The Alliance Defending Freedom's vague and broad "religious freedom" legislation, might be a sly way to bring back Segregation.
“The most problematic aspect of the “religious freedom” legislation that has been proposed so far is how vague its language is and how broadly it can be applied. Indeed, each of the bills so far applies “religious freedom” not just to the issue of providing services to gays and lesbians, but conceivably to every kind of prejudice under the sun. People could refuse to serve interracial couples, for instance, or for that matter anyone of another religion or ethnicity or who has disability.
If someone claimed, for instance, to be a believer in Christian Identity — the wildly racist religious movement that preaches that white people are the true children of Israel, Jews are the literal descendants of Satan, and other nonwhites are soulless “mud people” — one could conceivably use the laws to refuse to provide services to Jews or blacks.
‘If you have a religious right to refuse service to a same-sex couple that is married, you would presumably have a religious right to refuse service to Muslims, or if your religion forbids divorce, to a couple that has been divorced and remarried. And on and on,’ says Mach.
In that event, he observes, these laws are not merely a reaction to advances in LGBT rights, but a whole broad swath of civil rights laws.
One of the laws’ main defenders — paleo-conservative columnist Patrick Buchanan — essentially admitted as much in his column on the debate over Arizona’s law. He offered a simple proposal: “Suppose we repealed the civil rights laws and fired all the bureaucrats enforcing these laws.”
‘Does anyone think hotels, motels and restaurants across Dixie, from D.C. to Texas, would stop serving black customers? Does anyone think there would again be signs sprouting up reading ‘whites’ and ‘colored’ on drinking foundations and restrooms?'
Buchanan claimed the civil rights laws of the 1960s have already done their work, saying “the conditions that called for the laws of the 1960s have ceased to exist.” He is not clear how those laws would have ever worked in the first place if they had not been enforced on a broad basis."
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