yeah, I'm looking at you "Wisconsin Synod Lutherans", believe that Catholics' prayers are not heard by God because they are idol worshipers.

People are sometimes horrible.

Barney Frank said Republic vote Dems march. Get out of the street into the voting booth. Mobilize our friends. The corporate response is a language Republicans understand. I have marched since 1978. Happily we are visible.

Low turnout is our enemy.

voting for Obama.

LGBT vote, and we vote Democratic, and we vote in very high percentages relative to the LGBT population.

AMAZING point made by Barney Frank - the republi-CONS vote. The Democrats march.

INDEED: "Get out of the street into the voting booth!" They smirk and sneer, and laugh at us and roll their eyeballs when we march. When we VOTE, we wipe that smirk off their smug faces. Sometimes we even sand-blast it off.

Do they still adhere to that?

of WI Synod in-laws, yes, they do.

I went to high school with two very bright girls whose father was a Missouri Synod Lutheran minister.
They had to do all the housework and their three brothers sat around and were waited on.

They both left home at an early age. The younger one married a guy she met working at a restaurant to get out of the house. The boy was a Baptist, and I was told that her father would never speak to her again for such a terrible sin.

Christian love.

The older one went to Rice University and got a physics degree and eventually got a Ph.D. I doubt seriously that their father encouraged them to go to college, since they were expected to wait on their brothers instead.

When my beloved and I got married (at the courthouse, because I didn't want to become a Lutheran), his mother gave me a handbook on being a good Lutheran wife. I think it was written in the 50's.

I thought it was a joke gift and kidded her about it. Took several years for her to forgive me for that one.

....seemed to "work well" in Missouri after all. Pence is a total jacka$$.

Perhaps you can educate me.

From the Wash Post:

Just before suicide, Missouri politician fretted about rumors he was Jewish. Missouri Republican Auditor Tom Schweich announced his candidacy for governor in January – a month before he took his own life.

He wasn't part of the Khristian Kleptocracy.

Otherwise they'd need the color codes and IDs you mention.

premises. How much of a slip further down the slope would it be for these squeamish fundamentalists to expand the category of those they fear?

...how are they going to know?

"The two brothers from Ecuador had attended a church party and had stopped at a bar afterward. They may have been a bit tipsy as they walked home in the dead of night, arm-in-arm, leaning close to each other, a common tableau of men in Latino cultures, but one easily misinterpreted by the biased mind.

Suddenly a car drew up. It was 3:30 a.m. Sunday, and the intersection of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a half-block from the brothers’ apartment, was nearly deserted — but not quite. Witnesses, the police said, heard some of what happened next.

Three men came out of the car shouting at the brothers, Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay — something ugly, anti-gay and anti-Latino. Vulgarisms against Hispanics and gay men were heard by witnesses, the police said. One man approached Jose Sucuzhanay, 31, the owner of a real estate agency who has been in New York a decade, and broke a beer bottle over the back of his head. He went down hard."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/nyregion/09assault.html

people are sometimes targeted by those who make the wrong guess that they are Muslims. That guy who shot people at a Jewish Center in Kansas shot no Jews, guessed wrong. The victims of anti-gay bias crimes are sometimes not gay at all, a few years ago in NYC, for example, a kid was killed for putting his arm around his brother. They guessed wrong.
So. That's how it works Indiana. Better hope that wheel of misfortune does not mistakenly spin to your own demise.

be broughy about before someone is harmed.

country and to LGBT people by passing this law.

as long as the law is in place" email.
Hope his office gets flooded with such emails.

We used to drop down there @ once a year to see friends - no more.

parts for his tinkering from a company in Indiana. There are other companies elsewhere. We talked about this yesterday. We need to follow up with a letter.

Will never buy anything made there either.

Sent an email telling him as such.

...in great numbers as this law will legalize the "incense" they use as part of their religious practice. In about ten years, the Rastamans will be the leading faith of all Hoosiers..

This law will enable a business to say they think this black person is gay and refuse service. Does anyone think there is protection from this in the new law?

Glad you're here. "Does anyone think there is protection from this in the new law?" NOPE. Well, not reasonable, reality-based thinkers anyway. But these folks in their lovely little bubble just think they're getting the government off their own backs. And that's a goooooood thing. Especially when it forces the government into the lives and hearts of everybody else.

BELIEVE IT. This law would give ANYBODY who doesn't like something to use their religion to justify anti-social, cruel, exclusionary, or hurtful behavior. DISCRIMINATORY behavior. Look at Hobby Lobby - and women's access to health care! That's not a gay thing. That's a misogynist thing. And you better believe that some out there might try to apply it to blacks, to the poor, to ANYBODY. They WILL try to use this to impose their narrow views on everybody else. "MY religion trumps YOUR rights." This has become an epidemic. I hope the whole "Indiana experiment" here starts to turn the tide on that one. Because this shit needs to stop!!!!

Indiana/Hobby Lobby is what happens WHEN DEMOCRATS STAY HOME.

Honesly, people. WE have the numbers. There are MORE Dems than there are GOPers. And judging from the changing demographics, it's gonna increase that way, too. When WE turn out to vote, WE WIN. The numbers are on OUR side. The CONservatives aren't, but the NUMBERS are. Just think DEMographics. Funny, I just realized both DEMocrat and DEMographics start with a D. Take a lesson from that!!!

Imagine, if you will, a President pence. Disgusting thought, isn't it? THAT side of Indiana gone national, officially sanctioned. With the full force of the White House behind it. Want that? Then stay home in November 2016 (if you wanted somebody other than Hillary - or WHATEVER). I guarantee you, you may not have liked the Democratic candidate, BUT YOU'RE GONNA HATE the republi-CON PRESIDENT. GUARANTEED. ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEED. Study Indiana if you don't want to hear it from calimary. Look what THEY got. Dems stayed home, Dems stayed silent. Dems presumed it was no use, so they threw the game before the game started. When they could have influenced the election there. Maybe mike pence wouldn't have gotten where he is now.

And okay, you say maybe the Demographics actually aren't there in Indiana? Okay, maybe we lose Indiana for awhile. But there are OTHER states where the margin ISN'T so lopsided. And Dems may stay home then, too. Which gives the minority republi-CON voting block a leg up. I think I'm gonna start writing the word "Demographics" with a capital "D" just to further underscore that point. The NUMBERS are with US!!!!!!

Guys, DU Brothers and Sisters, PLEASE!!!!!! DO NOT STAY HOME AND POUT ON ELECTION DAY!!!!! DO NOT STAY HOME AND GIVE UP BECAUSE YOU THINK IT'S NO USE!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!! Get out there and VOTE!!!!

And think of this, too: If you stay home because you didn't like the choice for President, then you also screw all the down-ticket races too. You won't like who you get for Lt. Governor. You won't like who you're stuck with for State Treasurer. You're not gonna like who you get stuck with for state Attorney General. And You're REALLY gonna hate who you get stuck with for Secretary of State - they're the Katherine Harrises (Florida 2000) and Kenneth Blackwells (Ohio 2004) and others - likes Kris Kobach in Kansas - who's been the instigator of a TON of this shit, especially voter suppression. And you'll throw all the ballot measures to the bad guys and THEIR voters. And believe it - THEIR voters WON'T stay home.

Order a cake with 2 grooms or 2 brides on the top, and put too much salt in the batter. Or deliver half wilted roses for the bouquet, of mess the zipper on the grooms tuxedo pants, or some other way to deliver horrible service and ruin a gay wedding. Isn't that what they want? To trash a gay wedding? The law says they have to serve the public, but it doesn't what kind of service! Once their reputation for bad service gets around, gay people will stop coming to their establishments. Of course their straight friends and family will stop coming also. Then they'll go out of business, and we'll be rid of them.

Hey I'm just being snarky -- having a little fun with ridiculing their stupidity. Bigotry and hatred wrapped in religion is still bigotry and hatred.

that puts this bill in its well-deserved grave. Remember when dubya said "Money trumps peace"? Well, take a lesson. Money does trump peace. Money trumps EVERYTHING.

THIS is what happens when Democrats stay home on Election Day.

Within 10 years, marijuana growers and distributors will be listed on NASDAQ and maybe even the NYSE. I mean really, how many wedding businesses in Ind. actually think that gay people's dollars don't spend the same as straight people's dollars? There's maybe what? a dozen companies in all of Ind that are so stupid? This law is basically a giant kabuki theatre for the RWer pols to throw red meat at the Christian taliban. I'll bet you that the vast majority of wedding-based businesses could care less if someone wants 2 grooms on their wedding cake.

and you know once that image/headline is out there its will never go away

A bunch of self-crafted in your face ones that say any point you'd like to make.

I'm gay, bi, hetro whatever
I support abortion
No tax $ to bigot firms
I cohabit with my partner
I have sex outside marriage
I'm an atheist, Wiccan, free thinker...
I oppose all religious exemptions
I think Fundies are the Anti Christ

You get the point. Get video when u visit.

...what the fuckbags in Indiana are going for is not the "right" to deny service to gays and lesbians simply for being gay/lesbian. Rather, they're looking to "protect" businesses from having to create product or provide service that specifically alludes to "teh ghey" or exhibits explicit reference to the "lifestyle" they object to.

For example, a baker could refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex ceremony, or a gay themed cake in general. A clergy member could refuse to perform a gay wedding. A welder could refuse to take on a contract to produce a homoerotic image in a wrought iron gate.

But, under the law they're advocating, a business would not be able to deny their usual and ordinary service to someone simply because they're gay.

Mind you, I still object to the law. But, I do struggle a bit with the ideas in it. If I was a welder and a KKK group came to me wanting me to create a wrought iron swastika for the gate to their compound, I'd sure like a legal way to opt out on moral grounds.

If I was a graphic artist and the KKK wanted me to create a depiction of a lynching for the cover of the program of their annual hate-fest dinner and buffet, I'd like to be able to get out of that without being sued. If I was a caterer, I'd rather not provide the buffet for such an event, either.

How can we get the good without the bad of this?

Let me say again - I do not agree with this law. It is blatantly homophobic and it causes me to judge Indiana very harshly.

This is just food for discussion. Please respond constructively and don't rage on me with pushy questions like "...so you agree with the law, huh?..." Thanks.

Indiana law now protects government employees from performing non-religious secular marriages for gay couples, as is now allowed by law in Indiana.

This is a crucial distinction. Nobody can ever force a religious institution to perform a marriage for anybody.

Regarding the welder, no law requires anybody to create an image that is obscene or offensive. Indiana law now allows a welder to refuse service to a customer only because they are gay.

If this reminds you of the old "whites only" signs on businesses in the south, that's because this is what Indiana law now allows, only against gay people this time.

if a priest requires potential non-Catholic spouses to take classes in church doctrine before marrying anyone, being unwilling to perform same sex marriages is just another version of that.

would be all that was necessary.