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March 27, 2015 11:00 pm - NewsBehavingBadly.com

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An Indiana-style anti-gay bill which allows businesses to discriminate based on religious beliefs has just passed the Arkansas Senate. Sen. Bart Hester (R-Cave Springs) presented the bill Friday, telling the chamber it is constitutional and that 38 states have similar legislation. A gay-rights group is warning of economic consequences if it becomes law and so far,…


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D.B. Hirsch
D.B. Hirsch is a political activist, news junkie, and retired ad copy writer and spin doctor. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

23 responses to AR Gov To Follow Indiana Signing Anti-Gay Bill

  1. bluejayray March 28th, 2015 at 1:34 am

    Maybe the MLB will pull out their spring training program.

  2. rg9rts March 28th, 2015 at 1:40 am

    Love to see the look on his face the first tiome he tries to get a slice of pizza and is denied because “We don’t serve your kind of people “

  3. nola878 March 28th, 2015 at 2:18 am

    Don’t believe in heaven nor hell.

    But hope they exist.

    Because: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yNk6bmT0L4

    • The Execrable Bede March 28th, 2015 at 7:35 am

      In every unbeliever’s heart there is an uneasy feeling that, after all, he may awake after death and find himself immortal. This is his punishment for his unbelief. This is the agnostic’s Hell.

      — H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy

      • OldLefty March 28th, 2015 at 8:13 am

        That’s EXACTLY what the fundamentalist Muslims say about everybody else.

        Meanwhile;

        “In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.”
        – Autobiography of Mark Twain

      • Aielyn March 28th, 2015 at 10:00 am

        That’s the sort of comment made by somebody who really doesn’t comprehend what agnosticism (or atheism, for that matter) is all about. The agnostic doesn’t believe it’s possible to know whether there is a god, and often that the question is meaningless… if they were to die and discover a life after death, they would simply continue on. There is no fear.

        Presumably, this “Mencken” confuses agnosticism with atheism. Most atheists don’t militantly believe that there is no god. They just don’t believe in god. And if presented with a circumstance in which they die and find a life after death, they would go “so I guess I was wrong, I’ll update my understanding of the universe” and continue on.

        In both cases, if they even consider the possibility of there being a life after death, they probably believe that any god worthy of worship would judge a person by the content of their character, and not by whether they worshipped the right variation of god or gods. Meanwhile, they live life to the fullest, and many use that life to have a positive impact to future life.

        Neither are likely to have any kind of concern about being wrong. On the other hand, we can get a true understanding of the heart of people like Mencken regarding their own confidence – as is so common within human behaviour, it is all a case of projection. They have their own uneasy feeling that they are either following the wrong scripture, or that it is all wrong, and that they are wasting the only life they have. They reject all challenges to their faith, because they fear that if their faith is discovered to be misguided, it will mean they’ve truly wasted their life, as they have spent their lives, not in the pursuit of ideals or results, but in the pursuit of a nonexistent god.

        Note that not all religious people are like Mencken. Many religious people allow their faith to be tested constantly. The faith that is worthy remains solid in the face of the testing. The false faith created by external teaching rather than self-discovery falls away. As Mark Twain said (see OldLefty’s post), the dominant portion is those who simply accept, without examination, things they have been told by authorities; these are the ones that refuse to test their faith.

        These are the ones who, faced with the question of why childhood diabetes, leukemia, etc, happen, just block their ears and repeat “god moves in mysterious ways” and “it’s all part of god’s plan” without ever trying to engage the remotest of critical thought. Despite being an atheist, I can come up with plausible answers to the question that fit within christian thought… but to do so requires first considering things that lie outside of christian thought, and that puts faith at risk.

        The overall conclusion of my comment is that we need to teach children proper critical thinking and the challenging of one’s beliefs as a way to strengthen good beliefs and discard bad ones. Those who truly have faith should not be scared of this, but those who follow blindly are naturally terrified by the thought of children actually asking questions that are uncomfortable.

        • The Execrable Bede March 28th, 2015 at 10:27 am

          Oh, i don’t subscribe to that quote personally myself — i simply thought it was an appropriate response to the sentiment expressed, and phrased far far better than a thousand Bedes typing on a thousand keyboards for a thousand years ever could… I do, however, heartily subscribe to Mencken’s observation, found on page 1 of his Notebooks:

          We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

          Besides, as everyone knows

          There’s nothing an agnostic can’t do if he really doesn’t know whether he believes in anything or not.

          — Monty Python’s Flying Circus

      • Mike March 28th, 2015 at 1:09 pm

        How silly. I see you had to resort to quoting someone rather than articulating the thought in your own words…spoken like a true blind follower.

        • FatRat March 28th, 2015 at 1:38 pm

          The belief that man is outfitted with an immortal soul, differing altogether from the engines which operate the lower animals, is ridiculously unjust to them. The difference between the smartest dog and the stupidest man – say a Tennessee Holy Roller – is really very small, and the difference between the decentest dog and the worst man is all in favor of the dog.
          (Minority Report: H. L. Mencken’s Notebooks, Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1956, Section 414)

          People say we need religion when what they really mean is we need police.
          — H L Mencken, quoted in Jim Versluys, “The Right-Wing Case Against Religionism” (May, 2001)

          We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
          — H L Mencken, Minority Report (1956), quoted from Jonathon Green, The Cassell Dictionary of Insulting Quotations

          Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman.
          — H L Mencken, quoted by atheist spokesman Ron Barrier in describing the Christian antiatheist author Ray Comfort

          Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt.
          — H L Mencken, from George Seldes, editor, The Great Quotations, quoted from James A Haught, editor, 2000 Years of Disbelief

          Whenever a reporter is assigned to cover a Methodist conference, he comes home an atheist.
          — H L Mencken, newspaper proverb quoted by Mencken (and probably invented by him), from HL Mencken, A New Dictionary of Quotations, quoted from James A Haught, editor, 2000 Years of Disbelief

        • The Execrable Bede March 28th, 2015 at 4:06 pm

          Of whom am i “a true blind follower”, Mike?

  4. Warman1138 March 28th, 2015 at 4:30 am

    Religion, is either salvation or a curse.

    • fahvel March 28th, 2015 at 4:59 am

      it’s never salvation -it is a case of pure fraud when individuals cling to nothingness and assume because of their blindness to thew reality around them that they are ???????? cured, saved – what a load of crap -religions are the scourge of any human society.

      • Warman1138 March 28th, 2015 at 5:13 am

        Especially when used as a tool of exclusion, scourge that it is.

      • Aielyn March 28th, 2015 at 10:07 am

        Not all religion is like that. Religion can be salvation, for some people. It can give them a reason to live, and it can provide them with purpose that is beneficial to society (see Mother Teresa). It can provide a social cohesion that is sometimes otherwise absent. And many intelligent people are also people of faith – they don’t follow blindly, they extensively test their faith.

        It is not religion itself that is the scourge, it’s blind obedience to religion. It’s the placement of religion above all else. It’s the attitude that those who are not of that religion are lesser people (and thus a tool of exclusion, as Warman1138 says). And note that the last one is no different a risk when it comes to atheists and the nonreligious (which is why, despite being very much an atheist, I can’t stand Richard Dawkins).

        • Dwendt44 March 28th, 2015 at 1:00 pm

          Islam gave us the ‘zero’ as I recall.

          Mother Teresa was a fraud.

          • FatRat March 28th, 2015 at 1:20 pm

            Fraud, agrees. (nods head)

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Mother_Teresa

            Christopher Hitchens described Mother Teresa’s organization as a cult which promoted suffering and did not help those in need. He said that Mother Teresa’s own words on poverty proved that her intention was not to help people, quoting her words at a 1981 press conference in which she was asked: “Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?” She replied: “I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.”

  5. Candide Thirtythree March 28th, 2015 at 5:04 am

    Republicans are bad for business and businesses are just now finding out that the monster that they created when they invented ‘The Religious Right’ to scam stupid people into voting for their corrupt puppets is now on the rampage and it will destroy them too.

  6. Candide Thirtythree March 28th, 2015 at 5:18 am

    I sold the family farm in Arkansas last year and I am in the process of selling all of our properties in 4 other southern states because I am sick of the republicans and the religious freaks that they wind-up with all their hate pandering, then set loose on society.

    Two neighbors at different properties told us not to sell the houses to blacks, my husband told them that he didn’t care if it was the biggest drug dealer in Columbia, if they came up with the money, he was going to sell it to them!

    Those ‘good christian’ neighbors are pure evil and I actually hate the thought of people having to live next to them, I know I hate living next to them!

    These filthy republicans have brought back discrimination of everyone, not just gays because christians hate everyone who is not in their clique and they will claim the right to abuse every group based on their evil, twisted religion.

    /rant off

  7. Mike March 28th, 2015 at 1:05 pm

    I wonder if Rastafarian’s will be able to claim a religious exemption to the marijuana laws…???
    I wonder if Muslim’s will be able to claim a religious exemption to murder if it is an Honor Killing…???
    I wonder what kind of an idiot thinks this might be a good idea…???

  8. Dwendt44 March 28th, 2015 at 1:07 pm

    “38 states have similar legislation”
    That’s a half truth at best. Most states have anti discrimination laws that override this foolish bill.

  9. Foundryman March 28th, 2015 at 1:45 pm

    What would happen if a business owner nearby where Pence or Hutchinson lives would tell him “Sorry, but you have to leave, it’s against my religion to serve pompous ass politicians”.

    • arc99 March 28th, 2015 at 1:55 pm

      I know one thing that would happen. I would buy something from that business.

  10. Chinese Democracy March 28th, 2015 at 2:02 pm

    I think we have already done this?