By any chance are you confusing the phrase "there is no religious justification for racism" with your own perspective of "there is no justification for racism in my own specific religious beliefs"?
Actually, no. I know what I meant, and I admit I expressed it poorly.
This may be a better phrasing : There is currently no recognized religious excuse to discriminate against protected groups. States vary on whether gays and transgender people are protected groups, but under federal law, minorities based race, sex, nationality, religion are always protected groups. In other words, no state law can allow racial discrimination regardless of what excuse you can think up. But discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, is still an open door in some states, so religious excuses work fine (though should be unnecessary).
Did you fool yourself into thinking that it was only your own religiously-excused bigotry that was being protected by the Indiana law (and others like it)?
Yes. I'm under the impression that the Indiana law, or RFRA, would only protect discrimination if
1) it's religiously defined (easy to do, hard to prove)
2) it's not against a protected group (protected group basically means, they have more rights under law than property owners, think of disabled people forcing every business in America to have ADA parking spots regardless of how likely it is used)
If the Indiana law is to be believed, then it protects discrimination based upon the religious beliefs of the discriminator, even if those beliefs happen to be contrary to yours or anyone else's specific religious beliefs.
It has nothing to do with whether the discriminator's beliefs conform or conflict with anybody's belief, it only protects the discriminator's rights as long as it's not against a protected group. As I said earlier, if you had a racist religious doctrine (there's plenty), in the US, due to CRA and similar laws, you still cannot refuse to serve a black person, it's flat out illegal and the feds will be happy to persecute the next daring offender.
And the religious beliefs of that person could very well justify discrimination against those who bear the mark of Cain (which they perceive as black skin). That is, of course, unless the government is going to insert itself into sorting out what is a valid and proper relious belief and what is not - something that this law will end up allowing government to do.
You are correct, if you ignored the more basic question, or the law that makes this question irrelevant : racial discrimination is illegal in this country, there are no excuses or recognized justifications. So the government doesn't waste time determining whether you have a valid or religiously protected excuse, the government simply denies your right to discriminate based on race.
Its the unintended consequence of the special protection that the religious have sought via this law.
I'm not sure if it's unintended.
For an example of what government does when invited into religion, witness what the government did to marriage when religion turned it over to them (to keep the races from intermarrying).
Wait, you mean to tell me Americans always wanted to intermarry and religions have fought for it, it was all the government's fault for stopping it? Or is it possible that it's the other way around, Americans never wanted to until they wanted to, then asked the government to force everybody to accept it?
What if your particular creed said there was no justification for discriminating against homosexuals. Would the Indiana law not apply to discrimination against homosexuals because your creed said there was no basis for discrimination against homosexuals.
Like you said already, the law protects the discriminatOR, not the discriminatED, the discriminatED has no say.
How will such sanction of "proper religious excuses for discrimination" be decided - majority vote of the legislature?
Under the first amendment & history of rulings, something is religious if
1) somebody says it is
2) there's no other way to explain it
As far as "who is the government to decide what's a religion?", sorry, that's been true for decades, the IRS is practically the first and last legally in deciding whether an organization is religious. (See the HBO movie "Going Clear") When ruled religious, an organization gets automatic tax exemption, something other non profits have to fight for and prove.
However, whether it's a recognized excuse to do something illegal, is always a simple "no". If smoking pot is illegal, there's no religious excuse. If murder is illegal, there's no religious excuse. If sodomy is illegal, there's no religous excuse. Lynching blacks, prostitution, polygamy, child molestation, ...the list goes on, if something is a crime, it's never excused by religious arguments.
Racism when expressed in discrimination, is illegal, and no excuses for it, religious or otherwise.
If your religious bigotry can garner a majority vote, then it's sanctioned by the state?
Nope.
And so now we'll find that there are some subsets of religious beliefs that are OK to use as justification for discrimination, and some that are not; won't we?
Won't have to.
Lastly, I was expressing and conveying facts based on what I know. The fact the government exists and has laws that restrict our freedom, doesn't mean I like it or advocate it, telling you the things as they are is not the same as saying they "should" be so.
