The Week That Was

What has been exciting the nattering classes on Twitter and the net in general this week?

The "comedian" set to replace Jon Stewart on The Daily Show had a set of Tweets from his Twitter feed emblazoned around the net, Tweets which indicate that either a) he is sexist; b) he is anti-Semitic; c) he is both and/or immature; or d) those by whom he was chosen to pick up JS's crown were seriously bad judges.

Most of today's comedians (and script writers) aren't witty enough or clever enough to be funny without being mean, cruel or outright gross, so Mr Noah's attitudes ought not to be surprising. What does puzzle me is why replacements for a couple of shows (The Daily Show and the Late Late Show on CBS vacated by Scot, Craig Ferguson) could not have been found among American comedians or presenters. Why go to English (James Corden) and South African (Trevor Noah) individuals?

The net was also excited by a legal matter - what I'm thinking of as "Son of Hobby Lobby" - for reminders about the parent see archived posts here, here and here.

This week's bout of chattering and nattering included Indiana's Religious Freedom Law

From link above:

If you’ve been following the controversy over Indiana’s new religious freedom law, you might be confused about what it really says and what it will actually do.

Some people describe the law as a “sword” that would allow discrimination against same-sex couples. Others say it’s a “shield” that would give people more freedom to follow the dictates of their faith.

Some say the law would give businesses more leeway to pick and choose which customers to serve. Others say it won’t make much difference -- that even with the law in place, virtually all businesses will end up behaving just as they would have before.

Some say the statute represents a significant change in the legal landscape, enacted at the behest of the Republican Party’s most conservative supporters. Others say it is strikingly similar to existing laws, including one that Congress passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities and that a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, happily signed more than two decades ago.
Which one of these statements is correct? All of them.

Here we go again then, on a slightly different track from Hobby Lobby, but heading in the same direction...trying to get rid of that pesky (to some) separation of church and state.

The most popular example of what Indiana's (and some other states') laws might bring about has been related to wedding arrangements for a same-sex marriage. For example, a business refusing to provide flower arrangements or wedding cake, etc. to a same sex couple on religious grounds would not be liable to legal proceedings brought on the basis of discrimination.

Never having been in the market for either wedding flowers or wedding cake, in spite of having been married twice (fluffy weddings are not my thing, marriage I can just about tackle), I can still see how insulting and hurtful it would be, at such a happy time in life, to be refused service on such grounds as sexual orientation. There'd be a rather odd, counter-productive business practice going on, on the part of the other party too! While same sex marriage pairs are free to vote with their feet and purses to go elsewhere with their business and obtain their wedding fineries from more enlightened retailers, a scar from that refusal will remain, and it'd be one that surely ought to be unthinkable to have been caused by any business person claiming to follow the paths laid out by Jesus Christ.

A comment under another Huffington Post piece struck me as worthwhile saving - it was by one Fran Moore:

These laws are clearly a promotion of religion. They provide those who profess a particular religious belief the privilege of being exempt from the law...a privilege not granted to those citizens who don't have that particular belief.

That would give ALL those found guilty of illegal discrimination either an appeal based on claiming a sincere religious belief or even the basis for claiming the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws violates their XIV amendment protections of equal protection!

It was interesting that in the Hobby Lobby case five members of the court that is supposed to determine the constitutionality of a law ignored the constitution and cited congressional legislation instead.

What is even more remarkable about that is the law they cited was held unconstitutional as applied to the states in the City of Boerne v. Flores decision in 1997, which ruled that the RFRA is not a proper exercise of Congress's enforcement power.

So why did those justices decide that their "interpretation" of that law and not the Constitution had jurisdiction in that case?

They not only avoided applying the Constitution to the Hobby Lobby case, they did so by ignoring the serious constitutional problems of the law they used to justify their ruling.

As Ginsberg implied...what now see what the obvious motivation behind using the RFRA was...the five conservative Justices wanted to grant states the precedent for establishing their own RFRAs...
These ideological justices feel they have now addressed the previous ruling against the federal RFRA in 1997 without addressing the underlying constitutionality of providing exemptions to constitutional law.

RFRAs clearly violate of the establishment clause and the XIV amendment...so all the SCOTUS did in the Hobby Lobby case was to delay the inevitable ruling on the constitutionality of the federal RFRA and subsequent state enacted religious "freedom" laws.

If that comment was a bit too sober and serious, and you have a spare few minutes still, do go take a look at what blogger Jim Wright of Stonekettle Station had to say about this topic in his post headed Dear Christians: A Modest Proposal.

And FINALLY...some good news!

Though the deal will not be sealed until later this year, a framework agreement, relating to Iran's nuclear program, was announced in Switzerland on Thursday. Agreement was reached between Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the USA, plus Germany). It could be indication of better days ahead unless, of course, opponents manage to derail the agreement. Nothing is ever certain, but there is now at least room for hope. See HERE.