As expected, the recently passed "religious freedom restoration act" created a lot of debate and controversy in the US media and political circles. Depending on which political party they support, people are busy either criticizing or fiercely defending this controversial law which allows public businesses to deny services to its customers if they feel that it conflicts with their religious beliefs or teachings. Actually, most countries allow their citizens to practice the religion of their choice. Countries like the US derive this freedom from their constitution, so, it is not that in the US it is legal to discriminate against people based on their religion or people find it difficult to practice their religious beliefs. The constitution gives complete freedom to every citizen to choose and practice their chosen faith. I believe that anyone's religion or faith is a personal matter. But it is a problem when people start bringing their faith or religion in public places or at their work and mixing it with work and politics. It is further complicated when lawmakers start making laws to favor a particular religion or to appease some minority community. Such appeasing behavior either by the public or lawmakers creates some problems and disturbs social disharmony.
This current law of Indiana is clearly designed to appease conservative communities of all religions (especially Christians) who might want to use this law to express their displeasure towards certain groups or communities. It is believed that this can be especially discriminating towards the LGBTQ community as certain businesses might refuse to serve them as their religious beliefs allow them to discriminate against these groups. This is why we specifically have anti-discriminatory laws, to stop some people who for whatever reason try to discriminate. Most of them do these things with a lot of conviction and belief because they think that they are doing the right thing taught by their religion and culture. So, they discriminate or hate certain groups because they believe their religion requires them to do this. However, if you are in the public sphere, your personal beliefs don't supersede the law of the land or common sense and decency. People should follow common decency in the public domain and show compassion and kindness towards fellow humans. You might think your religion is the greatest thing human beings ever discovered but that doesn't mean you can abuse other religions; you might think that people, especially women, should only dress in a certain way because your religious holy book says so but that doesn't mean you can force everyone to follow that dictate; you might believe marriage should be between a man and woman, but that doesn't mean homosexuals don't have right to marry. The point is, if you are a public business then you are out there to serve customers, and those customers can come from different races, abilities, genders, nationalities, religions, or sexual orientations. One can use any tag to describe those individuals but they all are "customers," and your business is to serve those customers. Any business's job is not to judge their customer's personal beliefs or character, not to discriminate against them based on their sexual orientation, race, gender, or any other personal trait. These types of discriminatory things used to happen just a few decades back, those terrible memories must be still fresh in many people's minds. Many brave people fought tough and long battles, some even sacrificed their lives to eliminate (or at least reduce) those ugly things from our society. I won't say that discrimination or racism doesn't exist today but at least it doesn't have the protection of the law, people can be questioned and punished by law if they do these things openly. But if the state starts designing any law that encourages any type of discrimination, then it sets up a bad precedent, it is taking our society backward in that horrible discriminatory era that we overcame with a lot of struggle and difficulties. This can open the floodgates where political institutions can try to bring similar legislation which can go to any extent to appease the majority or minority depending on their political interests. In India already these things happen regularly, and they create a lot of legal mess and social polarization, but I never expected that such a thing could happen even in the USA. But I think I was wrong in thinking like this, I can see religious fanaticism is on the rise everywhere, even the US is not an exception to this, so, I am disappointed, but I think this was expected. Even conservative parties are nowadays accused of not being conservative enough by their core supporters, so, they are forced to push the envelope more to make their base happy. Radical conservatives or liberals are only interested in appeasement when they try to push their agendas using political platforms.
This law if it lives up to its expectations is definitely a regressive step that might legalize certain types of discrimination. Most religious institutions and their followers are not happy with the growing acceptance the LGBTQ communities are getting in societies across the world. The same opposition and resentment were displayed when racism or gender discrimination was questioned. There were attempts to continue those discriminatory practices under the name of culture, religion, or traditions. But now we all agree (even conservatives) and know that those practices were wrong. I wonder, why some people are so eager to destroy those things that took so much effort and sacrifice to achieve? Just for some political gain? Why to pass any law that discriminates against some people based on their sexual orientation? How do these things identify with the USA being known as a developed nation? If we all agree that any type of discrimination is wrong, then why not stand together against anything that encourages discrimination in any form? I hope a better sense from both sides prevails and necessary arrangements are made so that there is no possibility of any discrimination based on the personal traits of people. We as a society are already struggling to get rid of discriminatory practices, if any law is needed it is needed to stop discrimination not to encourage it in any form.
This current law of Indiana is clearly designed to appease conservative communities of all religions (especially Christians) who might want to use this law to express their displeasure towards certain groups or communities. It is believed that this can be especially discriminating towards the LGBTQ community as certain businesses might refuse to serve them as their religious beliefs allow them to discriminate against these groups. This is why we specifically have anti-discriminatory laws, to stop some people who for whatever reason try to discriminate. Most of them do these things with a lot of conviction and belief because they think that they are doing the right thing taught by their religion and culture. So, they discriminate or hate certain groups because they believe their religion requires them to do this. However, if you are in the public sphere, your personal beliefs don't supersede the law of the land or common sense and decency. People should follow common decency in the public domain and show compassion and kindness towards fellow humans. You might think your religion is the greatest thing human beings ever discovered but that doesn't mean you can abuse other religions; you might think that people, especially women, should only dress in a certain way because your religious holy book says so but that doesn't mean you can force everyone to follow that dictate; you might believe marriage should be between a man and woman, but that doesn't mean homosexuals don't have right to marry. The point is, if you are a public business then you are out there to serve customers, and those customers can come from different races, abilities, genders, nationalities, religions, or sexual orientations. One can use any tag to describe those individuals but they all are "customers," and your business is to serve those customers. Any business's job is not to judge their customer's personal beliefs or character, not to discriminate against them based on their sexual orientation, race, gender, or any other personal trait. These types of discriminatory things used to happen just a few decades back, those terrible memories must be still fresh in many people's minds. Many brave people fought tough and long battles, some even sacrificed their lives to eliminate (or at least reduce) those ugly things from our society. I won't say that discrimination or racism doesn't exist today but at least it doesn't have the protection of the law, people can be questioned and punished by law if they do these things openly. But if the state starts designing any law that encourages any type of discrimination, then it sets up a bad precedent, it is taking our society backward in that horrible discriminatory era that we overcame with a lot of struggle and difficulties. This can open the floodgates where political institutions can try to bring similar legislation which can go to any extent to appease the majority or minority depending on their political interests. In India already these things happen regularly, and they create a lot of legal mess and social polarization, but I never expected that such a thing could happen even in the USA. But I think I was wrong in thinking like this, I can see religious fanaticism is on the rise everywhere, even the US is not an exception to this, so, I am disappointed, but I think this was expected. Even conservative parties are nowadays accused of not being conservative enough by their core supporters, so, they are forced to push the envelope more to make their base happy. Radical conservatives or liberals are only interested in appeasement when they try to push their agendas using political platforms.
This law if it lives up to its expectations is definitely a regressive step that might legalize certain types of discrimination. Most religious institutions and their followers are not happy with the growing acceptance the LGBTQ communities are getting in societies across the world. The same opposition and resentment were displayed when racism or gender discrimination was questioned. There were attempts to continue those discriminatory practices under the name of culture, religion, or traditions. But now we all agree (even conservatives) and know that those practices were wrong. I wonder, why some people are so eager to destroy those things that took so much effort and sacrifice to achieve? Just for some political gain? Why to pass any law that discriminates against some people based on their sexual orientation? How do these things identify with the USA being known as a developed nation? If we all agree that any type of discrimination is wrong, then why not stand together against anything that encourages discrimination in any form? I hope a better sense from both sides prevails and necessary arrangements are made so that there is no possibility of any discrimination based on the personal traits of people. We as a society are already struggling to get rid of discriminatory practices, if any law is needed it is needed to stop discrimination not to encourage it in any form.
Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.
[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]
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