Tennessee

[Mike]

So in response to the whole "gay wedding cake" controversy, Tennessee, in 2020 or whatever, passed a law that said private businesses--even ones that are taxpayer funded--could deny services to certain groups if that denial stemmed from strongly held religious belief. Then it turns out that a taxpayer funded Christian based adoption placement agency has been denying services to a Jewish couple. They sued.

So in the last week, a 3-judge panel in Tennessee dismissed the lawsuit claiming that the couple had no standing, because A) the law itself doesn't specifically single out the Jewish faith and B) they were able to receive comparable services from a different state funded agency, so there was no real harm.

So based on the opinion of 2 out of 3 Tennessee judges, discrimination is now legal in Tennessee as long as there are separate but equal services available.

Of course, this is the first ruling on this. Someone filed a lawsuit and two stupid judges dismissed it. There's plenty of legal wrangling to come... BUT IT SHOULDN'T HAVE EVEN GOTTEN THIS FAR! And 10 years ago, it wouldn't have. But racists are feeling emboldened.

If, in spite of all reason and common sense, this ruling stands (and I'm sure the emboldened bigots are counting on the newly pro-Christian-rule SCOTUS to support them), all discrimination is legal as long as you can twist the precepts of some religion to support it.

[Akiva]

I'm still surprised that no one has refused to serve black people or Hispanics on religious grounds. It's going to happen.

[Mike]

Yes. If this ruling, or one like it somewhere else, is upheld, then discrimination based on heritage, skin color, gender is all inevitable.

[Phoebe]

I'm moving to Tennessee so I can discriminate against these crazies. Not sure how... I'm thinking like a street vendor cart? I would sell Hawaiian ices and I would insist that the people also receive my billet of unorthodox teachings. Maybe I would wrap all of the Hawaiian ices in that and print it on the napkins and such and I would ask all the customers to agree that they were accepting this teaching. Otherwise I would not be able to create the magically powerful designs with the colored flavoring juices on the ice. I'm not going to waste my religious energies on people who don't accept it. Maybe I would make them shout out something like LGBT rights now and forever!
And if they won't do it then my juices can't flow.

[Mike]

Sorry, but you will be unable to prove "strongly held religious belief" with your weird cult.

[Phoebe]

Only if you share posts like this with them! Stop sharing my plans! But seriously I think I could get it done - not the Hawaiian ice thing but if this madness comes to where I live my husband is going to have to talk me out of opening a private school. A friend of mine, using that word loosely to describe someone I know well from work, did actually open a private school and is lobbying hard right here in my town to get those sweet sweet tax dollars for a school that teaches people some bastardized version of ancient Greek ethics and faux Christian anti-gay nonsense. Someone should tell him that those two things don't go together very well but whatev. If this guy gets money for his school then I'll get money for my school to counteract his negative influence. We'll have a pledge everyday that reads something like, I promise never to accept the false and vicious claim that God doesn't love LGBT people just the way they are, and I demand justice for our history of slavery and also for Wounded knee, and the hundreds of years of witches who were burned and drowned because wicked men who were terrified of women decided to blaspheme against the baby Jesus.

[Mike]

If this were truly about ensuring religious freedoms for all faiths, then you might be right. But we know better.

First we deny the same religious freedoms to any group we can reasonably paint as a cult and not a "real" religion. Then, to avoid the creeping danger of Sharia law, we invoke "community norms" to deny the same standing to any non-Christian religions.

But I'm hoping it doesn't get that far. This is two Tennessee judges out of 3 at one of the lowest levels of jurisprudence. They didn't even rule on the constitutionality of the law. They avoided it by claiming no standing.

[Phoebe]

I agree those people have very little standing indeed! The demand for justice for wounded knee is definitely part of my deeply held religious beliefs because one day at church we were just sitting there kind of spacing out listening to the sermon when all of a sudden the extremely mild-mannered Minister started *shouting* (which he had never come even close to doing before) about MURDER and how each one of us had a special duty to remember this day in history until Justice had been served!!! And of course it was the anniversary of wounded knee and he was very upset. I remember my husband and I both sitting bolt upright and looking at each other with that fish eye you have to use in the pew to look over your kid's head without the kid realizing you are staring at each other and are momentarily distracted from your task of keeping the kid silently sitting in place.