Indiana pro-discrimination law opens door for Church of Cannabis

[Angry Floof]

One interesting thing about conservative belief systems and minds is that such minds are sort of anti-creative thinking, as well as whole chunks of reality ignored or distorted.

Which paves the way nicely for creative beat downs from groups and individuals who are not bound to the same cognitive limitations and fear of new ways of thinking.

The Church of Cannibis of Indiana, for example.

Indiana's anti-gay religious freedom act opens the door for the first church of cannabis

“So, with that said, what ‘compelling interest’ would the state of Indiana have to prohibit me from using marijuana as part of my religious practice?” he asked. ”

None, of course. The law is not intended to protect people or religious freedom. Its purpose is to protect Christian bigotry specifically and nothing else.

" I would argue marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and wine used in religious ceremonies. Marijuana isn’t any more ‘addictive’ than alcohol and wine is used in some religious ceremonies. And marijuana isn’t any more of a ‘gateway’ drug than the wine used in a religious ceremony will make you go out and buy hard liquor. (At least not on Sunday.)”

Shabazz concluded, “I want a front row seat at the trial that we all know is going to happen when all this goes down.”

And of course, you probably have not forgotten the Satanists who very quickly and effectively shut down Florida's attempt to infuse public schools with stupidstition, as well as their response to the Hobby Lobby thing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Love it!

 

[dismal]

The federal RFRA (passed unanimously in the house, introduced by Chuck Shumer and passed 97-3 in the Senate, signed by Bill Clinton) was in large part motivated by Native-Americans who wanted to smoke peyote in their religious rituals.

However, you are required to show your religious belief is sincere. And religious.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

If I was running that church, I'd have God give me a revelation that DEA and other law enforcement agencies aren't allowed on my premises. Then, I'd make a claim under the new religious freedom law if they try and come in and burden my worship or whatever.

 

[NobleSavage]

The federal RFRA (passed unanimously in the house, introduced by Chuck Shumer and passed 97-3 in the Senate, signed by Bill Clinton) was in large part motivated by Native-Americans who wanted to smoke peyote in their religious rituals.

However, you are required to show your religious belief is sincere. And religious.

I'd like to see a court define "religious" and "sincere". Actually, I take that back. I know how they would do it: they would make up a 3 part test that introduced 9 new words, that leave you with more questions than less.

 

[Angry Floof]

The federal RFRA (passed unanimously in the house, introduced by Chuck Shumer and passed 97-3 in the Senate, signed by Bill Clinton) was in large part motivated by Native-Americans who wanted to smoke peyote in their religious rituals.

However, you are required to show your religious belief is sincere. And religious.

If Indiana recognizes the Church of Cannabis as a religion, surely you can, too?

In reality, everyone's religion is whatever they say it is. The fact that organized religion control freaks can't think outside the narrow ideological box and continue to believe they (or you?) decide what religion is for everyone else doesn't actually change that. It only creates conflict as we see in almost all issues we face today, conflict that will always arise from fear-filled, absolutist belief systems.

 

[dismal]

The federal RFRA (passed unanimously in the house, introduced by Chuck Shumer and passed 97-3 in the Senate, signed by Bill Clinton) was in large part motivated by Native-Americans who wanted to smoke peyote in their religious rituals.

However, you are required to show your religious belief is sincere. And religious.

I'd like to see a court define "religious" and "sincere". Actually, I take that back. I know how they would do it: they would make up a 3 part test that introduced 9 new words, that leave you with more questions than less.

They've already been doing it for years.

Also, don't forget they must also sort out the following levels of subjectivity:

SEC. 3. FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION PROTECTED.

(a) IN GENERAL. -- Government shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, except as provided in subsection (b).

(b) EXCEPTION. -- Government may burden a person's exercise of religion only if it demonstrates that application of the burden to the person --

(1) furthers a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

(c) JUDICIAL RELIEF. -- A person whose religious exercise has been substantially burdened in violation of this section may assert that violation as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government. Standing to assert a claim or defense under this section shall be governed by the general rules of standing under article III of the Constitution.

 

[dismal]

The federal RFRA (passed unanimously in the house, introduced by Chuck Shumer and passed 97-3 in the Senate, signed by Bill Clinton) was in large part motivated by Native-Americans who wanted to smoke peyote in their religious rituals.

However, you are required to show your religious belief is sincere. And religious.

If Indiana recognizes the Church of Cannabis as a religion, surely you can, too?

In reality, everyone's religion is whatever they say it is. The fact that organized religion control freaks can't think outside the narrow ideological box and continue to believe they (or you?) decide what religion is for everyone else doesn't actually change that. It only creates conflict as we see in almost all issues we face today, conflict that will always arise from fear-filled, absolutist belief systems.

As a believer in religious freedom (really more freedom in general) I don't care if you want to worship a ham sandwich. Just so long as you don't agitate for laws that prevent me from eating one.

The government, however, likes to tell people what to do and does not always look kindly on people concocting bogus (or even good) reasons to avoid being placed under its control.

 

[Angry Floof]

If Indiana recognizes the Church of Cannabis as a religion, surely you can, too?

In reality, everyone's religion is whatever they say it is. The fact that organized religion control freaks can't think outside the narrow ideological box and continue to believe they (or you?) decide what religion is for everyone else doesn't actually change that. It only creates conflict as we see in almost all issues we face today, conflict that will always arise from fear-filled, absolutist belief systems.

As a believer in religious freedom (really more freedom in general) I don't care if you want to worship a ham sandwich. Just so long as you don't agitate for laws that prevent me from eating one.

The government, however, likes to tell people what to do and does not always look kindly on people concocting bogus (or even good) reasons to avoid being placed under its control.

In this case, it is religious control freaks who want to control and to give themselves extra freedoms over competing ideological diseases. It's relevant to note that the government is currently riddled with such dogmatic, incompetent minds. I think it's probably a good thing that irrational control freaks are in power at the moment so that their particular religious disease can continue to be revealed as such in the words and actions of conservative mouthpieces who are supported and voted in by minds hijacked by fear and hate.

There's no other logical path for the current conservative ideology except to fall deeper and deeper into idiocracy and to enact more inhumane, stupid, and fearful injustices against their many and varied perceived ideological "enemies." It would take a massive effort of reform and self-correction to move the right wing toward more humane and intelligent ideology, which will never happen as the ideology itself, the political side as well as the religious side, is at its core the opposite of self-correcting or even self-reflective in its methods of thinking. It's all about shutting down criticism and opposition and avoiding questioning oneself at all costs. Without the capacity for honest examination of its own tenets, you won't get thoughtful discourse or anything resembling problem solving. Instead, you get this:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-host-cia-torture-america-awesome

You must be so proud.

 

[dismal]

As a believer in religious freedom (really more freedom in general) I don't care if you want to worship a ham sandwich. Just so long as you don't agitate for laws that prevent me from eating one.

The government, however, likes to tell people what to do and does not always look kindly on people concocting bogus (or even good) reasons to avoid being placed under its control.

In this case, it is religious control freaks who want to control and to give themselves extra freedoms over competing ideological diseases. It's relevant to note that the government is currently riddled with such dogmatic, incompetent minds. I think it's probably a good thing that irrational control freaks are in power at the moment so that their particular religious disease can continue to be revealed as such in the words and actions of conservative mouthpieces who are supported and voted in by minds hijacked by fear and hate.

There's no other logical path for the current conservative ideology except to fall deeper and deeper into idiocracy and to enact more inhumane, stupid, and fearful injustices against their many and varied perceived ideological "enemies." It would take a massive effort of reform and self-correction to move the right wing toward more humane and intelligent ideology, which will never happen as the ideology itself, the political side as well as the religious side, is at its core the opposite of self-correcting or even self-reflective in its methods of thinking. It's all about shutting down criticism and opposition and avoiding questioning oneself at all costs. Without the capacity for honest examination of its own tenets, you won't get thoughtful discourse or anything resembling problem solving. Instead, you get this:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-host-cia-torture-america-awesome

You must be so proud.

I hope that made you feel better but I see no connection there to anything I said.

 

[Angry Floof]

In this case, it is religious control freaks who want to control and to give themselves extra freedoms over competing ideological diseases. It's relevant to note that the government is currently riddled with such dogmatic, incompetent minds. I think it's probably a good thing that irrational control freaks are in power at the moment so that their particular religious disease can continue to be revealed as such in the words and actions of conservative mouthpieces who are supported and voted in by minds hijacked by fear and hate.

There's no other logical path for the current conservative ideology except to fall deeper and deeper into idiocracy and to enact more inhumane, stupid, and fearful injustices against their many and varied perceived ideological "enemies." It would take a massive effort of reform and self-correction to move the right wing toward more humane and intelligent ideology, which will never happen as the ideology itself, the political side as well as the religious side, is at its core the opposite of self-correcting or even self-reflective in its methods of thinking. It's all about shutting down criticism and opposition and avoiding questioning oneself at all costs. Without the capacity for honest examination of its own tenets, you won't get thoughtful discourse or anything resembling problem solving. Instead, you get this:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fox-host-cia-torture-america-awesome

You must be so proud.

I hope that made you feel better but I see no connection there to anything I said.

Of course there's a connection. You want to see "government" as a separate entity from "We the People." People of all kinds of ideologies and agendas comprise government. At the moment, this entity is, as I said, riddled with control freaks of a particular religious ideology.

How convenient for you to pretend you don't know exactly what ideological group is generating the controlling, fearful, hateful and downright insane bills and laws like the one in Indiana.

Hint: it's the one with zero capacity for self-correction or empathy for anyone outside of the in-group.

 

[dismal]

I hope that made you feel better but I see no connection there to anything I said.

Of course there's a connection. You want to see "government" as a separate entity from "We the People." People of all kinds of ideologies and agendas comprise government. At the moment, this entity is, as I said, riddled with control freaks of a particular religious ideology.

How convenient for you to pretend you don't know exactly what ideological group is generating the controlling, fearful, hateful and downright insane bills and laws like the one in Indiana.

Hint: it's the one with zero capacity for self-correction or empathy for anyone outside of the in-group.

I see government as an entity by which some people trample on the freedoms of others. Sometimes this may be justified, often it is not.

Your freedom to smoke cannabis, for example.

 

[Angry Floof]

Of course there's a connection. You want to see "government" as a separate entity from "We the People." People of all kinds of ideologies and agendas comprise government. At the moment, this entity is, as I said, riddled with control freaks of a particular religious ideology.

How convenient for you to pretend you don't know exactly what ideological group is generating the controlling, fearful, hateful and downright insane bills and laws like the one in Indiana.

Hint: it's the one with zero capacity for self-correction or empathy for anyone outside of the in-group.

I see government as an entity by which some people trample on the freedoms of others. Sometimes this may be justified, often it is not.

Your freedom to smoke cannabis, for example.

How would my smoking cannabis have any effect on others' freedoms?

Also, you seem to miss the irony here, the very irony that conservative thinking can't catch until someone else points it out after the fact - that others can play the same game and turn the batshit control freakiness back on the control freaks.

Why do you suppose it did not occur to the conservatives drooling over the possibility of public schools being infused with superstition that they were actually paving the way for competing ideologies to take the same advantage? Why didn't they think of that? It doesn't take a rocket scientist, yet they didn't seem to foresee this obvious response.

Satanists don't really care to evangelize, much less indoctrinate other people's children like the religious do. They're just a lot more clever, and they are more clever because they are free to adjust their thinking when delusion hits a brick wall, something that rarely happens among the religious and political right.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I see government as an entity by which some people trample on the freedoms of others. Sometimes this may be justified, often it is not.

Your freedom to smoke cannabis, for example.

How would my smoking cannabis have any effect on others' freedoms?

Do you have any idea how much it would cost the pharmaceutical industry if highly addicting pain killers were replaced with locally grown medicinal cannabis? Forget what it'd do to the tobacco industry!

 

[dismal]

I see government as an entity by which some people trample on the freedoms of others. Sometimes this may be justified, often it is not.

Your freedom to smoke cannabis, for example.

How would my smoking cannabis have any effect on others' freedoms?

When do you imagine I argued that it did?

However, it appears some people prefer to live in a society where cannabis is illegal and our elected representatives have decided to cram down those people's preferences onto everyone.

Or, from your perspective, "We The People" doing things together decided to ban you from smoking cannabis.

 

[Angry Floof]

How would my smoking cannabis have any effect on others' freedoms?

When do you imagine I argued that it did?

However, it appears some people prefer to live in a society where cannabis is illegal and our elected representatives have decided to cram down those people's preferences onto everyone.

Or, from your perspective, "We The People" doing things together decided to ban you from smoking cannabis.

You're right. I misunderstood what you said. I thought you were implying that my smoking cannabis (or the Church of Cannabis in the OP) were trampling someone's rights. My apologies.

I'm not really concerned about cannabis laws at this point. There's still a lot of work and change to free ourselves from the prejudice and unfounded fear that drives laws against cannabis, but accurate information is snowballing and old, ignorant rhetoric has lost much of its power. I believe it will continue to do so.

This case is about challenging the right's irrational drive to infuse our laws with their dogma and prejudices, and to give Christians the legal power to discriminate against others. If it also challenges marijuana laws, then all the better.

Also, you do realize, don't you, that it's also mainly conservatives who support banning marijuana? I've already explained why it's so hard for them to stop believing 1950s fear mongering propaganda.

- - - Updated - - -

How would my smoking cannabis have any effect on others' freedoms?

Do you have any idea how much it would cost the pharmaceutical industry if highly addicting pain killers were replaced with locally grown medicinal cannabis? Forget what it'd do to the tobacco industry!

Thank you. I had forgotten that these industries are people with rights. lol

 

[dismal]

Also, you do realize, don't you, that it's also mainly conservatives who support banning marijuana?

If I only had a nickel for all the things conservoprogressives wanted to ban...

 

[Angry Floof]

Also, you do realize, don't you, that it's also mainly conservatives who support banning marijuana?

If I only had a nickel for all the things conservoprogressives wanted to ban...

Yeah, like denying certain groups special freedom to discriminate.

When I said "We the People," I was pointing out that the government is comprised of people of all ideologies, not that I hold some ideal view of government. I was reminding you that government is not a separate entity from any of us, it is not a uniform ideological body (in spite of conservatives working to make it as thoroughly bat shit a body as possible), and that there is no distinct line between government people and non-government people. It's an oversimplified, neck-beard conspiracy theory fantasy that "government" is our enemy. Nothing is ever so black and white, except in the perceptions of dogmatic idealogues of the variety that can't question what they have already assimilated into their world view.

Whatever the government is made up of ideologically, we citizens are obligated to hold the officials, and anyone in positions of power, accountable for how they operate in those positions.

 

[Sarpedon]

Oh yes:

Child labor
Heavy metals in foods
Domestic abuse
Marital Rape
Child abuse
unsafe vehicles
drunk driving
unstable bridges
false advertising
unpaid overtime
human trafficking
land mines
solitary confinement
assault weapons
religion in government
tax evasion
air and water pollution
second hand smoke

The list goes on and on.
Ban bans! All bans are evil!

 

[Angry Floof]

Oh yes:

Child labor
Heavy metals in foods
Domestic abuse
Marital Rape
Child abuse
unsafe vehicles
drunk driving
unstable bridges
false advertising
unpaid overtime
human trafficking
land mines
solitary confinement
assault weapons
religion in government
tax evasion
air and water pollution
second hand smoke

The list goes on and on.
Ban bans! All bans are evil!

Pffffffth. Life is supposed to be hard. We're meant to suffer from pollution, violence, and injustice. Jesus said so.