House ‘religious freedom’ ballot issue fails on 50-50 vote

[swag]

Source: Helena Independent Record

CHARLES S. JOHNSON IR State Bureau

The Montana House on a tie vote Friday rejected a proposed ballot measure that would have allowed people to cite their religious beliefs to justify disobeying certain laws or actions by the government.

Under House Bill 615, by Rep. Carl Glimm, R-Kila, Montana would have had to demonstrate it had a higher state interest to enforce certain laws that might impair someone’s religious freedom acts.

“This bill is about discrimination of people like me,” said Rep. Bryce Bennett, D-Missoula, who is gay. “This is a bill about inspiring fear. ... This bill is discriminatory and dangerous.”

If the bill became law, Bennett said he could be refused service at a restaurant, could be fired from his job because he put a photo of his partner on his desk or could be kicked out of his house because he was living with his partner. It would allow a restaurant owner, an employer or landlord to legally discriminate against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, citing their religious beliefs.


Read more: http://helenair.com/news/legislature/house-religious-freedom-ballot-issue-fails-on---vote/article_4761e8e7-c5c6-5d73-a62c-8c370caf26c3.html

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

1. How can we mobilize to make ANY and ALL businesses which discriminate their lives miserable as hell?

Could we form teams all around the country like 100 each, dispatch them to the businesses and perform the most obnoxious but legal activities to SHAME these MOTHERFUCKERS?

WHERE DO I SIGN UP?

[antigop]

2. we need to start some sort of movement. nt

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

4. If I knew how to make a website I would...

[MANative]

7. I know how to make a basic one...

and I checked - boycottindiana.com and .org are both available as of less than two minutes ago.

Two things - how to fund it and what does it need to say/do? Seriously. This shit has to be stopped.

ETA: It does need to be bigger than the Indiana law, though. This stuff is popping up all over the place.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

9. How much funding is necessary? Yes needs to cover all laws that will come out against gays

I dont know how to make a website, i guess i could take the time to find the source that teaches you and I could do it, but I dont think I want to do that

if someone else did that would be fine

i would support the project initially with some minor funding

what are we talking about?
i am on the road today, if anyone wants to get serious about this

pm me

[MANative]

10. Depends on the host, etc.

the domain name can be as little as $10 per year. Found one option on GoDaddy.com for "www.bigotryboycotts.com" for $9.99. It's the server, etc., and the hosting services. I'd have to do a little research, but it would probably be at least several hundred dollars. My computer system is not capable of hosting something like that directly. It would need to be off-site or a separate dedicated system.

I'm not a pro, by any means, so it'd be helpful to get guidance from someone with a bit more experience, but I can build a functional website.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

12. Is there a forum here we could post a thread to discuss this among ourselves while

we figure out what to do and if so could you start that and put the link to it here in this thread please

I am on the road and have limited time at this moment

That would be a great start, then if we could find an expert who wants to create the site and figure out a way to host it etc., and if they had paypal I could put up some money for initial start up...maybe we all could within our ability

[MANative]

13. Let me do a little homework and get back to you.

[calimary]

23. This would be a good project to undertake.

Set up a center where people like us can go - to get info, intel, how-to, and other good information.

Frankly ANYTHING would be a good project to undertake. I hope there are hundreds of thousands of projects like this, being launched for this purpose. You can bet boldly that it's EXACTLY like that on the other side.

[MANative]

28. We're trying to find some technical support/guidance over in the LGBT...

Civil Rights and Activism group. A clearinghouse, of sorts, is part of the concept. A mobile app would also be useful, but we could also piggyback off Twitter as a possibility. Since the idea is all of a couple hours old, we're still in brainstorming mode about the best way to achieve it, I think. Gathering ideas from anyone who's willing to offer them, so feel free to share your brilliance!

[calimary]

38. I bring NO technical "brilliance" WHATSOEVER to the table. NONE.

I can barely use my iPhone. But I can help think up strategy maybe.

I do like the idea of a mobile app. Seems like everybody's tethered to some sort of iDevice these days. So it seems to me THAT would be where and how to reach them.

[MANative]

39. My policy has always been...

to accept brilliance in whatever form it presents itself, be that strategic, tactical, technical, inspirational, or plain old cheer-leading. I have no doubt that you could bring something to more than one of those categories.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. Couple of suggestions..

You could use our LGBT forum to get support for the website/Idea.

dunno know if you need a web page..would a Twitter page and Facebook work as well???

[MANative]

27. Thanks! Great insight. :) FB and Twitter are useful tools...

once you establish an identity or as a piggy-back to something like the #boycottindiana trend, but not quite so much for longer term coordination, or for things like database management of larger groups, etc. FB and Twitter can be used to leverage and mobilize people more quickly, though. Truthfully, it probably requires elements of all of those tools for broadest impact. I don't know that we have to be the origin for all points - that's just unlikely without big support, either financial or activist - but it's an idea to explore, anyway.

We have a post over in the LGBT Civil Rights and Activism group to see if we can find some additional technical support and insight.

[Android3.14]

8. Was that sarcasm?

Anyone can make a website as long as they have internet access, the ability to read, to type and ten minutes to spare.

Fifteen years ago the "If I knew how" excuse might have been valid. Today? Not a chance.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

15. O.K. enlighten us humble peasants. I need to build a website for our

local democratic club in Arizona. I've gotten started, sort of on Wix.com but confusing does not begin to describe my experience. At this point, it looks like it is going to take weeks, not 10 minutes. If you know a way to make this easy, please share. The Marana Democratic club will be forever greatful.

[Android3.14]

16. Oh don't be silly

Here you go.
https://www.godaddy.com/hosting/website-builder.aspx

You might also try this amazing tool that has only been around for a few years called Google search.

If the Marana Democratic Club is unable to build a website with today's widgets, then it is no wonder that AZ is such a mess.

[F4lconF16]

41. May I just say...

You are being a real ass. Those comments are uncalled for. Technology isn't easy for everyone. Even for me, someone who has grown up with it all and has a fair bit of experience, things don't always work. I was trying to learn a fairly simplistic coding language last week and kept failing miserably, despite knowing what I was supposed to be doing. Your condescension is rather obnoxious and speaks volumes about who you are. Maybe next time you can offer to help, or perhaps offer a good resource to use.

[Android3.14]

42. Of course you can just say...

I've been called worse by better.

I just read the John Lewis graphic novels March, and if people responded to the civil rights shit storm going on in the '60s with, "Oh gee, we ought to get a bus and join those Freedom Riders. Too bad I can't drive a bus," we would still be seeing our neighbors lining up at different restrooms based on color.

It's like the lame excuses that people place on forums like this or banal support on FB to justify doing jack shit.

What is all that saccharine horse shit we always see? "Sending you good vibes." "Hugs coming your way." "We are praying for you."

Screw that. Send me money, offer to come over and help, offer to intervene. Do something actual rather than empty platitudes and magical thinking. Hell, an apology for being unable/unwilling to help is at least honest.

And then there is this lame response of "I'd do something, buuuuuuuut, here is the reason I can't." At least have the thoughtfulness to make the reason passing legitimate.

99 percent of the people on the planet can't program html, but people built 99 percent of the websites without knowing a lick of html.

If I seem harsh or come off as a real ass, it is only because I have no more patience for pointless yammering.

[Demeter]

3. Separation of Church and State Lives to See Another Day

and no doubt, another battle....that was Supreme Court material, that one.

[Faygo Kid]

5. Good, but who is behind all this legislation?

It's time for some info. This is happening everywhere. The Kochs don't give a rat's ass about social issues, and the "Moral Majority" doesn't have the resources or power to do this. The Mormon Church has backed off. Who is behind all of these initiatives? Could use some verifiable info from my fellow DUers, not just speculation. We can't afford speculation.

[Fred Sanders]

6. "Unleash the hounds", said the Koch's and the Adelson's and so here they are.

[DFW]

14. And the hounds seem to be running wild already

*by the way--ditch the apostrophes. They are only used to form plurals in Republicanese, not English!

[BumRushDaShow]

20. Most likely leftover ALEC bills

You see them being jammed through from GOP state to GOP state -

"Stand Your Ground"
"Right to Work"
"Voter ID"
"Transvaginal Ultrasound"
"Charter Schools (and total privatization of the public school system)"
"Religious Freedom"

I expect here in PA, had we not thrown out our rethug governor and replaced him with a Democrat, it would be showing up post haste in our legislature too (although I'm not ruling out that some loon might introduce it anyway).

[LiberalElite]

30. according to this PA

has one (?) :http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026428959

[BumRushDaShow]

34. Apparently PA's was passed in 2002

And I think it came on the heals of the last round of "Religion" laws after the Federal law was passed. However there were questions about whether it goes as far as what the more recent legislation does...

And ironically, the law here was successfully used to allow groups to continue to feed the homeless here in Philly when our Democratic Mayor Nutjob was trying to ban the feedings.

[awoke_in_2003]

36. My guess would be ALEC. nt

[niyad]

11. maybe the backlash against indiana gave them a moment's pause.

[mainer]

17. Could this law have allowed you to refuse service to women?

What if you believed women should not be out unaccompanied by men? What if you thought women should be veiled? Could you refuse to serve a woman in a skirt? A woman wearing slacks? The ramifications make my head hurt.

[LiberalArkie]

26. Yes it could.. Years ago in S Arkansas I was putting in some phones in a little bakery

and the Pentecostal women there would not sell tom woman without a scarf or wearing sleeveless dresses.

[mainer]

29. We should emphasize how it can be misused against anyone.

So now an Islamic or Pentecostal bakery could refuse service to uncovered women.

[LiberalElite]

31. Here in NY State and NYC there have been incidents of

Hasidic Jews warning would be customers (or sometimes just people walking through an upstate town such as New Square) about "immodest" dress that goes against THEIR customs.

[LiberalArkie]

33. Considering in the 50's and 60's places refused service to "long-haired" and "barefoot"

guys, and still do. But now they can say "My God doesn't agree with you" Please get out. These laws would mean that the lunch counter demonstrations that started the civil rights movement would have had a different ending. The stores would not not be able to be sued for civil rights violations, because now the blacks would be offending the store owners religious rights.

[Initech]

18. We need to stop calling these bills "religious freedom"!

They have nothing to do with religion, or freedom. It's more about legalizing hate and bigotry. It's truly disgusting.

[calimary]

24. ABSOLUTELY!!!!! Do NOT reinforce THEIR framing! Do NOT use their language.

DO NOT speak of it the same way they do.

It drives me nuts, for example, when our side uses "Obamacare" instead of the ACA or "The Affordable Care Act." When we say "Obamacare" all we're doing is reinforcing a bad meme, that attempts to use the very name of our President as some sort of negative or pejorative (you attach "Obama" to it and you can make it smell stinky that way - thereby adding stink to his name). I don't want to play with THEIR ball, by THEIR rules, on THEIR playing field. All that does is reinforce THEIR leadership, and let THEM sit in the driver's seat. I don't see the world by THEIR eyes or THEIR glasses or THEIR filters. I see it through MINE. I will call it what I see it to be. I will decide what to call it and what it's known by and what it's known as.

For the same reason that I will NOT use their label for us - the "Democrat party." Because THAT'S NOT OUR NAME. Our name is OUR name, the way WE say it, the way WE want it, how WE call it, how WE DECIDE it is. I don't give them that power. Or that authority over me that they are somehow entitled to label what's mine.

I'm just not gonna play.

[Populist_Prole]

19. 50/50? Montana is THAT full of fundies?

I know Montana isn't some coastal blue state, but really! I'd expect to see those sort of numbers in crimson states like SC.

[George II]

21. These types of laws (now they are in something like 20 states) are a bigger threat...

...to freedom in America than some external violent threats!

[calimary]

25. And what just makes me agonize is - our side is ONLY NOW figuring this out.

The action is all at the STATE LEVEL.

http://dlcc.org/news/dlcc-launches-advantage-2020-key-success-next-round-redistricting-70-million-plus-effort

That's where they get their infallible, unassailable majority in the House of Reps. That's where they get all the governorships, AND the secretary of state positions on their side of the ledger. That's where these shit laws are spawned. In these state legislatures - where the presumption seems to be - to set up the law, thereby setting up the legal challenge. Which they then can fight upward, step by step, through the court system from local to Whatever-th Circuit Appeals Court which is one level below SCOTUS. And then take it all the way up to the Supremes. Where, mind you, the GOP in the White House past has thoughtfully moved to pack the bench with a reliable majority of like-minded CONS.

THEY HAVE RIGGED THE GAME. PRETTY DAMN THOROUGHLY. And it just galls me that ONLY NOW is our side starting to get wise about this. Better late than never, I suppose. But I just hope to God it isn't TOO late.

I don't know why so many on our side remain so naive, still under-estimating their cunning, their shrewdness, their conniving, and their sneaky-ass fight-to-the-death skills, still think we have to try to be nice and compromise and be kumbaya about it with the other side. They certainly don't feel that way back toward us. WHERE IS OUR CUNNING? WHERE are OUR connivers? WHERE are OUR shrewd, even sneaky-ass operatives?

And I can hear it now ... "oh we CAN'T do that. We CAN'T go there. We CAN'T be like them. That makes us no better than they are. That makes us like them." Well, how do you like being locked out of power in those states? So few Dems in some of those legislatures that they can't even begin to fight effectively. Starting out against a foe that's built in such an obscene head start that our side almost cannot catch them. They've been at this for at least 30 years. They've built something pretty doggone powerful, and look what they've been able to accomplish - from "religious 'freedom'" shit like this to cutting the Voting Rights Act to Citizens United. And they're making hay with it now. How do you like LOSING? It's not just one state anymore. It's "something like 20 states." TWENTY states. How do you like being SILENCED? MUZZLED? Not even able to find the playing field and if you even do, it's so tilted you can't even stand on it anymore. And they win. AGAIN. And do MORE damage. Do you like THAT? Seriously?

STILL think both parties are the same? Still think it makes more sense to stay home on Election Day? STILL okay with just handing them yet another election win? Staying asleep? Thinking we're just overstating the problem or exaggerating and that in the end, everything will be okay?

[LiberalElite]

32. Well maybe if we had more Democratic politicians

with guts to stand up for what the party is about we wouldn't be in this position of having to exhort people to vote. There's just so much bullshit a person can take before they throw up their hands and stop participating. I recall over and over again Democratic politicians saying "I'm not a liberal!" in the months after Clinton's election. About the only one who stood firm was Ted Kennedy. I'm a liberal who has been left in the lurch by the Democratic Party for a couple of decades and I'm pretty goddamn tired of it. Where's our cunning? Where's our sneaky ass operatives? Ask the DLC! Talk about being silenced and muzzled? It's not fun being silenced and muzzled by your own side - and I include in this a good many DUers who want Hillary.

[dougolat]

40. Rousing-est post I've seen! Thank You Calimary.

Their inroads are daunting;

Bureaucrats intent on sabotage of their agency's
purpose

Wildly and brazenly partisan election officials

Sadly unqualified judges with serious agendas

A head-lock on most media

Textbooks and curricula slanted to the point of being
non-factual


... and that is only a start...

[awoke_in_2003]

37. you are very correct...

I fear for this country.

[glinda]

35. There is also a back up plan I think if the Conservatives don't see this in all the US

and that is the Laws attempting passage allowing guns in Government offices and elsewhere on mass portions.
I do not believe that the people attempting passage of these Laws (with oil, toxins, NRA, etc....behind them) follow "rational" paths. This to me means that the next step will be to force their wishes.
I believe at the base of all of this is to control all resources.