Repug Religious "Freedom" = Theocracy

Add Kentucky to the list of states proposing unnecessary laws purporting to address non-existent problems but having the real purpose of building a foundation for theocracy.

John Cheves at the Herald:

The Kentucky Senate on Thursday approved three proposed amendments to the state Constitution, including one dubbed the Religious Freedom Act.

Senate Bill 158 would “prohibit any human authority from burdening actions that are based on religious beliefs, except in support of a compelling governmental interest using the least restrictive means to further that interest.”

Never mind that the First Amendment to the Constitution already bars any such thing.

The bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Jimmy Higdon of Lebanon, told his fellow senators that it was designed to protect Kentuckians’ free exercise of religion from unnecessary restriction by government.

As an example, Higdon cited a case heard Thursday at the state Supreme Court. Amish men in Graves County have been jailed for refusing to pay fines for failure to hang orange reflective signs on their horse-drawn buggies, citing religious reasons.

“Senate Bill 158 makes sure that Kentucky’s religious beliefs are protected,” Higdon said.

But Sen. Tim Shaughnessy, D-Louisville, said he couldn’t see a legitimate reason for Higdon’s bill.

Religion is not persecuted in Kentucky, and in fact, every session of the Senate, including Thursday’s, opens with a public prayer, Shaughnessy said. Were religion truly under attack, crowds from many denominations would pack the Capitol to express a need for protection, he said.

“Where is this challenge? Where is this threat to religious freedom in Kentucky?” Shaughnessy asked.

The measure was approved 34-4 and now goes to the House.

Requiring the Amish to obey to same traffic safety laws that everyone else has to obey is not religious persecution, as the Kentucky Supreme Court has declared and as is clear in the 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision Employment Division v. Smith, which concluded:

Neutral laws of general applicability do not violate the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.

But protecting the Amish is not the real purpose of this amendment, of course. The real purpose is to enshrine the failed federal Blunt Amendment, which would allow employers to refuse to offer health insurance that covers any treatment - or treatment for any condition - of which they can claim they "religiously" disapprove. Starting with contraception and HIV meds, of course, but in effect extending to everything. Heart disease and diabetes are, after all, linked to obesity, which is directly caused by the "mortal sin" of gluttony. An imaginative employer can either force employees to follow the insane dictates of whatever invisible sky wizard the employer worships, or get out of health coverage altogether.

Kentucky's proposed amendment, in fact, is damn close to the dictatorial bill proposed in Arizona, which is perfectly deconstructed by David Atkins "thereisnospoon" at Hullabaloo:

Now that the Arizona House of Representatives has passed (and the Arizona Senate Judiciary Committee has endorsed) a making it easier to fire employees who use birth control for dirty, dirty sex rather than other medical reasons, it seems germane to ask if the fine lawmakers in Arizona might be missing other great ideas to increase the religious liberty of their job creator class.

After all, starting with contraception is a strange choice considering that it doesn't appear anywhere in the Bible. There are other things that do, however. The rights of employers to ensure that their employees follow religious moral codes should not be infringed in any way.

First off, far too many employers in Arizona are forced to accept the tyrannical imposition of paying employees who consume foods explicitly banned by their religion. Arizona legislators need to begin by allowing employers to test for shrimp and shellfish consumption if any employee requests coverage for food poisoning, lest they be forced to employ those in violation of Leviticus 11:9-12. If necessary, this testing could be expanded to cover eagles, vultures, ravens, owls, pelicans and bats per Leviticus 11:13-17.

Too many employers are also left wondering if their employees are clean when they come to work. Leviticus 15:16-18 reminds us that "if a man has a seminal emission, he shall bathe all his body in water and be unclean until evening. As for any garment or any leather on which there is seminal emission, it shall be washed with water and be unclean until evening. If a man lies with a woman so that there is a seminal emission, they shall both bathe in water and be unclean until evening." If employees wish for health insurance to cover rashes, infections or sexually trasmitted diseases of any sort, employers must be allowed to install bedroom and bathroom cameras in their employees' residences to ensure that proper bathing after sex, masturbation and noctural emissions occurs before their arrival at the workplace, and that such uncleanliness was not the cause of their need to rely on employer-funded health insurance. And, of course, no STD treatments as a result of pre-marital sex, homosexual sex or especially adultery should be covered if the employer does not wish it, per Leviticus 20:10 and elsewhere.

SNIP

These are but a few modest proposals for the Arizona legislature to consider for the purpose of protecting religious freedom.

Oh, there's one last one, too. There absolutely must be an automatic impeachment trigger for every governor and legislator who violates the core moral precepts urged in Leviticus 19:33: ‘When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. 34 The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God."

Pass that law, and I think all of Arizona's problems might be resolved in one glorious swoop of freedom.

No, the only "religious freedom" repugs care about is the freedom of themselves to dictate private behavior to the rest of us.