Jon Stewart skewers two right wing hypocrisies

Comedians are the most honest truth-sayers.   Jon Stewart has proved over 16 years as host of "The Daily Show" that he is unsurpassed at skewering political bloviators and those who spout talking points to avoid the truth.

He's not letting up, even though he has announced that he will leave the show later this year;   and his replacement has already been chosen, South Africa's brilliant young comedian/satirist, Trevor Noah.

In the meantime, Stewart continues to expose falseness.  Here are two recent examples:

1.  Defenders of "religious freedom" laws claim that it is their rights that are being denied, and some defenders have likened having to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian wedding to a Jewish deli being forced to cater a neo-Nazi rally.'

     Stewart:  “Is that what you’re saying? ‘I’m not discriminating, I have nothing against gay people; I’m just saying, for some Christians, catering an elderly lesbian wedding is like making a Jew slow-dance with Hitler.’ . . .  "

     Mike Huckabee blamed the backlash in Indiana on the pressures put on businesses by "the militant gay community"

    Stewart:  "So when gays want equality, it’s militancy. And when Christians want to deny service, it’s freedom. .  .  .  Do you see how f*cked up that is?”


2.  "What's the matter with Kansas?"   Draconian Gov. Sam Brownback has pushed Kansas back into a disastrous budget crisis by his austerity budget of slashing spending on schools and welfare to pay for his huge tax cuts for the rich.

Meanwhile, they have also passed a law giving even more freedom to gun owners, while at the same time putting "petty and insulting" restrictions on how welfare recipients can spend the meager amounts they are given.

In response, Jon Stewart offered Kansas a solution:   Given that Kansas receives $1.29 from the federal government for every $1.00 they pay in taxes, perhaps the feds could require similar "petty and insulting" restrictions on how Kansas gets to spend the federal dollars they get.

Stewart added:   "Maybe they'll motivate you to escape your culture of federal dependency.  But until then, let's see how you like being treated like the welfare queens you are."

Ah, Jon Stewart.   You will be missed.   

Ralph

I’ve still yet to have anyone explain to me the point of these “religious freedom” laws if they’re not intending to use them to discriminate. Why would any religious person need protection unless they planned to try to break some sort of laws that would be in violation of someone’s civil rights? During the back and forth about this law I encountered several individuals who tried to use hypotheticals such as an African-American bakery selling a cake for a KKK event, or a Jewish deli being forced to cater a neo-Nazi rally, to ask me if I felt those businesses should be forced to provide hate groups with their service. As if being a homosexual equated to being part of a vile hate group. Well, Jon Stewart was back on The Daily Show last night, and he absolutely destroyed those using such nonsense to try to defend these bigoted attempts to legally discriminate against homosexuals. “It’s been awhile since I’ve taken the SATs, but I believe the formulation as you defend yourselves is this: This couple [two lesbians] is to Christian business as these folks [members of the KKK] are to everyone else,” Stewart said. “Is that what you’re saying? ‘I’m not discriminating, I have nothing against gay people; I’m just saying, for some Christians, catering an elderly lesbian wedding is like making a Jew slow-dance with Hitler.’” “Do you see how f*cked up that is?,” he continued. “Basically, you see people celebrating love as a hate group.” That’s exactly how I felt dealing with these fools trying to use many of these same ignorant examples, as if gay Americans wanting equal rights is the equivalent to a radical hate group. He also hammered Mike Huckabee who last week suggested that the reason Indiana and Arkansas had to backdown from their attempts to discriminate was due to the “militant gay community” putting pressure on businesses. “So when gays want equality, it’s militancy. And when Christians want to deny service, it’s freedom,” Stewart quipped.

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/jon-stewart-absolutely-destroys-bigots/

I’ve still yet to have anyone explain to me the point of these “religious freedom” laws if they’re not intending to use them to discriminate. Why would any religious person need protection unless they planned to try to break some sort of laws that would be in violation of someone’s civil rights? During the back and forth about this law I encountered several individuals who tried to use hypotheticals such as an African-American bakery selling a cake for a KKK event, or a Jewish deli being forced to cater a neo-Nazi rally, to ask me if I felt those businesses should be forced to provide hate groups with their service. As if being a homosexual equated to being part of a vile hate group. Well, Jon Stewart was back on The Daily Show last night, and he absolutely destroyed those using such nonsense to try to defend these bigoted attempts to legally discriminate against homosexuals. “It’s been awhile since I’ve taken the SATs, but I believe the formulation as you defend yourselves is this: This couple [two lesbians] is to Christian business as these folks [members of the KKK] are to everyone else,” Stewart said. “Is that what you’re saying? ‘I’m not discriminating, I have nothing against gay people; I’m just saying, for some Christians, catering an elderly lesbian wedding is like making a Jew slow-dance with Hitler.’” “Do you see how f*cked up that is?,” he continued. “Basically, you see people celebrating love as a hate group.” That’s exactly how I felt dealing with these fools trying to use many of these same ignorant examples, as if gay Americans wanting equal rights is the equivalent to a radical hate group. He also hammered Mike Huckabee who last week suggested that the reason Indiana and Arkansas had to backdown from their attempts to discriminate was due to the “militant gay community” putting pressure on businesses. “So when gays want equality, it’s militancy. And when Christians want to deny service, it’s freedom,” Stewart quipped.

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/jon-stewart-absolutely-destroys-bigots/

I’ve still yet to have anyone explain to me the point of these “religious freedom” laws if they’re not intending to use them to discriminate. Why would any religious person need protection unless they planned to try to break some sort of laws that would be in violation of someone’s civil rights? During the back and forth about this law I encountered several individuals who tried to use hypotheticals such as an African-American bakery selling a cake for a KKK event, or a Jewish deli being forced to cater a neo-Nazi rally, to ask me if I felt those businesses should be forced to provide hate groups with their service. As if being a homosexual equated to being part of a vile hate group. Well, Jon Stewart was back on The Daily Show last night, and he absolutely destroyed those using such nonsense to try to defend these bigoted attempts to legally discriminate against homosexuals. “It’s been awhile since I’ve taken the SATs, but I believe the formulation as you defend yourselves is this: This couple [two lesbians] is to Christian business as these folks [members of the KKK] are to everyone else,” Stewart said. “Is that what you’re saying? ‘I’m not discriminating, I have nothing against gay people; I’m just saying, for some Christians, catering an elderly lesbian wedding is like making a Jew slow-dance with Hitler.’” “Do you see how f*cked up that is?,” he continued. “Basically, you see people celebrating love as a hate group.” That’s exactly how I felt dealing with these fools trying to use many of these same ignorant examples, as if gay Americans wanting equal rights is the equivalent to a radical hate group. He also hammered Mike Huckabee who last week suggested that the reason Indiana and Arkansas had to backdown from their attempts to discriminate was due to the “militant gay community” putting pressure on businesses. “So when gays want equality, it’s militancy. And when Christians want to deny service, it’s freedom,” Stewart quipped.

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/jon-stewart-absolutely-destroys-bigots/

New video from the S.C. police shooting

The South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), which is investigating the recent fatal shooting of an unarmed, fleeing black man by a police officer, has released a video from the police officer's dash cam.

It shows the initial stopping of the Mercedes driven by Mr. Scott.   The traffic stop goes smoothly enough at first.   The officer tells him his tail light is out and asks for his drivers license and car registration.   Scott gives him his drivers license but explains that he is not buying the car until Monday so does not yet have insurance on it.   Officer says all right and goes back to the squad car to check the license.

Scott starts to get out of the car, and the office tells him to stay in the car.   A moment later, with the officer still back at the squad car, Scott bolts out of the car and takes off running.   At that point, there has been no physical contact between the two and no provocation on either side.  It had all been very polite.  A routine traffic stop.

The dash cam records the officer yelling at Scott to stop and then calling for backup.   The visual stays focused on the car ahead, and we see nothing more on the video of either Scott or the officer.  

In the article reporting on this video, a SLED spokesman stated that there was a passenger in Scott's car.   It's difficult to tell from the brief view we get on the video whether there is actually a person in the passenger seat.   And there has been no mention in any other reports of a passenger.

Any physical contact or struggle between Scott and the police officer, if it did happen, would have taken place out of the range of this video.   In other words, Scott runs away without there being any physical altercation between him and the police officer.   Whether there was a struggle later, we cannot tell from this video.

If there was in fact a passenger, why has this not been mentioned either by the police or the family?   What happened to this person?    Was his testimony sought by the police?   Did he also take off running and has not been identified?   A spokesman for SLED says the passenger remained in the car while the officer called for backup.    This must be followed to clear up whether it is true.   This person would be an invaluable witness.

Now we have even more unanswered questions.  We still lack any video showing a physical struggle between Scott and the police officer.   But on the two videos that now are available, there is nothing to validate the officer's claim that he felt his life threatened nor any reason to believe that Scott was dangerous, the only two valid reasons for shooting him.

Ralph

It's bad enough big money is buying off politicians. It's also buying off investigative nonprofits

by Robert Reich

Not long ago I was asked to speak to a religious congregation about widening inequality. Shortly before I began, the head of the congregation asked that I not advocate raising taxes on the wealthy.
He said he didn't want to antagonize certain wealthy congregants on whose generosity the congregation depended.
I had a similar exchange last year with the president of a small college who had invited me to give a lecture that his board of trustees would be attending. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't criticize Wall Street," he said, explaining that several of the trustees were investment bankers.
It seems to be happening all over.
A non-profit group devoted to voting rights decides it won't launch a campaign against big money in politics for fear of alienating wealthy donors.
A Washington think-tank releases a study on inequality that fails to mention the role big corporations and Wall Street have played in weakening the nation's labor and antitrust laws, presumably because the think tank doesn't want to antagonize its corporate and Wall Street donors.
A major university shapes research and courses around economic topics of interest to its biggest donors, notably avoiding any mention of the increasing power of large corporations and Wall Street on the economy.
It's bad enough big money is buying off politicians. It's also buying off nonprofits that used to be sources of investigation, information, and social change, from criticizing big money.
Other sources of funding are drying up. Research grants are waning. Funds for social services of churches and community groups are growing scarce. Legislatures are cutting back university funding. Appropriations for public television, the arts, museums, and libraries are being slashed.
So what are non-profits to do?
"There's really no choice," a university dean told me. "We've got to go where the money is."
And more than at any time since the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century, the money is now in the pockets of big corporations and the super wealthy.
So the presidents of universities, congregations, and think tanks, other nonprofits are now kissing wealthy posteriors as never before.
But that money often comes with strings.
When Comcast, for example, finances a nonprofit like the International Center for Law and Economics, the Center supports Comcast's proposed merger with Time Warner.
When the Charles Koch Foundation pledges $1.5 million to Florida State University's economics department, it stipulates that a Koch-appointed advisory committee will select professors and undertake annual evaluations.
The Koch brothers now fund 350 programs at over 250 colleges and universities across America. You can bet that funding doesn't underwrite research on inequality and environmental justice.
David Koch's $23 million of donations to public television earned him positions on the boards of two prominent public-broadcasting stations. It also guaranteed that a documentary critical of the Kochs didn't air.
As Ruby Lerner, president and founding director of Creative Capital, a grant making institution for the arts, told the New Yorker's Jane Mayer, "self-censorship" practiced by public television ... raises issues about what public television means. They are in the middle of so much funding pressure."
David Koch has also donated tens of millions of dollars to the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, and sits on their boards.
A few weeks ago dozens of climate scientists and environmental groups asked that museums of science and natural history "cut all ties" with fossil fuel companies and philanthropists like the Koch brothers.
"When some of the biggest contributors to climate change and funders of misinformation on climate science sponsor exhibitions ... they undermine public confidence in the validity of the institutions responsible for transmitting scientific knowledge," their statement said.
Even though gift agreements by universities, museums, and other nonprofits often bar donors from being involved in decisions about what's investigated or shown, such institutions don't want to bite hands that feed them.
This isn't a matter of ideology. Wealthy progressives can exert as much quiet influence over the agendas of nonprofits as wealthy conservatives.
It's a matter of big money influencing what should and should not be investigated, revealed, and discussed - especially when it comes to the tightening nexus between concentrated wealth and political power, and how that power further enhances great wealth.
Philanthropy is noble. But when it's mostly in the hands of a few super-rich and giant corporations, and is the only game available, it can easily be abused.
Our democracy is directly threatened when the rich buy off politicians.
But no less dangerous is the quieter and more insidious buy-off of institutions democracy depends on to research, investigate, expose, and mobilize action against what is occurring.

The Iranian nuclear deal for dummies

Reprinted from Digby's blog "Hullabaloo." 

"The Iran Deal for dummies"
 
"From the Atlantic:

To assess the impact of the accord that the United States and its partners reached with Iran on Thursday, it is useful to start with five bottom lines. To what questions are 15,000, 12,000, 10, 5, and 0 the answer?

15,000 is the number of pounds of low-enriched uranium that would be neutralized. 

12,000 is the number of centrifuges that would be decommissioned. 

10 is the number of months by which Iran’s “breakout” timeline to a bomb would be extended. 

5 is the number of bombs’ worth of low-enriched uranium that would be neutralized. 

0 is the number of bombs’ worth of plutonium that Iran would be able to produce.

Of course, the framework accord still has to be translated into a more specific, binding agreement. And even more important, assuming that is done, the agreement has to be implemented. But if this happens, a state that currently has seven bombs’ worth of enriched uranium and 19,000 centrifuges, and is six weeks away from breaking out to produce the core of a bomb, will have been pushed back materially on each of these fronts. Moreover, the route to a bomb using plutonium rather than uranium, which Iran has pursued for over a decade at its Arak facility, will have been abandoned.

". . .  Honestly, I cannot fathom how people can be against even trying this. The only explanation is that they just want war and then occupation. That's unfortunately where imperialist ambitions always lead. And these people have some serious imperialist ambitions."

digby 4/04/2015 02:00:00 PM

*   *   *   *   *

I agree with digby on this.   The opposition hawks in Congress seem to be acting out of (1) blind mistrust of Iran, (2) blind loyalty to Israel, (3) blind hatred of Obama, (4) addiction to money from the Israeli lobby and from Sheldon Adelson, or (5) just the sheer love of war and American imperialism.

The only way you can reach a diplomatic agreement of something like this is by adopting the stance of "trust but verify."    This agreement has the most stringent inspection requirements in history.  We would know immediately if the Iranians are cheating and could take the same action then as they want to do now.

In this context, I'm willing to give the Iranians the opportunity to prove that they want to change how they relate to the world.

Ralph

1865-2015. One hundred and fifty years ago today, Lee's surrender at Appomattox ended our civil war.

But it did not end our racism.   Not even one hundred and fifty years has been enough for that.

We need look no further than last Saturday's murder of an unarmed, fleeing black man by a white police officer.    The story is disgustingly familiar:   a black man is stopped by police for some minor violation and ends up shot dead by the police officer.  In North Charleston it was a broken tail light;   in Ferguson it was walking in the middle of the street;   in Staten Island it was selling single cigarettes on the street;   in Cleveland it was a 12 year old boy playing in the park with a toy gun.

Is there any doubt that, if these men and boys had been white, they would still be alive today?    Would even that trigger happy, too-frightened-to-be-rational Cleveland cop have shot him if he had been a little white boy?

This is not a global indictment of police or the justice system.  But the occurrences are far too frequent to brush aside as a few rogue officers losing their cool.  

Ralph

Wall Street spent $1.4 billion to kill regulation

This is from a fund-raising letter from democracyforamerica.com, a progressive non-profit dedicated to saving and improving our democratic form of government.  I believe it is an honest, liberal activist group.

*  *  *

"Wall Street is the single largest source of campaign contributions for federal candidates for both the Republican and Democratic parties.  In the 2014 cycle, Wall Street spent more than $1.4 billion on political donations and lobbying.
 
"Now Wall Street is demanding a return on its investment. Corporate banks are holding their campaign contributions over the heads of Democrats in Congress -- and if the party doesn't do their bidding, they're threatening to take their cash and go home. . 

"It's not a coincidence that bigwig bankers are choosing now to start acting like mob bosses, threatening to withhold precious campaign money if Democrats don't get in line with their agenda. Wall Street regulation is almost certainly going to be a central issue in the 2016 presidential election.

"Banks like Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs see 2016 as their big opportunity to elect a Congress that will repeal Dodd-Frank and neuter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau -- the agency that Elizabeth Warren fought to create in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. They want to take regulation back to the "good old days" when they could take all the risks they wanted and the taxpayers would foot the bill for their mistakes.

"Republicans will unquestionably campaign on giving the big banks their way. But Democrats? Many of them say they want an economy that works for everyone. But the more they depend on Wall Street for funding, the more likely they are to have the banks' back when push comes to shove.

"So what, exactly, are big banks getting in return for such a huge investment?

"More than most voters realize -- and not just from Republicans.

"Remember a few months ago when DFA joined Elizabeth Warren and other progressives to mount an aggressive push back against a Citibank-authored amendment -- the one which repealed the part of Dodd-Frank that stopped big banks from taking risky gambles with taxpayer money?

"That amendment passed with significant Democratic support -- and the Democrats who voted in support of deregulation received TWICE as much in campaign contributions from Wall Street as the Democrats who voted against it."

*  *  *

 I think this is all true, and I trust Democracy For America to be honest -- even in a fund-raising letter.   Another example of the corrupting power of money in politics.

Ralph 

What if we had no video of the police shooting?

The video of the shooting of an unarmed, fleeing, black man in North Charleston, SC was compelling enough evidence to charge the officer with murder.  But what if there had been no witness who filmed the episode -- and had the courage to come forward with it?

The police officer would have probably been absolved of wrongful death accusations, based on his own report of the incident.    His first radio message was:   "Shots fired and the subject is down.   He took my Taser."   The video shows that to be false.   The officer put the Taser beside the body after he was already dead.

How often does this happen when there is no video or witness to contradict the authority of the police officers?

Yet, even with video evidence, the officer who shot the 12 year old boy in a Cleveland park was not indicted.  

Admittedly the police do a job that often puts them in danger and often results in officer-deaths.   But there has to be a better solution than just becoming so trigger-happy that innocent people and those stopped for minor offenses wind up being killed.

Perhaps it might be instructive to consult the English police system.   What would they do in similar circumstances?   They certainly don't wind up shooting so many people.

Or, are we reduced to the immortal words of Gov. Lester Maddox who, when asked about the deplorable conditions in Georgia prisons, replied:   "The problem with the prisons is that we need a better class of prisoners."    

We must recognize that sometimes it is the police who are in the wrong:  sometimes they are the ones who turn suspects into victims.   To the credit of the North Charleston police department and the South Carolina governor, when presented with this clear evidence, acted quickly to charge the police officer with murder.

Ralph

Another unarmed black man shot in the back by white police officer

This happened in North Charleston, S.C.;  and, unlike many other police shootings, this police officer was promptly arrested for murder.    The shooting was caught on video from a bystander's phone.

Fifty year old Walter Scott was stopped by Officer Michael Slager for a broken tail light on his car.   Scott had several outstanding arrest warrants for unpaid child support and failing to show up for hearings;   so, apparently fearing that he would be taken to jail, he took off running.

The video shows Scott running away from the officer, who then fired eight times at the fleeing man's back before he fell face down, dead.    The officer walks up, looks at him, pulls his arms around behind him.   He walks away for a moment -- then comes back and drops something beside Scott's body.

The story that Slager told officers who arrived was that he tried to subdue Scott with his taser, but Scott grabbed it away from him and started running.   Then he shot him.

Presumably the taser was the object that the video shows Slager dropping beside Scott's body -- after he was dead -- to make it look like he had taken it.

Every case is different, of course -- but a common feature is that a black man is originally confronted by a police officer for a minor offense -- and winds up dead.   Every one like this, with irrefutable video evidence of the officer's guilt, lends credence to the other cases where officers have escaped indictments for wrongful death.

 Ralph

Austerity budget cuts . . . do have consequences.

Gov. Sam Brownback promised to cut taxes in Kansas . . . and he did.   A lot.

And now they're reaping the consequences.   Some of the public schools will be closing the school year as much as 12 days early this year, because they lack funds to keep them open.

This, in spite of a court order from the Kansas Supreme Court that some of the school budget cuts were inequitable and therefore unconstitutional -- necessitating a special allocation mid-spring.   But even that was not enough to make up the damage already done to the state's budget.

And this is only one of the state financial problems resulting from the austerity budget.   Neglect of infrastructure is another.  And services to the needy.

And they still re-elected Brownback for another term last November.

"Tax cuts" is catnip to conservatives;   and, like any addiction, consequences simply don't matter when that craving has to be satisfied.   That's the more charitable explanation, that it's an addiction.    The other explanation is that it is a philosophy that is just plain mean, selfish, and greedy.   Take your pick.

I prefer to think of government as a communal way of solving problems and creating a good living environment for its people -- who are willing to pay for it through taxes.    Is that too idealistic?    Or perhaps socialistic?    If so, so be it.

Ralph

PS:   Add another story of governmental meanness from Kansas:   The Kansas legislature has just amended its welfare laws to put tighter controls on recipients.  Included in these new restrictions is a limit of $25 per day that a family of three can withdraw on their government issued debit card, which is the welfare benefit distribution method Kansas uses.    The problem is, for someone using ATM machines to get their allotment, there is an 85 cent fee for each withdrawal after the first one each month.    Since only $25 can be withdrawn at the time, this means at least 12 trips per month to an ATM machine and whittling away at the total by $15.30 each month in ATM fees.   When the maximum allotment is $429/mo., $15.30 is a significant, heartless deduction.

A question for proponents of "religious freedom" laws

To those who want these "religious freedom" laws and who insist that "it guts the law" to include a statement that this freedom does not include the right to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation,  I pose this as a serious question:

Your objection to providing your wedding services for same-sex couples is that your religious faith teaches you that homosexuality is a sin -- and therefore you do not want to participate in the legal marriage of such people.

Given that, how do you explain that, although your faith also teaches you that adultery is a sin, you readily perform your wedding services for couples that have been living together for years prior to this wedding?   Even when the evidence of their adultery may be in evidence as their children participating in the ceremony?

Ralph

:"Blessed are the peace makers . . ." Matthew 5:9

Here we are on Easter Day, one of the two holiest days in the Christian calendar.  What better time to be focused on peace and brotherhood?

And yet we have war hawks circling and ready to pounce on the framework agreement for a negotiated settlement of the Iranian nuclear program, both in the U.S. and Israel.

Netanyahu is determined to kill the deal, saying it threatens the existence of Israel.   No, it does not.   It may kill the political future of Benjamin Netanyahu, given his commitment to non-negotiation either with the Palestinians or the Iranians, or anybody else for that matter.

But I think it is time to give peace a chance.   The Iranians have lived up to every detail in the agreement thus far that was entered into six months ago that got us this far.   It's true, they have not been trust-worthy in the past;   but then neither have we, or any of the other negotiating partners, if we look backward in history.

It is time to take a chance on peace.    Anything less will surely lead to war.

Happy Easter, peacemakers.   It is you who are living up to the words of Him whose symbolic resurrection is being celebrated today.

Ralph

A balanced explanation of what the fuss is all about over the religious freedom laws -- and why it is so important to have this conversation

Harry Bruinius' article in the Christian Science Monitor, March 30, 2015, gives the most balanced account I have read thus far about the religious freedom laws and the reactions to them.   I say balanced, because he tries to clarify what is important to each side and give some understanding of the context.   This portion of his article is worth reading:

"New York — For many conservative religious Americans, the nation’s long-standing Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, including the one just passed in Indiana last week, could possibly carve out a public space that permits individuals and their businesses to uphold their religious opposition to same-sex marriage.

"But as more same-sex couples across the country legally celebrate their nuptials with traditional public pomp and ceremony, the cherished right of freedom of religion has run headlong into the principle of nondiscrimination in the public sphere. 

"As a result, a vexing national debate has begun to rage over the extent and legal limits of each side’s visions for the nation’s common life together – or how uncommon lives should interact within the public sphere.

“'What we’re coming up against is: How far does secular law have to go to accommodate a person’s religion?' says Mark Goldfeder, senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University in Atlanta.  'And the truth is, this is happening across the country, even in places where there are no RFRAs,' or religious freedom restoration acts. 

"The poster businesses for the debate have been flower shops, photographers, and bakers who offer services to couples planning their weddings – but object to providing these services to gay and lesbian couples, who can now legally marry in 37 states. The Supreme Court is expected to decide the issue by the end of the current term in June. 

"The issue also includes the religious conscience of public clerks who issue marriage licenses, doctors or anesthesiologists who may tangentially participate in abortion procedures, or any other professionals who might object to participating in events that offend their deeply held religious beliefs.

"But since Indiana became the 20th state to pass its version of a religious freedom restoration act last week, a widespread chorus of critics has objected to the new state law – or at least the perceived intentions behind it.

"Believing it may indeed permit discrimination against lesbian and gay Americans, CEOs such as Apple's Tim cook, the governor of Connecticut, the mayor of Seattle, and organizations such as the NCAA and Gen Con have begun to rethink, or even curtail, their business relationships with the state. 

“'These bills rationalize injustice by pretending to defend something many of us hold dear,' Mr. Cook, who is gay, wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on Sunday. 'They go against the very principles our nation was founded on, and they have the potential to undo decades of progress toward greater equality.'

"It’s a far cry from the overwhelming bipartisan consensus that first accompanied the original Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993. More than two decades ago, the federal version passed unanimously by voice vote in the House – yes, that’s right, unanimously – and with only three nays in the Senate before President Bill Clinton signed it into law.

"At the time, a coalition of civil rights liberals and religious conservatives both sought to 'restore' religious freedoms curtailed by the Supreme Court in the 1980s. The high court ruled that the nation’s general laws, such as its prohibitions against drugs, trumped Native American use of peyote in religious ceremonies, and allowed the expansion of federal projects onto sacred land. 

"The federal law sought to protect religious minorities, restoring a 'strict scrutiny' test that still provides the basic RFRA template, scholars say. Like Indiana's, these laws forbid the government from placing a 'substantial burden' on the free exercise of religion unless it can demonstrate a 'compelling government interest' to do so. The burdens must also be the 'least restrictive means' to achieve this interest.

"Indeed, after the Supreme Court ruled the federal statute did not apply to the states, more liberal states like Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Illinois were the first to pass state RFRA laws.

"But even then, the looming issue of gay rights and same-sex marriage began to tear apart the bipartisan coalition. Cases concerning the right of landlords to refuse leases for gay couples and the stirrings of legalizing gay marriage in Hawaii led the liberals to withdraw their support.

“'Those two developments started to change the minds of civil rights groups on the question of religious freedom,' says Nelson Tebbe, professor of law and religion at Brooklyn Law School in New York. 'They started to worry that religious freedom could be used not just a shield for religious minorities against the general laws, but as a sword by religious conservatives who wanted exemptions from civil rights laws.'

"Such religious freedom legislation does not necessarily exempt religious people from nondiscrimination laws, scholars say. They simply put the burden on the state to show a 'compelling government interest' when curtailing deeply held religious beliefs – and discrimination may very well be one.   

“'As a society, we do that,' says Mr. Goldfeder.   'At some point we say, as we said with Bob Jones University, listen, maybe it’s your religious belief to discriminate on the basis of race, but that’s no longer acceptable.'

“'At some point we come to the idea that we decide as a society that there’s a compelling government interest that we don’t discriminate anymore,' he continues. 'LGBT is not a protected class everywhere – though I think it should be – and the question we’re butting up against is exactly that: At what point does the line change, and we say, you can no longer do this? But because the line hasn’t changed everywhere, and yet public perception is changing, that’s why we now have this gray area.' . . ."

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As I've written before, most really important, tough questions in our civic life come down a clash between two accepted values -- and how we find the proper balance between the two when they clash.   That is true in this case:   I place religious freedom and equality for all as both very high values.   I would say the ideal is to find a balance that allows for the maximum of both values.  

For example, I would grant an individual or a church the maximum religious freedom that does not interfere with the civil rights of others.   Any exceptions to that would require proof of a very compelling governmental interest, not just the particular belief of a person or group of people.    This latter point is what the Indiana law changed and why it was so offensive.   It did allow the particular belief of an individual or group to deny rights to others.  It was not limited to governmental action.

Ralph