Texas Legislature considers a 'God doesn't approve of you' bill

[babylonsister]

Texas Legislature considers a 'God doesn't approve of you' bill
Filed under Commentary at 4 days ago
Written by Neil Cazares-Thomas, Contributor


When will the madness stop?

During the last session of the Texas Legislature, it was the bathroom bill of 2017 - flushed, thankfully, in the waning days of the session.

But this year's absurdity is 10 times worse than the bathroom bill. The featured act before the 2019 Legislature is much more personal.

It's the "God doesn't approve of you!" bill.

All Texans must work urgently together for the immediate defeat of Texas Senate Bill 17 and its House companion, HB 2827, which would enshrine into law state-sanctioned discrimination - for whatever religious reason you choose to cite against your neighbor.

If this bill becomes law, if you go to see a doctor, or you call a plumber -- or if your teacher doesn't "approve" of your child -- all the state license holder has to say is, "God doesn't want me to provide you with service," and there would, effectively, be no recourse for you.

SB 17 would bar state license-granting agencies from denying or stripping professional licenses for conduct "based on a sincerely held religious belief" of the applicant or license-holder.

more...

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/04/10/texas-legislature-considers-god-doesnt-approve-bill?fbclid=IwAR3vmDLZwNw_j_fVLYovKLG1fIyYuGkHHAyKDktvYQ-H2tDtxzU-i3duA88

[dalton99a]

1. Text:

[Girard442]

2. So if I come upon someone badly injured in a traffic accident...

...and their vehicle has a MAGA bumper sticker, I could leave the scene without being charged because my actions were "based on a sincerely held religious belief"?

[vlyons]

6. Right!

Let your MAGA neighbor's house burn to the ground. If his kid falls down in the street with an epileptic seizure, don't call 911.

[smirkymonkey]

3. Is this satire?

If not, this is really beyond fucked up.

[Cracklin Charlie]

4. The stupid really does burn sometimes.

These damn people.

[vlyons]

5. What a stupid hateful bunch of shit

Really! Think about it. Such laws violate the 5th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution, and the Commerce clause of Article 1, Section 8. Moreover refusing service and accommodations means less opportunity for people to earn a living. There are plenty of plumbers, electricians, bakers, etc. who would be happy take anybody's money to do a job. But what such stupid laws also do is bring back Jim Crow segregation laws aimed at gays, transgenders, and Muslims. It's just isgusting.

[Croney]

7. They'd better be careful speaking for God.

[Sinistrous]

8. The party being denied service under this "law" should respond to the denier

"Actually, god does not want you to deny me service in my hour of need."

And then watch their head explode.

[Faux pas]

9. Oh

fuck them.

[NotASurfer]

10. There's probably a superseding provision in the Open Carry statutes somewhere

If you show up with the .38 you call "Jessie" strapped to your hip, THAT religion supersedes any other and no service shall be denied

(No, Texas is not that bad, just some of the legislature. But at least by getting elected I suppose some of them found a job, bless their hearts)

[Solly Mack]

11. Texas wants to be a full-on theocracy.

To allow their stupidity to go full bore.


Premised on:

1 - They have one religion and only one religion in mind. (Christianity)

2 - What is a "sincerely held religious belief" will be based on number 1.

Stupid people doing stupid things that cause harm to others.

[peggysue2]

12. It's bad enough that so-called political correctness has been turned on its head, inciting . . .

bigots to say the most vicious things in public, humiliating people they don't like and/or threatening harm. Now the push to enshrine this attitude into law.

UnAmerican and unforgivable!

Never forget, never forgive.

[Liberal In Texas]

13. Another idiotic bill from the repubs in the Lege that will never become law.

Thank god the Lege only meets every 2 years and 99% of these showboat bills never make it into law. It's the stupid 1% that do and are usually knocked down in the courts.

[moondust]

14. Men playing God.

Millions of them.

What could possibly go wrong?

[defacto7]

15. Where do these people get their direct communication

to the mind of the supreme deity of the universe?

[They_Live]

17. And how can they prove it?

"God" told me just the opposite. See you in court.

[AllaN01Bear]

16. heres your sharia law folks. say hello to the true american taliban.

[sinkingfeeling]

18. Oh good. I can be a provider of a needed service in Texas and refuse all

evangelicals and Southern Baptists because their beliefs don't adhere to Jesus' teachings.

[SWBTATTReg]

19. Scary. This act has language in it that states that the act is in effect if it receives 2/3rds...

of each house for approval or if it doesn't, it still becomes effective 9/1/19, kind of a sneaky way to implement this act. Blatantly unconstitutional as I think it infringes on others' religious rights. Besides being awful broad in scope, it simply allows someone w/ a half wit of so called belief to deny service to literally anyone.

[keithbvadu2]

20. Many Catholics/Protestants believe that the other is not a 'true' Christian.

Many Catholics/Protestants believe that the other is not a 'true' Christian.

Or that blacks are 'cursed' by God.

Or that Jews are to blame for killing Christ.


http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/americas-true-history-of-religious-tolerance-61312684/?no-ist=;

Madison also made a point that any believer of any religion should understand: that the government sanction of a religion was, in essence, a threat to religion. "Who does not see," he wrote, "that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?" Madison was writing from his memory of Baptist ministers being arrested in his native Virginia.