Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   4/07/2015

         Hey, it’s a free country, ok?

The featured speaker at the Tehama County Tea Party Patriots will be Tehama County Librarian Sally Ainsworth. She has a way of making our library and its many reading programs sound pretty exciting. That’s at 6 PM, Westside Grange on Walnut Street.

The lessons from the kerfuffle over Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA—pronounced “rifra”) measures in Indiana and Louisiana, the hysteria from the cultural and political left, and the cowed reaction by some Republicans—are big, lasting and of ill portent. Many who followed the seeming traveling circus of faux outrage and hatred are happy to have the unseemly episode fade from attention. The aforementioned Republicans because the ire of the media/Democrat machine was a thinly-veiled attack directed at them; some on the other side because, as the manufactured controversy dragged out, the thin, hollow, even phony arguments they (bitterly) clung to became more obvious. For example, Marist polling found wide and deep support (65 percent) for RFRAs and the primacy of personal religious beliefs and values over public policy, even among 62 percent of Democrats.

The coverage by the liberal media reinforced the truism that “news” segments lasting several minutes, focused primarily on visual and emotional protests by shouting twisted faces, carried the day and traveled far and wide before calmly reasoned analysis of the facts could get slippers on. I know that was the situation on the networks; what little of the cable shows I saw reinforced the existing biases of the particular shows—MSNBC being the worst and least truthful (but who was watching, anyway) and widely popular FOX News earning approval of its viewers.

It remained for adept and devoted readers to find the best analysis and opinion pieces on excellent Websites, such as www.NationalReview.com, www.Powerlineblog.com and www.HughHewitt.com/blog. Go ahead and look up: “Religious Liberty and the Left’s End Game; The logical conclusion of opposition to the RFRA is support of compulsory speech,” “Want Evidence of Hysterical Anti-Christian Bigotry? Look No Further than #BoycottIndiana,” “Memories Pizza and the Gay Rights Movement’s Flirtation with Totalitarianism,” “Liberals against Religious Liberty in Indiana,” and “The Indiana firestorm.”

Michael Reagan, on this page, did a fine job demonstrating the near-ubiquity of religious freedom laws; federal RFRA was overwhelmingly passed in 1993 by both houses of Congress and eagerly signed by President Clinton, in a bipartisan acclamation of widespread beliefs. The reason for individual states, over 20 so far and 17 more considering, to institute RFRA laws has only recently become essential as fanatical gay marriage proponents have launched virtual jihads. Their ginned up ire is against anyone opposed to gay nuptials (count me against), having financially contributed to marriage laws like Prop 8 (again, including me) or find their businesses targeted by homosexual “brownshirts” for choosing to decline to cater, bake, provide floral arrangements, photography, video taping or planning for said ceremonies.

Remember that the most egregious and abominable reach of the power of the state occurs when it is used to command specific performance by private citizens in violation of their deeply held personal, religious beliefs. Hence, we now have the judicially approved right of a Christian business owner to decline providing anti-abortion drugs or procedures that effectively kill the gestating infant. There is no, repeat no, zero, zip, nada “compelling public interest” associated with wedding services—none. There are a multitude of such providers who, with the cashable check in hand, would be happy to sell or provide any of the above services, even baking “the gay-est pizza they ever saw,” as one talk show caller who doesn’t personally promote the idea of gay marriage said last week.

What ever happened to the America where any randomly selected citizen would shrug and pronounce, “It’s a free country,” “To each their own,” and “Let them march to their own drummer”? Truthfully, most Americans still fiercely hold those core personal attitudes towards others—the idea that anyone’s right to swing their fist stops short of someone else’s face.

When asked, the targeted businesses (including the Memories Pizza owner that wouldn’t cater a gay wedding) have universally allowed that anyone could walk in their door and purchase any product or service that any other person could buy—just don’t ask them to participate in a ceremony they find offensive or immoral. America was founded to secure religious freedom (or freedom from a state church) for refugees from the Church of England and a public, legal atmosphere that forced support and contributions.

Ignorance of RFRA legal protections contributes to intolerance towards Christians: Native Americans can ingest peyote, Sikh adherents can carry a harmless little plastic ceremonial sword, churches of any persuasion can build or expand free of onerous local taxes, faith-based campus groups need not accept nonbelieving student leaders, an African-American baker can decline a cake for hooded white supremacists, a Muslim café can refuse to cook non-Halal food, a Jewish deli, for that matter, can reject pork.

Every person reading this practices discriminating preferences—in their dating life, their choice of spouse, in their association with friends, in their choice of employers and employees, movies, social activities, churches, houses, apartments and on and on. No one just uses a random selection process for any of this. I suspect that the cultural, political, sexual and media left has “jumped the shark” on this issue.