03-29-2015, 12:57 PM
I get your drift Donovan, but I don't think RFRA laws in any way signify that the US is a rising fascist state.
There's not a specific group impacted here. While most of the media attention and focus of this thread has veered towards how business entities might try to use RFRA as a justification to discriminate against LGBT individuals and couples, probably because gay rights is a hot evolving topic these days, there's much more to it.
The first RFRA, at the federal level, was introduced by a Democratic Congressman and signed into law by a Democratic President -- neither individual, in my opinion, in the least motivated by authoritarian right-wing militarism and superior-class oriented philosophies inherent to Fascism.
One of the purposes behind the 1993 federal Act was to afford Native Americans legal ground to protect their literal ritual ground from commerce intervention and to prevent Native American employees from being fired if they tested positive for Peyote in their systems.
Before the federal RFRA was ruled not to apply to individual states in 1997, there were almost 150 legal cases associated with religious freedoms that had been filed citing it. Almost 20% of those were filed by Jews, Muslims and Native Americans who made up less than 3% of the US population combined.
It cuts both ways and the laws can be used to the benefit and detriment of both majority and minority populations and businesses.
There's not a specific group impacted here. While most of the media attention and focus of this thread has veered towards how business entities might try to use RFRA as a justification to discriminate against LGBT individuals and couples, probably because gay rights is a hot evolving topic these days, there's much more to it.
The first RFRA, at the federal level, was introduced by a Democratic Congressman and signed into law by a Democratic President -- neither individual, in my opinion, in the least motivated by authoritarian right-wing militarism and superior-class oriented philosophies inherent to Fascism.
One of the purposes behind the 1993 federal Act was to afford Native Americans legal ground to protect their literal ritual ground from commerce intervention and to prevent Native American employees from being fired if they tested positive for Peyote in their systems.
Before the federal RFRA was ruled not to apply to individual states in 1997, there were almost 150 legal cases associated with religious freedoms that had been filed citing it. Almost 20% of those were filed by Jews, Muslims and Native Americans who made up less than 3% of the US population combined.
It cuts both ways and the laws can be used to the benefit and detriment of both majority and minority populations and businesses.