religious way, of course.
It seems 2014 is destined to be known as The Year America Turned Back The Clock- to 1953. It’s What Jesus Would Do.
