Jeb Bush Is Confused About Religious Freedom

[cbayer]

http://religiondispatches.org/jeb-bush-is-confused-about-religious-freedom/

BY SARAH POSNER MARCH 31, 2015

Jeb Bush is defending Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s faulty defense of his state’s recently enacted Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Like Pence, Bush is wrong, but Bush’s elaboration laid bare his considerable confusion about the issue. The Washington Post reports:

“I think Governor Pence has done the right thing,” Bush said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show”. “Florida has a law like this. Bill Clinton signed a law like this at the federal level. This is simply allowing people of faith space to be able to express their beliefs, to have, to be able to be people of conscience. I just think once the facts are established, people aren’t going to see this as discriminatory at all.”

Bush added that “There are many cases where people acting on their conscience have been castigated by the government. And this law simply says the government has to have a level of burden to be able to establish that there’s been some kind of discrimination. We’re going to need this. This is really an important value for our country…in a diverse country, where you can respect and be tolerant of people’s lifestyles, but allow for people of faith to be able to exercise theirs.”

Bush is wrong that Florida’s RFRA and the federal RFRA have laws “like” Indiana’s. As I explained yesterday, a crucial difference between the Indiana law and a state law like Florida’s (and the federal RFRA) lies in statutory definitions. The Indiana law provides that a “person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding.”

What’s more, as the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, which opposes the law, explains, the bill represents a codification of troubling aspects of last year’s Hobby Lobby case. “This Indiana law, unlike federal RFRA, codifies the notion that for-profit corporations may avail themselves of the religious freedom rights formerly only accorded to individuals and religious non-profits,” Rachel Laser, the group’s deputy director, said in a statement. “In fact, it goes even further than the Hobby Lobby decision because it extends this right beyond closely held corporations to all corporations.”

As the ACLU of Indiana points out, “a critical difference” between Indiana’s RFRA and the federal statute is that the new Indiana law “would allow for-profit businesses, employees and individuals—basically anyone—to assert a legal claim or defense of free exercise of religion in a legal proceeding, regardless of whether the government is a party to the proceeding. This is virtually without precedent.” (emphasis mine)

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[SamKnause]

1. He is not confused about anything.

He is a con man and scam artist like the rest of his family.

Scamming for the rich is their mission.

They will use religion, they will lie, they will do whatever it takes to scam their constituents

into voting against their best interests.

It is unfortunate that they are masters at scamming, lying, and deceiving !!!!

[cbayer]

2. I think she was saying "confused" somewhat tongue in cheek.

[SamKnause]

3. Maybe that is how that family

gets away with all the crap they get away with.

Tongue in cheek doesn't work.

They should be reamed at every opportunity for the destruction and deaths they have caused in this country

and around the globe.

The blood they have on their hands in incalculable.

[cbayer]

4. I don't disagree, but I think she did a good job here of taking him down.

It's not her style to ream.