On your knees, North Carolina! On Monday, state lawmakers moved to declare an official state religion. The bill seeks to block any of those pesky federal restrictions laid out in First Amendment.As WRAL first reported, the bill is a response to a move by the ACLU last month against the Rowan County Board of Commissioners. The ACLU says the board “has opened 97 percent of its meetings since 2007 with explicitly Christian prayers,” a stunning, defiant number. The new bill proposes that “Each state in the union is sovereign and may independently determine how that state may make laws respecting an establishment of religion” and that “The North Carolina General Assembly does not recognize federal court rulings which prohibit and otherwise regulate the State of North Carolina, its public schools or any political subdivisions of the State from making laws respecting an establishment of religion.” Shorter: nyah nyah nyah — you can’t make us stop talking to Jesus at government functions.Continue Reading… … Read More
Kentucky governor vetoes bill that would ‘make discrimination legal’
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) vetoed a controversial religious freedom bill on Friday that endangered anti-discrimination laws. “I value and cherish our rights to religious freedom and I appreciate the good intentions of House Bill 279 and the members of the General Assembly who supported…
Kentucky bill could protect discrimination as “religious freedom”
The governor of Kentucky is considering a bill that would expand protections for religious freedom, but that in practice could give cover for discrimination against gays and lesbians.The bill, which would give protections to people who refuse to follow state laws based on “sincerely held” religious beliefs, was sent to Gov. Steve Beshear, D, after the state Senate approved it last Thursday. “Once we get it, we will review it and make some determination,” Beshear said.From the Lexington Herald-Leader:Opponents contend that the bill could be used to circumvent fairness ordinances approved by Lexington and three other Kentucky cities that ban discrimination against gay, lesbian and other populations not covered by federal civil rights laws.Among those opponents is the Kentucky Equality Federation, which wrote a letter to Beshear last week pushing him to veto it. “House Bill 279 represents a clear and present danger to the gay and lesbian community and other minority groups around the commonwealth,” the letter said. “House Bill 279 does nothing more than give people permission to discriminate based on their religious beliefs, thereby taking it beyond ‘freedom of religion’ to ‘forced religion,’ because they have imposed their religious beliefs on others, with legal authority to do so.”Continue Reading… … Read More
