Civil & Human Rights

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

In analyzing the Religious Bigotry bills approved in the House Government Committee earlier this week, I pointed out that:

The Arizona legislature has regularly refused to amend the state civil rights act to extend employment non-discrimination and non-discrimination in public accommodations and public housing to gays and lesbians since 1996. Since there is no cause of action under either the state or federal civil rights acts for gays as a protected class, this bill is a proactive right to discrimination.

A bill to amend the Arizona Civil Rights Act to add non-discrimination against gays and lesbians (and also transgenders) has been filed every year since 1996, to the best of my recollection, and this year is no exception.

Democrats have once again filed the state version of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), SB 1443 (.pdf), which would amend the Arizona Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of "gender, gender identity or expression, and sexual orientation."

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On Tuesday, Virginia Solicitor General Stuart A. Raphael compared his state's constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages to the commonwealth’s previous defense of segregation, a ban on interracial marriage and resistance to admitting women to VMI — all decisions overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Quick ruling pledged on Va. gay marriage ban:

“We are not going to make the mistakes our predecessors made,” Raphael told U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen.

Wright Allen did not ask a question of any of the five lawyers who addressed her during the nearly two hours of arguments but said she will rule quickly on an issue that all agreed will ultimately be settled by the Supreme Court.

“You’ll be hearing from me soon,” she said, emphasizing the last word.

At issue is a question the Supreme Court justices left unanswered in June in their first consideration of same-sex marriage: Does a state’s traditional role in defining marriage mean it may ban same-sex unions without violating the equal protection and due process rights of gay men and lesbians?

The case in Wright Allen’s courtroom marked the first time such a challenge has advanced so far in a state that was part of the Old South.

New Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) infuriated Republicans and conservatives in the state when he decided soon after taking office last month that he would not defend the ban.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Republic's E.J. Montini addresses a point today that I have made many times over the years about the FAUXification of the news with their "fair and balanced" bullshit. O'Reilly unfair? Yes. But it shouldn't matter.

Fairness is a fallacy.

In politics, there is no such thing as fair.

* * *

Unfair questions can still get at the truth.

Fairness isn’t our problem.

Our problem, on a much larger scale, is willful ignorance.

Humans come with a built-in ability to disregard or disbelieve facts because they’ve been presented by people with whom we disagree philosophically, as if anything that contradicts our preconceived notions of a person or situation or issue cannot be true.

The media used to fight such notions. Now, some of us encourage it.

If there is a danger in the media these days it is not that we are unfair, it’s that rather than challenge a reader’s or viewer’s willful ignorance we embolden it. We treat the news, which changes daily, like a religion, which is based on longstanding consistent unshakeable beliefs.

* * *

Our problem isn’t fairness.

Our problem is that too many people in the media are allowing, even urging, audiences to turn a blind eye to unpleasant facts.

And, worse, doing so ourselves.

Too bad the editorial page editors of the Republic ignored Mr. Montini.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Arizona Daily Star's creative headline writer strikes again today. The headline in the Star reads Bill enhancing religious defense advances in Arizona Legislature. That's some spin there. These bills are about giving religious bigots a "get out of jail free" card to discriminate against anyone with whom they disagree supposedly based upon their "sincerely held religious beliefs" — the new code word for "haters gotta hate."

I do believe that Howard Fischer intended the factually correct headline which appears in the East Valley Tribune. Bill to allow businesses to bar service based on 'sincerely held' religious belief moves forward in House. It's time for the Daily Star to reprimand or to fire the biased copy editor responsible for these politically biased creative headlines. Howard Fischer reports:

[A] House panel voted 5-2 Tuesday to give individuals and the businesses they own more rights to refuse to provide services based on their religious beliefs.

The vote by the Government Committee came despite comments from several individuals that the measure would allow anyone to claim a “sincerely held” religious belief as an defense in discrimination lawsuits.

“This bill allows anyone who should normally comply with state or local laws that are neutral to claim that those laws burden their religious beliefs,” said Rep. Martin Quezada, D-Phoenix.

But Rep. Eddie Farnsworth, R-Gilbert, sponsor of HB 2153, said it protects business owners from being forced to do anything that would violate their faith, and Farnsworth lashed out at foes of the legislation for being intolerant of the religious views of others.

“This is pretty remarkable and ironic the screaming and yelling about tolerance apparently flows only one way,” he said. “They want the (religious) tolerance simply to be I'm going to tolerate their opinion and my opinion counts for nothing.”

Yes, people should tolerate "Fast Eddie's" religious bigotry, because "haters gotta hate."

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

One of life's imponderable questions:

Why do the very people who believe an individual, association, partnership, corporation, trust, foundation or other legal entity (because "corporations are people my friend") possess a religious liberty to not comply with state and federal anti-discrimination laws simply by invoking the "magic words" that it is "my sincerely held religious belief" to discriminate against gays — or women, or other religious faiths, or people of color, or other nationalities, etc.

. . . are the very same people who do not believe in the religious liberty or moral conscience choice of a woman to make medical decisions in consultation with her doctor regarding her own body for contraception and abortion? Shouldn't a woman be allowed to invoke her "sincerely held religious belief" in exercising her constitutional rights to contraception and abortion by logical extension of this argument?

Maybe someone should try to get an answer to this moral dilemna from Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP) on Tuesday when she is expected to testify in favor of Rep. "Fast Eddie" Farnsworth's House version of the Religious Bigotry bill, HB 2153 (.pdf), in the Committee on Government, at 2:00 p.m. in House Hearing Room 4.

This bill is a "get out of jail free card" for compliance with the public accommodations provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, and the Arizona Civil Rights Act, as amended. Since religion is defined under his bill as an individual's "sincerely held religious beliefs" rather than that of a religious institution — and the government cannot discriminate among religious beliefs under the First Amendment — an individual's "sincerely held religious beliefs" that he or she may discriminate against persons of other religious faiths, or another race, ethnic origin, or sex would be permissible. Such a "get out of jail free card" for compliance with laws based upon the mere assertion of "sincerely held religious beliefs" leads to anarchy.