Can you sell to someone who is Greek?

I run a small Internet business with customers all over the world and the USA. Well last night John who lives in California called and started out with “What is going on in Indiana?” “You state is asleep all the time and we never hear anything about it except basketball and football.” “Well John I know you are Greek and as a small business in Indiana with strong religious views about Greeks I can’t sell to you anymore.” At which point John roared with laughter, and said, “I now understand what the law is all about, you must be kidding they actually passed something like this?” Yes John they did. Now John is flying to Indy to buy a very large quantity in June and wanted to know if he could still come. Of course John my business is open to anyone with real money. I was joking about you being Greek but I am not certain about your friend Ed after all he is Polish. 

Have you seen the new Indians road sign?

How do you "clarify" discrimination? Ask Gov. Pence.

Salesforce

Angie’s List

Disciples of Christ

NCAA

NBA

GenCon

Eli Lilly and Co

Cummins

City of San Francisco

City of Seattle

Yelp

Alcoa

Apple

Kiwanis International

What do all of the above have in common? Concerns that the use of “religious freedom” to enact a law to allow discrimination. Our taking head Governor has said he will work to “clarify” but made it clear he is not going to alter or weaken the new law. If you are not going to alter a law how can you “clarify” it, you can’t. He also was very clear he would not enact laws to ban discrimination relative to sexual orientation.

Pence said, "I stand by this law." He also said “we're not going to change this law."

Here is the real problem about 1/3 of Indiana voters are ultra religious tea party people who think this is the 11^th commandment. The other part of this they come out and vote, pardon the pun, religiously.  While Democrats and Moderate Republicans only show up every four years at Presidential elections not when the Governor is elected.

The primary difference between Indiana's law and the 17 others and Federal is that the language specifically differentiates businesses from people. Most states passed these kinds of laws to protect individuals and were limited to government action. Indiana now protects businesses from legal retaliation for discrimination. Another factor is many of the states have laws to prevent discrimination relative to sexual orientation. But not Indiana, so a business can discriminate against someone based on religious belief.

Two men walk into a jewelry store and start looking at wedding bands. The store owner assumes one is getting married and the other is a friend helping out in the selection, they pick a band and then both ask to be sized for the same design. The owner then asks the two men to leave.

Two Japanese women come to Indiana for a visit and go to a restaurant, walking in holding hands. While waiting to be seated they are asked to leave. But wait in Japan it is very common for friends to hold hands. They return to their hotel and tell their business executive husbands what just happened.  Well I guess Indiana will not be getting that new car factory.

Of course much of this can be summed up in a new broadcast from Saturday Night Live - http://www.wthr.com/story/28641232/watch-snl-takes-a-shot-at-indianas-rfra

And don’t forget Indiana's new state slogan: "Just living up to our Ku Klux Klan heritage!"

The Church of Happening Now

The Church of Happening Now

Thank goodness The State of Indiana has passed the Religious Freedom Bill. I have formed a new church – the Church of Happening Now, Indiana branch. Many of you may have heard of the New York Branch that was formed by the Reverend Leroy in the early 1970’s.

We in the Indiana Branch hope to build on what the New Yorkers have done with our new church. The state now has protections in place for us so we can move forward. While we are not sure what we are going to do yet.  Our two themes are "What you see is what you get", and "The devil made me do it!"

We feel that our themes are very reflective of the State look anyone who can pass laws such as this one has to be within these themes. What else could drive them to pass laws allowing a church to do almost anything?

The church elders are currently working on a new set of Ten Commandments and a Newer than Old Testament.  The Commandments Committee has informed me they think they can whittle down the number form 10 to 5.  The Bible Committee believes they can get the Newer than Old Testament down to 52 paragraphs so the congregation can just read one paragraph at services each week. This is to reduce the time needed for religious services. In fact we will be able to just e-mail the paragraph to all every Friday. BYW- Friday will be the new holy day of the week, so anyone who has a job requiring them to go to work on Friday will have the day off as no work is allowed on our holy day. The State of Indiana will have to protect our members against any employer who demands of fires anyone for taking Friday off.

If you need more information or want to join our church please e-mail us at: youmustbekidding@happingnow.org you can even send a donation to us to help get off the ground at our PayPal account: youmustbekidding@happingnow.org.

We want to close with a prayer of thanks to Governor Mike Pence with making this possible.

Indiana Religious Freedom Bill- welcome to dumb and dumber

In 1935 Nazi Germany passed the Nuremberg Laws which was the start of laws against the Jews, the first two laws had names that appeared to be innocuous “Protection of German Blood and German Honour” and “Reich Citizenship Law” then over the coming years, an additional 13 supplementary laws were promulgated that progressively marginalised the Jewish community in Germany and led to the Final Solution with the killing of over 6 million people because of their religion.

The Religious Freedom Bill is just another form of hate, bigotry and discrimination under a name that sounds to be good. We in the United States have a real Religious Freedom law and it was passed on December 15, 1791. We don’t need a bill under the guise of freedom that makes hatred legal.

Now lets get down to this actual Bill. It all started over a cake and a baker who refused to bake a cake for a gay couple. This dumb new law will have no bearing on the baker. The law does not apply in this civil case. The baker can claim he does not believe in gay couples and even his religious belief is against it. But it is not what matters, he is not providing a service and the gay couple can sue him. This is where it gets interesting a man who has a religious belief that he can have more than one wife shows up at the county clerk and wants second or third marriage license. This new law in essence says the state has to issue the license. Or the state has to show why it shouldn’t what reason, how can the state violate his religious belief. Interesting court battle to come.   How will the state react when someone demands he be treated according to Sharia Law as it is his religious belief that Sharia law is the only law between him and God.  He demands his wife be flogged one-hundred times for having sex outside of their marriage.  I can’t wait to see this in the Indiana Courts. The list can go on and on.

Representative is confused about Ethics

We have a major problem in our elected official thinking that ethics apply to everyone but themselves.

Every session of the state government we get bills that are so narrow it becomes very apparent that the bills are aimed at one group or even one person without any regard to the rest of the state. Or actions to stop bills so whatever they were doing can continue to the benefit of that legislator or their buddies.  At the same time House Speaker Bosma talks about improving the laws on ethical behavior. Lets look at one of the latest Bills submitted to the house.  HR1611.

It appears another Indiana Representative is confused about ethics. Rep. Jud McMillin, R-Brookville, has proposed cutting statewide funding by 6 million dollars for DNR enforcement and at the same time he wants all that money to go to his district. Forget the rest of the state, just take care of my district and get rid of the cops so my hunters can do as they please. As a resident of the Geist area I don’t want to see more drunk boaters on the lake or any other lake. But these cuts will result in more boating accidents, more hunting accidents and more illegal hunting. Rep McMillin complaints the DNR enforcement people are targeting his residents, well if you break the law you get a ticket or arrested you go to court. I wonder how many are found not guilty? Doubtful if any.  Also if a DNR Police officer see a drunk driver, Rep McMillin wants to prevent them from stopping that driver if they are on a regular road. I guess if they kill someone while drunk the Representative could care less. At least his buddies don’t have to worry about being stopped.

Do we want to see state wide money going to one district just for his parks and at the same time stopping enforcement of natural resource laws statewide.

House Leader Bosma has been talking about ethics and yet his number 2 man in the House is becoming the latest poster boy on unethical practices.

BMV moves license plate production away from prisons

Indiana prison inmates will no longer be a part of the license plate production process starting May 1.

I have to wonder when I see something like this, why?

It is beyond my comprehension that the state will save even one penny by doing this. Somewhere another answer may be found unless they hid it very well. Will there be a big campaign contribution to someone running for office. When I worked for the Feds I saved a ton of money by buying furniture from the Federal Prison Industries.

So now the State of Indian is going to buy license plates from a private company instead of the state prison system. Its just like the state prison system that makes furniture and then the state house goes out of its way to avoid buying form them. What is even funnier is the claim they are going to save 14.4 million dollars over 5 years. The odds are it is going to cost a lot more than they will ever save.

But then again this is Indiana.

Today Carl Roberts, Jr. was laid to rest.

Carl was 90 years old well known to family and friends, but today most people did not know him. Many of his friends have already passed on, his wife was gone and as you grow older your circle gets smaller. But Carl was like so many other Americans of the greatest generation. Born in 1925, he was just 16 when WWII started and soon this boy went of to war and became a B-17 Aerial Gunner, then as faith would have it he was shot down over enemy lines. Hiding in bales of hay, 15 of them he recalls, he slowly made he way back towards the allied lines. One day a little boy spotted him and he was certain he would be captured. The boy got his mother and she told he the Germans had just pulled back and showed him the way to the town of Bastogne, it was cold on that December 1944 morning when he made his way across the American lines.

Little was this “airmen” to know a major battle was starting around him and now he was an infantry soldier, just one of 610,000 Americans in the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in WWII. The Battle of the Bulge.  He was one of the few airmen to have earned the Combat Infantry Badge while still an airman during the battle.  He was very quiet man but I am certain his uniform looked good with his Air Force Aerial Gunner Wings and his Combat Infantry Badge.  What a rare combination.

He came home, married, taught history, had a family which grew to where today a lot of grandchildren and great grandchildren came to see him being laid to rest by an Air Force Honor Guard and hear a 21 gun salute and taps being played.

The drive from the Funeral Home to the Cemetery was about 30 minutes. As we drove the back roads of Indiana hundreds of cars pulled over to the side of the road as we passed. They sat there until the cars with lights on and purple flags passed and then went on their way. Little did they know by doing this they were honoring a true American Hero.  Even business vehicles and trucks pulled over. Just a very few were too busy to stop. Thank you for stopping for a few minutes to all of you who did not know Carl as we drove by.