RELIGIOUS FREEDOM LAWS

Indiana governor Mike Pence is adamant that a controversial law many see as an excuse to discriminate against gays is actually something else entirely.

"This is not about discrimination," he says. "This is about protecting the religious liberty of every Hoosier of every faith."

Though state legislators are busy messing about with the language of the bill, trying to clarify exactly what sort of beast they have, Pence wants to make it quite clear: "We're not going to change this law."

Indiana is one of nineteen states that have enacted Protection of Religion laws. A dozen others have bills pending or in some stage of development.

Apparently a lot of conservative Americans are afraid their religious freedom is under attack by the federal government.

The matter came up a while ago in the debate over Obamacare. Would religion-based businesses have to provide hated methods of birth control, and so forth.

The idea of having to pay for something you yourself would never do (for religious reasons) sticks deep in the craw of a lot of people. It's almost like paying for someone else to do the forbidden act is the same as doing the forbidden act yourself.

Mostly the problem shows up in businesses where religious people might have to smile at gay guys and gals and sell them the product routinely supplied to normal people.

And isn't this just the pointy end of the wedge? One day you're forced to sell tires to a gay man so he can drive his car on public roads just like real folks. Next week you'll have to marry the son of a bitch.

That's the fear, at least.

Of course, there's fear on the other side as well. Today you'll have to go without tires. Tomorrow you'll have the torch-and-pitchfork crowd hollering outside your tastefully decorated apartment.

Here's my question: When will the defense of religion go on the offensive?

Merely discriminating against gays may not be enough. Don't we need to move to the next level? There must be religion-based authorization packed into the Bible somewhere that calls for the death of such unclean creatures.

True religious liberty demands the legal tools to take those freakish "people" out, permanently.

Unfortunately, there's a niggling problem of logic: Gay folks exist. If they didn't, nobody would be worried about what those bastards were going to pull next.

Gay people are real—far more real than any evidence that God exists. They're also more real than evidence the Big Guy has opinions about gay people, one way or the other.

And frankly, religious people represent a far greater threat to life on this planet than gays could every hope to throw together.

Religion shouldn't be protected. It should be outlawed altogether.

But that will never happen. Politicians have to be religious critters in order to get elected. In this country, at least, elected officials need to keep one eye on the world and the other eye on God's giant rectum, from whence will emerge the next glorious installment of divine knowledge.

Hey, it's a living.